Somalia bears scars of a former colonial state

NAIROBI, Kenya | When Virginio Bresolin passed away recently in Merka, a coastal Somali city run by al Qaeda-inspired rebels, so did the last of a generation of Italians who emigrated under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

He worked as a blacksmith, spoke fluent Somali and rusty Italian, and few people noticed when he died.

Fifty years after independence, indifference characterizes how most feel about the former colonial ruler of Somalia, a country where 60 percent of the population is under 18 and 80 percent has known nothing but conflict.

Abdullahi Halane Mohamoud, a 62-year-old Merka resident, hardly takes issue with the Italians invading in the first place but only seems to regret there wasn’t more in it for Somalis.

“Italian colonization only used people as servants and never provided proper education opportunities. Most people who lived during that time were left illiterate,” he said.

Somalia’s independence started comparatively well and, in 1967, even produced the first post-colonial African leader to step down gracefully.

Adan Abdulle Osman accepted his electoral defeat, transferred power to Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke and retired to his farm near Merka, where he died in 2007, at age 99.

The hand-over ceremony was held in the garden of Villa Somalia, the former residence of Italian colonial governors and now the fortified redoubt from which the country’s Islamist president is battling even more Islamist rebels.

Somalia, mired in violence for three decades, is now best known to the outside world for being the place that inspired the Hollywood war movie “Black Hawk Down” and the reason the term “failed state” had to be coined.

Like any colonization, Italy’s left scars in Somalia, too.

One instance of colonial oppression vividly remembered by many older Somalis is the construction of a canal still known as Asayle — a Somali word for a mourning veil — in reference to the men decimated by forced labor there.

“My uncle worked there and has told me harrowing tales. He used to say that officers would trample on their backs when crossing the water channel to avoid the mud,” said Mohamed Abdi Elmi, 56.

But Somalia’s case was very different from most others on the continent, as evidenced notably by the nation’s “three independences.”

In November 1949, Somalia was granted independence by the United Nations but placed under an Italian-led trusteeship.

On June 26, 1960, the northern protectorate of Somaliland acquired independence from Britain. Five days later, on July 1, Italian Somalia became fully independent and merged with Somaliland.

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