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Let's visit Somaliland!
Feb. 8th, 2004 11:54 amWhen I was a kid in Edinburgh I used to give lectures in our house in Ainslie Place. I'd research a subject - Syria, Titian, something I didn't know about - and make a short presentation on it for six or seven kids ranged in a semi-circle on ramshackle chairs. Maybe a couple of parents too. My visual aids would be books, maps or paintings. I don't remember being in the least bit nervous.
Well, I thought it would be nice to do a little project, a little presentation here. Imagine me as a rather serious 8 year old who wants an excuse to learn about something. I decided to choose a country I know very little about. A country that isn't Japan.
I got interested in Somaliland thanks to a radio programme on Arte Radio about it. Un carnet de voyage sonore en Erythrée - Djibouti - Somaliland. It's a chained sequence of sounds recorded in Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somaliland in March and April 2003, while the Iraq War was going on. It's really worth a listen, even if you don't speak french. In part six, for instance, there's a great moment where they're recording in a cafe and you can hear a muslim call to prayer mixed with the bleeping of an electronic game. There's also a good insight into the way you hear traditional African music, African pop, and American pop in Somaliland. And there's a sensuality in this documentary which I like a lot. There's nature and culture and time going by unhurriedly. I can't imagine anyone but a french person making this programme. The BBC, for instance, would clutter the narrative with developmental, economic and political angles; stuff about banks, debt, AIDS, water. All important, if you're a businessman or a politician. But Arte take a more simple, more arty line. Without being in the slightest bit didactic about it, they focus on the sensual, the existential, the cultural. They do that classic french thing of making 'the other' seem 'exotic'. Whereas the BBC would probably be trying to make the listener feel guilty in a progressivist way, Arte are interested in the universality of pleasure. They're interested in what it's like to be there, to be a human being (with appetites) existing in that place. And if you're not french, you can get a double shot of exoticism: as you listen, you can pretend not only to be in Africa, but to be french in Africa.
The Republic of Somaliland (North West Somalia), situated on the tip of the Horn of Africa on the Gulf of Aden, was colonised in the 20th century by the British and the Italians. In 1991, after three years of civil war resulting in the deaths of nearly 60,000 people and massive displacement, Somaliland split off from Somalia, its southern neighbour, and became independent. Since independence Somaliland's record has been good. The Republic is a success story, peaceful and stable. But the international community still hasn't recognised Somaliland as an official country yet. I'm not quite sure why.
Here is a Somali house.
Here are some Somali fashions.
Here is handcraft from Somaliland.
Somaliland girls seem pretty.
This page tells you more about the history of Somaliland.
Somaliland's banknotes are rather badly printed.
This is a photo taken during the war with Somalia.
I found an interesting website about Somaliland's nomadic pastoralists. These are mostly itinerant camel herders. The website has some good paintings which I'd like to show you.
The remoteness and mobilty of pastoralists deprive them of basic social services such as education, clean water, health and veterinary care. Here's a painting in which a sick patient is being taken to get medical help.
Another threat is the encroachment of urban development onto land previously undeveloped. Here's a painting of that happening.
Here's a very nice painting of a herder approaching the bank manager at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to ask for a loan to get a storeroom to safeguard his surplus wealth (camels). Why are pastoralists excluded from potential loan schemes provided by the state while they have all this real wealth (camels) as collateral? (Probably because they don't have an address.)
In Somaliland life expectancy is 45 years (for men) and 48 years (for women). The major religion is Islam. The main exports are livestock, bananas, hides, and fish. The economy is a bit of a free-for-all, with a lot of people getting rich selling khat, a leaf you chew to get high. Khat importers don't have to pay duties on the narcotic.
Khat is 'a stimulant producing a feeling of exaltation, a feeling of being liberated from space and time. It may produce extreme loquacity, inane laughing, and eventually semicoma. It may also be an euphorient and, used chronically, can lead to a form of delirium tremens. Galkin and Mironychev (1964) reported that up to 80% of the adult population of Yemen use khat.'
