The Somali Diaspora: The root or branch of a failed state?

(See bottom of post for definition of “Diaspora” by Englistics)

The news that has been beaming around the world recently, and particularly over the last few weeks, seems to confirm Somalia has and duly earned, the sobriquet of “the world’s worst failed state” and with some justification.  The reasons are varied and many, however suffice it to say the evidence of the acts of piracy perpetrated by their citizens on the high seas, and the role they’re playing in terrorism around the world, will not do anything to arrest or tempore these accusations. 

Even if the potential of major oil discoveries is a driver behind this new concern which we could whimsically call “the fruit”, it certainly appears that the Somalia’s cultural roots are being teased up by a combination of the stress and jeopardy of civil war and destructive forces of radical Islam and the branch and its leaves – societies functionality and its apparatus – is withering because of the absence of control, direction.

It is understandable therefore that the spotlight focuses on the failed state, but should we also be looking deeper to see if this is driven by a failed culture? Many Somali’s have been given shelter by highly developed democratic nations acting out of altruism; in fact in such great numbers the Somali exodus has been called a “Diaspora” – a title formerly and rightly owned by the Jews. However it appears rather than leaving behind their world of dysfunction, desolation and tribal divisiveness they have brought it with them. Much of their custom and society is not designed for 21st Century European Society and much of European Society based on the values of free speech and democracy informed by ethics and a fully functioning moral compass is not designed to accommodate them: but many persevere under the shinning banner of a multiculturalism. 

However more often than not it currently appears they have elected to follow a politically correct form of multiculturalism which embraces and protects other cultures at the expense of their own.  Whilst assimilation is not achieved they claim more needs to be done; but throughout the process many of these minority groups seem reluctant to change or observe the culture mores of their new host, and in some instances their laws.

This is nowhere more apparent than in Scandinavia where it appears a miasmatic cloud hangs over the areas within these countries where they have chosen to relocate. Within Denmark*¹, Norway, (e.g. Rinkeby Oslo – Rape Figures for Immigrant NRK1 News Report ¹ Attack on report figures²  Defence of report figures ³) there have been frequent reports of Somali’s being involved in criminal and antisocial behaviour, the types of which  would be serious in any country but would not standout so acutely as they do in these locations.

In England and the USA (i.e. Minneapolis child sex ring , Minnesota) too the Somali people’s involvement in crime is higher than the national average and focused on crimes against the person.  In these countries tolerance is as high as in Scandinavia, with perhaps the distinctions being less obvious as there are high immigrant populations, religious groupings and a celebration of ethnic diversity however it seems to make little difference. Even though attempts are made to wipe away barriers based on creed, colour and religion the most frequent complaint emanating from both countries is that Somali immigrants have struggled to integrate,  their children continue to underperform  educationally, have a higher than average propensity to be violent and abusive toward women and minority groups and on average are more highly criminalised than the indigenous population, or most other migrants. The other disturbing trend is the willingness of these people to attempt to defraud their host state, with the number of benefit fraud cases in all these countries continuing to rise, but at epidemic proportions in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Then again what is to expected when these young and not so young minds have been exposed to a minimum of 20 years of violence? Which in some instances represents their whole life. The trauma, distress causes by the lack of food and general security and  the displacement manifest in the diaspora must explain all these problems. A cross-section of the psychology community working in Denmark and the United States is not convinced that these are the only reasons and predicate that many of the problems found both within Somalia and within the Diaspora, are actually the sequelae of a flawed dynamic (see study ) operant within their  culture.  Whatever the truth in respect of the crime claims – and the more formal ones made in the psychological studies – there is definitely strong indications this is a people in crisis. Such a conclusion obvious begs another question: why is this case?

The answer to this question resides almost exclusively in the fact that the Somalis are a divided people. And what makes these divisions complex is they’re not simply those created by distance and the diaspora. The Somali’s are divided along tribal lines, divided on religious grounds (i.e. militant and moderate Islam) and divided by the weight of their experience of a violent history – propagated by an unforgiving and malevolent religious zeal – and all that entails.

However whilst the disintegration of their country and the disciplines and directions of their muslim religion can have a profound psychological impact, perhaps the greatest division for the many millions of Somalis, who have left Somalia to escape thirty years of continual civil war or acted opportunistically to find a better life in Europe or the USA as economic migrants, is simply the distance they have between them and a culture they understand.  This type of distance if not  created by the Diaspora and which has its own psychology.

It just has to be hoped that the communities dealing with the effects of their behaviour, as the plan to integrate is followed,  have the resources and knowledge to deal with its fallout and progress. Oh! and the patience of Job – and he’s possibly one of the only figures that all the communities do share. I hear the juries still out on Jesus Christ, after all Mohammad did beat his trick hands down by being pulled into heaven by god rather than sneaking out of a tomb by the back. This little marketing trick by the way seeded one of the greatest and longest disputes in history the battle for Jerusalem and the ceaseless antagonism between the religions.  But that’s another story..

¹ ³ These exerts are opinion pieces and included for the purposes of balance. They do not reflect the view of Englistics. The translation of the Norwegian on the NRK news has been verified for accuracy as have the statistics. The statistics integrity has however not been checked as the raw data was not available.

² The crux of the issue is found in Para 5 line 6 “Police have confirmed that immigrant men are over-represented as assailants in rape cases,  but recent rapes also have involved Norwegian men.”

*¹ To read more about the Danish attitude to free speech and the “Mohammad Cartoons” visit this post

There is a comprehensive definition of “Diaspora” at the Englistics Blog. It even quotes the Somali situation.

Diaspora:

•Meaning 1:  The movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland is the definition offered by the Merriam Webster Dictionary

•Meaning 2: Dictionary.com explains that it is a Noun (usually with initial capital letter) relating to the scattering of the Jews to countries outside of Palestine after the Babylonian captivity.

•Origin: Greek, from diaspeirein  ‘disperse’, from dia  ‘across’+ speirein  ‘scatter’. The term originated in the Septuagint (Deuteronomy 28:25.) in the phrase esē diaspora en pasais basileias tēs gēs  ‘thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth’

It must be disconcerting to the mostly Muslim Somali’s to be so directly connected to a term which is so directly connected to the Jew, however in historical terms through Diaspora that’s exactly what they are. The Somali Diaspora though troubling to modern politicians of all types and shades because of geo-political considerations and the acts of piracy is dwarfed in purely numerical terms by the Chinese displacement caused by war and famine and by the African Diaspora when African native tribes sold their human spoils of war firstly to each other and then to European visitors as slaves. The Somalis are worthy inheritors of this most unfortunate of titles, as they fit all the criteria as a troubled and conflicted people.