Politics
The TPLF has a long history of factionalism and internal disputes. The recent issues surrounding the Pretoria agreement, which ended the two-year war in Tigray, are best understood in relation to the dispute that fractured the party in the early 2000s. In late 2000, shortly after completing my studies at Addis Ababa University, I travelled to Mekelle, Tigray, to begin my first professional job. It was not an ideal time to be in Tigray.
The United Nations has accused foreign players of prolonging the war in Sudan, making it harder for the country to find peace. May Darwich, who has studied the alliances that countries in the Middle East form in the Horn of Africa provides insights on the situation.The United Nations has accused foreign players of prolonging the war in Sudan, making it harder for the country to find peace.
Analysts warn that the power struggle in Tigray between the TPLF and the interim administration carries the risk of conflict if the dispute in the northern region isn’t resolved.
Somaliland has rejected Somalia’s attempts to force companies doing business there to change their naming conventions. Mogadishu’s new strategy will only negatively impact civilians who rely on these services on both sides of the divide. The crisis between Somalia and Somaliland has entered an unusual phase, with Mogadishu attempting to reassert control through the regulation of names and labels.
Ethiopia’s decision to float its currency and begin liberalising its economy comes at a sensitive time, as similar reforms have sparked unrest in other African countries. Abiy Ahmed must carefully navigate the path ahead to ensure the success of this new policy mix. Ethiopia’s decision to float its currency and liberalise its economy, officially announced on 29 July, has sparked widespread debate and concern, as similar reforms in other African nations have led to unrest.
Opinion
Somali-Australian academic, Najat Abdi, reflects on the genocide in Gaza and how we navigate grief as Israel’s US-backed destruction of the Strip appears to have no end in sight. No one knows how to process the first livestreamed genocide in history. I stopped trying months ago, when my friends were killed in Gaza.
As the Somali community in the US becomes more established, the formerly ironclad relationship between them and the Democrats is beginning to show signs of strain in some quarters. Trump has surprisingly been making inroads. With national elections in the US slated for this November, a new and unexpected trend is emerging: Somalis supporting Donald Trump.
The weakness of the Somali state has allowed it to become an arena in which the geopolitical contest between Ethiopia and Egypt is played out. Somali leaders urgently need to adopt a new approach to repair their fragmented country.The Horn of Africa, a region once described by Jeffrey Lefebvre as one of the world’s most “highly penetrated regional subsystems”, is on the brink of a dangerous turn as the several actors intensify their displays of power in Somalia.
The African Union is failing to achieve the purposes for which it was established for several reasons. However, the dreams of pan-African unity and continental development still depend on it, making reform urgent. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002 to much acclaim. There was a consensus that the OAU had failed to fulfil its mission of uniting Africans around an agenda to coordinate the efforts of its leaders, pool resources, and drive development forward.
Somaliland’s leaders often tout the nation’s peace and stability in an otherwise volatile region. Yet beyond the rhetoric, corruption, economic inequality, and political decay are eroding its foundations. At the height of Britain’s winter of discontent in January 1979, Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan held a press conference. As the country ground to a halt due to widespread strikes, Callaghan dismissed the turmoil as merely the “parochial view” of a small number of critics.
Culture
Back to Mogadishu: Memoirs of a Somali Herder provides a poignant account of the Somali Democratic Republic’s tumultuous decline.
Photographer and storyteller Mohamed Mohamud reflects on nearly a decade of documenting the stories of the worldwide Somali diaspora. Diasporas exist for a variety of reasons. Some people migrate in search of economic opportunities, others leave their homelands due to persecution, while empires can facilitate movement within their territories. In other cases, natural disasters, famines and droughts force communities to flee. So where does the Somali diaspora story start?
The drive to realise the Greater Somalia project was an effort to reverse and remedy the effects of the Somali colonial experience, which, though unrealistic, was once seen by many as a cause worth struggling for. There are few academic rock stars.
