Asha Hagi, a woman to transcend clan divisions

Meeting with the laureate of the 2008 Alternative Nobel Prize, awarded for a woman’s struggle in a country dominated by ‘warlords’.

by Marie-Martine Buckens, The Courier

It is six in the evening on 9 December 2008 at the Place du Luxembourg in Brussels. In a restaurant opposite the glass facades of the European Parliament building, Asha Hagi is struggling to finish her salad. The day before she was in Stockholm to receive the ‘Right Livelihood Award’, better known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, from Swedish Members of Parliament. It was awarded in recognition of “her actions that enabled women to participate in the peace and reconstruction process in her country”. Actions that, despite the fatigue and the emotion, she will be presenting to MEPs in just an hour’s time.

Asha Hagi’s country is Somalia. A country plunged into chaos, abandoned by the international community and forsaken by the NGOs. Since 2000 it has been a country struggling to find an end to the civil war. Asha Hagi’s combat to restore peace and democracy to her country date back to 1992, the year when she founded the ‘Save Somali Women and Children’ (SSWC) fund. “It was the first Somali organisation to transcend the barriers of the clans”, she tells us. “In doing so we were very much ahead of the times, because like most of the population women are brought up to be loyal to the clan and the first years were very tough and dangerous.” Still president of the SSWC today, she adds that: “One of the first things we had to do, if we wanted women to be ambassadors for peace, was to dissuade them from supporting the war! That is a reality. Women have played a major part in the war by taking care of all the logistics. But they were not aware that they were its first victims. They lost their husbands, their brothers and their children. Women were killed, raped and tortured.”

The Sixth Clan

After over a decade of civil war, hope was reborn. In 2000 a conference for peace and reconciliation in Somalia was held in Djibouti. “I had been invited to participate in the symposium that prepared this conference. One of just three women to be invited to do so, three women among 60 men.” A symposium that decided that the conference for peace would be convened on the basis of clan organisation. “That meant the de facto exclusion of women.” Asha Hagi resisted, finally obtaining from the Djibouti president 100 places for her delegation. “As participation in the conference was based on the clan organisation (there are five principal clans in Somalia, Editor) we therefore decided to create our own clan so as to be on an equal footing with the others.” The Sixth Clan was born.

In 2004, the Mbagathi Conference on National Reconciliation (Kenya) initiated a new round of negotiations that culminated in the signing of a peace agreement. “Eight people signed it. I was one of them.” The Mbagathi conference also permitted progress such as the introduction of quotas for women and the creation of a minister for women’s issues and family matters. But towards the end of 2006 things took a turn for the worse.

Don’t give up

Asha Hagi was a member of the Transitional Federal Parliament at the time. But she was excluded by the warlords who had invaded Mogadishu, the Somali capital, with the support of Ethiopian troops. Feeling threatened, she fled the country. “I have lived in Nairobi since the end of 2006. I am a mother, a woman, with a family I must protect.” An economist with a master’s degree, Asha Hagi is also the mother of three children, aged 15, 11 and 8. “They were all with me in Stockholm yesterday. That was important. For them to be proud and to see that everything their mother has done over these past years, days and hours was worth it.”

Asha Hagi makes no secret of her weariness, her fear even. “In 2002 a Somali activist was assassinated in Nairobi. In 2005, another peace activist was killed in Mogadishu. My son said to me: these people were doing the same thing as you. Who will be the third? I replied: only God knows that.” She continues: “One night I called my husband and children, telling them that it was too much, that I was giving up the struggle. My daughter came out of the bedroom and brought all the different prizes I had received, saying to me: you see these prizes, they were not given to you for nothing. They symbolise important things that you have done. My advice is not to give up.”

It is now nearly seven o’clock. They are waiting for her at the European Parliament. What will she say to the MEPs and other European officials she must meet tomorrow? “That the EU should continue and reinforce its support for the Djibouti negotiations for peace and reconciliation in Somali as that is our only hope for the moment. I also appeal for the implementation of a genuine partnership with Somali civil society. Our achievements are fragile.”

Courtesy of The Courier, Issue Nº X (N.S.) - March/April 2009