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'By Ismail Einashe,
The
tears that are now running from Somalia’s golden sands into the Indian Ocean
must stop' declared Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2011, following a highly charged
visit to Mogadishu at the height of the 2011 Somali Famine. The Turkish Prime
Minister had arrived to a rock star’s welcome in the Somali capital – at every
stop his motorcade was greeted by crowds shouting 'Soo dhawoow Turkey' (Welcome
Turkey). Turkish flags adorned the city, and mothers promised to name their
sons 'Tayyip' and their daughters 'Istanbul'.
Erdogan
was the first non-African premier to visit Somalia in twenty years. His visit
came just days after the Islamic militia al-Shabaab had been driven out of the
capital by African Union forces. He had arrived with a large delegation that
included his wife, daughters, cabinet ministers and pop stars. His wife, Emine
Erdogan, was photographed holding children with bloated bellies in refugee
camps outside the capital. However sincere its motivations, the verbal and
visual rhetorics of Erdogan’s visit were minutely and expertly choreographed.
These
images resonated both internationally and at home. A mere few weeks later Kemal
KiliçdaroÄŸlu, the leader of the Turkish opposition, underlined the success of
Erdogan’s political and diplomatic coup in Somalia by making a visit of his own
to the country.
In
an article in Foreign Policy of October 2011, Erdogan said that the
international community’s failure to act in Somalia was a moral failure, and a
result of the ‘colonial logic’ that had long defined western interactions with
Somalia, and with Africa as a whole. His trip was both a repudiation of that
logic and a defiant articulation of Turkey’s emergent moral foreign policy:
Erdogan framed his intervention as a ‘litmus test’ for our ‘modern values’, and
spoke of ‘obligations’ between nation-states and peoples.
According
to Mary Harper, the author of Getting Somalia Wrong? and Africa Editor at the
BBC World Service, Erdogan’s visit 'came from the heart… it was human,
emotional'. The Economist declared his trip to be a 'statement of common
humanity', 'courageous’ and 'beyond cynicism'. Although acknowledging the trip
was choreographed and designed in part to ‘boost his standing back home’, the
paper concluded, like so many in and outside Somalia, that Erdogan’s
intervention was ‘statesmanship’ at its best.
Erdogan’s
elegantly orchestrated trip to Somalia
was the crowning achievement of a broader Turkish overture towards the
country that has seen Turkey’s private sector raise $360 million in aid to
Somalia in 2011, matched by $49 million from the Turkish government. In 2012,
1,200 Somali students received full scholarships to study in Turkey, worth an
estimated $70 million.
The
East Africa Famine – the worst to hit the region in some 25 years – played a
strong role in sparking Turkish engagement with Somalia. According to the
London-based Turkish analyst Ziya Meral, there was a ‘genuine concern and
passion’ about helping the Somali people. In the summer of Erdogan’s visit,
charity appeals played nightly on Turkish television. Ajda Pekkan, a pop star
entering her sixth decade of success, captured the popular mood by performing a
special concert in support of the country. This unlikely Bono had been joined
by Turkey’s first ever Eurovision winner Sertab Erener in accompanying the
Erdogan family on their trip to Mogadishu. Surrounded by a choir of children
dressed in white, the concert culminated in Pekkan’s own version of the 1985
USA for Africa classic ‘We Are The World’. $115 million was raised in
charitable donations in the month of Ramadan alone.
Prior
to the famine, Turkey had the first Istanbul Conference on Somalia in 2010,
attended by representatives from 57 countries and 11 international
organisations. The second Istanbul Conference, under the theme of ‘Preparing
Somalia’s Future: Goals for 2015’, took place in 2012.
Turkish
development strategy has perhaps been most strongly articulated in education: a
Bedir Somali-Turkish High School is now a feature of Mogadishu, just as there
is a Turkish-Somali School in Hargeisa, the capital of semi-autonomous
Somaliland. The Turkish relief organisation Kimse Yok Mu recently sponsored a
scholarship for 350 Somali students, which received as many as 10,000
applications. The Turkish Government itself has sponsored 1,500 scholarships
for Somali students at universities in Turkey.
According
to Julia Harte, a writer based in Istanbul, around half of these scholarships
are at religious institutions. Furthermore, Kimse Yok Mu is an organisation with
close ties to the Gülen movement, a moderate Turkish Islamic movement whose
alleged infiltration of state institutions like the police has been
controversial domestically, while abroad it is known for its global network of
schools. The relationship Erdogan has fostered with Somalia is rooted in a
sense of shared religious values – the notion of a brotherhood between the two
nations is at the heart of much of the PM’s rhetoric.
