Somaliland

Moreover, Somaliland and Somalia are two largely incompatible entities that differ enormously in terms of fundamental political and social features. Somaliland has been stable and democratic state over the past two decades. In contrast, Somalia has been turmoil since in 1990. Despite this vast devastation in Somalia, particularly in the southern regions, Somaliland has only further gained de facto control of the territory that it inherited from British protectorate administration after being granted its sovereignty in 1960, which further adds to the legal and political justifications to its bid for statehood. Although both countries share the same language and general ethnic traits, the different colonial paths experienced by Somaliland and Somalia served to accentuate a variety of cultural and social distinctions and incompatibilities between the two peoples. Newcomers to the Somali context often underestimate and fail to explore how Mogadishu and Hargeisa vary from one another, but the fact cannot be avoided that in many ways the Somalilanders must be considered a distinct and solidly separate people from the Somalia peoples. In fact, the time has come to re-evaluate the ways in which these divergent cultural and historical heritages acted as underlying factors and practical causes of the destruction of the Somali Republic and failures of the union.