Page 194 - Rassegna 2021-3

OSSERVATORIO INTERNAZIONALE

genealogy described the position of an individual within Somali society, deri-
ving from it alliances and oppositions, duties of solidarity and participation in
feelings of vengeance, loyalty and subordination, as much as the address is
important to establish, among other personal data, the position of a citizen in
the Western world . The other aspect affecting the ancestral nomadism that
(4)
linked these populations was the main relationship with the group, with the
number of arms and with their ability in battle, which was understood as the
main key to control wells and pastures, while the real estate property relation-
ship, the one with the land, was maintained in a completely secondary position
and understood as an area to be covered than to be owned. It can almost be
said that, in this type of society, the ius utendi, with the corollary of the right
of way, assumed a prevailing dimension over the ius excludendi alios among the
characteristics attributable to properties as it is understood in the Western civi-
lization. The second factor that governed the political action of Somalis,
beyond the more or less extended kinship relationship which was the limit in
which cooperation and communion of intent developed, was a formal “social
contract”, the heer, aimed at defining the extent and forms of collaboration
between groups belonging to the same agnatic line and, consequently, by exclu-
sion from the contract, also the areas and spaces of competition and possible
conflict. Somali society therefore presented a stratification, in descending order,
of the “Clan family”, “clan”, “sub-clan”, “primary descent” and “blood debt
payment group (diya)”, distinguishing 6 clan families, the maximum limit of
Somali political action, which managed conflicts within urban areas, due to
concentrations of different clan families and their participation in political par-
ties. This picture was complemented by the presence of non-Somali ethnic
groups, including Arabs, Yemeni and Indian Jews, mainly involved in trade and
in the minimum offer of services available at the time in Somalia, for their own
propensity and to fill the void consciously left by the prevalent Somali inclina-
tion to pastoralism. Furthermore there were difficulties deriving from the ari-
sing political tensions, with an obvious independentist background: during the
British occupation, after having authorized the foundation, in Mogadishu, of
the Somali Youth Club, a cultural association initially oriented to the promotion
of common traditions and customs among the different Somali groups, the
British witnessed its progressive orientation towards the socialist ideology
declined with anticolonial nuances, both against the Italian return and the
British presence.

(4) Ioan Myrddin LEWIS, A pastoral democracy. A study of pastoralism and politics among the Northern
Somali of the Horn of Africa, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961, pagg. 13-68.

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