Where in the end everything depended on the protective (and aggressive) firepower to which individuals had access, Rambo was an appealing role model for the young in a world where the success stories were those of gangsters and entrepreneurs who had made it to become important faction leaders and warlords. Although a surprising number of private schools had sprung up in Mogadishu and even a few establishments calling themselves ‘universities’, education had lost its value as a passport to success. This decline had been in train in the Siyad years, and in the ruined capital in which the Arta government now set up its stall some of the most successful big men were illiterate.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 691