|
Somalia Mahammad Abdille Hasau's Dervish Resistance to Colonial Occupation
Given the frequency and virulence of the Ethiopian raids, it
was natural that the first pan-Somali or Greater Somalia effort
against colonial occupation, and for unification of all areas
populated by Somalis into one country, should have been directed
at Ethiopians rather than at the Europeans; the effort was
spearheaded by the Somali dervish resistance movement. The
dervishes followed Mahammad Abdille Hasan of the puritanical
Salihiyah tariqa (religious order or brotherhood). His
ability as an orator and a poet (much-valued skills in Somali
society) won him many disciples, especially among his own
Dulbahante and Ogaden clans (both of the Daarood clan-family).
The British dismissed Hasan as a religious fanatic, calling him
the "Mad Mullah." They underestimated his following, however,
because from 1899 to 1920, the dervishes conducted a war of
resistance against the Ethiopians and British, a struggle that
devastated the Somali Peninsula and resulted in the death of an
estimated one-third of northern Somalia's population and the near
destruction of its economy. One of the longest and bloodiest
conflicts in the annals of sub-Saharan resistance to alien
encroachment, the dervish uprising was not quelled until 1920
with the death of Hasan, who became a hero of Somali nationalism.
Deploying a Royal Air Force squadron recently returned from
action in combat in World War I, the British delivered the
decisive blow with a devastating aerial bombardment of the
dervish capital at Taleex in northern Somalia.
|
