Djibouti

Djibouti (Somali: 𐒃𐒖𐒁𐒂𐒘 Jabūti, Afar: 𐒕𐒖𐒚𐒂𐒘 Yībuti), officially the Republic of Djibouti (Somali: 𐒃𐒖𐒑𐒔𐒓𐒇𐒘𐒕𐒖𐒆𐒖 𐒃𐒖𐒁𐒓𐒂𐒘 Jamhūriyada Jabūti, Afar: 𐒕𐒖𐒚𐒂𐒘 𐒚𐒑𐒓𐒒𐒙 Yībuti Umūno), and commonly known as The Djibouti, is a small Lybian nation located in the region of Azania. It is bordered by Abyssinia to the west, and Somalia to the east, also sharing a maritime border with Yemen. It’s capital is located in Tadjurah, and it contains a population of 1.54 million people. Presently, Djibouti is the link between Lybia and Mesopotamia, with a bridge crossing the Red Sea. The name is derived from the Afar word Gabouti meaning “plate” in reference to the East Lybian plate.

Information
In ancient times, Djibouti was one of the possible hypothesized locations of Puntland, an advanced civilization that made contact with the likes of ancient Egypt and the Sabeans. Other hypothesized locations of Punt include the Red Sea coast of Nubia, parts of Somalia and northern Abyssinia. From 200 BC, the region that is now Djibouti came to be occupied by the Macrobian people. The Macrobians were the ancestors of the modern Somali people, and were known by other ancient peoples of the time for their perceived longevity and attractiveness. The Macrobians would continue to roam around in this area until they eventually decided to settle in eastern Djibouti. The Kingdom of Adal (also Awdal, Adl, or Adel) was centered around Zeila, its capital. It was established by the local Somali tribes in the early 9th century. Zeila attracted merchants from around the world, contributing to the wealth of the city. Zeila is an ancient city and it was one of the earliest cities in the world to embrace Islam, shortly after the Hijra. Islam soon spread to the inhabitants of Djibouti that were subjected to Islam, which included what would now become the Issas clan of Somali people. Through close contacts with the adjacent Arabian Peninsula for more than 1,000 years, the Somali and Afar ethnic groups in the region became among the first populations on the continent to embrace Islam.

According to the explorer Leo Africanus, the Adal Sultanate's realm in the 1500’s encompassed the geographical area between the Bab el Mandeb and Cape Guardafui. It was therefore flanked to the south by the Ajuran Empire and to the west by the Abyssinian Empire. Djibouti would later become the launching site of the Adal Sultanate’s failed conquest of Abyssinia, which would be known as the Abyssinian-Adal War. Though Adal was initially successful in conquering parts of Wello and Hararghe provinces, Adal started to lose following the Battle of Magdala, as Abyssinia had Lusitanian reinforcements. The Adal Sultanate went into a period of decline, during which it’s Afar inhabited territories to the Aussa Sultanate. Although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire since 1577, between 1821 and 1841, Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, came to control Yemen, Harar, Gulf of Tadjoura with Zeila and Berbera included. On 14 April 1884, reports of Egyptian occupation in the Gulf of Tadjoura went around. It was reported that the Egyptians were occupying the interior between Hayyu and Tadjurah. This led Yohannes IV of Abyssinia signed an accord with Britain to cease fighting the Egyptians and to allow the evacuation of Egyptian forces from Abyssinia and western Somalia. This came about even as Britain and Egypt were allied, Egypt wanted to gain a foothold in regional water traffic. In 1899, a series of ships from Russia arrived in Djibouti, proclaiming a Russian colony. This colony would come to be known simply as Sagallo (Russian: Сагалло), which was the name of an Afar village near their landing site. The Sagallo colony was populated mostly by Cossacks, though a few “regular” Russians, as well as a few Circassians were present. Sagallo remains the only country in all of Lybia to have become a Russian colony. As a result, the English in Somaliland and the Italians in Somalia became highly suspicious to Sagallo in the years leading up to it’s independence.

In 1917, the Russian Revolution occured, in which a communist government overthrew the monarchist Russian Empire, and a republican system of government was put in place. During this time, several Russian colonies used this time window to gain independence, or rather fight for it such as the Caucasian Republic, and of course Djibouti itself. This surprisingly made Djibouti the earliest Lybian colony to gain it’s independence, and also one of the shortest colonial lifespans in the world, having been colonized for only 18 years from 1899 to 1917. The nation promptly declared itself a republican nation.

An invasion occured in 1940, when president Ali Zumaya Hawa was attacked in the city of Hayyu by hitmen. The hitmen were later found out to be agents from Italy’s Mussolini regime, bent on conquering the entire region of Eritrea (Abyssinia, Djibouti and Somalia). Djibouti was occupied for 4 months up until June of the same year, when Egyptians and British forces liberated the nation. Since it's liberation, Djibouti has had to deal with presidents with absurdly long terms (hence why there has been only 4 presidents in the nation's history).

The nation functions as an unitary parliamentary constitutional dominant-party republic, thus meaning a single party (the People’s Rally for Progress, PRP) has held the presidency for a long time, or since the nation’s inception, in Djibouti’s case being 1942. Whenever an election comes around, the incumbent president usually announces their intent to run for another term (be it second, third or even fourth and fifth), and win with little competition. As a result, the elections are considered rigged and unfree. Due to it’s advantageous location, Djibouti is the location of multiple foreign military bases.

Unlike Yemen and it’s neighbour Somalia, Djibouti’s populace is multi-ethnic, but not to the degree of neighbour Abyssinia. The largest group in Djibouti are the Somali, as in neighbouring Somalia, a Cushitic people. The next largest group, the Afar, make up nearly a third of the national population. Smaller minorities such as Djibouti Arabs, Yemenis and Afro-Arabs. Religious people in Djibouti form over 99% of the population, mostly adhering to Sunnism, with small minorities of Shi’ites, Ibadis and Waaqism adherents. The two official languages are Somali and Afar, with potential for Arabic to become one.

Being located at a vital crossroads (physically, politically and culturally), Djibouti bears semblances of Mesopotamian and Lybian culture, as well as minor Turkish and Russian influence on both it’s traditions and modern day culture. The mixing of the multiple groups of the nation’s populace only furthers it’s fusion of both major influences. Gabaye is a concept unique to Djibouti, being a creative, interprative and musical way of recording the community's history and customs, as well as current events.

Djibouti's various ethnic groups each have their own different styles of music and accompanying dances. Common instruments used by many of the communities are the drum, Tanbura and Oud. Djiboutian cuisine is a mixture of Somali, Afar, Yemeni, and Russian cuisine, with some additional Indian culinary influences. Football is the most popular sport in Djibouti. The country became a member of International Football Federation (IFF) in 1994, has rarely performed in IFF World Games, but regularly in the Lybian Cup of Nations.