Pan-Somali nationalism drew solace – and life – from the fact that Somalis were a homogenous race that shared a common culture, language, creed and a manageable, geographically proximate land.
Pan-Somalism argued that the Northern Frontier Districts (NFD) of Kenya, Djibouti and Haud and Reserve area, along with that part of Eastern Ethiopia called, Ogadenia formed the missing three parts of a Greater Somalia as is intimated by the five-pronged white star of the Somali Republic flag of 1960.
That conviction was the cause of many a strife – political, armed and diplomatic in the region – the most memorable of which was the 1977 Somalia military aggression against Ethiopia.
The paper uploaded below, From Irredentism to secession: The Decline of Pan-Somali Nationalism by Peter J Shraeder, is – to say the least – an enlightening , eye-opener to neo pan-nationalists in Mogadishu, Somalia, that still harbour grand dreams of a Greater Somalia under the rule and thumb of a Mogadishu-seated administration.
Unbelievably, the UN is playing, this time round, in resuscitating a dead cause staring them right in the eyefrom Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somaliland – not forgetting a fumbling monster that no amount of Dollars is able to prop up in Mogadishu.
If Pan-Somalism is, in fact, what the UN, the AU, the EU and the world want, that is what they will not get in hundred life times to come, say the facts on the ground and the reality embodied in the Republic of Somaliland, the Republic of D’Jibouti, the Republic of Ethiopia and the Republic of Kenya.
Does the UN wish to say different? The African Union?
Please download the paper here:
