B
ENIN CITY, or Edo as it was known in its heyday at the start of the 17th century, was a confident metropolis, a place of creativity and military power. In 1600 a Dutch visitor described an impressive central avenue seven or eight times broader than Warmoesstraat, one of the main shopping streets in Amsterdam, and a palace for the Oba
, or head of the ruling dynasty, “so large, that you can feel no End”. The walls were decorated with ivory sculptures and elaborate metal plaques depicting hunters, musicians, courtiers and animals including leopards, elephants and crocodiles.
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30 years after declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, Somaliland can take pride in an impressive but not flawless democratisation record. Since 2002, the people of Somaliland have participated in six multi-party elections: three presidential elections (2003, 2010 and 2017) and two district council elections (2002 and 2012), but only one parliamentary (2005), and none for the House of Elders (
Guurti). At last, combined local council and parliamentary elections will take place on 31 May 2021, respectively four years and eleven years after they were due.
The repeated postponements of elections have at times caused political tensions and uncertainty. This has undermined Somaliland’s democratisation process, weakened public confidence in democracy, stalled institution-building and reforms, and damaged the country’s relationship with the international community.
Indian Heritage Matters: Uphill battle to repatriate stolen treasures dtnext.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dtnext.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Interview: Dan Hicks at the Cambridge Union
Image credit: Dan Hicks
On the 15th May, the Cambridge Union held a panel discussing colonial artefacts in British museums, and whether they should be returned to the countries that they came from. Following the event, I had an interesting and enlightening conversation with Dan Hicks; a Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at Oxford University, Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow at St Cross College. With such an interesting set of titles to his name, I was interested to see if Dan lives up to them in person. And as luck would have it, it only took a minute or so for this question to be answered: he does.