To empower the new party, the better educated police and civil servants were permitted to join it.
Somali Youth League members were significantly influenced by the earlier religious rebellion at the turn of the century of various religious figures such as Uways al-Barawi, Sheikh Hassan Barsane and Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. SYL supported Greater Somalia with Harar being the capital and a combined Harari-Somali representatives were commissioned to reveal this proposal to the U.N office in Mogadishu. The Harari would become members in 1946 when SYL opened an office in Harar. Five Hawiye, four Darod and the remaining from the Rahanweyn, Benadiri. Īt its foundation in 1943, the party had thirteen founding members. The first modern Somali political party, the Somali Youth Club (SYC), was subsequently established in Mogadishu in 1943. Faced with growing Italian political pressure inimical to continued British tenure and Somali aspirations for independence, the Somalis and the British came to see each other as allies. During the Second World War, Britain occupied Italian Somaliland and militarily administered the territory from 1941 to 1950.