This view of African unity which expresses the long tradition of Somali cultural unity, and the desire to move from nationhood to statehood which is the crux of the Pan-Somali aim, runs counter to the process of national unification in other African states. For the general problem elsewhere in Africa is the construction of nations from the polyglot and polytribal territorially defined states, with their arbitrary frontiers, which are the legacy of colonialism. This difference between Somali nationalism and African nationalism elsewhere, however, while of academic interest, would in itself hardly have been important enough to isolate the Somali people at the bar of Pan-African opinion. The real difficulty lay in the conflict between the Somali aim to unite with their kinsmen across the frontiers of Kenya and Ethiopia, and the passionate attachment of the new African leaders to such colonially defined boundaries. To Kenya and Ethiopia, and by analogy elsewhere, the Pan-Somali movement threatened African territorial sovereignty.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 490