As Mogadishu residents celebrate their July 1st independence day with pomp while Somalilanders are in mourning.
For Somalilanders there are three distinct days that are associated with different moods by the entire country and the SL-Diaspora.
These magical days are 26th June, 1st July and 18th May, three days that are commemorated annually in varied styles due to the importance attached to activities that occurred in each of the days and related months 52 years ago-1960.
This is the day that Somaliland gained independence from its colonial master in 1960. Somalilanders commemorate this day in style with the government declaring a 2 days holiday thus allow citizens time off for celebrations.
On the 26th June each year the entire country is adorned with flags, citizens all over are draped with the Green-White-Red colours of the country’s flag from headscarves, T-shirts, Caps etc.
Meetings at the national and regional gardens are held with leaders making patriotic speeches to citizens satiated with diverse entertainments that range from traditional dances, acrobatics, security forces march past to military band songs.
In the evening the presidency in Hargeisa and regional state houses hold festivities that extend late into the night. For those not able to attend the state functions estate entertainment is galore.
Come this day! And as Somalilanders watch Italian Somalis celebrate in a similar style in their 26th June fashion, they are seething from the inside, why?
In 1st July 1960 only five days after Somaliland gained independence from Britain, a union later fateful with Somalia was entered into.
This is the day 52 years ago that Somalilanders lost their freedom and national pride thus the tag of the Blackest day in the country’s history.
Regaining the lost independence was a costly affair that saw thousands of Somalilanders lose their lives, thousands others maimed for life not to mention the dislocation that made them IDPs and refugees in many countries worldwide.
The attendant loss of property both public and private is unmentionable in a country that entered the annals of history as the only one to have its president (Siyad Barre) bomb its citizens after unlashing the then national air force jets in Hargeisa.
This is the sweetest day in Somaliland and for Somalilanders everywhere who commemorate in the same fashion as on the 26th June.
This is the day 21 years ago our gallant fighters of the Somaliland National Movement-SNM supported by the common man and woman declared the country’s independence thus subsequent separation from Somalia after defeat of Siyad Barre’s forces in a fierce guerrilla war in the eighties.
For Somalilanders it’s KUDOS 26th June and 18th May and good RIDDANCE 1st July
EDITORIAL of the Hornnewspaper an English newspaper published by the Geeska media group in Hargeisa