Browsing by Subject "indigenous cultures"

Abstract The Somali Republic (as it were before 1991) became independent nation state in July 1960. This was a result of a union between former British Somaliland Protectorate in the north and the Italian Somaliland at the south. That unification has practically ended in 1991, which is when Somaliland elders unilaterally declared withdrawal from and nullifying the union between the two entities in 1960. At present however, former Italian Somaliland is in deep turmoil, while Somaliland has been relatively stable and peaceful since 1991. I will examine throughout my thesis the reason for that stabilization and its European perceptions. I will also analyze what I called Somaliland model of state-building and following Jhazbhay (2009), will argue that, Somaliland illustrates the efficacy of internally driven, culturally rooted, bottom-up approaches to post-war [state] building, reconciling indigenous cultures and traditions and modernity. Jhazbhay (2009) contrasts this with the assumption that there need be a strong, centralized, post-colonial state. As such, my argument in this thesis is based on this premise which will argue that, the political system in Somaliland is sustained because of the interplay between modernity and tradition. Further, the EU is the largest donor to Somalia including Somaliland, therefore, based on EU documents on Somalia, I will also present the EU Perceptions on Somaliland’s state-building process. Under the EU perspective, Somaliland is perceived as a successful state building model in the Somali context that has something valuable to contribute. The EU’s perceptions of Somaliland will have positive impact on other actors’ image of Somaliland.