Okay, Somalia is the quintessential "failed state," right?
Fourteen years as a national basketcase. The poster
child for the New World Disorder. And now what?
The Somalis are having a telecom boom, swarming with mobile
phones, and pumping money in and out.
Does this mean they're gonna settle down now (with
the fourteenth warlord peace deal in fourteen years)?
Maybe. Or maybe it means that global telecommunications
and globalized diaspora money transfer, by
its very nature, powerfully aids and abets a
miserable condition of armed, criminal disorder.
You be the judge!
Somalia's Popular Romance With the Internet
"The virtual state
"(...) For although Somalis have found it difficult to reach an agreed political basis for their national community, among the many paradoxes of this East African country is that people's use of the latest technological advances exceeds that of many other countries. Internet cafes, the latest mobile phones and digital communications are booming. It takes just L0.35 per minute to call from London to Mogadishu, the capital.
"The telecommunication boom has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Along with telecommunication service, thousands of smaller companies offer banking services such as money transfer, depositing and buying shares.
"Money-transferring companies, in particular, have been the `life-savers' of many Somalis. Returnees from the Somali diaspora have made heavy investments in communication technology and a sophisticated financial system for the remittance of money to Somalia. Many of the estimated 2 million Somalis (from a population of around 8 million) living outside the country have found ways to communicate with and assist financially their next of kin living inside the homeland."
