The spectre of Islam is rising in Somalia. To try to bury it alive would be suicidal, insists Gamal Nkrumah For every step forward, a score of false starts. This is not a time for a one-man band in Somalia. Much of Somalia lies in ruins. Yet a leader of international standing, a statesman who commands the trust and respect of his people needs to take the lead. Is Sheikh Sherif Ahmed such a man? The danger is that thuggery and political mayhem would replace consent to the sheikh's rule. This ought to be a time for triumph for Sheikh Sherif. He was forced out of the country as the leader of the then disbanded Council of Islamic Courts (CICs). He was a respectable religious leader with a loyal bevy of heavyweight political supporters. He now returns triumphantly to the country as its elected president. However, no sooner did his plane land in the Somali capital Mogadishu than a blast rocked the presidential palace. Scores were injured. And worse, some of his closest political allies in the CICs decided to challenge his claim to the presidency, dismissing his political legitimacy altogether. He is a marked man. It is unclear whether anything would come of his mooted pledge to stay the course. His detractors warn that he was not popularly elected. His critics insist that the parliament that elected him is bogus and the whole process of selecting a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) president for Somalia is disingenuous. It is a catch-22 for a president in trouble. Without admitting his political woes, a president of a war-torn nation cannot rise above its afflictions. Nobody in Somalia seems sure how to reconcile the rules on running the country. Nothing can be as bad as a state of lawlessness. Without the backing of the militant factions of the CICs, a majority of Somalis are likely to withdraw their consent for his presidency. Sheikh Sherif has made it clear that he will not resort to bullying to stay in power. For every success in Somalia, there are dozens of failures. These bad times in Somalia may one day come to be seen as good ones if the charismatic sheikh manages to hang on to power much to the chagrin of his adversaries at home and abroad. The sad truth is that neither the Somalis nor their leader have much to celebrate. The precise rights and responsibilities of the Somali president are also unclear. His predecessor, Abdullah Youssef, was forcibly removed from power because he sacked his prime minister. And, already some opposition groups have charged Sheikh Sherif with conniving with the country's traditional enemies, a euphemism for the Ethiopians. Somalia's new president hotly denies the charge. "We are happy that we have arrived in the capital of the country after the election. We came to have consultations with the people and to inform them of the new phase we are entering and to call people for peace and call those outside the peace process to accept peace," Somalia's newly-elected president told reporters upon his arrival in Mogadishu. His tenure as president has followed the same pattern as his predecessor though, in the eyes of many of his rivals and adversaries. The leader of a formidable militant opposition coalition group that opposes the leadership of Sheikh Sherif warned that the new president is "no different from the former Somali president". Omar Iman Abu Bakr, head of Hizbullah (not to be confused with the Lebanese group with a similar name) vowed to take up arms against the new Somali president. "This government [Sherif's] is a result of concessions. There is no way we will stop fighting since the aims of our struggle have not been realised," Abu Bakr ominously thundered at a rally of his supporters in southern Somalia. "This is an apostate government not much different from the previous one," he explained. In Somalia, language is not even an all- important marker for national identity, for Somalis all speak the same language, but many Kenyan, Ethiopian and Djibouti nationals also speak Somali as their mother tongue. Religion, in Somalia's case Islam, is a more important unifying factor. No leader of Somalia can ignore the importance of Islam in the country. Sheikh Sherif has already vowed to impose Islamic Sharia law in Somalia, much to the consternation of his allies in the TFG, many of whom are openly secularists. Sheikh Sherif cut a dash at the African Union summit, but he has not made such an august impression at home. He desperately needs to do so. That said, it would be unwise to bet on any dramatic shift in relations between the various Somali factions. He is trying his best to woo the militant Islamists with the tacit connivance of the tribal and clan elders. But this is a gamble that could easily backfire. The first truth is that the militant Islamists are not putting down their arms. The tribal and clan elders are mediating between the militant Islamists and the TFG. This does not amount to a truce. The Islamist militants of Somalia vaingloriously claim victory. The second stark truth is that in playing down the strength of his Islamist rivals, Sherif in an uncanny fashion is following in the ex-president's footsteps. Youssef discounted the Islamist threat, which led to his demise. Nor did he spend any time admitting his own failure to use his years in office to promote Somalia's peace prospects. Sheikh Sherif must not repeat the same mistake. Paying for it would be tricky, too. It is not hard to determine where the ideological dividing lines in Somali politics now lie. The most politically potent emotion of the past is political Islam. The Shabab (Youth) movement, a bitter rival to both Sherif and Hizbullah, remains formidable. It is impossible to wander around Somali cities these days without coming across enthusiastic hooded young canvassers with AK machine guns. However, they are opposed to the Alliance for the Re-habilitation of Somalia, based in neighbouring Djibouti. The Shabab spokesman Sheikh Moukhtar Robow also expressed his opposition to both Sheikh Sherif and his Islamist adversaries. These are worrying signs, and Somalis know that such divisive attitudes do not bode well. The existing model of Somali Islam is clearly broken beyond repair. This suggests that for all their energy and professionalism the Islamist militants of Somalia are not a homogeneous group. They are ravaged by factionalism. These long- term issues are plainly difficult. These divisions might consign them to further political oblivion. Enemies of Somalia have taken full advantage of these divisions. Across Somalia there are examples of how this has been done. For instance, the Ethiopians played one group off against another in the southernmost region of Somalia, the current scene of the stand-off between Hizbullah and Shabab. Sheikh Sherif has everything going for him for the time being. But now is surely the moment for Somali Islamists, both moderate and militant, to think afresh. The Islamist politicians in Somalia are already far more convincing than their secularist counterparts. Sherif is walking a tightrope, attempting to woo the different Islamist factions while making himself acceptable to the West, without whose approval he would never have been given the nod. Whether the Somali people would allow him a chance to prove his mettle is another matter.
