Islamic studies curriculum in Somalia’s schools is a radical form of Islam that analysts say is contributing to the growing militancy of the country’s youth. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Oct 4 2013 (IPS)

Mukhatar Jama has been teaching at a secondary school in Mogadishu for the past decade. Religious education is part and parcel of the curriculum of all schools in Somalia, but he says most parents are unaware of exactly what their children are being taught – a radical form of Islam.

“The Islamic studies curriculum you hear is the pure Wahhabism, exported from Saudi Arabia, that teaches children that all those who are not Wahhabi are non-believers, including the children’s parents, and that it is ok to kill non-Muslims,” Jama told IPS.

While there are no statistics on how many schools there are in Somalia, most here follow the Saudi curriculum, which advocates and inculcates Wahhabism. This is a far more radical interpretation of Islam than the moderate Sufi school that older generation of Somalis follows.

The radicalisation of Somalia’s youth has already started spilling over the war-torn country’s borders to its neighbours, influencing the region’s fragile security situation."Al-Shabaab, which means youth in Arabic, has realised the potential of Somalia’s young and are working to capitalise on it in our schools." -- analyst Omar Yusuf

It has taken root not only in Somalia and Kenya, but in the whole sub-region, Omar Yusuf, an analyst in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, told IPS.

“The event of Westgate is perhaps one of many wake-up calls for governments in the region to tackle the growing radicalisation and the logical next step of deadly militancy in the youth of the region,” Yusuf said.

The Sep. 21 attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi by the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab left more than 70 dead and dozens injured.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab had repeatedly vowed to target Kenya after the country’s troops crossed over the border into Somalia in 2011 and ousted the radical group’s fighters from key areas in southern Somalia, including Kismayo.

Al-Shabaab advocates the establishment of an Islamic State not only in Somalia, but in East Africa. It adheres to the fundamentalist Wahhabi school of Islam. The extremist group’s ideology seems to be gaining ground in Somalia due to a number of factors.

“Think about it, schools in Somalia provide Al-Shabaab with the radical ideological teaching for the youth and when they graduate what they just need is to give [them] military training and there you have a qualified Al-Shabaab fighter,” Yusuf said.

Both teachers and parents seem divided over what is being taught at Somali schools, with some accepting it as part of the children’s religious education, and others expressing concern that their children are being indoctrinated to be Wahhabists without their consent.

“I came to know that my son gets indoctrinated with extremist views at school. He had to change schools a number of times but all schools in Mogadishu use the same Wahhabi books that we took from Saudi Arabia. The whole country will covert to Wahhabism in no time,” one parent, who sought anonymity for fear of reprisals, told IPS.

Another parent, Omar Kulmiye, disagreed that his children were being radicalised by this teaching. “I don’t [know] much about religion but I think since they are learning Islam it is ok with me and I have not sensed anything different in my children since they started school five years ago,” he told IPS.

Hussen said three factors have contributed to radicalisation and militancy among Somali youths. Lack of political participation, and of employment and education opportunities draws youth to militant groups, she said.

“The search for a ‘second family’ and a sense of belonging offered by militant groups…has attracted many youths,” Hussen said. “Young recruits are offered a group to belong to, a job with salary as well as marriage – things that are otherwise hard for them to obtain in Somali society.”

The unemployment rate for youth aged 14 to 29 is 67 percent — one of the highest in the world. According to the United Nations Development Programme’s “Somalia Human Development Report 2012”, 70 percent of Somalia’s 10.2 million people are under the age of 30.

The attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall comes as no surprise as Al-Shabaab has been spreading its radicalising tentacles in the region, local security expert Muhumed Abdi told IPS.

“This was a crisis that has been simmering for years because the radical groups have found not only Somalia but neighbouring countries fertile ground to grow and recruit, with governments in the region seemingly unprepared,” Abdi said.

However, the Somali government, along with the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and international partners, is currently trying to implement an ambitious initiative to put one million children to school. Through this Go 2 School Initiative the government has also proposed changes to the curriculum in the hope that this will help fight radicalism. According to UNICEF, enrolment rates here are among the lowest in the world with only four out of every 10 children attending school.

But the government faces huge resistance from private school administrators and parents who fear the changes would make education devoid of religious moral teaching for the young.

Islamist groups have condemned the campaign as an attempt by the government to westernise Somali education and sideline religious studies.

Numerous calls by IPS to Somalia’s ministry of education remained unanswered while one official declined to comment on the allegations that schools are used as breeding grounds for militancy in Somalia.

But Hussen said the Somali government recognised that youth are the “future of Somalia” and need empowerment.

“However, the government has not been very forthcoming in the implementation of this … as youth are still very much marginalised from the political arena,” she explained.

Yusuf agreed, but said the approach needs to be far more radical and start with a critical look at the kind of education Somali children receive in school during their formative years.

“There is a need for holistic approach to youth problems in Somalia because Al-Shabaab, which means youth in Arabic, has realised the potential of Somalia’s young and are working to capitalise on it in our schools. We need to change that,” Yusuf said.

Somali Presdient Hassan Sheikh Mohamud speaking to residents of the central Somalia town of Jowhar, Middle Shabelle province on Sept. 9, 2013. Somali’s are disillusioned by the continued terrorists attacks and lack of service delivery here. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble and Yusuf Ahmed
MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, Sep 12 2013 (IPS)

After his first year as president of the world’s most dangerous and failed state, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is still grappling with limited financial resources, corruption, a lack of service delivery, and the ongoing assassinations of government officials, including attempts on his own life.

