La construcción de enemigos externos como vía para la cohesión nacional en Somalia (1950-1991)

Abstract

This research aims to analyse the construction of enemy states in the social and political consciousness of post-colonial Somalia. After independence, Somalia defended an irredentist project that sought to unify the populations of Italian Somalia, British Somaliland, the Ogaden and Ethiopian Haud, Djibouti and the North Frontier District of Kenya. This study is based on the idea that national cohesion as such did not exist in Somalia due to the clannish nature of pre-1960 Somali societies. Therefore, both Kenya and Ethiopia ended up being built as enemies. Throughout this research, we will analyse how the creation of external enemies was used as an internal cohesion strategy in the Somali state and to what extent this policy worked. The methodology will be based on a review of the literature and then further investigated through political speeches, official documentation, and newspaper sources.

Keywords

• enemies
• ethiopia
• kenya
• national cohesion
• somalia