Somaliland—the abandoned case: No case exposes the falsity of Western societies, like the case of Somaliland.
Hafeed Abdalla, a Sudanese researcher specializing in Africa and the Middle East, discusses the abandoned case of Somaliland in an article originally published in Sudanile and SahafiMedia, translated from Arabic to English.
By Hafeed Abdalla
There is no case that exposes the falsity of Western societies like the case of Somaliland. It is an area that has the components of a complete state (people-authority-land) and no Westerner allows a state to be established there.
This is certainly not out of their concern for what they say and claim, “the unity of Somalia.” They are the ones who helped establish Eritrea, and they are the ones who separated South Sudan, and they are currently seeking to separate Darfur in western Sudan, but when the issue of Somaliland comes up, talk of self-determination of peoples stops completely, and secession becomes taboo.
Another distant but close comparison is that there is no Arab country that practices democracy regularly like Somaliland, and here it is, preparing for the presidential elections in November 2024, but no one sheds light on the democratic practice in Somaliland. It is a peaceful and stable country, but every time the Western media says that it stands with Israel because it is the only neutral democratic state in the Middle East, despite being one of the countries in a state of constant war.
Question: Somaliland is the only democracy in this part of the Arab world, and we are only rivaled by Tunisia because democracy in Lebanon is based on sectarian quotas, and in Iraq, it is based on sectarian and regional quotas. We can say that there is limited democracy in Morocco and Mauritania, but Somaliland is a complete democracy.
Even in the East African region, there is no democracy except in Somaliland and Kenya, and what is happening in Kenya is a political practice mixed with the highest levels of corruption, and here Somaliland is once again sitting on the throne of democracy.
The Arabs do not pay attention to us except when news comes out like: “The Jerusalem Post”: Why should Israel care about Somaliland?
The Israeli newspaper “The Jerusalem Post” reported that “with the changes in the geopolitical context of the region, knitting together Israel, the UAE, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt in a network of shared interests, Somaliland could be an important region.”
Such news makes our Arab brothers more attentive to Somaliland than reading news about purely democratic elections in Somaliland.
Let us answer the question, why do Westerners not want to recognize the Republic of Somaliland? Here the truth is revealed, which is completely different from the story of “Somali unity,” stability, and security.
The reason is exactly the opposite: the establishment of the Republic of Somaliland will achieve security and stability, and what is more important than this, is that it will be a model for democracy in the region.
We were at a conference in London on global liberation issues and defining freedom fighters, and Somaliland was mentioned. Do you know what one of the conference attendees told me?
The issue of Somaliland has nothing to do with freedom fighters “because you are not fighting at all”!
This means that if Somaliland starts killing those who object to its establishment, the world will recognize it, and this in itself is a great disaster.
