In the Horn of Africa: Conflicts Are No Longer Historical

Hassan Sheikh is misusing and repeating Somalia’s history of conflict and trauma with Ethiopia to smuggle through major constitutional changes.  

  
History is generally regarded as the story of the victors. Their narrative dominates over time and their values or culture prevail. The exceptions prove the rule. The Horn of Africa provides another kind of exception. It is the story of conflicts and ethno-religious clashes between its people under the banners of their emperors, sultans, kings and amirs who fought for power and commercial gains with the rallying cries of crusades, tribal pride and jihad to fire up their shock troops. These conflicts often pulled in external competing powers, opening up important questions about whether it was the dog wagging the tail or vice versa. Victories have rarely been decisive in this region.  

In the Glory of Kings (Kebra Nagast) in the 14th century, the Amhara spoke of the ‘Somalis’ as the defeated foe, whereas Somalis shared tales about forcing Amhara to consume raw meat as the latter had resorted to eating this type of food to avoid being spotted by the enemy while cooking, during the Adal-Abyssinia wars. To this day, the Somali historiographies on the Horn frame the Amhara as an arch nemesis and vice versa to some degree, indicating that the Amhara and Somalis represented the major belligerents of the time. 

In reality, the history of the first Amhara kingdom and the first Muslim state in the region was not a hostile one. They were rather allies to the extent that Yekuno Amlak, the first king of Amhara (1270 - 1285), could not have established his own dynasty and defeated the Agaw Zegwa rule without the generous and game-changing support of the Islamic state of Showa. One can argue that the Makhzumi dynasty of Showa (896 - 1285) greatly contributed to the victorious emergence of the Solomonic dynasty of Bete Amhara. Ifat Sultanate and its successor, and more radical, Adal, brought a paradigm shift in the relations of the region by declaring jihad on both the Muslim state of Showa and the emerging Amhara kingdom, and hence setting the stage for one of the longest and most destructive clashes in Africa.  

These endless wars invited foreign powers to the region. The Ottoman and Portuguese empires took sides and internationalised the conflict to advance their geopolitical interests. The Ottoman Turks supported Adal, under the leadership of Ahmed Alghazi (Ahmed-Gurey as he’s known to Somalis), to conquer Abyssinia, destroy churches, and force massive conversions in the highlands. At the time, the Portuguese empire sent a naval expedition to the Somali coasts, destroyed coastal cities, and supplied Abyssinia with weapons and warriors to defeat Adal and kill Ahmed Guray in the Battle of Wayna Daga at Lake Tana in 1543.    

The massive mutually destructive wars that reached their peak during the reign of Amda-Seyon (1314 - 1344), and the leadership of Ahmed Guray (1527 - 1543) in which the two sides celebrated short-lived victories immortalised in books, folklore and songs of glory. But in the long run, these wars did not leave any side victorious, but wreaked havoc and hatred that dominate politics in our region to this day. In fact, these wars had rendered the sides fragmented and fatigued and created a power vacuum which represented an opportunity for the Galla tribes (Oromo – the largest ethnic group of modern-day Ethiopia) to expand northwards from the mid 16th century onwards, engulfing and assimilating significant proportions of Amhara and Muslim groups (including Somalis) like Bete Amhara (currently Wollo), Shawa and Awash Valley as far as Harar and Dire Dawa. In addition, the Oromo tribes pushed the two sides apart and put an end to their wars, but not the hatred and enmity. Both nurtured mutual animosity in isolation.  
From the mid 16th to 17th centuries, Somalis tended to a more reserved and politically distant lifestyle as pastoral camel herders and coastal merchants inconspicuously trading with Asia and Arabia. The Abyssinian kingdom entered the period of Zemene Mesafint characterised by internal conflicts and the rule of princes competing to control their decentralised fiefdoms. For both sides, it was an era of weakness, fragmentation, and fray among the rases in highland Abyssinians and among the clan ‘raases/raasas’ in lowland Somalis.  
In the nineteenth century, following a prolonged period of peace and relative stability, Tewodros II, and later Menelik II, rejuvenated the rule of the Solomon dynasty and extended the borders of Abyssinia into Somali territory, reigniting traditional animosities that had lain dormant since the wars of the sixteenth century. 

For Somalis, the nineteenth century represented a period of frustration and existential fear as they faced foreign occupation, colonisation, and land grabs, with Emperor Menelik II playing a central role in coordination, competition, and complicity with colonial powers. In fact, many Somali clans ceded land, sought protection, and entered into colonial agreements with European powers of the time, driven by both historical experience and a survival instinct amidst Abyssinian expansion. It was not just the annexation of land that Somalis detested, but also its colonisation.  

