Great Somalia: Failure of a Dream ( I)

BY PABLO ARCONADA

The idea Pansomalismo , or the construction of " Greater Somalia " is a project to unite all Somali clans and ethnic groups and fit them in the same pan-Somali state. This family , like many others, has had its ups and downs hour hours , but has never been able to accomplish. In its flag are five points , one for each of the five Somalians Five Somalians ? We explain .

If you look , the flag of the current Somali state is represented by a white five-pointed star , one for each of the " Somalians " that should shape the status of Great Somalia. Five Somalians ? This we have to sound really strange since we have all ever heard a Somalia , the Horn of Africa. You really have to understand that Somalia today ( despite suffering from internal disintegration 1991 ) consists of two such Somalians : Somaliland , north , former British colony and the former Italian Somalia , which would be part of the rest the current state of Somalia.

But without three other Somalians that different governments have claimed fervently Mogadishu since independence and the country's unification in 1960. These are the Ethiopian Somali ( Ogaden regions and the Haud ) , some or all of the state of Djibouti (formerly French Somalia ) and the North Eastern Province , a vast expanse that is part of Kenya. Such claims are based not on a historic regions belonging to Somalia, because a united Somalia as a whole as such has never existed, but that this thesis is based on all that territory inhabited by Somali people must be integrated under the limits of a free and unified Somali state .

But who is Somali ? Migratory movements in the area have been very many centuries , and the continuous arrival of peoples who have been superimposed complicates the identification of a Somali "race." However, despite this variety , we can identify the main peoples inhabiting the Horn of Africa: dir- issa , populating and are most in Djibouti , the Darod , the largest ethnic groups in extent and occupying different regions to north and south of Somalia and even large areas in the Ogaden region , the gadabursi , also in the Ethiopian Ogaden , the Is'haq that would fall in the British Somaliland and finally , among others, and hauiya rahanueyn - Digil that live on the south coast .

Additionally, you should think what builds the identity of the Somali people , if there has traditionally been one of the European Somali national sentiment , or rather could discuss various aspects that constitute that identity as the conscience of a culture, a religion , language and the defense of common habits.

Obviously the ideology of " Somali nation " falls primarily by Islam as a unitary religion and the common language used by all of them and they all speak standard Somali , despite the various existing dialects.

Besides all the great pan-Somali did not begin to build until the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century , when it will appear that could be known as the " father of the Great Somalia " . Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan , known by the British as Mad Mullah , saw the need to unite all Somalis , among other things , defend against attacks of different foreign powers that had interested several decades in the control of the Horn of Africa. Ethiopians of Menelik II 's hand , will occupy the lands east of Ethiopia , regions of Haud and Ogaden before mentioned. The British Empire will be entered in Somaliland in 1884 creating a protectorate. France also create their own center in Djibouti with Somalia in 1888 and Italy , who had already settled in Eritrea in 1869 received a series of grants from the sultanates of Obbia , Midyurtina and Zanzibar to settle in the southern region of the Horn of Africa, allowing you to create another Somalia under Italian command.

It will be in this circumstance when the Mad Mullah , attending the dismemberment of his people, a tough and active resistance that lead to his death in 1921 , and will cause quite a few headaches among the British , Italians and Ethiopians will be launched . The struggle will continue even after his death (although low intensity ) until 1927 when it achieved to end the Somali resistance. However the end of the armed struggle led to the disappearance of the ideal of uniting all Somali people under one banner , which will very much alive throughout the entire twentieth century . While the more resistant towards this ideal , the less chance there was of bringing five Somalias .