The Goal’s of the Somali Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC)
By chance or perhaps fate, I stumbled upon an online archive of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party’s (SRSP) magazine — Halgan (Somali for Struggle) — a few weeks back and have been enthusiastically reading it since. I intend to write something about it at some point more broadly as it was the official organ of the party which ruled Somalia between 1969–1991. But as I was reading the magazine’s 12th issue this afternoon I stumbled upon a list of targets it believed the government had achieved which were set in the heady earlier days of the revolution. Those targets, called the “First Charter of the Revolution,” were separated into the internal and external goals of the revolutionary Somali government. The following list is directly lifted from the magazine, warts and all. I was particularly amused by the ironic paradox of targets 6 and 7. Here you go:
Internal Policy
1. To constitute a society based on the right of work and the principle of social justice considering the environments and social life of the Somali people.
2. To prepare and orientate the development of economic, social and cultural programme to reach a rapid progress of the country;
3. Liquidation of illiteracy and to develop an enlightened patrimonial and cultural heritage of the Somali people;
4. To constitute, with appropriate and adequate measures the basic development of the writing Somali language;
5. Liquidation of all kinds of corruption, all forms of anarchy, the malicious system of tribalism in every form and other phenomena of bad customs in state activities;
6. To abolish all political parties, and ( the next one made me laugh in light of this article)
7. To conduct at appropriate time free and impartial election
External Policy
1. Support for international solidarity and national liberation;
2. Oppose and fight all forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism;
3. To struggle to maintain the Somali National Unity;
4. To recognise strongly the principle of peaceful coexistence between all people;
5, To continue and preserve the policy of positive neutrality and
6. To respect and recognise all legal international commitments undertaken by the Somali Republic.
Originally published at https://noenchantedpalace.substack.com.
