Countdown to Somaliland's collapse

By Osman Hassan
May 08, 2011

True to their distinguishing nickname, the one-clan secessionists in their enclave in north-west Somalia, otherwise calling themselves "Somaliland", have always excelled in salesmanship and self-promotion. The business of salesmanship, as we all know, is often based on the delicate balancing of truth, exaggerated claims, showmanship, persuasion, misinformation and sometimes downright lies meant to be guile the impressionable and uniformed. No more have those skills been effectively put to use than in marketing Somaliland's case to the international community: legitimising their illegal breakaway from Somalia and promoting and justifying their self-righteous claim for recognition.

Some of the big lies that became part of the separatists' folklore that prop up the secession include, inter alia, the claims that the secession is supported by all the clans in the NW region (former British Somaliland); that Somaliland's transitory four-day lasting independence in June 1960 had been recognised by over 50 countries, first and foremost Great Britain; that the defunct borders of British Somaliland that ceased to exist after union are still valid to the present day and recognised by the African Union; that the Act of Union between British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland was never ratified and hence the union had no legal basis; that the Ethiopian trade office in Hargeisa is an embassy implying they had been recognised by that country; that their  representatives in selected countries are ambassadors, suggesting that their host countries had recognised Somaliland. And so the list goes on.

Of all the above-mentioned lies, the one claiming the support of all the clans for the secession is the one that will ultimately unravel it once the unionist clans under occupation or duress free themselves from the yoke of their occupiers. All the other lies are merely for domestic public consumption to gratify their collective self-delusion. Successive "foreign ministers" from the enclave since the declaration of secession from Somalia, including the current one, as well as their media, intelligentsia and diaspora, have missed no opportunity to recycle these fibs as matters of fact.

Much as other Somalis might look askance at the futility of these crude baseless fabrications, or question the sanity of any one falling for such patent concoctions, yet one has to understand its context and roots. Ordinary, uninformed people in the enclave have been fed for decades unbridled xenophobia against other Somalis in the Horn, particularly those in southern Somalia. They are therefore susceptible to, and easily swayed by cheap false propaganda when it strikes deep chords in their hearts. Such actions when often repeated can brainwash the masses and in doing so garner, as has happened, unwavering support for the clan's secession, its quest for statehood and recognition.Continued