The failed states of Somalia and Haiti

The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

In 2010, a catastrophic magnitude 7 earthquake shook the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and its surrounding environs. Most sources agree that 300,000 people died in the quake and  over a million lost their homes[1]. Meanwhile, in Somalia, the country has entered its third decade without a central government of any kind. Despite these horror stories of globalization, there is almost no coverage of this peculiar symptom of the modern interconnected world.

This year on the campaign trail, as most years in recent memory, much ado has been made by candidates on both sides of the isle about "losing American jobs to foreign markets" and "globalization." However, the only person who seems to be calling a spade a spade, so to speak, is President Barack Obama. Although it did not receive much media attention, Barack Obama gave a speech in Mumbai in 2010 in which he finally made a coherent argument about the simple fact that globalization and global economic interconnectedness is never going away. In this speech, the President warned against those who "see globalization as a threat," and admitted that the "interconnected world[2]" of modern trade is never going away. Essentially, globalization is broadening interconnectedness throughout the world political system, not just taking American jobs. Because of globalization, nation states are becoming more dependent upon each other to maintain their own security. Although globalization has only recently entered into the popular vernacular, various waves of the phenomenon have been occurring for centuries. Unfortunately, most of the focus on globalization in the media has been on either the positive aspects of this phenomenon -- i.e. the BRIC countries and their rapid economic growth -- or on the perceived negative economic effects being felt in the United States. However, there has been almost  Somalia and Haiti are examples of failed states that have been affected by globalization.

The “country” of Somalia was a British and Italian colony until 1960, part of a second wave of colonialism globalization. The colonialist period of globalization was characterized by the domination of Europe in world affairs. The Westphalian system[3] created by the European nation-states was spread throughout the world through colonization. Although colonization is certainly not a major part of globalization today, European expansion engendered the global economic and political system we experience today. Colonization spread the Westphalian system and made the concept of the sovereign “nation state” the ideological and practical norm throughout the world. So, when the British and Italians withdrew from Somaliland, a new nation formed uniting the two separate colonies. As with many former colonies, after the colonizers left, a period of instability followed. In 1969, Mohamed Siad Barre formed an authoritarian socialist state that essentially forced stability on the people of Somalia. In 1991, the regime collapsed and the state broke up into a number of factional groups. A UN mission attempted to stabilize the state in the early 1990s, but pulled out in 1995 after the United States withdrew its forces (due to an outcry by the American public after 19 American soldiers died in a military operation to arrest one of the factional leaders). Although the factions that are in power have changed, the nation of Somalia has failed to provide even basic state services to the people living within the supposed territorial confines of the “country.”

Because Somalia has no central government of any kind, it is not recognized under the Westphalian system by any other state. Maps published in other countries show Somalia’s boundaries as being those previous to 1991. The competing fiefdoms in Somalia cannot provide any common Westphalian territoriality. Furthermore, the state is not sovereign. It cannot resist incursions by its neighbor, Ethiopia, nor can any of the governments provide any form of “freedom from want” or “freedom from fear” to its people. A UN mission was forced to enter the state and end famine in the early 1990s, without the UN mission, many more Somalians would have starved.

A second country that has also been a victim of the legacy of colonization is Haiti. Haiti was the first part of “The New World” that Christopher Columbus landed on in 1492. In twenty-five years, Spanish settlers had essentially annihilated the natives who lived on the island. In the late seventeenth century, Spain seceded the Western half of the island of “Hispaniola” to the French. This half of the island became Haiti. Because the natives had been killed and otherwise absorbed into the colonizing population, Haiti became predominantly populated by African slaves. In the late 1700s, the slaves in Haiti revolted, and in 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France. Unfortunately, the country has always been plagued with economic problems. The economy of Haiti was founded on Mercantilism, and when Haiti declared its independence, the state lost the valuable trade of its former colonizer. Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The state plays no part in the globalized trade system, and the country has been plagued by central governments that have not provided sovereignty, security, or economic subsistence to the people of Haiti. Despite the rapid humanitarian response by the international community after the 2010 earthquake, the scars of Haiti's most recent disaster will be felt for decades; far longer than a disaster in nearly any other country in the world.

The examples of Somalia and Haiti show a sad and relatively unknown effect of globalization. Somalia and Haiti are failed states because of a previous wave of globalization. Unlike many other former European colonies that have been able to begin contributing to the globalizing world of commerce, trade, and politics, Somalia and Haiti lack even adherence to the Westphalian system. Furthermore, unlike other failed states that are of great importance to the globalized system either economically (like the Congo) or politically (like Afghanistan), Somalia and Haiti have relatively no important natural resources. Although the Congo is certainly a failed state, it is getting injections of capital from the trade it does in Coltan and diamonds. Afghanistan has become central to the United States’ “War On Terror.” Somalia, Haiti, and other failed states like them, were colonized and then left without the ability to become stable nation states without their colonizers. Unfortunately, the modern wave of financial globalization is passing these failed states by.

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[1] Significant discrepancies in the death toll estimates exist. An unpublished USAID report claims that fewer than 100,000 people lost their lives:
BBC News. (2011, June 1). Report challenges Haiti earthquake death toll. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13606720
However, that report has been called into question by other people in USAID itself:
Trenton Daniel, AP. (2011, June 4). US: Flaws in death toll report on Haiti quake. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13758738
Regardless, tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, and the continued effect on Haiti is evident.

[2] Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times. (2010, November 06). Obama appeals to business leaders in India. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/06/world/la-fg-obama-india-speech-20101106

[3] Wikipedia. (n.d.). Peace of Westphalia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia