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First published in 1985. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
First published in 1985. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
In 1991, certain political and military leaders in Somalia,
wishing to gain exclusive control over the state, mobilized their
followers to use terror--wounding, raping, and killing--to expel a
vast number of Somalis from the capital city of Mogadishu and
south-central and southern Somalia. Manipulating clan sentiment,
they succeeded in turning ordinary civilians against neighbors,
friends, and coworkers. Although this episode of organized communal
violence is common knowledge among Somalis, its real nature has not
been publicly acknowledged and has been ignored, concealed, or
misrepresented in scholarly works and political memoirs--until now.
Marshaling a vast amount of source material, including Somali
poetry and survivor accounts, "Clan Cleansing in Somalia" analyzes
this campaign of clan cleansing against the historical background
of a violent and divisive military dictatorship, in the
contemporary context of regime collapse, and in relationship to the
rampant militia warfare that followed in its wake."Clan Cleansing
in Somalia" also reflects on the relationship between history,
truth, and postconflict reconstruction in Somalia. Documenting the
organization and intent behind the campaign of clan cleansing,
Lidwien Kapteijns traces the emergence of the hate narratives and
code words that came to serve as rationales and triggers for the
violence. However, it was not clans that killed, she insists, but
people who killed in the name of clan. Kapteijns argues that the
mutual forgiveness for which politicians often so lightly call is
not a feasible proposition as long as the violent acts for which
Somalis should forgive each other remain suppressed and
undiscussed. "Clan Cleansing in Somalia" establishes that public
acknowledgment of the ruinous turn to communal violence is
indispensable to social and moral repair, and can provide a gateway
for the critical memory work required from Somalis on all sides of
this multifaceted conflict.
Two questions dominate this ethnographic, literary, and historical
study of Somali society through its orature. First, in what ways do
Somali oral texts provide information about women and gender
relations in Somali society? Second, how do these oral texts
present the concepts of "tradition" and an authentic cultural
heritage and identity, particularly as these concepts affect women
and gender relations? In seeking to answer these questions,
Kapteijns has gathered a considerable number of Somali oral texts
and popular songs. The first part of the book focuses on the texts
from the colonial period and develops a critical ethnography of
women and gender relations while the second part considers
contemporary love songs as important cultural sites for debate
about women and "tradition." Kapteijns' book will enlighten readers
unfamiliar with the wit and spirit of Somali culture. Somali
readers will find the book essential for critically engaging the
received notions of their past and tradit Kapteijns' book will
enlighten readers unfamiliar with the wit and spirit of Somali
culture. Somali readers will find the book essential for critically
engaging the received notions of their past and traditions.
The scarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near
East today and has been so in the past. To survive in such a region
people should be able to structurally attain more water than
rainfall alone can supply. The archaeology of this area should not
only identify when people inhabited such a region and what the
character of this habitation was, but also how people were able to
survive in such a region and why they chose to live there in the
first place. In this book these questions have been studied for the
Zerqa Triangle; a region in the middle Jordan Valley around Tell
Deir 'Alla (Jordan). By means of a detailed pedestrian
archaeological survey the intensity of habitation of the region
from the Neolithic to early modern periods is investigated. Efforts
have been undertaken to reconstruct the agricultural practices in
the various periods and simultaneously the means by which the
different communities were able to practice agriculture; in other
words, how did they irrigate the land? By focussing on the
different social responses of communities, conclusions have been
drawn on how and why people managed to create a living in this
arid, but potentially very fertile region. This book not only
contributes to the ongoing discussion of the archaeology of
marginal areas, but also provides a huge amount of new data on the
archaeology of the Jordan Valley, both in the form of newly
discovered settlement sites from several different periods as well
as remains from several more inconspicuous types of human activity
present in the countryside.
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