Origins

The Somalis in Canada originate from a region known as the Horn of Africa, which is bordered on the north by the Gulf of Aden and on the east by the Indian Ocean. The majority of Somalis live in Somalia, whose population is estimated at 7.7 million (1991). There are also significant numbers of Somalis living in adjacent territory of neighbouring Ethiopia (1.5 million), Kenya, and Djibouti.

In contrast to most other African states, Somalia is more or less homogeneous in terms of ethnicity, language, and religion. Somalis belong to the Hamitic family of peoples that includes the Oromos and Afar of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Only 2 percent of Somalia’s population belong to other ethnic groups, mainly of Bantu and Bajuni origin, who live mostly along the southern coast. The Somali language has various dialects but these are mutually intelligible. It was only in 1972, as a result of government initiative, that the Somali language acquired a written form. Traditionally, educated Somalis have used Arabic at the elementary level, which is a result of their Muslim religious heritage, and English or Italian at the upper levels, which is a heritage from the colonial period.

Somalis often link their identity directly with Islam. A number of Western observers have suggested that Somalis have adopted the external forms of Islam but that they have maintained a number of pre-Islamic practices and traditions. The considerable Arab influence in Somalia is particularly noticeable along on the coastal regions, where several of the Somali clans trace their origin to Arab saints or to the lineage of the Prophet Muhammad. Nevertheless, Somalis do distinguish themselves culturally from Arabs.

Almost all Somalis are Sunni Muslims, whose belief system accepts Allah as supreme deity and requires daily prayers, periodic fasting (during the lunar month of Ramadan), and pilgrimage to Mecca. Most Somalis are members of Sufi orders (such as the Ahmadiyyah-Idrisiyah, Qadiriyah, Rifaiyah, and Salihiyah) which seem to have appeared in Somalia sometime during the fifteenth century. These orders include notions of a mystical connection to the supernatural. Even though such a connection can be achieved only through isolation and denial, most Somalis do not pursue these activities. Islamic beliefs in Somalia also include the veneration of especially pious individuals as saints, and pilgrimages may be undertaken to their tombs to acquire a blessing. Ideas of the supernatural also include a belief in spirit possession. Hence, many nomadic Somalis traditionally wear leather necklaces containing excerpts from the Koran written in Arabic as protective amulets. Other beliefs include the existence of the zar cult also found in Sudan and Egypt, in which spirits possess women and must be appeased by husbands through gifts or compliance.

Located along the strategic trade routes that connect the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, the territory that at present comprises Somalia has since the earliest historic times been contested by local tribal groups and overseas empires. Thus, when European colonial powers came to control Somalia in the nineteenth century, they were merely the latest examples in a long history of external domination. During the 1880s, present-day Somalia was divided roughly between Italian Somaliland along the Indian Ocean in the east and British Somaliland along the Gulf of Aden in the north. Just to the west, also along the Gulf of Aden, was the small colony of French Somaliland, today independent Djibouti. In 1960 the former British and Italian colonies of Somaliland were united to become the independent republic of Somalia.

Less than a decade after independence, Somalia’s fragile parliamentary democracy was overthrown by a military coup that espoused the ideology of Marxist socialism. This began a period of dictatorial rule that lasted for over two decades under President Mohammed Siad Barre. The new regime was armed first by the Soviet Union and then by the United States as these two superpowers sought to attain regional hegemony through manipulation of local proxies.

Ever since it achieved independence in 1960, Somalia’s borders with Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya have been disputed. Siad Barre’s regime had as its goal the creation of a “Greater Somalia” that would include within its borders Somali-inhabited territories within those three states. This policy culminated in Somalia’s invasion in 1977 of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. When the Soviet Union soon afterwards decided to support the Marxist regime in Ethiopia, this hastened Somalia’s defeat and withdrawal. As a result of the war, Somali refugees from the Ogaden flooded Somalia, where the United Nations estimated there were still 834,000 in 1988.

Somalia’s failure in the war with Ethiopia over Ogaden created even greater opposition to the increasingly unpopular Siad Barre regime. Throughout the 1980s both the government and its opponents (mostly clan-based military groups) were charged by international observer groups with extensive human rights violations including torture and murder. In January 1991 the Marxist Siad Barre government was deposed by the United Somali Congress, although one branch of that movement (led by General Mohamed Farah Aydeed) took control of the southern part of the country and ruled it independently.

Already one of the poorest countries of the world, Somalia was ill-prepared for the severe droughts that ravaged the country in the 1970s and that were followed by war and famine after mid-1980s. Popular opposition to the Siad Barre regime was factionalized among numerous political parties, most organized along the lines of clans and subclans. The situation deteriorated into one in which the armed units representing political factions fought for control of the government while groups of bandits terrorized the population and obstructed the work of international relief agencies. Intensified fighting led to the withdrawal of the United Nations and most international aid agencies, leaving a few non-governmental organizations to deal with a growing food crisis.

Casualties soared from the warfare which virtually destroyed the country and exacerbated the environmental crises that had been created by droughts, inappropriate developmental policies, and mismanagement. Millions of Somalis faced death from starvation and disease, while hundreds of thousands fled, mostly to neighbouring countries. In May 1991 the northwestern region declared an independent state called Somaliland, and, although it did not receive international recognition, conditions there seemed relatively better than in the southern regions.

In December 1992, under the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, U.S. Marines landed in Somalia as the advance troops of an international peacekeeping force. Humanitarian relief resumed, but the U.N. mission – despite saving an estimated 300,000 lives from famine – soon became enmeshed in factional fighting. The mission ended in 1995. Today, the population continues to live in difficult conditions, subject to environmental disasters and to the violence brought on by fighting between local groups in the absence of any real governmental authority.