From 1946 to 1948 the Somali Youth Club (SYC) grew from a small Mogadishu based urban self-help group into a burgeoning nationalist organisation calling for the unification of all the Somali-speaking lands into Greater Somalia, changing its name to the 'Somali Youth League' (SYL) in the process. The reason for this rapid expansion and radicalisation was a conjuncture of several factors, but it is most immediately attributable to the international deliberations over the future of the Italian East African Empire. In 1946 the international community began to address the future of the Italian Empire, and the British raised the possibility of creating a Greater Somalia administration (under British trusteeship) as a basis for future independence. The SYC, which had until then concentrated on a more limited and arguably more achievable political programme for the furtherance of Somali interests in ex-Italian Somalia, became mesmerised by the idea of Greater Somalia. Greater Somalia became a popular rallying call for the expanding nationalist project. However, as this article argues, although the Greater Somalia project galvanised the SYC into a mass nationalist organisation (the SYL), the expansion of its activities into the greater Somalia hinterland, such as the Ethiopian Ogaden region, brought different priorities and perspectives to project. The differing histories of clans and regions dissipated the cohesion, discipline and aims of the SYL at a crucial historical juncture. Ultimately the SYL was unable to create a Greater Somalia, nor prevent the repartition of the Somali-lands and the return of former colonial and imperial powers.
Every somalis Dream, to see a strong United somalia