The Somali president, who on Tuesday Sep. 10 celebrates 365 days of being voted into office by legislators, has had a difficult first year of his four-year term.

Analysts say that not only has Mohamud had to contend with the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab, which has waged a number of recent terrorist attacks on the capital Mogadishu despite being ousted from key cities across this Horn of African nation, and an increasing number breakaway states, he also faces a growing and deep disillusionment among Somalis.

Abdi Aynte, the founder and executive director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), the country’s first think tank, said that Mohamud’s Six Pillar Policy to bring security, stability, justice, economic recovery, and service delivery to Somalia was ambitious.

“The Six Pillar Policy has been ambitious, but public service delivery is practically non-existent,” Aynte told IPS in Nairobi.

“It’s therefore no surprise that no noticeable progress has been made towards achieving any of it.”

However, he added: “The government seems to be taking important steps to defuse tensions, address shortcomings and widen consultations with the public. The ‘Vision 2016’ conference was a positive step.”

Somalis have lived through almost 20 years of war, poverty and displacement following the ouster of dictator and former president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The country had no central government until 2000, after which a series of interim governments were elected.

There are also few essential services or healthcare facilities in the country, with most being provided by NGOs. For over 20 years Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, was one of the few providers of essential healthcare in Somalia. But in August it pulled out of the country after the murder and harassment of their staff made it increasingly impossible for the organisation to operate.

But Mohamud’s aides are quick to defend the former university professor and civil society activist, who survived an assassination attempt while travelling to the southern Somali town of Merca on Sep. 3. Presidential spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman told IPS in Mogadishu that while the country had critical financial constraints, progress had been made in a number of areas.

“The government, for the first time, engages with communities on key decision-making process. We hold national reconciliation conferences on judicial reform on political vision, on education and how to tackle religious extremisim.”

He said that the government’s record speaks for itself.

“We have maintained security in all territories capture from Al-Shabaab, we are stabilising all regions in Somalia that we ousted Al-Shabaab [from].

“We pay our soldiers regularly, we pay our MPs and civil servants regularly. We have implemented public financial management that is sound. The parliament functions properly and ratified many key legislations,” Osman said.

He said that for the first time in Somalia the government “was able to reach most regions and districts [and] this was a historic achievement.” He added that Mohamud was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 key influential leaders and that the government had gained the recognition of its international partners including the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan, among others.

He added that “the government doesn’t have enough money to do everything.”

“The government’s monthly revenue is roughly three million dollars from [income from] Mogadishu’s seaport and the airport, and yet the budget we need to execute our daily activities is at least 20 million dollars each month,” he said.

However, Mogadishu’s seaport deputy director Abdiqani Osman Kabareto told local Radio Ergo in August that the seaport generates between four and five million dollars a month. However, Mogadishu’s Airport officials were not available to comment on their monthly revenue.

“Imagine a government with such limitations of budget trying to rebuild and create its institutions from scratch. That is where the problem lies. It’s financial shortage,” Osman said.

Mohamed Ali, a university graduate of Simad University, which Mohamud helped found, told IPS that although he supported Mohamud’s election, he feels that there is not much to celebrate a year later.

“I felt he was one of us and the only one who understood our needs, our suffering, our importance more than any,” said Ali.

Ali, who graduated three years ago with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, is still struggling to find a job, and he has given up hope that the president will deliver on his promises of job creation.

The United Nations Development Programme estimates that 67 percent of the youth in Somalia are unemployed. More than half of Somalia’s 10.7 million people are under the age of 30.

“He became like any other politician who delivers nothing of what they promised after getting into office. I saw him as the candidate of hope and change, but the only thing that has changed so far is the name of the government from the Transitional Federal Government to the Federal Government of Somalia.”

In August 2012, the Federal Government of Somalia succeeded the interim Transitional Federal Government.

Professor of economics and vice president of the Horn of Africa University in Mogadishu, Yahye Sheik Amir, said limited financial resources were not Mohamud’s only problem. He said that the endemic corruption within governmental institutions undermined the possibility of any economic recovery and development here.

“The government also lacks strategies that can help generate money beyond the airport and seaport in Mogadishu,” Amir told IPS.

“The government could collect millions of dollars through taxation and business licence and registration fees for companies working in the country, only if it expands its administration beyond the capital and also develops transparent and accountable institutions for managing the revenue,” he noted.

Aynte urged the government to declare war on corrupt syndicates and to exercise the utmost transparency. He said that improved security was needed in order to generate additional revenue.

The government recently began collecting taxes in some areas of the capital city but a number of its tax collectors have been attacked. At least five taxmen have been killed this year, while more than 10 were gunned down last year, according to sources in Mogadishu’s local administration.

Osman promised that a year from now, Al-Shabaab will be defeated and security and stability will return to the country, and that hopefully the government will be capable of providing public services.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Osman said, adding that the Somali government was happy with its progress to date.

HIPS’s Aynte was hopeful about the year ahead. “I’m optimistic that by [the end of next year] there will be enough impetus to move the country to the right direction, even if it is slow.”

* The story that originally moved on Sep. 10, incorrectly quoted Abdi Aynte and Abdirahman Omar Osman as saying that Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud failed to make progress in his first year in power. This story contains further comment from Osman about the government’s successes in its first year.