ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Somali-Egyptian political partnership ultimately failed to subsume the pan-Somali project into the pan-Arabic association. While the Somali-Ethiopian political partnership definitively failed during the 1960s, it was the Somali connection with Nasser's Egypt that constituted one of the main premises for the increasing association of Somali affairs with Middle Eastern politics over the following decades and up to the present. It is certain that prior to independence, the two Somali leaderships in southern and northern Somalia, respectively the Somali Youth League (SYL) and the Somali National League (SNL), were seriously committed to planning the union of the two Somalias and to achieve what they believed to be a first step towards total Somali unity. Having failed to master the mainstream of Somali nationalism in former Italian Somalia, Nasser rethought his strategy in order to face SYL predominance at the regional level.
