Osman desired to continue his education but was unable to do so since colonial authorities limited native education to five years. Osman implored the nuns and the priests who ran the school to allow him to continue his studies, but they told him that further schooling for his kind was not possible. Restrictions on education ensured the production of servile Somalis. To add insult to injury, the authorities promulgated a new law that stipulated that natives must salute, in the style of the ancient Romans, any Italian they came across. The police publicly flogged any Somali who failed to perform such a humiliating act.

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 148