What Does Somalia Mean by Unity?

For years, I have argued that Somaliland should make an argument that is both historical and deeply political: if Somalia invokes “unity” as the basis for demanding Somaliland’s reintegration, then Somaliland should ask what Somalia actually means by unity.

This is not merely a semantic question. It goes to the heart of the historical relationship between Somaliland and Somalia and to the credibility of the narrative now presented to the international community.

Somaliland did not begin its modern political history by rejecting Somali unity. It did almost the opposite. It was among the strongest advocates of a broader Somali national project: Soomaaliweyn, or Greater Somalia. That history directly challenges a central assumption underlying Somalia’s contemporary narrative: that Somaliland is the party that abandoned Somali unity and thereby created the division that exists today.

The real story is one of an unrealized Greater Somalia project, a subsequently failed Somaliland-Somalia union, and a political relationship whose collapse eventually produced Somaliland’s restoration of independence in 1991.

This is why the question today should not simply be whether Somaliland believes in unity. The more important question is: what kind of unity does Somalia mean?

Somaliland and the Original Project of Soomaaliweyn

Somaliland and Somalia entered the twentieth century under different colonial administrations — Britain in the Somaliland Protectorate, Italy (and later the United Nations) in the Trust Territory of Somalia — and developed distinct political, social, and institutional experiences.

Yet colonial separation did not prevent Somali nationalists from imagining a common political future. On 26 June 1960, Somaliland achieved independence from Britain as the State of Somaliland. Five days later, on 1 July 1960, it united with the former Trust Territory to form the Somali Republic.

This sequence is frequently remembered as evidence that the two territories were naturally destined to become one state. That interpretation is incomplete. The political aspiration behind Somaliland’s decision was not simply to combine two territories. It was connected to a much larger Somali nationalist vision: a Greater Somali State encompassing the five principal Somali-inhabited territories divided by colonial boundaries — British Somaliland, the former Italian Somaliland, French Somaliland (now Djibouti), the Somali-inhabited territories under Ethiopian administration, and the Northern Frontier District of Kenya.

The distinction is crucial. The objective was not merely Somaliland plus Somalia. The aspiration was Soomaaliweyn, and Somaliland’s participation in the 1960 union must be understood within that wider nationalist context — not as an act of political surrender to another Somali territory, but as one step toward a much larger project of Somali political unity.

That broader project never materialized. Djibouti remained outside the Somali Republic. Somali-inhabited territories remained within Ethiopia and Kenya. What actually emerged in 1960 was a state composed of two territories. That difference between the aspiration and the political outcome is essential to the debate today.

Egal‘s Testimony: When Somaliland Went Looking for Unity

Most of the  testimonies demonstrate Somaliland’s original commitment to Somali unity more clearly than that of Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal (1928-2002). Egal was not a peripheral observer: he became Prime Minister of the independent State of Somaliland on 26 June 1960, later served as Prime Minister of the Somali Republic from 1967 to 1969, and, after Somaliland’s restoration of independence, became its second President in 1993, remaining in office until his death in 2002.

His testimony is particularly powerful because it captures an earlier Egal — one who believed deeply in Soomaaliweyn. He recalled that in 1957, the Somali National League conference in Burao raised the question of whether Somalis in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the south shared Somaliland’s desire for Greater Somali unity. Somaliland’s leaders agreed to send a delegation to Mogadishu to seek the organization of a Pan-Somali conference. The delegation travelled to Mogadishu, met political leaders, and returned the following year with representatives from Somaliland and Djibouti, while questions remained........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)