Somaliland Presidential Election Chronicles – PART II
By Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar
ADDIS ABABA, 28 FEB 2003 (ADDIS TRIBUNE)--In last week’s article we posed that the survival of the Somaliland State, in its fatal confrontation with the clearly disorganizing and destructive clan principle, will depend upon the acceptance of the absurd position of adopting two dialectically opposed principles at the same time. I will call this specific need of accepting opposites the Tribal Dialectic.

· Absolute acceptance of the clan system

· Absolute rejection of the clan system.

Why do I consider this issue as a cultural shock of critical importance, why do I pose the absurdity of marrying the opposites above? I have promised to answer these questions. I will do so today. But first a primer on clan psychology:

Tribe (Clan) Psychology
A child is born in an incomplete state. He cannot walk, talk or fend for himself in any meaningful way. He has to learn all these as his development progresses. But that is not all. At birth the child does not know that he is an entity that is separate from his mother in whose body he grew from a single cell into a viable infant with head, eyes, heart etc. At birth the child does not have a formed an identity.