Fatima Jibrell grew up as a nomad in the Somali desert. She has spent most of her adult life bringing up children and gaining academic qualifications in the US, returning home in the early 1990s just as Somalia fell apart. She came back 鈥渂ecause the country needed her鈥�, and since then has been campaigning to promote the role of women in politics, conflict resolution and environmental issues. This year she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmentalists.
How easy is it to change gender roles in Africa?
It will not happen overnight if that鈥檚 what you鈥檙e asking. It is a very slow and gradual process, but once certain barriers are broken things will progress very rapidly. We are tackling those barriers slowly but surely.
Advertisement
How are things changing?
Women are the backbone of the communities and the custodians of the environment. But they don鈥檛 have the power. In the traditional nomadic family, all decision making was done under a cherry tree by the men. The women had to influence the men at home. But now they are getting tired of that. For women, a lot is at stake in those meetings. If things go badly, the man can disappear out of the window. But the woman is stuck with the children, the elderly, the handicapped, the livestock, with everything. Now some women are going to the tree. And they are being listened to.
So the men are giving ground?
Yes. Women used to give up their sheep and goats when they got married. That doesn鈥檛 happen any more. Unless the woman says so, not a single one can be sold or slaughtered.
Are women taking a bigger political role, too?
Yes. One of our leaders is now on the election committee for the Somaliland region, with six men. She is committed and a natural leader, so they follow her. In Puntland, another member of our team became a parliamentarian and put through a law to ban charcoal exports. The cutting down of our acacia forests for charcoal to sell to Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia is a huge business, and Somalia鈥檚 worst environmental disaster. The clans that run the business are turning the whole forest into charcoal, and they have armies to guard them. Through our campaigning we have got export bans introduced in the north, but not yet in the south.
What does the Somali environment mean to you?
The way we look at the environment is very different from the way it is looked at in many parts of the world. We think everything is a part of the environmental puzzle. So the political participation of women, girls鈥� education, youth leadership and animal and human health all play a part in managing the environment. My passion is nomads and the landscape.
Can you give me some examples of how women have intervened to improve life in Somalia?
The Puntland Women鈥檚 Peace Initiative played a big role in pre-empting and diluting violent conflicts between the two men fighting for leadership in Puntland, Abdullayi Yusuf and Jama Ali Jama. Women came together and asked the men to resolve the conflicts peacefully, or if they must fight that they do it outside the populated areas. The women also threatened to pull out their sons, husbands and nephews from the militia. In the end, fighting still broke out, but the casualties were much lower than everyone had anticipated, mostly because of the lobbying that the women did. On another occasion, we brought in women from different places to mediate between two clans over water rights. This was the first time such a thing had happened in Somalia, but the women know about the water and how to manage it.
Why have men made such a mess of things?
The Somali culture is patriarchal. Men are not used to consulting the other half of the population. Even if they are wrong, they are not willing to seek opinions from outside their male circle. The result is that they keep building on their mistakes. Outsiders seeking to assist Somalia have assumed that working with the existing structures is the best way to help alleviate the country鈥檚 problems. They have therefore strengthened the status quo, which has made the situation worse.
How can women increase their influence?
At one meeting I attended to discuss the political situation in the country, a UN representative suggested that women should not cause more controversy during the next peace negotiations by insisting on being involved, and that these extra demands were diverting attention from the main problems. It was further suggested that women should allow the warlords to settle their differences and only get involved once there was stability. What irony, I thought. All along we have complained that men are a big part of the problem. Now we should expect them to solve it and include us afterwards. Women have a chance now, and they must exploit the power vacuum. They cannot wait for things to settle down, for when things have settled down the men will claim we have no stake in the peace and the established government. More work needs to be done to empower women, and the international community should recognise and support our role. But that recognition must be genuine and not mere tokenism.
Would you say that women were already the dominant force in the real economy of rural Africa, because they do most of the farming?
Are there still people doubting that?
Can you see a time when women take over politics as well?
I do not know what indicators you would use to show that women have taken over politics, but then again I do not advocate women taking over politics. We simply want to be an important part of it. And that is already happening. In African countries like Uganda, women already account for a third of parliamentary representation. There are still barriers, but generally there is progress. I do not think that women alone are capable of solving the problems of Somalia today. They do not live in a vacuum, and each person has a role to play. Women are becoming more visible because of all the empowerment work that is going on, but they cannot afford to go it alone. Otherwise they will just be replacing men in the politics of exclusion, and we know how that has worked.
You were brought up as a nomad. Could you tell me about that?
I was born in the desert when it was British Somaliland. Each year our family migrated on foot with our animals from Laas Qoray, a village on the Gulf of Aden coast, over the mountains to the grassland of the interior. I remember that in certain places near the coast you could pull the sand apart and find water. It was that close to the surface. In the mountains there were springs and birds and flowers and bees. And there were many wild animals. Sometimes my mother would tie me to the tent with a long rope so I wouldn鈥檛 wander off and be eaten by a leopard or a lion or a cheetah. At night we would hear lions roaring behind our tent.
How has it changed?
That grassland is just blowing dust today. There are no big cats. Many of the birds and bees are gone. So are the dung beetles, which used to disperse the animal droppings and create new soil. The fruit trees are being used for charcoal or building. There is nothing to keep the water on the land.
You left Somalia and went to school in the US. How did that happen?
My family had always gone to sea. My father became a sailor and went to England 鈥� Liverpool, I think 鈥� early in his life and later went to the US. My mother refused to join him. To pay my school fees, she traded in Yemen, buying clothes and bringing them back in a dhow. At the village she put them in a truck and took them to the Ethiopian border, where she loaded them onto camels to sneak across the border and sell them. When I wanted to go to high school, she sent me to the US to my father. He lived in Harlem because he was black and there was discrimination. After my schooling, I came back and worked for the Somali government for a while. But I returned with my husband to the US, where I did my masters in community organising at the University of Connecticut. I had five daughters and now have a granddaughter and grandson 鈥� a real clan.
You had a good life in the US. It must have been a big decision to go home.
Yes, it was very hard, especially for the kids. We went back to a village in the nomadic north. There was drought and lots of fighting. But America didn鈥檛 need us. Somalia did. Since then, I have been involved in running two organisations: Horn Relief and Resource Management Somali Network. We concentrate on women鈥檚 issues and the environment.
Do you fear terror groups hiding in Somalia?
I believe the US knows there is no Al Qaida group here. There could be some individuals, and a lot of people say, 鈥淟et America come in and get them and try them.鈥� Nobody is protecting them. Somalis don鈥檛 want America to bomb them or anything.
Will the country ever be put back together again?
Somalia sank to the bottom. No country in the world has been without a government and survived for ten years. But I am hopeful. Clan issues are now taking the back seat and coexistence is taking the front seat. Women are gaining ground. Civil society is getting organised. But very few international agencies or neighbouring countries are supporting these activities. If they did we would have a good chance of creating a responsive government in Somalia.
What do you think about the anti-globalisation movement?
Globalisation is something to allow the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer.
But what鈥檚 wrong with trade if it鈥檚 on equal terms?
There are always loopholes in trade. When Kenya wanted to sell fish to Europe, Europe claimed that the fish were not clean enough. But Somali fish is eaten in your restaurants because it is caught by European ships 鈥� the same ones that pollute our waters. I think fair international trade is possible, but not under the present dynamics.
But you took personal advantage of globalisation. You went to the US to continue your education. What鈥檚 wrong with that?
Well, I understand it is giving opportunities to some Somalis, but it doesn鈥檛 give opportunities to Somalia. They are not the same thing. And most of the people who do go away don鈥檛 come back.