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Ibrahim Maygaag Samatar
(1942-2011)
By Carl Gershman
This article was posted to BlogATU by
ATU President
Dr.
Ahmed H. Esa. It is a heartfelt article written about
the late Ibrahim Megag Samatar for the Yale 50th
Anniversary 1965 Class Book by Carl Gershman, President
of the US National Endowment for Democracy
Ibrahim Samatar (1942-2011)
One of the most vivid memories I have from my senior
year at Yale was the friendship I developed with Ibrahim
S amatar, a Somali national who was studying economics.
We were both at Jonathan Edwards College and had dinn er
together regularly. On the surface, we had very little
in common. He was a Muslim from Somalia and I a Jew fr om
New York. What brought us together, I think, was that
each of was something of an outsider at Yale, and we
were both deeply concerned with the social and political
problems of our respective countries, which we would
ta lk about endlessly. I was focused on the civil-rights
movement, which had led me to drive to Mississippi and
then to Selma, Alabama, during our senior year to
promote black voting rights. Ibrahim’s focus, of course,
was the fut ure of his own country, which had become
independent five years earlier.
Ibrahim was from the northwestern part of Somalia that
had been the British protectorate of Somaliland during
colonialism. At the time of independence in 1960,
Somaliland merged with the former Italian Somali
protectorate to form the Somali Republic. Ibrahim had
been an adherent of “the Dream of Greater Somalia,” the
nationalist visi on that rallied the Somali people
against colonialism and looked toward the unification in
a single sovereign state of all the Somali-speaking
people – those living in the British and Italian
protectorates that became Somalia, Fren ch Somaliland
that became Djibouti, and Somalis living in Ethiopia and
Kenya. It was not to be, and even Somalia was a deeply
divided country, with the central government in
Mogadishu treating Somaliland as “a backyard prov ince,”
as Ibrahim described it, and not a country that had
sacrificed its sovereignty for the sake of national
unity.
Still, Ibrahim was a patriot, and he returned to Somalia
after graduation to become the country’s Director of the
Budget in 1968, after which he held a number of cabinet
posts, including Minister of Finance and Advisor to the
President on Economic and Political Affairs. In 1980 he
was appointed Somalia’s Ambassador to Germany, but by
then relations between the two parts of Somalia had
badly deteriorated, with President Siad Barre becoming
inc reasingly dictatorial and repressive. Ibrahim
defected in 1981 and sought asylum in the United States.
He also joi ned the Somali National Movement (SNM), a
rebel group formed by dissidents tied to the Isaq clans
of the North that sought the overthrow of Siad Barre and
evolved into a movement for an independent Somaliland.
Ibrahim became the North American representative of the
SNM and the Chairman of the organization’s Central
Co mmittee. It was that capacity that he re-connected
with me in 1991. The Siad Barre regime had just fallen,
and the SNM had established the sovereign Republic of
Somaliland, extricating itself from the civil war that
was destro ying the rest of Somalia. (The abortive U.S.
intervention in the civil war was the subject of the
film “Black Hawk Down.”) Ibrahim had discovered that I
had become the President of the National Endowment for
Democracy, and he thought that I could get NED involved
in assisting the development of a democratic system in
Somaliland,and al so help him connect with the policy
community in Washington so that he could make the case
for the U.S. recogniz ing Somaliland as an independent
country. This was a step the U.S. was loathe to take (as
was the U.N. and the O.A.U.) for fear of encouraging the
break-up of other African countries.
I arranged a meeting with Capitol Hill staff and others,
and I remember that Ibrahim gave an eloquent
presentati on, laying out the history of Somaliland, its
struggle against a brutal dictatorship in Mogadishu
which behaved like an alien colonial power toward the
people of the North, and its pragmatic decision to
separate itself from the ch aos engulfing the rest of
Somalia. He also emphasized Somaliland’s democratic
aspirations and character, saying that the NSM “was
authoritative but not authoritarian” and intended to
build a multi-party democracy with a free press. Also,
as he had hoped, NED did provide assistance in
Somaliland, supporting more than a dozen NGOs worki ng on
civic education, human rights, free media, training
youth and women activists, and strengthening
Somalilan d’s parliament and electoral processes.
Ibrahim was proud of what was being accomplished in
Somaliland, and in a letter he
sent to President Clinton
in 1996, he declared that “One can hardly recall another
example of a liberation movement which won power throu gh
the barrel of the gun and which was simultaneously so
uninterested in ruling with its gun! With stability
assur ed through decentralization and consensus-reaching
procedures, the formation of formal cross-sectional
political organizations can, and will evolve, during the
transitional stage.”
Ibrahim contemplated returning to Somaliland to
participate in politics, and told me soon after the
death of Presid ent Egal in 2002 that he might try to run
for president. But that didn’t happen.
He continued to
teach at Josai In
ternational University in
Japan,
which is where he died in
2011.
A few years before his death, when he had retired from
politics, Ibrahim issued a statement of fundamental
prin ciples called “Where I Stand” (http://arc.somaliland.org/2008/08/30/where-i-stand-by-mujaahid-ibrahim-meyga ag-samatar/)
that he hoped would help guide and inform the younger
generation. It’s a broad and comprehensi ve statement of
his views on democracy, Somali unity, Islam and Islamic
radicalism, and the economy. It shows Ib rahim to have
been a genuine democrat, searching for ways to integrate
and reconcile modern political ideas with traditional
culture and religion. His vision continues to have
profound relevance in today’s very violent and divid ed
world. These are his concluding words:
“We know we are a poor nation. But, poverty need not be
a curse. There are nations with meagre resources like us
who overcame poverty. Human development and its
mobilization can compensate for the lack of resources
and perform miracles. In addition to investing in health
and education human development also means instilling
solidar ity and a sense of belonging to one another,
having a common future and destiny, among the citizenry
and their various communities and clans. Competition in
business, politics and among the communities can be both
healthy and unhealthy. If the unhealthy aspect is not
fought fiercely it can turn into ugly fratricide [look
at the situation in Somalia]. One of the reasons
motivating me to write this simple piece is that I
noticed from afar that this comp etition is beginning to
turn ugly. Simple matters that can be resolved through
amicable discussion and dialogue be tween the concerned
personalities and organs are sometimes turned into
unnecessarily highly contested national controversies
wasting, when they are finally resolved, a lot of energy
and good will.
“Let us check that tendency in time. We still have not
lost that capacity for good will and democratic
dialogue, inh erited from the struggle of SNM, which is
the basis for the success of Somaliland so far. We need
to revive moral values of integrity, cooperation,
forgiveness and brotherhood in our people. And while
this task is the duty of all of us, the primary burden
falls on the leadership: political (whether in power or
aspiring to it), religious, communit y elders, and the
intelligentsia. We need to rise above minor squabbles
and take the high moral ground. Some of you may say that
I am too idealistic and out of touch. I do not think so.
I believe what is written here is simple an d practical.
I am an optimist and have always been so even at dark
moments when my life was in danger. Even if these words
are idealistic, so be it. After all it is the image of
the future that moves people and it is vision that
en ables a society to organize itself for the better. It
has been said long ago that those who do not learn from
histor y are condemned to repeat it. It is my hope and
belief that we have learned enough and will continue to
move for ward.”
Ibrahim’s body was returned to Somaliland where he
received a national burial. It was said that Somaliland
had lost “one of its illustrious sons.” I feel honored
to have known him and hope that he will be remembered by
our class as one of its illustrious sons as well. That
he certainly was.
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