Somalia appears to be the very definition of what we call a failed state. The last time this desert country possessed anything approaching a "normal" government, with tax collection, social services, and law enforcement, was under a bloody dictator named Siad Barre.
After Barre was driven out by a national rebellion early in 1991, political power over most of Somalia fell into the hands of feuding warlords, who, like grand dukes from the European Middle Ages, deployed their private armies to battle for power even as hundreds of thousands of other Somalis were dying of hunger. Outside intervention, often with good intentions, has done little to help―and has usually made things worse.
******* *******
Rapper K’Naan hails from Somalia, known as ‘Dirty foot Philosopher” his poetic rhymes embrace both the personal and the political.