When you first chew khat, you'll feel dizzy and tired. Your heart might beat in an irregular way, and you may feel queasy. But gradually more pleasant feelings will replace these unpleasant ones. You'll feel bliss, clarity of thought, euphoria and lots of energy.
Well, I thought it would be nice to do a little project, a little presentation here. Imagine me as a rather serious 8 year old who wants an excuse to learn about something. I decided to choose a country I know very little about. A country that isn't Japan.
I got interested in Somaliland thanks to a radio programme on Arte Radio about it. Un carnet de voyage sonore en Erythrée - Djibouti - Somaliland. It's a chained sequence of sounds recorded in Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somaliland in March and April 2003, while the Iraq War was going on. It's really worth a listen, even if you don't speak french. In part six, for instance, there's a great moment where they're recording in a cafe and you can hear a muslim call to prayer mixed with the bleeping of an electronic game. There's also a good insight into the way you hear traditional African music, African pop, and American pop in Somaliland. And there's a sensuality in this documentary which I like a lot. There's nature and culture and time going by unhurriedly. I can't imagine anyone but a french person making this programme. The BBC, for instance, would clutter the narrative with developmental, economic and political angles; stuff about banks, debt, AIDS, water. All important, if you're a businessman or a politician. But Arte take a more simple, more arty line. Without being in the slightest bit didactic about it, they focus on the sensual, the existential, the cultural. They do that classic french thing of making 'the other' seem 'exotic'. Whereas the BBC would probably be trying to make the listener feel guilty in a progressivist way, Arte are interested in the universality of pleasure. They're interested in what it's like to be there, to be a human being (with appetites) existing in that place. And if you're not french, you can get a double shot of exoticism: as you listen, you can pretend not only to be in Africa, but to be french in Africa.
The Republic of Somaliland (North West Somalia), situated on the tip of the Horn of Africa on the Gulf of Aden, was colonised in the 20th century by the British and the Italians. In 1991, after three years of civil war resulting in the deaths of nearly 60,000 people and massive displacement, Somaliland split off from Somalia, its southern neighbour, and became independent. Since independence Somaliland's record has been good. The Republic is a success story, peaceful and stable. But the international community still hasn't recognised Somaliland as an official country yet. I'm not quite sure why.
Here is a Somali house.
Here are some Somali fashions.
Here is handcraft from Somaliland.
Somaliland girls seem pretty.
This page tells you more about the history of Somaliland.
Somaliland's banknotes are rather badly printed.
This is a photo taken during the war with Somalia.
I found an interesting website about Somaliland's nomadic pastoralists. These are mostly itinerant camel herders. The website has some good paintings which I'd like to show you.
The remoteness and mobilty of pastoralists deprive them of basic social services such as education, clean water, health and veterinary care. Here's a painting in which a sick patient is being taken to get medical help.
Another threat is the encroachment of urban development onto land previously undeveloped. Here's a painting of that happening.
Here's a very nice painting of a herder approaching the bank manager at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to ask for a loan to get a storeroom to safeguard his surplus wealth (camels). Why are pastoralists excluded from potential loan schemes provided by the state while they have all this real wealth (camels) as collateral? (Probably because they don't have an address.)
In Somaliland life expectancy is 45 years (for men) and 48 years (for women). The major religion is Islam. The main exports are livestock, bananas, hides, and fish. The economy is a bit of a free-for-all, with a lot of people getting rich selling khat, a leaf you chew to get high. Khat importers don't have to pay duties on the narcotic.
Khat is 'a stimulant producing a feeling of exaltation, a feeling of being liberated from space and time. It may produce extreme loquacity, inane laughing, and eventually semicoma. It may also be an euphorient and, used chronically, can lead to a form of delirium tremens. Galkin and Mironychev (1964) reported that up to 80% of the adult population of Yemen use khat.'
When you first chew khat, you'll feel dizzy and tired. Your heart might beat in an irregular way, and you may feel queasy. But gradually more pleasant feelings will replace these unpleasant ones. You'll feel bliss, clarity of thought, euphoria and lots of energy.