Somali Youth League
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Somali Youth League
Ururka Dhalinyarada Soomaaliyeed عصبة الشبيبة الصومالية |
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| President | Mohamed Diinooz |
| Founded | 1943 |
| Dissolved | 1969 |
| Headquarters | Mogadishu, Somalia |
| Ideology | Somali nationalism |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | Red, White, Blue |
| Party flag | |
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The Somali Youth League (SYL) (Somali: Ururka Dhalinyarada Soomaaliyeed, Arabic: عصبة الشبيبة الصومالية), initially known as the Somali Youth Club (SYC), was the first political party in Somalia. It played a key role in the nation's road to independence during the 1950s and 1960s.
During the Second World War, Britain occupied Italian Somaliland and militarily administered the territory from 1941 to 1950. Faced with growing Italian political pressure inimical to continued British tenure and Somali aspirations for independence, the Somalis and the British came to see each other as allies. The first modern Somali political party, the Somali Youth Club (SYC), was subsequently established in Mogadishu in 1943.
At its foundation, the party had 13 members: four Darod, three Digil and Mirifle, two Reer Xamar, three Abgaal and one Isaaq. The group's founding members were significantly influenced by the earlier religious rebellion at the turn of the century of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (the "Mad Mullah"), including the SYC's founding father, Abdulqadir Sakhawadin. To empower the new party, the better educated police and civil servants were permitted to join it. By 1948, following an official visit to the territory by the Four Power Commission, the SYC was a well-structured political unit, Abdullahi Issa was elected as its leader and renamed itself as the Somali Youth League (SYL) and began to open offices not only in Italian and British Somaliland, but also in the Ogaden and in the Northern Frontier District (NFD). The SYL's stated objectives were to unify all Somali territories, including the NFD and the Ogaden; to create opportunities for universal modern education; to develop the Somali language by a standard national orthography; to safeguard Somali interests; and to oppose the restoration of Italian rule. SYL policy banned clannishness so that the thirteen founding members, although representing four of Somalia's five major clans, refused to disclose their clan affiliations. Although the SYL enjoyed considerable popular support from northerners, the principal parties in British Somaliland were the Somali National League (SNL), mainly associated with the Isaaq clan, and the United Somali Party (USP), which had the support of the Dir (Gadabuursi) and Darod (Dulbahante and Warsangali) clans. In 1945, the Potsdam conference was held, where it was decided not to return Italian Somaliland to Italy. The United Nations opted instead in November 1949 to grant Italy trusteeship of Italian Somaliland, but only under close supervision and on the condition—first proposed by the SYL and other nascent Somali political organizations that were then agitating for independence, such as the Marehan Union Party, Hizbia Digil Mirifle Somali (HDMS) (which later became Hizbia Dastur Mustaqbal Somali) and the SNL—that Somalia achieve independence within ten years.
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