Another waxan is falling by the wayside in chaotic Somalia. Translated literally as "the thing," waxan is the word fiercely independent Somalis use to describe centralized authority of any kind. In this case, however, the country's nominal government represents the only genuine Somali solution to the Somali crisis. The international community cannot allow it to be jettisoned by the radical Islamists who control the capital of Mogadishu, lest the entire region be dragged into war.

For now, the transitional government is doing a fine job of imploding on its own. The toothless administration of Ali Mohamed Gedi was cobbled together in 2004 after 13 failed attempts at peace and reconciliation. A slew of ministers have resigned since July 27 -- 40 at last count -- amid a rift over how to respond to the Islamic militants. That figure doesn't include a lawmaker who was killed July 28, or another who was wounded in a shooting two days earlier.

Pressure has built since the Islamists captured Mogadishu in early June. Businessmen and women, weary of war and repeated acts of rape during the 15 years of anarchy and warlordism that followed the ouster of military dictator >Siad Barre in 1991, hailed the radicals as "liberators." Emboldened by their victory and this public adulation, the Islamists quickly sought to extend their control and radical brand of Islam. The transitional government stood in the way at first but soon began to wilt. Ethiopian troops entered the country to support the government, though Addis Ababa's motives are somewhat suspect. Ethiopia has invested enormously in the search for Somali peace. Yet it is not neutral. A large Somali population inhabits the Ogaden in southern Ethiopia. A war erupted in 1977 over Barre's attempt by uniting all Somalis, including those in Ogaden. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi may be trying to deflect attention from his own domestic foibles, but equally likely he's reacting to allegations that Eritrea -- Ethiopia's bitter enemy in the 1998-2000 war -- was arming and training Islamist fighters threatening jihad against Ethiopian occupation. A proxy war looms. The Somali are nomadic and born free. They detest any centralized authority or “government,”  contemptuously dismissing it as waxan, which means “the thing.” They belong to the group of ethnic societies in Africa that anthropologists call “ acephalous ” or “stateless” societies. The Igbo and the Kikuyu are other examples but the Somalis are exceptional. They have no leaders; they are their own leaders and take orders from no one. If a leader of any group of Somalis tried to lord over them, they will abandon him. This independent streak led Somaliland to break away from over-lordship by Mogadishu in 1994. The first European to note this cultural trait was the British traveler Richard Burton, who back in 1856 called the Somali a “fierce and turbulent race of Republicans.”

The Somali are born into extended families or clans, which are politically independent. No clansman will accept being ruled by a member of another, any more than someone from his own clan. is the ruling passion among them. The clans may band together to form a juffo, and the size increases. A jilib, which may number several thousand people, protects the rights of its members and engages in social and political activities as the need arises. If the alliance (jilib) no longer serves him, the Somali will leave it and form another. Indeed, jilibs continuously break up into several parts, each becoming an independent new jilib. They do not band together to form a unified state.

Political activity occurs at the shir (village assembly), which may be convened by the gurti (council of elders, constituted by the heads of the most important clans) to deliberate on matters of common concern. The assembly does not legislate but deliberates until a consensus is reached -- to ensure that no one’s freedom and property rights are infringed. Each person has the right to voice their opinion.  If the assembly makes an unpopular decision, it would be ignored. The assembly has no police or military force to enforce its decisions on clansmen or other clansmen.

The Somali rever the xeer – the body of customary laws and institutions, called xeer. They are conventions and enforceable rules that have emerged and are respected spontaneously, without formal agreement. These guarantee a fair trial and recognize in principle every person's right to life, liberty and property, as well as certain inherent freedoms: xer u dhalasho (free by birth), which includes freedom of speech, contract, movement, and trade.  [Reference: Michael van Notten, The Law of the Somali. The Red Sea Press: Trenton, NJ, 2005].

Somali customary law requires no legislature because it is not made. Judges only settle conflicts by applying the basic customary laws everybody in the community observes. The powers of judges are generally the same as those of any clansman but the conduct of a judge is supposed to be exemplary. A judge who violates the law suffers heavier penalties than fines than would normally be imposed. In this scheme, politicians and religious dignitaries have no role either in the formulation of customary law, nor have they any say in establishing courts of law.

Though Muslims of the Sunni kind, their interpretation of Islam is not rigid or strict; they follow the Shafi’ite school. Two factors explain this: First, ancestral beliefs and relics of a previous religion, which centered on the worship of Waaq (literally, the “sky”), still hold sway. Second, Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with Somali customary laws, erected on the pillar of separation of law from politics and religion. Two Somali maxims encapsulate this: “Diinta waa la baddali karaa, xeerka la ma baddali karo (One can change one’s religion; one cannot change the law) and “Between religion and tradition, choose tradition.”

Like the internet, traditional Somali way of maintaining law and order has no head or tail. Its system of governance has no executive and no legislature. It functions without a minister of justice or a supreme court. Yet, the society is peaceful and provides for rule making and adjudication. Such a society is described as near-kritarchy -- derived from the Greek words kriteis (judge) or krito (to judge) and archè (principle, cause). It may be defined as a political system in which justice or the establishment of justice is the ruling principle or first cause.