In
April of this year, President Abdullah Gül hosted the Somali President Hassan
Sheikh Mohamud alongside Ahmed Mahmoud Silanyo, who is the President of the
self-declared state Somaliland which is internationally recognised as an
autonomous region of Somalia. The meeting was designed to reopen dialogue the
two parties after the country’s leadership change. The result was the signing
of the Ankara Communiqué, a significant coup for Turkey.
With
Turkish support, the two parties agreed to continue a dialogue, to refrain from
using inflammatory language and to meet every 90 days in Istanbul. They also
agreed to cooperate with respect to aid and development in Somaliland, and to
share intelligence and cooperation in the fight against terrorism and piracy.
Though the communiqué did not address Somaliland’s bid for statehood, it nonetheless
marks a key turning point in the country’s journey out of chaos. By stark
contrast in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron was unable to persuade
President Silanyo to take part in the second London Conference (7 May 2013).
Silanyo was quoted as saying, ‘although British Prime Minister David Cameron
wanted otherwise, we repeated our preference not to participate in the
conference’.
Turkey’s
relationship with the Horn of Africa can be traced back as far as ties between
the Adal Sultanate (1415 – 1577) and the Ottoman Empire. Turkish connections to
the region lasted until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the
disparate kingdoms of the Horn were colonised by Britain, France and Italy. The
nation of Somalia emerged in 1960 when Italian and British Somali colonies
united under a democratic government. In 1969 a military coup brought General
Said Barre to power. He would rule Somalia until the collapse of the state in
1991.
Barre’s
regime was a paragon of post-colonial brutality. He was strongly influenced by
the Soviet Union, and by the Baathist and Nasserist politics of the Arab Middle
East. Barre used their template to forge a ‘tribal socialism’ – fusing Islam,
Somali traditions and tenets borrowed from other totalitarian regimes. Although
Barre styled himself as ‘Guulwaadde’ (Victorious Leader) and ‘Jaalle Siyaad’
(Comrade Siad) and furiously developed a personality cult, he ultimately failed
in his attempts to create a unified state on a non-clan-defined basis. As a
result of the brutality of his regime, and a disastrous war with Ethiopia, his
authority came to be challenged within Somalia. Throughout the 1980s inter-clan
factionalism and tensions between the country’s main clans rose eventually
descending into civil war in Somaliland in 1988, before spreading throughout
the country.
The
effective collapse of the state in 1991 created a power vacuum, and Somalia was
abandoned by the international community. Interventions like the Clinton
administration’s Operation Restore Hope in 1993 (immortalised in the
blockbuster Black Hawk Down) only compounded Somalia’s reputation as a ‘failed’
state. The 2000s saw the emergence of al-Shabaab, a powerful Islamic militia
whose close links to al-Qaeda ushered Somalia into the arena of the War on
Terror. Increasing piracy in the Gulf of Aden through the 2000s helped cement
Somalia in the popular imagination as the world’s most dangerous country. In
2009, an article in Foreign Policy reflected this perspective: ‘Somalia became
the modern world’s closest approximation of Hobbes’s state of nature, where
life was indeed nasty, brutish, and short. To call it even a failed state was
generous. … Since 1991, Somalia has not been a state so much as a lawless,
ungoverned space on the map between its neighbours and the sea.’
Despite
this recent, traumatic history, Somalia has alluring features and a strategic
position that give a deeper dimension to Erdogan’s moral, post-colonial
rhetoric. Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa: some 20,000 ships and
11% of the world’s petroleum passes through its waters into the straights of
Aden. Of course largely it is the piracy off the Somali coast which attracts
global attention, and according to the World Bank cost $18 billion annually
between 2005 and 2011.
The
recent discovery of oil in Puntland highlights Somalia’s potential as a future
source of energy. Surveys have suggested that there could be as many 10 billion
barrels within its oil reserves. This discovery has, unsurprisingly, been a
‘motivating factor for international re-engagement in Somalia’, according to
Harper. Turkish oil companies are active in Somalia, and recently the Turkish
oil giant Genel Energy PLC purchased a license to search for oil in an area of
Somaliland that could hold 1 billion barrels of oil reserves. Genel has stated
their aims to spend $400 million drilling five wells in Africa over the next
three years.
