Customary law as a model?


Maybe there are alternatives to the top down model of democracy
NonEntity over at Sunni and the Conspirators put up a link that is pretty fascinating. Is Somalia a Model?

"With the demise of the Republic, control passed to the local community and the port began to be managed on a commercial basis. A lively import/export trade developed and soon reached an estimated value of U.S. $15 million per year. Private enterprise provided essential public services such as trash collection and telecommunications. In eight years, the population grew from 5,000 to 150,000. Parents and teachers put up schools for their children and even built a university. In the absence of a government-run court system, the heads of extended families of contentious parties settled disputes on the basis of customary law.

"While Boosaaso is a dramatic example, its experience is more the rule than the exception throughout Somalia. Somalis are thriving and prospering without a central government. Exports in 1998 were estimated to be five times greater than they had been under the Republic."

That's not what you expect to hear about Somalia, which seems to have disappeared from the radar screens of the world's international observers (with the exception of an occasional report of a terrorist training camp out in the hinterlands) about 1995. But van Notten makes a persuasive case that on balance things are better for the actual people who live in Somalia than back in the days when the country's leaders tried to sustain a central government. And he does a pretty good job of explaining why this should be so.

In another of those synchronicity bits that makes me suspicious about the universe, for the last week or so one of the books I have been reading is Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky. So I am paying attention.

Maybe you should too?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - January 25, 2009 at 03:08 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved