Relaunching Somalia with a flawed constitution?

It appears that the UN-wise roadmap for Somalia is nothing but part of a plan of perfidy to keep Somalia and the Somalis in turmoil. Instead of liberating the true Somalis, who need and want to continue living in and developing their own country and their communities inside Somalia, the planned constitution appears as the manifestation of the shackles of foreign as well as internal oppression of the indigenous Somali people in perpetuity.

A constitution - as a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a sovereign or federated state is governed - must itself be constitutional to the extent that it contains institutionalized mechanisms of power control for the protection of the interests and liberties of the citizenry, including those that may be in the minority. It is the condensed sum of the consolidated and freely determined will of "WE, THE SOMALI PEOPLE", which has taken into consideration and incorporated the rights - and not at least the right to self-determination - of all people making the Somali nation, and which sets the framework for a governance that guarantees the respect for the rights of the people.

Most Somalis and their scholars doubt that it is the right time to engage in the process of forming a new constitution during an era of civil strife and turmoil in Somalia and wonder why millions of dollars have been spent by the players from the so-called international community to re-invent the wheel, while the existing Somali constitution could just be amended if any real need would be given and legally as well as representatively expressed - reflecting the true and free will of the Somali people.

Apparently, in late September 2005 the congress of the USA is said to have scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of their constitution only two months after it went live on websites like Wiki-govern or Wikocracy. "The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. "But when so-called 'contributors' began loading it with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought it might be best to cancel the project." "Congress intends to restore the constitution to its pre-Wiki format as soon as an unadulterated copy of the document can be found," The Onion reported jokingly back then.

Though also the web-based The Constitution of the United Sovereign Individuals of the World remains unfinished business, the people of Island last year embarked on a new, similar process, which might represent the most open and participatory and thereby most democratic of the constitutional processes in world history and has overcome the flaws of earlier web-based efforts.

But concerning the constitution-making or amending processes in most other countries Chris McNeal rightly stated: "Legal documents such as constitutions, which under-gird every public decision thereafter and which function as system, require abnormal amounts of comprehensive planning. Shotgun constitutions have a long history of short lives."

Exactly this is what appears to be the name of the game in Somalia: "Shotgun Constitution" - whose latest version is available only in Somali language and not made public, while various outdated or fake versions are circulating on the web. According to insiders FGM is now permitted by the newly proposed Somali constitution, which will be presented for adoption to selected "traditional leaders". A typical scheme how the UN and their stooges want to get it their way - or the way their master wants it.

The Somalis also could borrow a leaf from one of the oldest and shortest constitutions of the world - the Japanese published in the year 720, which some scholars argue is still valid:

Harmony is to be valued, and the avoidance of wanton opposition to be honoured.

The Ministers and functionaries should make decorous behaviour their leading principle, for the leading principle of the government of the people consists in decorous behaviour.

Chastise that which is evil and encourage that which is good.

Let every man have his own charge, and let not the spheres of duty be confused.

One important provision of that codex stipulates that: "Decisions on important matters should not be made by one person alone" which as such is deeply rooted in Somali traditions like the SHIR and unlike the situation where Sheikh Sharif without parliamentary consent signed the Kampala accord, which is now base for the "road-map" and the constitutional exercises.

So, maybe the XEER, the unwritten Basic Law of the Somalis, which is sound, well alive and used by the wise men and elders of the Somali communities in the vast lands of mostly internet-free Somalia, needs to be looked at more profoundly. Even states like the Federal Republic of Germany still remain without a proper constitution - and operate just fine based on their post-war Basic Law of 1952, to which the German people as a whole never had a chance to contribute, and its subsequent amendments, which can be changed if real need arises. But as with the Basic Law itself, decisions to, for instance, break the rule of the fathers of post-war Germany, which stated that from German soil there shall never again war be waged - a basic law provision which was skipped by the parliament under US and NATO pressure to drag Germany into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with full battle permission, but was never sanctioned by a public referendum. Apart from Germany only the special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, namely Hong Kong and Macau, have undemocratic basic laws as their constitutional documents.

Like in post-war Germany, constitution-making in general has worldwide perhaps the least democratic record in history and as designed by the UN in Somalia it seems not to be any better. So far in Somalia there is no all-inclusive, transparent process at all.

This is maybe why Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to William S. Smith (1787), averred that rebellion is necessary every twenty years. With Somalia having now suffered and remained UN-governed for over 20 years, the time has come for a fresh start - but not by a flawed constitutional scam, not by ghost-lords nor war-lords or over-lords.

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka and make a donation NOW to help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.