Oromay tells the story of a generation of Ethiopians who sought utopia in love and socialism, only to be disillusioned by its brutality, which not only disconnected them from their traditions but also failed to offer an inspiring alternative. “As if doomed to it, I woke late” – Bealu Girma
Author, writer and translator, Abdiaziz Mahdi reflects on how war robs children of their childhoods. “If children could, if adults knew.” ― Sigmund Freud
Osman Abdulrahim is considered one of the pioneers of modern Eritrean music but his influence also extended to politics where his verses stirred the Eritrean liberation movement. As a songwriter, composer, and singer, Osman Abdulrahim’s journey over the span of 60 years was far more than mere entertainment. With a voice that stirred hearts and rang out in revolutionary anthems, Osman Abdulrahim sang not only of love but of a nation yearning for freedom.
K’naan’s debut album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, is a reflection on his tumultuous journey from the chaos of 1990s Somalia to the cold streets of Toronto, laced with insights about nostalgia, the pain of displacement, but also resilience of the human spirit. I first heard The Dusty Foot Philosopher, K’naan’s debut album, in 2014, while studying at Amoud University. At the time, K’naan and his music didn’t hold much significance in my world; it felt foreign to me. However, it wasn’t until I moved to Canada in 2021 that it all began to make sense.
A construction boom is transforming the Mogadishu skyline. But as investors pump money into new apartment buildings and shopping centres, they're also widening inequality in a city where hundreds of thousands of displaced victims of war and drought struggle to survive.The boom follows decades of development stagnation after clan-based violence wrecked the coastal city in the 1990s. A series of weak and donor-dependent governments have since struggled to impose their authority, challenged by a jihadist insurgency entrenched in the countryside.
Multimedia
Professor Hakim Adi, the first professor of the history of African heritage in the UK, speaks to Geeska about Pan-Africanism, Africa’s relationship with China, and his belief in history as a tool for change.Professor Hakim Adi is a prominent British-Nigerian pan-African.
Why have I dedicated myself to this arduous task, you may wonder? Well, as Fanon himself eloquently stated in his treatise, “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
Stuart Reid’s new book, The Lumumba Plot, revisits Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, with strong insight into the role of the US in assassinating Lumumba and bringing down the government of one of Africa’s most iconic leaders.
Leaders across the Horn of Africa have touted the innumerable benefits of building ports for their people, putting them at the heart of their projects to develop their regions.
South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the ICJ on charges of genocide could cost his country, says former South African ambassador and anti-apartheid activist Ebrahim Rasool, but is an act of “enormous integrity”
Interviews
Professor Hakim Adi, the first professor of the history of African heritage in the UK, speaks to Geeska about Pan-Africanism, Africa’s relationship with China, and his belief in history as a tool for change.Professor Hakim Adi is a prominent British-Nigerian pan-African intellectual and historian. Adi is also the first Brit of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK.
In a newly published paper, a group of researchers argue that checkpoints in Somalia provide us with an opportunity to explore and think about how clans make claims to land and why, in a new analysis that has important implications for how we think about Somali state-building. In early August, Jethro Norman published a working paper along with two colleagues, Abdirahman Edle Ali and Peer Schouten (Mr Roadblock), exploring the operations of checkpoints in Somalia.
After reports named Abdulqadir Mumin as global leader of ISIS, Geeska interviewed expert Christopher Anzalone to discuss IS-Somalia’s growing influence in the IS network and examine the reports’ credibility. On 31 May, Africom (US Africa Command) issued a relatively routine statement regarding an airstrike it conducted on IS militants in Dhaardaar, a town located just under 100 km from Bosaso in Puntland.
Helmi Ben Meriem speaks to Geeska about his research on Nuruddin Farah’s fiction and non-fiction writing, as well as broader currents in Somali literature todayHelmi Ben Meriem is a Somali studies scholar of Tunisian origin whose research focuses on Somali-Anglophone literature.
Dr. Guleid Jama “Dafac” engages in a conversation with Geeska regarding his research on rights of children living in unrecognized states, focusing on Somaliland, and discusses the path forward.Children face a myriad of unique challenges that significantly impact their well-being and development. Some of the specific issues they confront include: