On Developing Cross-Cultural Sensitivity, Part 2

In our last post, we went through the first three stages of Milton J. Bennett’s process of developing cross-cultural sensitivity.  We left off at Minimization, or a tendency to downplay cultural differences, particularly if those differences challenge a belief or value of your own.  It’s a form of ethnocentrism, or a lack of awareness that you yourself are influenced and shaped by a culture.

We closed on a reflection that even the European-American majority culture has a history and ethnic heritage that can be celebrated.  Naturally, for all but the most recent arrivals, the “American” aspect of that culture comes out a little more strongly than the “European” aspect.  I may have a lefse iron stashed away in a closet somewhere and let slip the occasional “uffda” when I open up a long-neglected container at the back of the fridge, but the Janteloven stuff was more or less left behind with the rest of the family in Sognefjord, thank goodness.  Passelig is a value our fast-paced, consumeristic American culture could stand to consider, however.

In America, instead of Janteloven, there is freedom of expression and free enterprise, and Americans admire those whose hard work and innovation brings them success (sometimes ignoring the role of community and socioeconomic privilege in the process).  Americans speak directly, and don’t hesitate to say “no,” and truth and self-expression are valued more than cooperation and harmony.  They show up to work “on time,” even if they have to turn down a friend’s invitation for coffee to do so, and leave exactly “on time,” even if it means that a project is left unfinished.  They are this way because the nation’s history and context has shaped them to be this way, just as the nomadic life shaped the Somalis, and lives full of persecution, perseverance, faith and resistance have shaped the Karen.  When we have the self-awareness to see that we have culture and are influenced by it, we have advanced to what Bennett calls Acceptance.

Acceptance is primarily a mental state. We stop being patronizing toward our friends when we see the inner logic of their point of view, and start to question our own assumptions.  We learn to see certain values as both good and bad—individualism is good when it encourages innovation and positive social change, but bad when it leads to selfishness.  Promoting social harmony is good when it makes members of the community feel loved and supported, and bad when it hinders the healing process by forcing people to suppress their unpleasant stories of conflict and trauma. Acceptance is being able to see things from the other culture’s perspective, while not losing touch with your own.

Adaptation is putting acceptance into practice.  As an American, you will learn to take off your shoes at the entrance to a Bhutanese home, to accept the offer of tea, to leave a little food on the plate when you are finished, and to stay out of the kitchen, and you understand and appreciate the reasons for all these things.  As a Karen person, you learn that you have to speak more directly to Americans to be understood, though it feels uncomfortable at first.  As a Somali, particularly one of the many Somalis moving to rural small towns, you learn to be less direct, and begin to master the unconditional (if artificial) friendliness and banter that grease the wheels of social interaction in the Midwest.

For most native-born Americans, the process ends here.  From birth, we’ve learned the rules and values of our culture and that is what enables us to live, work, marry and play within it.  There is much that we can learn from other cultures—we can learn healthier eating habits, better ways of managing conflict, and gain a stronger appreciate for family, for instance.  However, there is a point where adopting another culture’s beliefs and practices would create more problems than it would fix (attitudes about women, for example).  You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.

Our refugee friends have the problem of whittling down their African or Asian peg so that it fits neatly within an American hole.  I say “whittling,” because throwing out that peg and replacing it with an American one is hardly a solution either, not just because of the social and psychological disruption it would cause, but because of the many African and Asian values that can be preserved in an American context, and should be, such as the examples above. Integration, as opposed to assimilation, is having a sense of one’s authentic self, but knowing how to be oneself in more than one culture.  This is an essential skill if one wishes to move outside of the enclave and partake in the prosperity and opportunity of wider American culture.

For instance, Hawo sees herself as a thrifty shopping mavin.   She knows to hunt for sales and shop the clearance rack at the local department store, but she also has a reputation as a skillful haggler in the shops of Karmel Mall.  Most importantly, she knows which set of behavior is appropriate for which context, and understands that the difference is cultural.  She can move fluidly between both worlds.  It is easy to understate just what an amazing and hard to develop skill this is.

Since we who were born in America will probably never have to go through this last process, dialogue is key.  We have to resist the urge to dictate to our friends how they should live, but at the same time, be available to explain why we do things the way we do, and be gracious in the face of criticism.  This was a situation that nearly all of our families had to face at one time (the only truly “native” Americans, ironically, have to face this on a daily basis, too).  A good idea is to imagine what it was like for your grandparents and great-grandparents who were new to America, and treat your refugee friends with the grace, compassion and openness that you hope was shown to them by their own neighbors.

On developing cross-cultural sensitivity, part 1

Working and building relationships cross-culturally is one of the most challenging and rewarding things a person can attempt in their lifetime.  The world becomes a much larger place when you are able to rediscover it through another’s eyes.   Of course, the act of seeing an issue from two, often incompatible viewpoints can create discomfort and inner conflict as well, which is why so few people are willing to embark on this journey or finish it to the end.  One of the best models for the “process” of becoming culturally competent comes from Milton J. Bennett, PH.D, the director of the Intercultural Development Research Institute in Portland, Oregon.  To read about it in his own words, click here. 

The shortened version is this: most of us are, to some degree, ethnocentric.  This means that we are blind to our own culture and see it as “normal,” and judge all other cultures to the degree that they conform to it.  To work cross-culturally, one has to develop ethno-relativism, or the ability to empathize with another culture and understand—if not always agree with—their values, beliefs and practices.  This isn’t the “moral relativism” that robs us of our ability to speak prophetically against individual and social injustice, but it is the ability to suspend judgment and understand the issue from the other side’s point of view, often a hard enough task within one’s own culture.  Bennett lays out a six-step process leading from ethnocentrism to ethno-relativism, beginning with Denial, and passing through stages of Defense, Minimization, Acceptance, Adaptation, and ending with Integration.  

Denial is simply the failure to notice cultural differences in the first place, or limit them to broad stereotypes.  My father’s family comes from a largely Norwegian-American community in northeastern Iowa.  They could readily tell you the difference between Norwegians and Swedes (even if I’m somewhat fuzzy on that one), but when it comes to understanding Hispanic, African-American or Asian cultures, they are generally at a loss.  This is simply because those communities didn’t exist in their small towns when they were children.  You don’t feel wet if you never get out of the pool (though some of these same small towns have become strikingly diverse in recent years).

However, in an increasingly multicultural society, it becomes harder and harder to isolate oneself from other cultures, and once a person becomes aware that not everyone else sees the world quite the same way they do, the next stage is often Defense.  This is racism’s most obvious manifestation.  Those who are in the defense stage are critical or hostile toward people from other cultures, viewing them as dirty, less intelligent, violent, and a threat to themselves or their community.  We’ve all heard the snide comments in the office or on the bus, from people who seem to know only the dark sides of Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities, and act as though this is the only side that matters.

Ironically, there is another way that defense manifests itself, and that is Reversal.  This is the person who is continually bashing their own culture and elevating the new culture—from the cool, globally-aware hipster who rails indignantly about the shortcomings of America, to the child of immigrants who devalues his parents’ culture and tries to be like his American classmates.

Once this stage is past, however, prejudices become more subtle, and you enter the Minimization stage.  You start to enjoy the company of those from another culture, and even demonstrate some genuine curiosity.  However, deep inside, you still harbor an implicit belief that if they only got a taste of your way of life, they’d agree that it is the better way.  You speak eagerly to your Bhutanese friend about your boyfriend or girlfriend, and how you get to choose whomever you want to marry without interference from your parents.  You assume she’ll find this freedom refreshing.  Instead, she frowns.

“Well, that’s a terrible idea,” she says.  “Your eyes are clouded by love and you can’t see each other’s flaws.  But your parents know you, and they can see clearly whether or not you are right for each other.”

“But…freedom to choose!…And romantic love! And—”

“—Remind me, how high is the divorce rate in America?”

Not every culture values democracy when they see the instability and competition it can create.  Not every culture values individualism when they see how easily it turns to selfishness.  Never assume that your Somali friend is unsatisfied with her life of staying home and raising children, nor should she make assumptions about you if you choose to remain unmarried and pursue a career instead. 