The
Turkish Army and Navy have reacted to Somali Piracy by training their Somali
counterparts, and the two nations have signed an independent military
cooperation agreement. Turkey’s Parliament recently voted to continue the
mandate for Turkish anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, making
Turkey one of the four NATO countries committing naval assets under Operation
Ocean Shield.
Turkey’s
actions on the ground in Somalia show how a nation with an emerging economy and
emerging sense of its international role can, in a strikingly bold and
successful way, play a positive role in a developing country. Somalia has been
treated for generations as an aid recipient – symbolic of the imbalanced
African-West relationship. The Turkish approach, however, rooted in
reconstruction and education, and so far has been received positively by the
Somali people.
‘Although
Turks do take security precautions, their presence is not intrusive’ Harper
comments. Turks walk the streets of the city with relative ease, and staff from
the Turkish Embassy in the heart of the city often venture beyond its secured
walls. Turkish diplomats speak with respect for Somalis. Where some Westerners
see only obstacles, many Turkish businessmen, Harper feels, see opportunities.
For much of the past two decades Western aid agencies, including the UN, have
operated out of Kenya: the image of the western aid worker in an air
conditioned office in Nairobi was pervasive.
Erdogan
drew notice when he eschewed the armoured personnel carriers favoured by
Somalia’s own elite, traveling instead through the country in just a
bulletproof car. As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu told the BBC,
‘There was a perception that nobody can go to Mogadishu. We try to destroy the
perception. We came – now many others can come.’
Moreover,
Turkey is keen for its relationship with Somalia to be seen as a brotherhood–
and Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu has stated that ‘the Turkish Government is going to
demolish the old building of the parliament and completely rebuild it’. This hugely symbolic undertaking speaks
volumes about how Turkey sees its relationship to the African country, and
likewise about how Somalia sees Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkish construction
companies have been instrumental in the capital, building malls and roads
giving the capital much-needed infrastructural development.
Somali
reactions to Turkish interventions have been positive. From Facebook groups
such as ‘Thank you Mr. Erdogan for the visit and help to Somalia’ to YouTube
songs penned by enthusiastic Somalis eager to pronounce their love for the
republic like ‘Istanbul – A Somali Song for Turkey’. Turkey appreciation
parties are thrown by Somalis in the diaspora, such as one in Toronto which was
attended by the Turkish Consul General. Britain still gives more in aid to Somalia
than Turkey, but it would be hard to imagine Somalis hosting parties to
celebrate Britian’s increasing role in Somalia.
It
is this bold intervention of aid, from both the Turkish government and its
people that has won the nation such kudos. Meral says this is a ‘giant shift’
for a country which 10 years ago was stagnant, with limited foreign policy
reach beyond its region. Now, however,
the popularity of Erdogan stretches from Egypt to Gaza to Somalia.
Elsewhere
in the Horn region, Turkey has been proactive in facilitating peace talks
between Sudan and South Sudan, and Eritrea and Ethiopia. Meral suggests this is
part of a regionally integrated strategic approach, using soft power to
cultivate ‘cultural warmth’. Meral argues that Somalis and other Africans are
‘weary’ of Western interests in the region, because of the history of ‘Western
imperial arrogance’, and it helps that, as Harper says, Turks have come to
Somalia with no ‘pre-judged impressions’. It is just as crucial that the
Somalis have few preconceptions about the Turks.
Behind
the moral rhetoric, Meral says that there is a hard-nosed pragmatism
underpinning Turkey’s relationship with Somalia. He describes Erdogan’s foreign
policy as ‘non-ideological’, and says that the AKP’s foreign policy is driven
not by romantic notions of Turkishness, but by the goal of diffusing tensions
and creating opportunities for Turkey through dialogue.
At
the beginning of 2013, Erdogan embarked on a tour of Gabon, Niger and Senegal.
On the tarmac at Istanbul Atatürk airport he declared to assembled journalists
that ‘Turkey aims to increase its trade volume with African countries to $50
billion by 2015’. In the past three years, Turkey has opened nineteen embassies
on the African continent. This means it now has a total of twenty-six south of
the Sahara, with more opening this spring in Chad, Djibouti and Guinea.
Following China, Brazil and India, Turkey is the latest emerging economy
looking for political and economic influence in Africa, diversifying away from
the crisis-ridden European economy and to a more prominent role globally.
As
of 2011 Turkey’s exports to Africa were worth $10.3 billion a year, an increase
of 390% from 2003 ($2.1 billion). Turkish investment in Africa reached more
than $5bn in the same year. Turkey has a lot to gain from investment and
bilateral business relations with the world’s fastest growing continent.