Many ethnic groups in the region were engulfed by Menelik II’s expansionist wars, shaping modern Ethiopia to this day. However, Somalis viewed this with deeply felt apprehension, recalling in their poetry and folklore the historical memory of the protracted wars and destruction inflicted on each other for centuries before. From the Somali perspective, foreign colonial powers used Abyssinia as a bogeyman to coerce them into signing fake and fraudulent treaties of protection, while betraying every provision of these treaties by ceding their land and manipulating their borders. Consequently, the colonial powers reinforced the foundation of hatred, misperception, and territorial claims, often leading to reciprocal proxy wars and direct conflicts. This was evident in the late 1970s during the rule of the socialist military juntas in both Somalia and Ethiopia, as well as in 2006 when Ethiopian forces toppled the popularly backed Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) from Mogadishu. 
The Somali nationalist movement in the 1940s to 1960s had been fueled largely by existential fears about Ethiopia’s intentions for the Horn. Central to the idea was reestablishing a united Somalia and pushing Ethiopia out of Somali-inhabited territories. Timacade, an iconic Somali nationalist poet, recognized widely for his stirring verses, recites: 

Soomaaloo kala daadsan  
Haddaynnaan isku duubin  
Durkin maynno cadaawe  
Cidna daafici maynno  

“If we do not bring together Somalis  

who are now dismantled,  

we will not push the enemy back  

and will not defend anyone.” 

The successive Somali post-independence governments mobilised what little resources they had to liberate Somali territories, including Ogaden, Hawd, Reserved Area and Shinile, which were occupied by Ethiopia during the reign of Menelik II in collaboration with the European powers in their scramble for Africa. During the second half of the 20th century in Somalia’s post-colonial era, both Ethiopia and Somalia had channelled their hard-earned and meagre resources into their war machines and supported armed groups to undermine each other. This strategy finally resulted in the collapse of both regimes in 1991, repeating the cycle of mutual destruction and havoc in the region. Karl Marx’s famous comment in The Eighteenth Brumaire captures this failure to take the right lessons from history on both sides: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” 

The narrative on Ethiopia undergoes a shift 

By the end of the war in 1977-78 between Somalia and Ethiopia, many Somalis opposed the ruling junta and resorted to armed struggle to depose Siad Barre. The Somali armed groups, most prominently SSDF, SNM, and USC, positioned themselves in Ethiopia to launch attacks against the oppressive regime in Somalia. These rebel groups, with clan lineage organisation, secured popular support and turned many Somalis against the regime, defaming all rhetoric of the ‘Abyssinian’ feud and fear. A new narrative started to take form and replace the former one. As the Somali regime adopted a scorched-earth policy and carpet-bombed cities in northern Somalia (Somaliland today), hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced into Ethiopia. They survived in Ethiopia, received support, and added popular Ethiopian cuisines to their dishes. Some of my age group in Somaliland recall popular slogans indicating a shift in how we perceived Ethiopia: 

Itoobiya waa walaalahayoo  
Waddidaan la cunnnaa walaalahay 

Ethiopia(ns) are our brothers  
We eat wadi with our brothers.  

In Ethiopia, the ethno-religious core of the state has been eroded for years, and a new identity has been taking root. Rebel groups of various ethnicities fought to overthrow the military regime and end the longstanding Amhara dominance in Ethiopia’s political and religious spheres, advocating for the rights and self-determination of diverse ethnic groups within the country. The mindset of ethno-religious domination and expansionism in Ethiopia appeared dismantled. 
In 1990-91, both military regimes in Somalia and Ethiopia collapsed due to chronic conflicts, with each state striving to undermine the other and exhausting themselves in the process. Following the fall of these regimes, Ethiopia split into two as Eritrea seceded, becoming an independent state and leaving Ethiopia as the most populous landlocked country globally. Meles Zenawi subsequently restructured the Ethiopian state along ethno-federal lines, leading to the formation of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnicity-based parties representing several of Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups.  

Similarly, Somalia divided into two as Somaliland, a former British colony that had hastily joined Somalia in 1960, disengaged from a shaky 30-year union with Somalia and declared independence. The SNM's declaration of forming an independent state echoed the sentiments of rebels in Ethiopia. Yusuf Ali Sheikh Madar, Somaliland’s first foreign minister, remarked, “The declaration of northern independence is the result of a costly war of liberation,” emphasising, “it is also the answer to unheeding arrogance.” 

Contrary to Ethiopia, Somalia failed to establish a functioning government due to uncontrolled inter-clan conflicts, proliferated warlord politics, and deadly foreign intervention. However, the withdrawal of Somaliland from the union and prolonged internal conflicts in Somalia have shifted the discourse on Ethiopia. The turn of the 21st century witnessed a remarkable reversal of irredentist politics and expansionism in Somalia, as more immediate concerns like security and food rose up the ladder of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for Somalis.  

