That’s not necessary a bad position, to be regarded as a separate culture or ethnic group specially in a context of hostile power competition between ‘Ethiopian’ national groups, for Somali’s to be regarded seen as a third party lesser threat.
The question is how could Somali’s utilise this unique position and predicament, and how could they play a role in leveraging their position to play role of peacemakers for stabilising Ethiopia and relations between ‘Ethiopian’ groups?
I sense that Somali’s need first to get their own house in order, change the current internal political dialectics starting with O groups and leaving behind localised village political narratives and localised grievances and set the bar higher in terms of ambitions and getting a bigger piece of the cake. And I do understand grievances of the past run deep, nevertheless one has to overcome these, even if takes months and months of traditional peace dialogues under a tree.
Che, the alternative that you are perhaps rooting for that in Ethiopia’s crumpling a Somali nation would get the breathing space to evolve might not materialise, on the contrary a crumpled Ethiopia might lead to emergence of clan warfare and warlords aligned with different Ethiopian groups competing for power in the already volatile and fractured region is quite the likely scenario.