History of Somalia
A History of Somalia
Author: Russell ShorttThe area of Somalia has being inhabited for over 2,500 years by Afar, Cushitic and Somali ethnic groups. From the first century, Romans and Greek were trading in and out of the ports of Hafun and Mosylon-Bandar Gori on the Somali coast. The Aksumite Empire controlled the north-west of the region from the third century until the arrival in the seventh century of Islam. From the thirteenth century until the colonial period the area was ruled by city states which were controlled by Somali clans. The age of imperialism transformed Somalia, Britain established a protectorate called British Somaliland in 1886, following the withdrawal of Egyptian garrisons from the area. And Italian Somaliland originated in 1889, when Italy concluded agreements with two local rulers, who placed their territories under Italian protection. Following World War II although Somalis aided the Allied powers in their struggle against the Axis powers, Britain retained control of both British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland as protectorates. In 1950 the Italians returned to Somalia under a UN trusteeship, with the commitment to bring the colony to independence within ten years. British Somaliland became independent on June 26, 1960, and the former Italian Somaliland followed suit five days later. On July 1, 1960, the two territories united to form the Somali Republic, albeit within boundaries drawn up by Italy and Britain. Many clans claimed to have been forced into the new state and inter-clan rivalry was a growing problem. In addition, many of the clans wished to be re-united with kinsmen in French Somaliland, Ethiopia and Kenya.
In late 1969, following the assassination of President Shermarke, a military government assumed power in a coup d’etat led by General Siad Barre and Chief of Police Jama Korshel. Barre became President and Korshel vice-president. The revolutionary army established large-scale public works programmes and successfully implemented an urban and rural literacy campaign, which helped dramatically increase the literacy rate from 5% to 55% by the mid-1980s. However, this was countered by the implementation of a brutal Marxist dictatorship which demanded upon the supremacy of the party above local clan loyalties which were an endemic feature of Somalia. In 1977, Somalia attacked Ethiopia with the aim of liberating and uniting the Somali lands that had been partitioned by the former colonial powers. Somalia soon overran Ethiopian forces and were nearing Addis Ababa when Cuban and Soviet forces came to the aid of Ethiopia. Somali forces were beaten back, sending hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees flooding into Somalia. After the defeat, many of the clan groups formed into guerrilla units with the intention of toppling the regime. By 1988, the country had been plunged into civil war, Siad Barre was eventually ousted in 1991, he immediately started a counter-revolution in an attempt to regain power. The situation became increasingly more chaotic evolving into a humanitarian crisis and eventually into a state of anarchy. The situation became even more complicated when the faction controlling the former area of British Somaliland declared it’s independence calling it the Republic of Somaliland. The UN intervened in 1993 in an attempt to alleviate famine conditions however amid fears of imperialism, the majority of Somalis opposed the foreign presence. Gun battles on the streets of Mogadishu, believed to be led by the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, resulted in the deaths of twenty-four Pakistani and nineteen American troops. After further casualties, the UN withdrew all forces in March, 1995. In the subsequent years many areas broke away from Somalia declaring themselves autonomous.
About the Author:
Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net http://www.visitscotlandtours.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - A History of Somalia
Somalia: Finding a
Solution
Author: Ahmed SadWe spend so much of our time debating about the politics of Somalia, and sometimes it can seem like mere drudgery. We rarely think of coming up with something new that can help us learn anything about our past mistakes as Somalis in order to solve the crisis of our country. For this in mind, coming up with a fresh start is the activity that changes our minds into exciting resources and activities that help us grow and do things better. The aim of this article is just that, to help us do things better, particularly in how we approach to the problem of our country. This isn't just about keeping anyone or any clan happy – we'll address the issue of whether ‘clan’ is all about working for the country or against the country. What we're interested in is any action and any activities which can make a difference to our lives: anything that opens up opportunities for peace, helps us feel pride as Somalis or makes our daily lives a place of solidarity and unity for the general interests of the public. I hope that you find this article helpful in learning to change your day-to-day political ideas and opinions into an experience of realised opportunity.
The primary purpose of this article is to allow you to use your current and past experiences of the crisis of Somalia as a basis for further understanding of what the problem of Somalia is really all about.
The aims of this article, therefore, are:
to enable you to reflect upon your past experiences of the issue, as a Somali citizen, in order to learn something in your experiences, something that can contibute to restoring peace to Somalia ;
to support you in improving your avoidance to clan-related menaces, and exploring how this impacts on particular aspects of your personality as a member of the Somali people;
to enable you to critically evaluate clan-based bias in relation to your own good judgement, and other, topic contexts, and to review your own personal and professional knowledge of the topic.
Practically, the objectives of this article are:
to develop and enhance your knowledge about clan-based ignorance and your learning skills to combat such ignorance;
to prepare you to engage with honesty inquiry in relation to your topic-related practice.
An essential resource for this article is you, and the knowledge, understanding and skills that you already have. This article is designed to utilise your existing experience as a platform from which you will move off on a new and different personal development track. When we talk of experience, we don't want to limit this to past experience. Rather, we include the experience, stories and images that all of us, Somalis, witness all of the time as far as the situation of Somalia is concerned. Such experience can include a very broad range of areas in the political landscape of Somalia.
Finding the stem of the problem of Somalia can be useful in a variety of ways, and finding the stem of the problem is important to start quite simply, which is why it is essential for every Somali to be given the opportunity to identify the source of the problem rather than a few politicians trying to solve the puzzle by themselves. However, finding the stem of the problem is not meant to be a piece of artwork, just a way of every Somali citizen to clarify his or her thinking about this complicated subject. Did you learn anything new about the problem of Somalia? About the skills you bring to solving it? About how you organize yourself for the task? About how it might be done better next time? About any common problems you encounter?
Don't fret if you cannot think of anything yet. We will come back to this later in the article and see if it is useful in helping your thinking about a variety of alternatives to sorting out the crisis of Somalia
So, one crucial outcome of every Somali citizen thinking about the solution is the opportunities it presents for problem-solving power, including recognizing the previous experience we have gained as Somalis to reach the current level of skill with which we do the job. Whether we realize it or not, we can learn something from whatever we do. We on the course team see it as our role to help each other identify new ways to kill the problem.
It is indisputable that every Somali has gained enough experience that war is very destructive, that the more the war goes on, the more the country falls into a dark hole of anarchy. On the other hand, the more the Somali people avoid clan affiliasions, the better because without clan groups and identities, there will be no fuel to keep the war lamp burning.
If every Somali citizen uses his or her good judgement, there will be no bias in favor of or against any clan, because clan-based ignorance is a desease that keeps us from seeing the big picture, which is the fact that we're one people with one language, one religion, one culture and one country. The clan thing is really an obstacle to peace.
If you have experience of how to solve the problem, never hesitate to share it because experience matters, and if you find yourselve in the process of solving the problem, the more experience you get from your peace searching is also a good thing that matters. Finally, evolving every Somali citizen in solving the problem is honorable, because when many brains are thinking about finding a solution, the solution itself comes around unexpectedly...
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Somalia: Finding a Solution