As the nationalist spectre receded, a new Islamist wave emerged in Somalia, reframing Ethiopia from an African imperialist state occupying Somali territory to an opponent of the Islamic religion. This movement experienced fluctuations but peaked in 2006 when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), an umbrella organisation of Sharia courts across south-central Somalia, emerged and captured Mogadishu, ousting the warlords who had made life miserable for the city’s inhabitants. Combining elements of Somali nationalism, by then a ubiquitous political force, with the Islamic faith, they recruited thousands of young men from across Somali territories and even beyond. 

The US wasn’t prepared to tolerate a UIC takeover of the rest of the country and greenlit an Ethiopian invasion, which Meles Zenawi was all too happy to carry out. In a televised broadcast, Zenawi said: “We are not trying to set up a government for Somalia, nor do we have an intention to meddle in Somalia’s internal affairs. We have only been forced by the circumstances.” Mukhtar Robow, then a rebel but now a minister of religious affairs, said: “God willing, we will remove the Ethiopians from our country and wage a jihadi war against them.” 

During the Ethiopian invasion, many Somalis re-experienced the torment past of conflict and conquest, and the Islamic groups tried to capitalise on these sentiments to mobilise the public against Ethiopia. The then-leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, evoked prominent figures from past conflicts, including Ahmed-Guray and Menelik, to call on Somalis to take up arms and fight. Sharif was attempting to exploit what he considered the soft aspect of Somalis’ political emotions to provoke an all-out battle. “History shows that Somalis always win when they are attacked from outside,” Sharif said confidently.  

However, the developments proved him wrong, as the nationalist slogans were not widely embraced by many Somalis. Instead, more radical groups adopted strategies to marginalise the ethnic component of the conflict and shifted to a purely religious warfare narrative and invited foreign jihadists. In a bid to defuse the situation after the UIC had been ejected from Mogadishu and weaken the siren call to jihad which drew in large numbers of fighters, an agreement was sketched out which would see Ethiopia withdraw and install Sheikh Sharif as a compromise figure to lead Somalia. A New Yorker journalist asked Sharif what it was like to be the “President of the world’s ultimate failed state.” Sharif responded: [Somalia] “The state does not have a monopoly on the use of violence—and the primary duty of the government is to bring security to its people. There are people who need to be dealt with before this can happen.” 

To achieve that he rapidly shifted his position becoming an ally of Ethiopia. Zenawi also embraced him. An Al Jazeera journalist raised their contentious past in an interview asking Zenawi how he could work with a man who once called Ethiopia a “hated enemy” and an “expansionist regime and racist regime.” “That may have been his opinion in the past, but I’m told that is not his opinion now,” Zenawi hit back.  

Another decade has elapsed, and again in 2024 the President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has called Ethiopia a historical enemy comparable to al-Shabaab, resurrecting Somalia’s turbulent history with its neighbour, raising issues of border disputes and land occupation.  

Hassan Sheikh has generally been one of Ethiopia’s less problematic Somali presidents, but one night everything fell apart after Abiy Ahmed and Muse Bihi signed a memorandum of understanding. It would grant Ethiopia a naval base along Somaliland’s coast in exchange for Addis Ababa’s recognition of their independence from Somalia. Given Mogadishu’s ongoing claims to Somaliland, their objections didn’t strike anyone as a surprise. Hassan Sheikh isn’t an anti-Ethiopia ideologue or an ultranationalist Somali president. Indeed, if Hassan Sheikh had a doctrine, it would be political pragmatism. A significant number of Somalis question his patriotism. 

His first term as president was mired in corruption, making him one of the worst statesmen to hold office in Villa Somalia. He lost the election to Mohamed Farmaajo, who framed his presidency around all the things Hassan Sheikh was not: patriotism and anti-corruption. It seems the incumbent is aware of this political weakness and has been attempting to modify his image to either secure another term or extend the current one. Along with other political manoeuvres, the Somali president is now using Ethiopia as a ruse to advance his aim to tighten his grip on power, adjust the constitution, and reshape the electoral process to subvert the national will and guarantee a favourable outcome. 

He is invoking Somalia’s history of conflict and trauma with its neighbour but is engaging in the politics of distraction. These tactics will only intensify internal crises and may jeopardise the delicate stability of his government and possibly the Somali state. As he and many of his cronies frequently mention the Amhara in their war of condemnations and propaganda against the current Ethiopian leadership, he seemingly does not realise the twists and turns of history and that he lags the times by half a century. With political avidity, Hassan is leaping before he looks.