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🪵 The Threshold

British backing and UN action set July 1960 as Somalia's independence date

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tagsja-picks, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, category/causal-relationships
aliases@lewis_modern_1980, loc. 405

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British backing and UN action set July 1960 as Somalia’s independence date

Evidence

British Somaliland had come a long way towards realizing Somali nationalist aims, despite the tardy beginnings of the early 1950s, and with official British approval for eventual union with Somalia already indicated in 1957 and reiterated more strongly in 1959, the territory seemed now set fair on a course of a few years’ final preparation for independence. Few observers, certainly, anticipated that the Protectorate was to be thrust into independence in a matter of months, thus in the event forestalling Somalia. This view which envisaged a calm and gradual final phase of British tutelage, however, seriously underestimated the great surge of nationalist interest generated by Somalia’s forthcoming independence. Already in 1959, delegates from all the parties and political groups in the Protectorate had participated in the formation at Mogadishu of the National Pan-Somali Movement. In its charter this organization embraced the twin aims of campaigning by peaceful means for the independence and unification of all the Somali territories, and of creating firm ties with other African and Asian states. With these political manœuvres towards unification gathering increasing momentum it was evident, in the wider context of Somali affairs, that the Protectorate’s independence could not long be delayed. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 405 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The constitutional conference was followed by a hectic scramble in the Protectorate to carry out its decisions, and in the event British Somaliland became fully independent on 26 June, 1960. Five days later, on I July, Somalia followed suit, and having previously concluded separate agreements with the British and Italian governments, the two territories united on the basis to which their leaders had agreed. The two legislatures met in joint session at Mogadishu and formally amalgamated to form the National Assembly of the Republic, electing Adan ‘Abdulle ‘Isman (former President of the Somalia Assembly) as provisional President of the Republic. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 421 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

While in Somalia the limitation of the period of trusteeship to ten years imparted a strong sense of urgency, in British Somaliland, where no date had been set for independence, and where indeed the matter had scarcely been raised, progress proceeded at a much more leisurely pace. This coincided with the general view prevalent in British circles that development was likely to be all the more effective if conducted at a slow and steady pace. This gradualist approach was, it may be argued, well adapted to the particularly intractable economic and social circumstances of the Protectorate. But as events turned out, the last days of colonial rule in British Somaliland ended in a hectic scramble which might have been partly avoided had the pace been quickened earlier. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 393 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: A fixed trusteeship deadline forced Somalia while British Somaliland drifted; Somalia’s impending independence accelerated the Protectorate’s own timetable to independence — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 405; Somaliland and Somalia united into the Somali Republic in mid-1960. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 421 (+7 more)

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