Home to Shungwaya

"The Bantu Jareer Somalis: Unearthing Apartheid in the Horn of Africa" is a book available free on-line, written by Mohamed A Eno, an anthropologist and scholar based in Somalia. The book was published in 2008. I´ve read about two-thirds of it. It deals with a minority group in Somalia, known as the Somali Bantu. They are ethnically and racially distinct from the majority Somali population.

I´ve heard about the Somali Bantu already 20 years ago. Many of them had been allowed to settle in the United States. Usually, the Somali Bantu are described as descendants of Bantu-speaking Negroid East Africans, enslaved by the Arabs and bought by the (non-Bantu) Somalis, who forcibly settled them in the southern-most part of Somalia. The Bantu experienced severe discrimination even after slavery was abolished, and are deregatorily referred to as "Jareer" by the majority population. I assume Mohamed Eno is a Somali Bantu himself. He is certainly strongly supportive of them, and in his book attempts to deconstruct Somali nationalism and offical history. He is also something of a Bantu nationalist, and I admit that I don´t *really* know whether his statements on various topics are true, speculative or nationalist propaganda (but now from the other side of the fence, so to speak). Still, if you´re interested in Somalia or African race relations, this might be worth reading.

Eno argues that many "Jareer" are *not* descended from foreign slaves, but lived in the territory today called Somalia since time immemorial, or at the very least since before the arrival of the Somalis. The ancestral homeland of the Bantu peoples in northern Kenya, Shungwaya, was situated in Somalia, and even had diplomatic ties with China! The Bantu were a sedentary people dominated by peasants and artisans. The pastoral Somalis arrived from the western hinterland, perhaps the Ethiopian Highlands, and originally attached themselves to the Bantu as their clients. Over time, the relationship changed, with the pastoral nomads becoming the dominant partner, while the Bantu gradually lost control of their land. (Perhaps this triggered the migration out of Shungwaya to Kenya?) Even later, the Somalis started to import Bantu slaves from areas further south, such as Tanzania or Mozambique. The autochtonous Bantu were also turned into slaves. 

Eno claims that Somali opposition to Italian colonialism was fueled by Italian demands that slavery be abolished. The Somali clans had no problems cooperating with the Italians, as long as these didn´t threaten the slave-system. Eventually, the Somalis reached a kind of accomodation with the colonial power. The Italians expropriated the Bantu land, and turned the "freed slaves" into de facto serfs, with Somali clans acting like exploitative middle-men. Eno isn´t particularly impressed by the Somali "independence struggle" or "nationalism", depicting the Somali national heroes as pro-slavery bigots, megalomaniacs or terrorists. 

After the creation of an independent Somalia in 1960 (when Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland united into one independent territory), the plight of the Bantu simply continued. At first, Somalia was ruled by a decadent urban elite, but in 1969, this was replaced by the "Communist" military regime of Siad Barre, which was dominated by austere pastoralists. (Power also shifted from one Somali clan to another.) The pastoral-military regime declared all Bantu land "state property", really a way to ensure continued exploitation and marginalization of the Bantu peasants. 

The first time I heard of the Somali Bantu was when reading a right-wing site (I think it was VDare) which seemed surprised or deeply intrigued by the fact that one dark-skinned African people oppressed another. Or where they just being ironic? To justify their oppression of the Bantu, the majority Somalis make use of an anti-African ideology, which recasts Somalis as Arabs. It seems that all Somali clans have legendary ancestors who are said to have arrived in northern Somalia during the High Middle Ages from Arabia. Indeed, these ancestors were from the same tribe - or even the same family - as the Prophet Muhammad! In this way, Somalis can claim to be both noble Arabs and the best possible Muslims at the same time. Most legends do postulate a "native" origin on the female line, but this is apparently unimportant in the strongly patriarchal Somali culture. Eno spends an entire chapter showing how illogical these legends really are - apparently, they have long been taken seriously by Western scholars?! (Insert an attack on "the Hamitic hypothesis" here.) Since Eno is a Muslim himself, he also frequently argues in favor of a more humane interpretation of Islam (including abolitionism). As for Somali origins, as already mentioned, Eno believes that they are simply Cushites (the Somali language is certainly Cushitic rather than Semitic) related to the Oromo in Ethiopia. 

Somali nationalism depicts Somalis as unusually ethnically homogenous, and if the Arab ancestor legends are accepted at face value, in some sense "Semitic" rather than African. In reality, Somalia is a clan-ridden society, with clan affiliation being more important than loyalty to some "nation" or "nation-state". Somalia is also a caste society, since some of the ethnically Somali clans are considered low-status or even out-caste. Pastoralists have the highest status, fishermen and the like are much lower on the social scale, while hunters are the lowest. Weirdly, female genital mutilation (which is considered necessary by virtually all Somalis) is carried out by one of the out-caste groups! The Bantu, who are not "real" Somalis, stand outside this system altogether. 

While Eno´s book is interesting, it´s relatively hard to read, since English isn´t the author´s first language. He frequently uses strange words or familiar words in strange ways, sometimes due to scholarly jargon, but mostly (I think) to sound erudite. Sometimes, it´s not clear whether he is serious or merely joking, as when he writes that Somalia will soon enact a Jareer-Animal Equality Act! It´s also obvious that he tries to appeal to the "diversity" sentiment of his Western readers, constantly depicting really existing Somalian heterogeneity as something very positive. But, as I have already pointed out, at bottom he is a Bantu nationalist, often filled with contempt for the pastoralist nomads, their weird obsession with camels, and what not. This animosity between pastoralists and sedentary farmers is (of course) global, and can be seen in other African contexts, too (think Uganda and Rwanda). 

With that, I leave the shores of Jubbaland for now...