Coming from the former British Somililand is a surprisingly encouraging story of local people rebuilding their lives, renouncing war, embracing decentralised government, and generally improving economic and social conditions:

 When the sun rises over the craggy hills of Hargeysa, it sheds light on a different kind of Somalia.

Ice cream trucks hit the streets. Money changers, unarmed and unguarded, push cash through the market in wheelbarrows. Politicians from three distinct parties get ready for another day of debate, which recently included animated discussion on registering nomadic voters.

It is all part of a Somali puzzle: how one area of the country, the northwest, also known as Somaliland, can seem so peaceful and functional — so normal, in fact — while the rest continues to be such a violent, chaotic mess.

‘Somaliland is an overlooked African success story‘

All of this has been done, as the article notes, largely without any outside intervention or interference. Instead, local people- many of whom are rural and illiterate- have been crafting governance and an economy with a combination of traditional cultural forms and elements of Western democracy. All without contingents of Western troops or bucketloads of Western aid, or even legions of specialists and advisors. Imagine!

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany, said that “the public has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole.

“If we are to achieve integration, not only must the majority of the population prevent the ostracization of religious minorities or minorities with different world views, but minorities must also remain open and engage in dialogue with those who think differently or share different beliefs,” he said.

3rd Reich Homeschool Prohibition Defended

All of which means, of course, that the State cannot tolerate world views that challenge its basic presuppositions. Secular pluralism means, not actual tolerance for minorities, religious or otherwise, but the facade of tolerance that denies and assualts the heart of a religious or ethnic minority’s identity. ‘Minorities remaining open’ means they must deny the validity of their truth claims, if a religious minority, or deny the importance of cultural, economic, and political identity if an ethnic minority. Above all they must accede to the demands of the centralizing State, which cannot brook serious dissent.

However, dear fellow citizens of the free world, remember: the State is your lord and saviour, knowing all things, and concerned only with your well-being and prosperity. Your true enemy is ‘Islamofascism’…