fullhamish

+1 your vote. If there is alot we might just have to have a real php prom. I call thucy as my date

tom bosley

Octavious who posted this (21-12-10)
" I suppose on a site where thousands of people each spend countless hours moving imaginary armies across Europe for the goals of proving themselves to be the best liars, mentally superior, or just the joy of stabbing someone in the back... a small amount of mental instability must be expected."

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Hmm... I would consider endorsing both Putin and Sicarius, there "I'll go to North Korea if you go to Somalia" thing with Siccy protesting that Somalia has too many governments was epic.

I vote for Friendly Sword.

Also, just a question:

How is it an anarchist and a communist can be competing for the top spot of a *monarchy*?

^ This is what makes www.webdiplomacy.net a great thing on our Earth.

where IS FS? I miss him.
the competition is between putin and fullhamish, not myself.

Somalia has an 'official' government that is recognized by international communtiy, it also has several competing islamist factions (al Shabaab, Hizb al Islam, and Ahlu Sunna wa al Jama'a) not to mention the various smaller warlords and neighborhood coalitions. It is kindof ridiculous to suggest that a place with at least four competing goverments is somehow devoid of them.

Somalia is an acephalous society with a strong anarchic tradition of xeers & shirs - local councils. The official government controls very little. Pastoralism & anarchy go hand-in-hand.

Evidently in Siccy's version of anarchy there is not only no authority but no organization whatsoever. Even local government is too much.

You miss my point putin. There are many anarchistic elements to somali society, for example they set up their own cell phone repeaters so they could have cell phones. Wow they did it without a corporation, hard for some of you to believe eh? My point is that regardless of any anarchistic elements I would hesitate to call it an anarchistic society, at all, because there are competing governments, governments is both name and deed. It is chaos there, not anarchy. The chaos is artificial anyway, not that it doesnt exist, but that it was deliberately caused.

It is not chaos it is just not a form of organizing society that westerners have any experience with. Somalia has long had a society of shifting clan alliances based on the needs/demands of the harsh life of pastoralism. These "competing governments" command very little support from the people, who rely on their own kinship networks to survive. Government provides very little in the way of any services. But you're so used to opposing everything you can't even support anarchy where it exists.

Armed Hierarchical groups competing for control.... yes why didnt I see it before? The concept, which seems to go against anarchism at almost every point , is actually the one true example of anarchism in action.

@ Sicarus: "It is kindof ridiculous to suggest that a place with at least four competing goverments is somehow devoid of them."

Don't be daft. Would you suggest that any of these four organisations is actually running the country? If they're not - and I would suggest they aren't - then they are not in any practical sense "The Government of Somalia".

If go into my nearest town, stand in the main square, and loudly announce "I'm the Government now! I'm in charge! Obey me!", but nobody listens and people just carry on about their business, that does *not* make me "a government".

Except Somali clans are about as non-hierarchical as you can get. Pastoral clan chiefs have only symbolic authority and there is a great tradition of universal participation in decision-making. Ugandans famously told the British that in Somalia "every man is his own Sultan".

I wonder how anarchism is ever going to be achieved if they think even struggling for control is "hierarchical".

"Would you suggest that any of these four organisations is actually running the country?"

Not to any meaningful degree. Regardless of how effective they are, they claim to be governments, and are. Thus "somalia doesnt have a government" is true, it is not because somalis have adopted anarchism, or that somalia is some kind of anarchistic paragon. It simply means there are several governments competing for power. I would say it is much closer to a civil war than anarchism.

I'm not talking about the clan putin. I agree those have lots of anarchistic qualities. i am talking about the GOVERNMENTS. I named them individually, above. I named four. Small pastoral clans were not in that list. If it were only small pastoral clans I would proobably agree with you that somalia is more or less an anarchist place. BUT IT IS NOT just small pastoral clans. There are large hierarchical organizations that work like governments and call themselves governments. just because they are still fighting and there is no clear winner doesnt mean they dont exist. In mogadishu there is one set of laws you follow, in al-shabab land there is another (sharia courts I belive)

I can see why you may see it as anarchistic, since there are huge glaring gaps in government control. But just because they are inneffective governments doesnt mean they dont exist.
What you are doing is confusing anarchism with chaos

2/3 of Somalia lives in rural areas and most of these are nomads who have little interaction with any form of authority. They function entirely without government regardless of what the Shabab or Transitional government claims.

Name one other website where the election of its Prom Kings evolves into a debate on how many governments Somalia has...

Who is Tom Bosley? Seriosuly? I know an actor from Happy Days who had that name (Mr. C), but noone on the website I know if does.

Or do you mean Tom Bombadil who named himself after a character form Middle-earth? That's a major difference from an actor on Happy Days.

Ok talk about "anarchy" all you want, but what exists in Somalia is not anarchy but chaos, engendered by the collapse of a central authority and the competition between rival gangs to fill in the power vacuum. No intelligent anarchist argues that the sudden and catastrophic implosion of the state will result in a peaceful, self-regulating society.

Yes, most rural somalis have little or no contact/subservience to any government. “Somalia” does not equal “Mogadishu.” Most of the horrific, Mad Max scenes captured in Somalia are in Mogadishu, where the central state was most powerful before the collapse and the institutions of civil society were accordingly most atrophied. “the farther one gets away from Mogadishu, the more one gets into relatively peaceful areas that have always been anarchic or close to it, barring occasional intrusions from the statebuilders in the city.” In other words, the further you get from Mogadishu, the less Somalia resembles “Somalia,” and the more it resembles a kind of stable society.

