I honestly never really heard much about it except it being mentioned in my PoliSci class very briefly and people on Twitter debating about a speech Ilhan Omar made. I’ve seen comrade on Twitter saying Somaliland is Somalia, and I’m not about to argue, I’m just confused about this whole thing. Somaliland was an Italian colony or something like that, right? What the hell is going on?
It is unrecognized by most of the world including the African Union.
The assholes at American Enterprise Institute think the African Union is wrong https://www.aei.org/op-eds/on-somaliland-the-african-union-and-un-betrays-their-own-precedents/
This is so weird! As soon as I saw who wrote that article I knew it was bullshit lol
People will “recognize” Somaliland but not Palestine. Really makes you think.
never really heard Judy about it except a it
???
Somaliland was an Italian colony or something like that, right?
If you are referring to the unrecognised republic, then technically yes, but only for a brief period of seven months (August 1940–April 1941), otherwise it was a British colony from 1884 to 1960.
If you are referring to the entire region, then the eastern portion was indeed a Fascist (and prefascist) colony, which I have discussed previously:
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/665861
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1200499
As for the present situation, I am afraid I do not know much.
I swear to god I know how to spell, clearly my typing is messy since it results in “much” being auto-corrected to “Judy,” I apologize for that. I mentioned the Italian thing because of your post, but I’ll admit I didn’t read it in detail yet. I was also referring the whole thing, I guess. I know next to nothing about Somaliland. This current situation is very strange.
Somaliland has been de facto independent for decades now. This is not a new situation and it is a fairly stable status quo.
They fought what was essentially a war of national liberation first against British colonialism and then again when the union with the former Italian colony of Somalia (a union which the British essentially forced them into as a condition for granting independence) turned sour. As with many of these post-colonial conflicts it has a complex history but what it boils down to is Europeans purposely leaving their former colonies in as unstable a situation as possible, with states and borders that were not established by the people living there but by their former colonizers.
Ilhan Omar, based on what little i have heard her say on this issue, appears to be a Somali nationalist, so she rejects Somaliland independence. In and of itself that is not a problem, people are entitled to have a political position about conflicts like this, especially when they have ties to the countries or people involved. I understand wanting to unite your people. But the problem is that she appears to want to use the power of the US and the pressure, diplomatic or otherwise, that the US government can exercise in the region to support her prefered policies in and around Somalia. This is a very bad idea.
The US has meddled in the region long enough, including with direct military intervention, and as usual wherever it gets involved it only made things worse and left death and destruction in its wake. The only thing that Somalis in the US should be lobbying their government for is to get the hell out of Africa, because only a naive child could believe that the US has benevolent intent. The interests which the US is pursuing there are neo-colonial and thus utterly against those of the African people, both those of Somalia and Somaliland.
As Marxist-Leninists we understand the importance of the national question and i’m sure someone with more knowledge of the region could help us understand how to apply a correct Marxist analysis to the Somalia-Somaliland situation to come to a conclusion about the right position for us to take. Should we be pro-independence or against, i don’t know, i haven’t studied this enough to have an informed opinion. But all that is a moot point, because Somalia can’t have real sovereignty as long as US troops and US (and EU) funded proxy forces are still there. First they need to be kicked out like the French were in Niger.
