Somali contemporaries took the democratic process so for granted they never considered military intervention.

Evidence

The crisis emphasized again, if we need reminding, how critical in Somali politics is the role of the president of the republic. Aden [Osman] gave the full authority of his office in support of those who believed a government crisis at this time was not in the best interest of the Republic. He reacted neither precipitously nor thoughtlessly, but when he called for Abdirazak [Hussen] to withdraw his resignation, his request was so phrased that any Somali would have been hard pressed to refuse him. … The gut strength of the democratic process was so taken for granted during the crisis that even the most critical local pundits had not considered this aspect worthy of comment. We are required to admit again that despite the peregrinations of political life in Somalia, its parliamentary institutions and procedures appear soundly based and the democratic way indeed a way of life. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 897

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The brutal irony — that Somalis assumed democracy was so secure that coups were unthinkable — directly foreshadows the 1969 coup. This is the kind of dramatic-irony historical passage that makes the whole book’s arc visible.
• SHARE: Send to anyone interested in Somali political history — the fact that in 1964 no one even floated a military solution, five years before the coup, is a startling reversal.