JidbaalePolitics of mimicry gives birth to governance of mimicry. There is no statecraft here—no art, no science—just small men imitating what they see big men do elsewhere. Despite the expensive suits and solemn expressions, nothing is real. The West handed power to political children who play government the way children play police, while the real adults run our affairs behind closed doors.
State offices are meant to be institutions—anchored in law, custom, and practice, and enforced through bureaucracy. They are supposed to follow protocols and procedures. In Somalia, they have none of that. They don’t exist beyond the reach of the small men playing government. Here, a state office is nothing more than a child in an oversized uniform, standing at an intersection, pretending to direct traffic.
This is where tribal politics has led us—it has turned 40 million people into children. In international law, tribes are children, dependent on states. This was the very logic Europe used to justify colonial rule: Africans were tribes, not states, and therefore unfit to govern themselves until they reached political maturity.
Self-determination is for states and adults, not for tribes and children.
When everything is based on tribe, we end up with men playing government exactly as children play police. This is not just a metaphor—it is our unfortunate reality. Somali delegations at international conferences do not attend the meetings they are sent to. Instead, they drift around the venues, restless and distracted. Like children forced to sit through an adult gathering, they fidget in their seats, glance around impatiently, and sneak looks at their phones, eager for the moment they can escape. They do not listen, they do not focus, and they do not engage. They are merely waiting—waiting for the serious part to be over so the fun can begin: posing for pictures, indulging in lavish meals, and chattering aimlessly. They are not diplomats; they are children at a formal dinner, enduring the speeches only because dessert is on the way.
Somalia doesn’t have political impasse. It has political children!
