"Me against my brother, my brother and I against our family, our family against our tribe, our tribe against other tribes, all the tribes against Somalia, and Somalia and Somalis against the world"-Somali Proverb

"Do not trade with a Somali for he deceives , if he comes to your door do not open it, and if he breaks in then pray to God for protection".-Arab saying

"The Somalis are a fierce race of republicans, constantly changing political loyalties-the Somalis lived in what amounted to a state of chronic political schizophrenia, verging on of anarchy."-Sir Richard Burton

"When the Somalis are not attacking foreign and manipulating peoples, they are attacking each other, it’s an innate almost sexual pleasure to do so, but it’s what keeps the Somali occupied"
(author unknown)

"The Somali are the most savage of all African savages and are of such of a wild and inhospitable nature that no stranger can possibly live amongst them".- Col. Outram

"In Somali oral history the Hyena is a representation of cowardice and especially a representation of non-Somali peoples who are enemies towards them, while the fox who is a representation of cunning, intelligence, and deceit is important because its a representation of the Somali people".(author unknown)

"As liars the Somalis are unsurpassed. Whether the lie serves any purpose or not is of no consequence. They love lying for its own sake, and, by constant practice, they do it exceedingly cleverly".(author unkown)

"They are great liars, promise much and perform little, unless it suits their interest."-The Gentleman's magazine: Volume 282

"According to the Somali story of creation God (Waaq) created the Black race and he smiled, and he created the White race and he smiled, and then he created the Somali race and he laughed." (author unkown)

"The Somali lacks emotions like embarrassment and mercy, only cruelty and straight-forwardness. This is a result of the reptilian brain." (author unkown)


''Somalis, Bwana, they no good: each man his own sultan.''- Ugandan visitor 19th century

"Of all the desiccated, bitter, cruel, sunbeaten wildernesses which
starve and thirst beyond the edges of Africa's luscious, jungled centre,
there cannot be one more Christless than the one which begins at the
northern foot of Mount Kenya and stretches to the foothills of Abyssinia,
and from there to the dried-out glittering tip of Cape Gardafui where the
hot karif winds blow in from where the long sharks race under the thin
blue skin of the ocean. You can never think of those wildernesses without
thinking of daggers and spears, rolling fierce eyes under mops of dusty
black crinkly hair, of mad stubborn camels, rocks too hot to touch, and
blood feuds whose origins cannot be remembered, only honoured in the
stabbing. But of all the races of Africa there cannot be one better to
live among than the most difficult, the proudest, the bravest, the
vainest, the most merciless, the friendliest; the Somalis."

never saw a Somali who showed any fear of death, which, impressive
though it sounds, carries within it the chill of pitilessness and
ferocity as well. If you have no fear of death you have none for anybody
else's either, but that fearlessness has always been essential to the
Somalis who have had to try and survive hunger, disease and thirst while
prepared to fight and die against their enemies, their fellow Somalis for
pleasure in the blood feud, or the Ethiopians

There is something about pastoralist nomads that makes them quite proud and war like, yes. When the British ruled over British East Africa (Kenya) they used to frequently imprison Bantus, but they would only fine Somalis because they came to find out that Somalis had the odd habit of dying in solitary confinement and thus illiciting vengeance from their immediate kin. So to save them the trouble they just started fining Somalis.

I think it stem from the prestige imbued on warriors in nomadic culture, and the fact that military prowess was rewarded. Warfare always had been an important factor in relations with outsiders such as the Ethiopian Christians and the Oromo and even with other Somali clans. The lack of modern weapons, however, prevented the Somalis from successfully resisting the imposition of European colonial rule.

Antagonists in inter-Somali conflicts generally belonged to groups bound by their commitment to pay or receive "diya" (blood money). Because the entire group would be considered responsible for paying diya to compensate for damages inflicted, and would receive diya for its own losses, a war would begin only with the unanimous approval of its likely participants. A meeting of the elders of the warring groups was the usual means of restoring peace. The elders would determine which group was responsible for starting the war and would decide compensation, usually camels, for damages incurred. The group judged responsible for starting the war normally would be the only one fined unless it emerged the victor. In a jihad (holy war) against infidels and in most conflicts against non-Somalis, such rules would not apply.

THE first thing to understand about the Somalis is that they are not as other men. Richard Burton, the famous Arabist and explorer who trekked across their lands in the 1850s, called the Islamic Somali nomads a ''fierce and turbulent race of republicans''. More pungently, a Ugandan sergeant with the British forces fighting the Mad Mullah went on record as telling his officer: ''Somalis, Bwana, they no good: each man his own sultan.''

In other words, they take orders from nobody; and their sense of independence is matched by a supremely uncentralised and fragmented degree of political organisation, a kind of ordered anarchy. The basis of political allegiance is blood kinship, or genealogy. Children learn their ancestors' names by heart back to 20 generations and more. A Somali does not ask another where he is from but whom he is from. Strangers who meet, recite their genealogies until they reach a mutual ancestor the more closely they are related the more readily they unite, transiently, against others: ''Myself against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against the outsider.''