Ahmed M.I. Egal

Introduction

In Act I of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Marcellus, one of the sentries at Elsinore Castle, utters the immortal line “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, meaning that there exists in Denmark (the setting of the play) a deep malaise that is having a profoundly negative effect

There is an article which appeared in the Australian journal “THE CONVERSATION” on 9 September 2016 titled “Somaliland wants to secede – here’s why caution is necessary

"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

INTRODUCTION

During the last two weeks we have lost two titans of African politics: the first, and somewhat lesser giant, was Ambassador Axmed Maxamed Adan (Qaybe) of Somaliland, and the second, was the inestimable Madiba – Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

When I was a teenager I saw a movie with the above title with which I fell in love. I later learned that it was from a genre that was disparagingly termed ‘Spaghetti Western’ in Hollywood since they were made in Italy.

The upcoming London Conference on Somalia, and the UK’s urging of the Somaliland government to attend, has understandably generated a lot of debate and comment within the Somaliland community, both within and outside the country.