Hiiraan Online

by Dayib Ahmed (Atto)
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Let me start this writing with a question: 'Who is a Somali ?' By asking this I might sound silly to some, so now with the stupidity already uttered and the situation now too late for a back down, let me take the question even further and deeper and ask:
'Does one has to be Muslim to be a Somali ? Which of the two identities comes first ? Are you first a Somali and second a Muslim ? Or is it the other way around ?"

My argument is not based on some large scale public opinion poll, but I did ask the question to a very limited number of friends and family members, then I added a little informed judgment of my own, and what I found out was a confused crisis of identity, I invite anyone to ask the same question, but first I have to give a warning - Some people might get offended by such questions.

When I was growing up in Somalia I had classmates who were Christians and Hindus, and also there was at least one Jewish student that I knew of in the school, of course in those days nobody bothered questioning the Somalis-ness of those students, but paradoxically in these days - exactly when most Somalis started to come in close contact with people of other religious faiths, I suspect that we have become the opposite of the conventional expectation, we have become less tolerant and more suspicious about people of other religions, even more so to the idea of a Somali citizen with a religion other than Islam.

Some of us even argue that to be a Somali one has to first of all be a Muslim.
Of course when one takes this argument to it's logical extension, then anyone who is a Muslim becomes a Somali citizen by default ( if one wishes to be so, of course), but then this begs the question why is it so when other Muslim countries are not responding in kind to this crazy unsolicited Utopian offer?

I wonder why is it so hard for some of us to see this glaring screaming hypocrisy ?
Could a name be given to this form of abject lack of empathy that can make a grown up person to expect to be welcomed in countries with a majority non-Muslim population, expect the grant of citizenship, expect to be allowed to practice his religion freely in the privacy of his or her Mosque with the full protection of the law and constitution, expect all of this and even more when they themselves do not extend those same rights and generosities to their fellow Somali compatriots who happen to be non-Muslims.

It would be a good idea to shine light on an issue like this before it becomes a crisis, for the future is sure to hold for some of us unwanted surprises - from the diaspora there will  be coming a Somali of a type that we have never seen before, in the future there will be Somalis with strange political and religious beliefs, there is going to be Somalis with non-Somali fathers or mothers, half Somalis ? the real Point Fives  ?  Call them whatever,  whether we like or not there will be more Somalis who are Christian, Somalis who are Buddhists, Somalis who are Jewish, Hindus, Somalis who do not believe in God, Atheists, Somalis who speak more Chinese than Somali and believe in the mysterious forces of the Tao, that and much more, somewhere in the future a big surprise is awaiting us, some of us will become transformed by the experience and the transformation  is none of their fault, their parents or grand parents did not go to far away lands voluntarily, in most cases their parents or grandparents were victims who were forced into the diaspora by the calamity of the  year 1991 and the great social upheaval which followed.

So whats to be done ? Maybe asking the question now will somehow prepare us to handle the issue with cooler heads when a rebellious tomorrow comes home knocking the door, and then maybe having asked and debated and answered these questions ahead of time, some of us will be spared from facing the realities of that day ill-prepared, unprepared for the shocking consequences of having an entire generation or more of Somalis being born, educated, influenced and raised in the diaspora.