Somalia Is Adopting the Surface of Modernity Without Building Its Foundations
MOGADUSHU ( AX) – The arrival of Pakistan’s J. Fragrances perfume brand in Mogadishu, and the debate it sparked, revealed a question far larger than the launch of a single company. It highlighted Somalia’s uncertainty over how to engage with the modern world while preserving its cultural identity and values.
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Millions of young Somalis have come of age in a country where education systems, cultural institutions and civic education remain too weak to provide a firm grounding in knowledge, citizenship and responsibility. At the same time, social media has become deeply embedded in nearly every part of their lives.
Through mobile phones, young people have gained immediate access to the wider world. But the view most frequently presented through that digital window is not of the universities, research centres, industries and public institutions that underpin successful countries. It is more often a stream of Hollywood celebrities, influencers, lavish lifestyles and carefully selected scenes from Western cities.
When education and critical thinking are insufficient, such images can easily be mistaken for modernity—and even for civilization itself.
Hollywood is not a complete portrait of the United States, just as Pride celebrations in Amsterdam do not define the whole of Dutch civilization.
Western countries achieved prosperity not through celebrity worship, social-media performances or conspicuous luxury, but through strong education systems, scientific research, universities, the rule of law, effective institutions, productivity, professional discipline and the protection of rights and responsibilities.
Somalia’s risk is that it will absorb globalization’s most visible products while overlooking the institutions and habits that made progress possible.
Celebrity culture is imitated, while a culture of research remains underdeveloped.
Luxury attracts admiration, while productivity receives far less attention.
Technology is widely consumed, but Somalia produces too little of it and contributes too little of its own.
The outward symbols of modernity are copied, while the knowledge, discipline and sustained effort behind genuine progress are neglected.
Somalia need not withdraw from the world or reject everything originating abroad. Historically, Mogadishu flourished through trade, exchange and its links to other societies.
Yet a self-assured society knows the difference between drawing lessons from others and copying them without thought. It embraces useful knowledge and advances from abroad while safeguarding its own identity and values.
For Somalia’s current generation, the central task is to learn from the science, education, institutions, productivity and work ethic of successful societies—not to reduce engagement with the world to the appealing spectacles promoted on social media.
AXADLETM