Most people don’t mature beyond the minimization stage, in spite of our best intentions.  The tricky thing about minimization is that it doesn’t seem like racism or prejudice to us—we mean well, we want to help, but we rashly and falsely assume that everyone wants to be like us and just need to be aided along the path.  

When I was young, I remember visiting Chicago O’Hare airport and seeing a Muslim woman in a full burqa departing from a plane.  I felt pity for her—I would never dress that way, so surely her abusive husband was forcing her to wear that!  However, as I spent more time listening to the voices of Muslim women, even spending a few months living in the Middle East, a more nuanced picture would emerge.  Many Muslim women are more devoted to their faith than their husbands, and for them, the hijab is a powerful symbol of that devotion to God–not unlike my own choice to wear a cross necklace as a symbol of my own faith.  And one can only endure young men hooting at you in the souk so many times before several yards of black fabric and a mask start to sound like a worthwhile investment.

I don’t imagine that many of us working and volunteering among refugees are in Denial or Defense mode.  However, it is hard to move beyond Minimization without a hefty dose of self-awareness.  We all ought to do a careful personal inventory, and be honest with ourselves about our motives.  Do we rush in to our relationships eager to show our friends what they’ve been missing all these years, in hopes of remaking them in our image?  Or do we recognize that what we see as just, beautiful and normal is just as much a product of our own culture and context, and remain open to the lessons—and occasional critiques—offered by those from other cultures?

A final note:  Each and every one of us is “ethnic.”  If you are a white, middle-class suburbanite, you may feel as if you are a blank nothing against which all other cultures seem colorful and interesting, but rest assured, you have a culture and a right to celebrate it.  I never appreciated what it meant to be Norwegian-American until I built relationships with other “hyphenated Americans,” who helped me notice and name the values and traditions within my own unique heritage, and the impact it has had on the broader culture of the Upper Midwest.  In a weird way, celebrating our heritage can make us less ethnocentric—once we are able to embrace our heritage as unique and interesting, we have less need to think of it as “normal.”

Stay tuned for Part II.

Rods, Reels and Refugees

I am lucky to have a lake close to where I live and work.  It makes for many early risings, and many days of sore shoulders after battling sunnies, crappies, and the occasional ornery northern pike who had an inexplicable hankering for corn niblets that day.  Never mind my nemesis—the fifteen pound snapping turtle who often lurks under the dock, hell-bent on one day ripping a large enough hole in my fish cage to fit his giant beak through.

 I don’t need to emphasize the important cultural role fishing plays in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.  To what extent and how our refugee neighbors share in that activity depends on both culture and access.  “Speak to me not with a mouth that eats fish” runs a Somali nomad proverb—unsurprising, considering that Somalia has only two rivers with water in them year-round, and a commercial ocean fishing industry that is largely based around export.  The Bhutanese are Hindu, which means that whether or not they eat meat (and thus took advantage of the fertile trout streams in their home country) depends largely on caste.

 However, fresh fish has always been a staple of the Southeast Asian diet, unsurprising given that the region is surrounded by ocean and crisscrossed by rivers, from the mighty Mekong (and you thought the Mississippi had some big catfish!), the Irrawaddy in Burma, where fishermen fill their nets with the aid of wild river dolphins, to the Salween, which begins in the icy slopes of Tibet and arcs through China, Thailand and Burma before cutting across Karen State and emptying into the Andaman Sea.

It isn’t any wonder, then, that whenever I’m out on the dock at any public lake in the Twin Cities, I often share the space with the many Hmong, Lao and Vietnamese refugees who share my love for fishing.  While Minnesotans frequently spend thousand of dollars on boats and expensive, flashy tackle in pursuit of the illustrious walleye, which are caught, measured, and thrown back into the lake without a thought for the frying pan, many refugees and immigrants approach the sport with a more practical goal in mind.  Fishing is an easy way to feed one’s family, and every species has its use—there are no “rough fish” to be tossed back, or left to rot on the bank. 

This philosophy tends to illicit either grumbling or praise from American fishermen, depending on their own upbringing and their level of cultural sensitivity, but it does leave room for thought.  “Catch-and-release” fishing is tough to do properly, and many fish caught this way die anyway, either from injuries or exhaustion (some tips on doing it right here).  Every nutritionist agrees that a healthy diet incorporates a lot of fish, (though there are some caveats, which I’ll get into later).  Asian cultures tend to fish for species like carp, which are invasive and scorned by Western anglers, and heavy fishing of bluegills and other sunfish can actually benefit their population in a given lake.  I once heard a story of a Karen gentleman who went ice fishing with one of World Relief’s volunteers, and made soup out of the leftover bait minnows.  At first, I chuckled a little, as it seemed like one of those minor cultural misunderstandings that all new arrivals go through at first—that is, until I considered the thousands of pounds of minnows that go to waste every year because of some arbitrary culinary taboo our own culture has created about “fish” vs. “bait.”  Such is the danger of being patronizing.

If you are a World Relief volunteer, chances are that your family may ask you to take them fishing some time.  If you’re an old hand like me, you’ll know what to do, but if you’re new to the sport, here are some basics:  First, to fish, you need a license.  Anyone who has lived in Minnesota for 60 days or longer is eligible for a Resident License, which is $17 (but will be $22 next year).  Those who are on SSI or SSDI can get a license for free, so some older refugees may qualify, and kids under the age of 16 can fish without a license, as long as they’re with someone who has one.  Fishing license and equipment can be found at Walmart.  Joe’s Sporting Goods on County Road B and Kathy’s Bait shop on Rice Street (across from Double Dragon) are also good places to shop if you’re in the St. Paul area.

For the first few outings, it may be a good idea to have someone who is bilingual come along with you.  This is because it’s hard to tell what you’re going to catch, and each species has its own size and possession limits that would need to be explained.  Another consideration, briefly alluded to above, has special relevance to communities that eat a lot of fish from Minnesota lakes.

As beautiful as our cities are, they do produce a lot of pollutants, most of which get washed down into low-lying areas and into lakes.  Over time, heavy metals and other toxins can build up in the bodies of fish, and can endanger the health of children and pregnant women who eat them.  This is less of an issue with small fish like bluegills and crappies.  However, you may have to explain to your fishing partner why that 20 pound carp caught in a muddy lake near a factory is not the prize find it may seem.  Bowfin, another so-called “rough fish” that closely resembles a popular Southeast Asian fish called a snakehead, is a fish species that can be very high in mercury.  Some popular fishing lakes will have signs posted in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali that suggest limits for how much fish of a certain size one should eat in a week, but here’s a longer list here.

Even if it is a slow day, and no fish are caught, there are other, less obvious health benefits to a day on the lake.  Away from the busy roads, the air falls quiet, save for the slosh of water, the chirping of an osprey, or the hoarse, annoyed croak of a heron.  On some early mornings, you can even hear the dueling chorus of loons.  Near you, a muskrat swims past, oblivious to your presence, absorbed in whatever busy work it is that muskrats do.  I’ve never regretted a day of fishing, though I’ve often gone home with an empty stringer.  A few hours by a quiet lake can do wonders for the spirit, not just for a refugee trying to find their place in a new country, but for all of us.

Happy fishing!

The Karen Farming/Community Gardening Project

As Farmer’s Market season opens here in Minneapolis and St. Paul, I thought I’d draw some attention to a fairly new, but very exciting project that World Relief Minnesota has been developing in partnership with the Karen Organization of Minnesota (KOM) and the Minnesota Food Association (MFA).  

We recently had a two-part post on the Karen ethnic group, currently being resettled in St. Paul.  Though having limited skills in the kinds of work in demand in America, many of the Karen have a lifetime of experience as farmers in their home country of Burma.  Unfortunately, a crowded apartment complex in inner-city St. Paul is a world away from the quiet, terraced hillsides of the Burmese jungle.  When the Karen arrive in America, they find themselves separated from that traditional source of food, income, and identity, and long for a plot of land to tend and call their own.  

In response to this need, World Relief Minnesota began developing a two-part program, first to connect the Karen with community garden plots that would enable them to grow vegetables for their families, and then to train some individuals in larger-scale ventures that could possibly lead to future farm ownership.  Naturally, World Relief Minnesota partnered with KOM in this endeavor; World Relief pursues funding through grants and networks with local churches to find land and volunteers, while KOM connects eligible members of the Karen community with plots and gives them needed training.  Dennis Murnyak is World Relief Minnesota’s Community Gardening Coordinator, while See Nay serves as the coordinator at KOM.  