Also, the proper comparison to Somalia is not the United States and similar societies in the West, but to the actual state that existed in Somalia before the collapse of central power. Given that comparison, things in Somalia aren’t that bad at all. For example: a study by Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford and Alex Nowrasteh took “a comparative institutional approach to examine Somalia’s performance relative to other African countries both when Somalia had a government and during its extended period of anarchy.” And it found that Somalia, when subjected to an honest comparison — “between Somalia when it had a functioning government, and Somalia now” — is less poor, has higher life expectancy, and has experienced a drastic increase in telephone lines.

I’d also add, parenthetically, that while Somalia is often celebrated by anarcho-capitalist types, in reality it hardly fits the anarcho-capitalist stereotype (especially in those areas away from Mogadishu). For example, there’s widespread communal ownership of land by extended families and clans, with only possessory or usufructory rights by individuals.

Life expectancy 46 years 50 years
Birth rate 46 44
Death rate 19 16
GDP per capita $210 $600
Infant mortality 116 deaths <1yr, per 1,000 births 109 deaths <1yr, per 1,000 births
Access to safe water 35% 29%
Adult literacy 24% 38%

1st colum is '91
2nd is 2011

looking back we're not actually arguing about anything, we are just misunderstanding each other. so lets lay it out a bit

rural somalia has little or no governmental control, and is essentially anarchistic. They have done many/most things for themselves and in general (not sure what with this recent famine now) the quality of life has improved.
on this I think we are agreed.

Somali urban centers are NOT anarchistic. There ARE governments that have a daily effect on its 'constituents'. There are several of these 'governments' factions, gangs, vying for control.
do we agree on this?

Where are those numbers from?

That's a bit simplistic. Central authority had already collapsed by 1991 and intense fighting had been going since about 1988. The Somali state was very progressive from 1969-1978, expanding roads, increasing literacy (which was only 7% and quickly shot up to 50%, that 24% - 38% gap seems unreal, I'd like to see the source for that), relocating large numbers of refugees (over a million from the Ogadeen and Hurd areas), providing large scale food aid during drought, saving many lives. The Somali state was key in providing support during the big drought of 73-74.

It is true things had decayed in the 80s, largely due to heavy foreign debts, the Saudi boycott of Somali livestock, and the decline of production in industry and agriculture. Too much was spent on the military to defend against the Ethiopian threat. But to summarize all this as government being worse for Somalia than no government is rather facile. Everything I've read about infrastructure (and Somalia preoccupies most of my time these days) points to its decay since the early 1990s.

One must consider also, that in Puntland & the territory encompassing Berbera & Hargeisa, that a functional government has pretty much existed but has not been recognized by the international community. This area, former British Somaliland, has strong commercial ties with the Arab world and surrounding states.

But overall you're correct than in the Benadir area and around the Juba & Shabelle rivers the occupation has been agriculture, not pastoralism, which is more hierarchical and amenable to government. There is a culture gap between the four pastoralist clan families (of Samaale/Cushitic stock) - Hawiye, Darood, Isaaq & Dir, and the sedentary/agriculturalist Rahanwayn-Digil who live in the South and who are of mixed Bantu/Cushitic stock.

Check that, Puntland does not seek separation but nonetheless has a pretty functional government structure, however it's highly based on traditional Somali forms of organization.

Puntland: From your the goal line to the opponents 40.

Vote me Diplomat 33!

Somalia makes it kindof obvious that a government essentially IS just an armed gang. A monopoly of violence.

Gangs who build roads and educate children, yeah.

As if road building and education are the exclusive domain of government? we have just been talking about all the things somali's do without a government...

Somali pastoralists don't go to school or build roads. What Somalis "do" without government is survive via their herds, on a very meager basis. When the rains come in March they have a big celebration for the fact that they managed to survive the dry season.

Gee I wonder how somalia has a cell phone network. certainly wasnt any of the governments.

Right, it was telecom corporations (I guess you like them better than government?). But even they believe the situation would be better for the telecoms if a government existed.

No I'm referring to the repeater network set up by autonamous individuals. my friend is a somali vet ( I think 99- 01, could be a bit off) he was telling me how no one would lay lines because they always get cut, so citizens (not members of any milita or governmental organization or corporation) would set up these repeaters to make the service for themselves. He said when he was there he had one of these "AK" phones, because in somalia they work better than say verizon or whoever. this is ten year old info btw

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4020259.stm

yes I see, and?
notice how we are talking about two different things that

A are not mutually exclusive
B are seperated by a time lapse of half a decade

which means
OMG
one of us doesnt have to be wrong.

lmao diplo33

+1 for patheticness

I vote D33 for Prom *Queen*. And we all know the Prom King gets to fuck the Prom Queen as does most of the football team (except the kicker), and the entire basketball team (all at the same time in a massive "orgy on the boards").

I love you guys, no homo, maybe a little.

Well Draugnar, I unlike you, am not a Penn State Coach or similar so would not do that. :-P

@Diplomat, I could take you so much more seriously if your English was somewhat close to correct. I wouldn't care so much if I didn't know that it's your first (only?) language, but the fact that you can't take the time to form a coherent thought and then coherently communicate it really gets on my nerves.