Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the interplay between Somalia’s status as a primary internationalised theatre of the ‘Global War on Terror’ and localised political conflict, whilst examining the significance of a distinctive media ecology for the proliferation of multiple narratives of complex conspiracy.

Paper long abstract:

In the context of ongoing conflict and political reconfiguration in Somalia, this paper explores the notion of conspiracy theorisation as an important mode of local political-religious debate. The decentred nature of the modern electronic Somali media ecology is conducive to multiple internationalised narratives engaging the region's geopolitical significance and the malign conspiratorial intent of a wide range of linked external actors. These include the old 'Christian' enemy of Ethiopia, and the cultural 'neo-colonialism' of the 'West'. Importantly, I argue that such narratives are not merely limited to 'extremists' but find expression in wider circuits of more 'mainstream' Somali media discourse. Al Shabaab is also often popularly conceptualised in terms of conspiratorial agency around particular state-contestation agendas and is discursively 'spectralised' as a problem affecting the broader Somali Ummah. Although instrumentalist manipulation of the conspiracy-laden public sphere by elite actors occurs, this paper argues that globalised Jihad as a particular ideology in this communicative political context requires critical attention. Conventional policy or security studies narratives which attribute Al Shabaab violence to the brainwashing of uneducated youths and 'harsh' applications of Shariah against a 'moderate' or 'Sufi-orientated' Somali public often overlook the complex interplay of religious orthodoxy and factional political interests within a wider context of Somali state reconstruction. The paper unpacks the interplay between Somalia's status as a primary internationalised theatre of the 'Global War on Terror' and localised political conflict, whilst considering the significance of the distinctive media ecology for the proliferation of multiple narratives of complex conspiracy.