Firepower replaced education as the route to success in collapsed Somalia
Evidence
All this reinforced the traditionally uncentralized character and self-help ethos of Somali society. Where in the end everything depended on the protective (and aggressive) firepower to which individuals had access, Rambo was an appealing role model for the young in a world where the success stories were those of gangsters and entrepreneurs who had made it to become important faction leaders and warlords. Although a surprising number of private schools had sprung up in Mogadishu and even a few establishments calling themselves ‘universities’, education had lost its value as a passport to success. This decline had been in train in the Siyad years, and in the ruined capital in which the Arta government now set up its stall some of the most successful big men were illiterate. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 691
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Post-Siyad Somalia reverted to Burton’s clan republics but with modern arms; Siyad fled Mogadishu in January 1991, and clan divisions became Somalia’s only security structure; Education lost its value when firepower replaced credentials as the path to power (+2 more)
Related
- Education lost its value when firepower replaced credentials as the path to power (similarity 0.93)
- Post-Siyad Somalia reverted to Burton’s clan republics but with modern arms (similarity 0.84)
- Siyad fled Mogadishu in January 1991, and clan divisions became Somalia’s only security structure (similarity 0.83)
- Post-1991 Somalia reverted to precolonial clan republic practices like the abban (similarity 0.80)
- Mogadishu fragmented into mafia-style clan-protection neighborhoods. (similarity 0.80)
- Somali nationalism burned out and clan divisions violently reasserted themselves (similarity 0.79)
- Somali literacy amplified nationalism into a national war obsession (similarity 0.79)
- The Ogaden defeat’s divisive forces corroded Somalia’s political stability (similarity 0.79)
- Post-war Mogadishu fragmented into mafia-style neighbourhood proto-states (similarity 0.78)
- Regime repression drove a brain drain that depleted Somalia’s skilled manpower (similarity 0.78)
- By 1988 Siyad had abandoned the MOD coalition for his own Marehan clan (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Somali nationalism burned out and clan divisions violently reasserted themselves
#expands(0.55) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 4