Postby Leftist » Sat Sep 01, 2012 9:19 pm
Garun,
Great topic. For a forum filled to the brim with qabilistes & dhabodhilifs, it's heartening to see a fellow pan-Somalist with the same lofty vision. Your avatar pic will, inshallah, be realised.
Given the successful strategy by the powers-that-be of balkanising Somalia into various Somali-stan hamlets, it will take multiple decades, at the very least, to reverse the harm. For this to be even remotely feasible, we will need another Barre(the pre-1977 version) and a strong ruthless central government that has the ability to press young men into military service. Look at Eriteria: with a tiny population, they defeated the 80 mil Xabashi behemoth........twice How? Conscription.
However,if the current federal-ising of Somalia takes root, then forget it. We're done for, and will have to live under the thumb of Ethiopia and the EU/UN paymasters for centuries to come. The only way out is a strong central government, and given the after-effects of the 30 year civil war, this won't happen anytime soon.
But let's assume that in 2070(when most everybody reading this will be dead) we have a strong central government as well as a competent well-equipped army. There are still a few factors to consider:
Kenyan-Ethiopian alliance: We cannot fight a two-front war against 80 million Xabash to the West, and 35 million Bantu to the South. Even if we make like Hitler and sign a non-aggression pact with one, will either of them fall for it? It's a tricky scenario, but with the right amount of diplomatic finesse and subterfuge, maybe it can work.
Somalis in the NFD: This will be the deciding factor. Where do their loyalties lie? If the majority think of themselves as Kenyan, then the quest is over before it even begins. We do have one advantage: the 600k+ Somali refugees in dadaab/ifo/kakuma with above-average birth-rates. By 2070, that 600k will have mushroomed into 15 million(guesstimation, assuming 6 percent birth-rate, minus a few million to account for deaths)
Allies: Kenya will have the UK, the AU, the entire commonwealth and most of the UN member nations to back it up....who do we have? Maybe give China first dibs on natural resource exploration in return for political/military backing? Or something.
Again, this won't happen in our lifetimes. Best-case scenario is to sow the seeds that will lead to a strong central government and disrupt the on-going balkanisation of Somalia.
Why are so many people on this forum fixated by grandeur and impossible dreams, especially a dream of a quasi-continent all coming together to join as one country. What is that gonna honestly do?