Under kritarchy, there are no politicians to establish rules and limit other people's freedoms. Anyone who respects the natural rights of others is free to govern himself. He is free to pursue his own objectives with his own means. Kritarchy respects customary law, particularly the right of private property and freedom of contract. It embraces the rule of law including the principles by which judges first establish the facts of the disputes brought before them and then resolve those disputes. The judicial, police and law-generating powers are dispersed among the population. Any person is free to establish a court of justice or a police force. The activities of judges and policemen are coordinated by the competitive market process rather than by a supreme court and police minister. The laws of a kritarchy are not contrived, but are discovered by judges in the course of resolving conflicts that come before them. European immigrants who settled in the Midwest and the Far West of North America in the early 19^th Century developed their own brand of kritarchy.

Such societies often baffle outsiders. They see no one making or enforcing laws and conclude that there are no laws. For example, the chaos in Somalia is often misinterpreted by foreign commentators as “lawlessness” or “difficulties” in establishing democracy. But the Somali are law-abiding. They uphold their own customary law and reject others. Nor do they want democracy, since that would divide them into two political groups -- the rulers and the ruled. The Somali strongly oppose being ruled by anybody. Thus, lawlessness and disorder prevail in those few areas where politicians and warlords still try to impose an alien system on them.

Unfortunately, such societies easily fall prey to any organized group with military force – just as today’s open societies are vulnerable to home-grown terrorists, who use the same freedoms their citizens enjoy to hurt them. The open traditional Somali society fell prey, first, to the might of colonial armies. They fought the colonial administrators for more than 30 years and gained their independence in 1961 only to have another waxan imposed on them by Barre in 1969. They finally got rid of that, only to fall prey again to barbarous warlords. To defeat them, they allied themselves with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). But the Islamists would be gravely mistaken to attempt to impose an Islamic waxan, based on strict interpretation of Islam, on the Somali people. If the alliance with the Islamic Courts does not work to his satisfaction, the Somali will terminate it and start another – just as he does with the jilib.

Ominous signs have already appeared. Barely a week after seizing Mogadishu, Islamic militiamen shot and killed two people who were watching a World Cup soccer broadcast in central Somalia. Fumed Adam Hashi-Ali of Mogadishu: “As soon as the Islamist took over the security of our city, we thought we would get freedom. But now they are preventing us from watching the World Cup.” On July 13, Islamists fatally shot a man after he protested new taxes on businessmen and small-scale traders. Over 100 people in Jowhar rioted over the new taxes, dismissing the Islamist militants' leader, Sheikh Aweys, as madaxweyne ("big head").

The Somali value their freedom and prefer their customary laws but the politicians and elites loathe these laws. In the traditional system, politicians cannot make laws, not even tax laws since taxation would be considered a violation of property rights. Customary law blocks them from consolidating their power over the people. They prefer statutory laws, which are designed by themselves, legislated by a parliament, and enforced by a police force. But in Africa, statutory laws can be oppressive and abusive. They may allow one group to consolidate power and lord over the people. They may also allow the ruling elites to set themselves apart with concepts of sovereign immunity, executive privilege, and constitutional authority. Nigeria’s state governors have been plundering oil revenues with impunity under claims of constitutional immunity. Customary law, on the other hand, would hold political leaders accountable to the same laws as everyone else, with even higher penalties for misconduct. Islamic leaders also hate customary law because it separates religion from politics. Further, it conflicts with strict the interpretation of Islam since this is left to the Somali as he sees fit.

To pull the region back from the brink, African Union peacekeepers should replace Ethiopian troops. Having made a mockery of its "Peer Review Mechanism," whereby dictators stand in judgment of other dictators, the AU now has a golden opportunity to redeem itself by defending its own. The transitional government was the outcome of indefatigable efforts by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which was mandated by the AU's predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, to restore peace to Somalia. The AU cannot abandon the government now.

Somalia would be thriving today, had the stake holders sought to improve the traditional structures by strengthening the procedures already in place and revitalizing the indigenous institutions. When Somalia erupted into war, all the modern institutions the elites built were destroyed. The ones left standing were the traditional institutions that were used by the U.S.-led humanitarian mission to deliver relief supplies to famine victims.

A fresh and meaningful nation-building exercise for the Somali would start with a confederacy, not the unitary, centralized system the political elites tried to build at Mogadishu. The confederacy arrangement would grant the local authorities (clan elders) the greatest autonomy to conduct their affairs as they have always done. This confederacy principle inhered in virtually all of Africa’s ancient empires -- Ashanti, Mali, Ghana, Songhai, and Great Zimbabwe. The modern variant is the Swiss model – a confederation of 13 cantons.

All the Somali people want is peace and their freedom, with no one lording over them. The AU itself needs to catch this free Somali spirit and rid the continent of the unrepentant despots and religious zealots that lord over its people. Only 16 of the 54 African countries are democratic. The broader international community should reject any waxan created in Somalia by force of arms -- a position reiterated by the AU at its summit last month in Banjul, Gambia. In traditional Somali society, issues are resolved with discussions, not bazookas