Somalis in The West

By Abdisalam M. Garjex “camey”

Over the last thirteen years, as refugee, I moved from West Europe to North America (one city after another), in search of a better place to raise a family. During all these years, I saw Somali families, wherever I go, broken and young generations lost as a result of the new way of life in an alien culture.

More than a million Somalis fled to the neighboring states and overseas for safe sanctuary. Many of them didn't know what lie ahead of them and the negative impact of the life in a foreign country. Very few pondered the consequences of losing their culture, religion and identity before they embarked the journey to the west.

“I wish my children were starving in refugee camps, rather than bringing them to America” is a remark I heard from a long time friend, who felt the pain and suffering of his disintegrated family and way of life. There is no doubt that we face daily insurmountable challenges in our new adopted homes.

Racism

Like many Muslims and non-Muslims, who immigrated to the west, before us, we are victims of racism and in the light of 9/11, the US led “war on terror” has been largely aimed at Islamist group, inadvertently encouraging public perception of the Muslims being “incompatible” with western society.

In many western countries, racist attacks are on the rise with thousands of cases reported annually. To deal with race problem, many western countries have come up with various policies. One such policy is equal opportunities, the idea being that all prospective employees have equal opportunities to jobs, irrespective of skin color or ethnic origin. The opportunity only exists in paper.

As egalitarian society, many Somalis with high hopes found themselves unemployed and in welfare and living in subculture, due to lack of skills and racism. Somali women are discriminated, because of their veil & Islamic dressing. In Europe, there were moves to ban “religious symbols” in schools and public places and are aimed primarily at banning the headscarf worn by many Muslim women.

In order to ease some of their problems, Somalis formed large communities in major cities like London (Uk), Toronto, Minneapolis and Columbus-Ohio. When I recently visited Columbus (Ohio) for the funeral of my uncle, what I saw wasn't encouraging. Although, I was delighted with a Friday prayer at a Somali owned mosque of three to four thousand young Somalis, praying shoulder to shoulder and my subsequent visit to a magnificent shopping mall (Global), with many Somali shopkeepers at the heart of the city, but I ended up spending two nights in a friend's house in the Morse road area, where large number of families live. The community housing and the schools are dilapidated and the children were in constant fight with other ethnic groups including African-American & Hispanic kids – these children aren't growing in a healthy environment.

Among us, there are those who sought solutions and sent their families back to Somalia and middle-east countries, like Egypt and Syria. The father staying behind hasn't helped some of these families, who moved back to their original places after a short period.

Integration or assimilation

A debate is always going across Somali immigrants over whether assimilation or integration or multi-culturism is the most desirable way forward. On one side, there is multicultural option – in which immigrants keep their own language and cultures at the risk of ghettoized as in the case of USA – to a policy of assimilation, by which new comers lose all traces of their identity and become indistinguishable from their “host nation” other than by the color of their skin.

In my opinion, the best solution is in the middle option, which is integration, practiced with some success by the Asian immigrants in UK and USA – whereby immigrants retain their distant culture, but are encouraged to become part of the general community.

To prove this valid point, currently I reside in the suburbs of northern Virginia (Dulles area), where affluent Asian community built a “Muslim Community Center”, with a cost of $5 million dollars. In this community, you will find doctors, engineers and businessmen who have achieved the American dream, but still connected to Islamic community center's activities, such as teaching Quran the children, religious class for adults and different programs for different groups. They encourage one another to vote or run for a public office to represent community affairs. They chose to take the best out of two worlds.

We, as Somali Diaspora, have to get over the nomadic mentality and the myth of returning to Somalia. We have to create healthy communities, free from tribalism and envy. And we have to teach our children Islamic values. We should avoid depending on welfare and also should emphasize to our families the value of education, discipline and self-reliance. For safety, better schools and good services, we must choose to live in good neighborhoods.

Abdisalam M. Garjex “camey
E-mail: amabdulle@hotmail.com