Turkish Airlines is now serving most major African cities such as Addis Ababa,
Dakar and Lagos, and Istanbul Atatürk Airport is increasingly becoming a major
regional hub, and as of 2013 is the third fastest growing airport in the world.
In
2009 Turkey won a seat as a non-permanent member on the UN Security Council,
largely because of votes of African nations. It hopes to do the same in 2015,
and again the votes of African nations will be crucial. Somalia offers an
important theatre in which to develop Turkey’s image as a resurgent power in
the twenty-first century; a growing economy, unhindered by colonial history in
the region, forging new, multipolar, global relationships.
Comparisons
have been drawn between Turkey’s African policy and the country’s aspirations
in Central Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union – a policy that
always existed more in the minds of Turkish politicians than on the ground.
More recently ‘Neo-Ottomanism’ has been touted as a grand strategy, even if it
excites pundits in London and Brussels much more than Turkey’s neighbours,
whose own problems seem to have had a higher place on the agenda than Turkey’s
overtures — whether that be Greece’s monetary crisis or Syria’s civil war.
Still, intervention in Somalia can be compared to similar attempts to reach out
to its neighbours – particularly in the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq,
and in Bosnia, where Turkey is a top five investor. This is undeniably a
feature of Turkey’s strengthened economy, on the back of which the Erdogan’s
AKP government has greatly increased the country’s aid budget.
Erdogan
has framed his outreach to the Somali nation as a response to the famine crisis
– explaining the fact of his administration reaching beyond its traditional
sphere of influence as a question of moral imperatives: ‘it is a basic human
obligation to pursue international cooperation and solidarity to provide solace
for those suffering from natural and man-made disasters’. Notwithstanding the
economic success that has characterised Turkey under Erdogan’s leadership, the
country itself remains a net recipient of aid, and projections of the Turkish
economy’s growth this year are far lower than previous years. Rocked by the
catastrophic Van Earthquake in 2011, eyebrows have been raised about the
morality of diverting funds much needed at home to Somalia. Kurdish
commentators contend that the lack of aid reaching Van was every bit as
political as the volumes reaching Somalia.
With
the opening of the Somalia Conference 2013 in London today, the country is
firmly back on the top of the international agenda, and Erdogan’s government
can claim to have stolen a march on their rivals. The challenges remain huge in
Somalia – the internationally recognised government barely controls much beyond
the capital, Al-Shabab remains a threat, and Mogadishu was rocked by two huge
explosions this weekend, killing at least ten people. The road out of chaos
will be a long one, but, it seems Turkey has taken a bet on Somalia’s future,
hoping its role will be bear fruits in the long-term.
Erdogan
has made much of the moral imperative to intervene in Somalia, and has echoed
this language elsewhere in his discussion of Turkey’s role in Africa. Earlier
this year, when the Turkish Prime Minister touched down in Niamey, Niger, he
made a speech criticising the historical role of Western nations in the region.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Niger’s Premier Mahmadou Issoufou he
declared, ‘that is why we are in Niger today. We do not aim to take this
country’s oil, gold and diamonds, but to show how we can build brotherhood,
make an effort to advance development and fight for freedom of a colonial logic
that has endured here for centuries’.
Contrast
Erdogan’s trip to Mogadishu with the single visit Barack Obama made to Africa
during his first term – Turkey is taking the initiative in reconfiguring the
standard narratives that shape global aid, engaging with the multi-polarity of
twenty-first century global politics through its own post-colonial rhetoric.
Whether or not Erdogan’s policy comes from a genuine place of humanitarian
concern, his approach so far has been remarkably successful, both in terms of
Somalia’s development and Turkish opportunities.
Turkey
has stated its intention to become the world’s tenth biggest economy before the
emblematic date of 2023, which marks 100 years of the Turkish Republic.
Potential economic expansion in Africa is key to this economic target, and
Somalia has formed a crucial cornerstone of Turkey’s policy in the region.
Erdogan’s
Turkey seems remarkably competent in its navigation of the changing realities
of the global system. As the Eurozone collapses, Erdogan’s eyes seem firmly
fixed on resurgent Africa to provide new avenues for Turkish economic
expansion. Turkey has won respect among Somalis for its bold humanitarian
efforts – respect it hopes will translate into economic opportunity. In the newest scramble for Africa, Turkey is
playing to its strengths, and unsettling its rivals.
