AXMED ASHKIR BOOTAAN

Somalia: Stato regionale o «cantonizzazione clanica»?

N. 168

Summary — Axmed Askir Bootaan, former Minister of Education, father of two constitutions and now a refugee in Italy, analyses in his article what is happening in his country as well as what could happen once peace is restored. May be due to not such unidentifiable foreign advisers, the future of Somalia could be modelled on a constitutional apparatus which considers regionalism as a system which guarantees democracy since it favours a subdivision of power. But Bootaan warns against any superficial interpretation of regionalism and regional autonomy that, nowadays, means and in this definition the causes of state disintegration are present. Autonomy, in its forms and methods in under discussion even in those states that, for quite a time chosen it; for Somalia. autonomy could be an acknowledgment of a subdivision of sovereignty implying the end of a state that, one and only among the African states, has singled out because of its ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic homogeneity. The final part of the article is an appeal to unity, caution, gradualness: it is the voice of someone who, even during the present painful events, does not lose his common sense and love for his country.