In 2013, I traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to meet a senior government minister from Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG). He had recently left Mogadishu and I asked him to reflect on his years working to rebuild Somalia’s government, his successes and failures, the country’s legal development, and what the Islamic Courts Union and a series of failed international humanitarian interventions had left behind. He spoke about his country’s legacies of colonialism, violence, democracy, and authoritarian rule; his political strategies; and his struggle to survive attacks from militants who claimed shari‘a as their inspiration.