Somalia is one big family

By: Jeremy O'Kasick
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 6/9/2004

Local Somalis challenged to maintain family circle here


With summer in the air and the lecture halls left barren, visiting professor Ali Galaydh can look ahead to his summer vacation with as much zeal as his students. And what a summer, with a travel itinerary that includes Berlin (Germany), Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Nairobi (Kenya), and Djibouti!

A longtime resident of Minnesota, Galaydh once served as the prime minister of Somalia and its minister of industry. Thus, it’s not research, lectures, or even backpacking that will bring Galaydh around the world. Instead, it’s the prospect of developing a new money wire service for Somalia and helping to bring together divided factions at the Somali peace talks in Nairobi. These Herculean tasks are worthy of a former prime minister.

Several wire services were shut down after 9-11 because of suspected links to al-Qaeda. The current peace talks have stalled since January, largely due to political conflicts created by Somalia’s neighboring nations. In May, increased inter-clan combat in Mogadishu also left over 100 dead.

Nevertheless, Galaydh (AG) remains hopeful. The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder recently caught up with him before his trip to discuss pressing issues for local Somali communities and the old country.


MSR: You used to live in Owatonna for several years, where there is a large Somali community. Did you experience or witness much tension between Somalis and the rural White community?

AG: Yes, there has been tension. Before the Somalis came in, there were almost no African Americans in the area, and then there was a sudden influx of Somalis. But I give credit the local officials there. Even the police and the mayor really went out of their way and bent over backwards to reassure Somalis that they had a place in Owatonna.

MSR: Are rural communities sometimes better places for Somalis and immigrants to raise families?

AG: I think that they can be. There is so much happening in urban areas, particularly in public schools. The environment is really bleak in a lot of ways, whether it’s the gangs, the drugs, sex at an early age. Immigrants have a difficult time coping with these problems.

There is also tension between kids who are born here and others. I have my own teenagers who were born here, and they’re a handful, let me tell you. It is an age which kids grow fast physically but they have no responsibilities. Where we come from, at a very early age you have to do a lot of things for the family. There is a certain youth culture in this society that creates tension with traditional families.

MSR: How should the Somali community best cope with the coming second generation? How can they pass on Somali values while still allowing the kids to assimilate to this country?

AG: For immigrants, there are multiple factors. Most of the parents don’t speak English either, and they don’t know what their kids are doing. The changing role of teenagers or the idealizing of independence in this country are also concerns. That [independence] is good for some kids, but left unchecked and supervised it can lead to disastrous troubles for our children.

There is an effort through the mosques to be engaged on these issues, whether it is after-school programs [or] Koranic teachings on the weekends. These religious groups are the ones who are trying to cope with the problems. Elders have a respected place in the community, but the elders do not have a really good handle on these problems. These kids learn so fast. They are interpreting for their parents. They know the system.

There are a lot of kids who do exceptionally well, too. There are about a 1,000 Somalis who are at universities and colleges in Minnesota. One hundred and fifty of them are here at the U of M. About 65 or 70 percent of them are girls. Education is a need as a safeguard from kids getting lost.

MSR: Can you talk about the importance of family in Africa and for Somalis? Is family more important than anything that could be imagined in the U.S.?

AG: Families are important because it is not only the nuclear family. It is the extended family. When I was about five or six, we were taught genealogies. Ali is my first name. Halif is my father’s first name. Galaydh is my grandfather’s name. And I can string these things together for 20 or 30 back. Beyond that it becomes very mystic.

You need a large family for production purposes and for security purposes. If a calamity strikes, say there is a drought and someone loses all their animals, the extended family will send money to help him. He may get money from Owatonna, the Twin Cities, Dubai, Djibouti, Italy, India, all over. It is if the family is a multinational corporation.

The family is a unit of production; it is a unit of security, socially, psychologically, politically, financially. Everything. Now people are very anxious, and there is a generalized fear after September 11 of detention and deportation. People don’t know what the law says. So you need the family to pool their resources. In most traditional societies, you are never on your own. You are a part of a circle. Otherwise, you can’t make it.

MSR: In the past, you have called all of Somalia your extended family. Is that still the case? And if so, how are you invested in the growth, stability, and development of such an large extended family?

AG: Somalia is one ethnic group. We don’t have tribes. In Somalia, you are a Somali. There are 10 major families and four main families that trace their genealogy 30 generations back. That is the bulk of the Somalis in Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya. We speak the same language, have the same culture and the same religion. There are some differences. So it is a family in that sense. It is a big extended family. Though, Somalia’s families have been fighting for some time. And there has been bloodletting again over this past month. Unfortunately, this has happened even in the best of families.

Jeremy O’Kasick welcomes reader responses at jokasick@spokesman-recorder.com.