Mohamed Abdullahi no longer shoves his cellphone down his trousers when he leaves the house. Abdulaziz Mohamed has dismissed the armed men that used to guard his stationery shop. Farh Dir enjoys a restaurant dinner with a childhood friend— the first time he has been out at night in years.
”What has happened in Mogadishu is a miracle,” said Abdi Haji Gobdon, the 62-year-old director of Voice of Peace radio in the Somali capital. ”We are still trying to take it all in.”
Three weeks ago, the last of Mogadishu’s warlords were chased from the city by a combination of Islamist militia fire power and what people here describe as a ”societal uprising”.
After 16 years of chaos, the world’s most lawless city suddenly has a taste of peace and security. Almost overnight, the atmosphere has changed from one of fear and despair to euphoria and even cautious optimism about the future.
”Everybody is happy,” said businessman Ahmed Mohamed (41). ”We are only a short time into this revolution, but we all hope this could be the start of a new life.”
While the West frets over the motives of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which now controls Mogadishu, there have been few, if any, signs of a Taliban-like agenda — even if the ICU did appoint a cleric wanted by the United States to a top post last weekend. There have been no lustrations — purification ceremonies — no public floggings, and no move to ban the use of khat, the narcotic leaf that is daily bread to many Somalis.
For now, at least, the courts enjoy huge support — 95% — according to Gobdon, even if it is based less on their religious bent than on their success in defeating the warlords.
Few in this battered city had expected this to happen. Since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, the warlords and their heavily armed militias had kept a tight grip on power, amassing huge wealth at the expense of the people. Extortion, kidnappings and theft were so rife that the streets emptied at sundown.
With no justice system to turn to, individual Somali clans started setting up their own courts, with the Qur’an as their guide. The courts established some degree of order and their popularity grew.
The warlords felt threatened. In February they formed a coalition and said they would take on the ICU, whom they accused of sheltering terrorists.
”The warlords made it very clear that they had taken money from the US and that they were looking for al-Qaeda suspects on America’s behalf,” said Aini Abukar Ga’al (46), a human rights officer for the Coalition for Grassroots Women’s Organisations, in Mogadishu.
”This immediately gave birth to a popular insurrection against them. Ordinary people helped by blocking the roads, and even using their own weapons to fight. It’s what we’ve been dreaming of for so long.”
The warlords’ legacy is a calamity of a city. Rotting rubbish covers the streets; plastic bags hang from trees; wrecked cars lie by the roadside. In the ”old town”, virtually every building is heavily damaged.
The clean-up has already begun. Most of the roadblocks that littered Mogadishu have disappeared. In the first two days that I was in the capital, there was not a single audible gunshot.
That changed last Friday. At a largely peaceful rally in support of the ICU — which, in a widely hailed move, had just agreed to conduct dialogue with the fragile interim government — there was a sharp crack as a pistol was fired. Martin Adler, an award-winning Swedish cameraman, had been shot at point-blank range and died shortly afterwards. The assailant was not caught; his motives remain unclear.
The assassination served as a reminder that the ICU’s control is not absolute, and that lasting stability remains a long way off. There were also reports that just outside the city the warlords were driven further away after an attack on Tuesday.
Last Saturday, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the ICU chairperson, issued a personal apology and vowed that the peace process would not be harmed.
There is some nervousness in Mogadishu, particularly among the youth, about the ICU’s motives. But many others believe that the courts know that they cannot push too far against their people, who are more attached to clan than religion.
”Sharia law can be very positive for us, but only if mixed with our own culture,” said Ga’al, the human rights officer. ”If they try to make women wear black we will refuse. Believe me, another insurrection will come if there is anything nearly like the Taliban.”
Abdulkharim Hassan (36), who owns a telephone shop, said he preferred not to think about what might happen as he enjoyed his new-found freedom. ”Nobody knows about the future,” he said. ”But we know about now, and it feels good.” — Â