Subhead:In one of the world’s toughest neighbourhoods, a 100 per cent Muslim state has achieved what many Western governments have not.#
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Reporting from the Horn of Africa, I’ve been struck by how different the reality of Somaliland is from the caricature often presented to Western audiences. Here is a self-declared republic, unrecognised and unheard by much of the world, yet functioning as a stable, democratic state in one of the most volatile regions on earth.
“It’s a very conservative, religious, Muslim country, 100 per cent Muslim,” Anwar Abdurrahman Warsame, former chairman of Somaliland Civil Society, told me. But Somaliland doesn’t have the same problems with radical extremists as other Islamic nations.
That stands in sharp contrast to neighbouring Somalia, where al-Shabaab continues to wreak havoc. I asked him why Somaliland appears immune.
“That’s what we call community policing,” he said. “Every village has its own community policing. So if they see something… they are immediately reporting to the nearest police station.”