First Evangelical Free Church in Maplewood has been one of the community gardening program’s major land donors, with over 1000 plots available, 60 of which are being used by the Karen.  Five Oaks Community Church in Woodbury is another major land donor.  Arlington Hills United Methodist Church is one of our newer partners, with 10 plots available for Karen gardeners.  Ramsey County Master Gardeners has offered training as well.  As knowledge of the program has spread throughout the community, there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for plots, but land is in short supply, so donating land is an excellent way for local churches to assist their Karen neighbors.  Another issue has been a shortage of gardening equipment and seed, so as you’re opening up your garages and tool sheds in preparation for summer, keep an eye out for those extra hand-trowels, shovels, and that old rototiller you never use, and consider donating them to those who could put them to good use.

The other half of the Karen Gardening/Farming project began in 2011, in partnership with KOM and Big River Farms CSA, a program of the Minnesota Food Association.  Big River Farms, located north of the metro in Marine on St. Croix, offers a training program for immigrants, refugees and minorities that not only teaches them how to do the day-to-day work of planting, tending and harvesting their crops, but also introduces them to the business side of running a farm. 

This is an important step, as aspiring farmers from Burma find out immediately that skills and practices learned in the jungles of Southeast Asia often don’t translate well to the frozen tundra of Minnesota.  Karen farmers in Burma used mixed methods of wet-rice farming using paddies, and hillside farming using slash-and-burn methods in which the land was cleared of trees and brush, left to dry for two months, then burned and plowed under.  Land was plentiful, crops could be planted all year round, and were of the kind that thrived in Burma’s tropical climate–corn, beans, and peppers.  

Contrast that with Minnesota:  all planting must be done on a rigid, often risky schedule that gambles with the date of the last hard freeze, and after that, a farmer has five months to grow and harvest their crop before winter returns.  Crops that grow in those conditions are kinds that never existed in Burma–See Nay smiled when he told me of his first experience with that strange, cabbage-like plant known as “brussels sprouts.”  Even the tools are different–in Burma, the Karen lacked the financial resources for large, complicated machinery, and made due with long knives for hacking, and two-man saws for felling trees.  In America, it is almost essential to have large machines like tractors, plows and combines, which are expensive to purchase and maintain.

The farming itself is the easy part, however, as the trainees learn of the steep costs for land, seed and equipment, and of the dizzying array of laws and regulations governing commercial food production.  Here, they are not just competing with the farm on the neighboring terrace, but with Pioneer, Monsanto, and ConAgra.  Even small-scale farming comes with unexpected costs: when See Nay inquired about reserving a spot at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market, the cost to rent a stall was $845.

The training program is valuable for helping would-be Karen farmers evaluate the costs and risks of running a farm, and for those willing to pursue that dream, to give them the skills and knowledge they need to be successful and to find the appropriate markets.  The program is 3 years long, with classes during the winter, and on-site training during the summer.  During the first year, the students work part time at Big River Farms for a modest wage, and during the second year, though they take reduced hours, they are given access to their own 1/4 acre plot, paid for by grants and other funding.  By the last year of the program, they will receive no wages, but will have access to their own acre of land and will have the skills to make their first efforts at selling their produce.  So far, See Nay and 3 other Karen participants are well into their second year, and it has been a great success.

Again, there are needs for seed, equipment, and also transportation, as Big River Farms is several miles outside of the metro and inaccessible to those without vehicles or access to carpools.  World Relief Minnesota provides some funding for land and supplies, but more is needed, particularly as the program grows in popularity.  Those willing to donate land, tools, capital, or even time can contact Dennis Murnyak or See Nay for more information. 

For the rest of us, over the coming years, we may see more of our Karen neighbors setting up shop at local farmer’s markets and starting up CSAs.  Let’s support them with our business, and as they provide our families with fresh, locally grown produce, we can help them achieve their dreams.

Refugee Profile: The Bhutanese

The Bhutanese are a fairly recent group of arrivals in Minnesota, and still form a very small community, mostly in St. Paul.  Though they consider Bhutan their home, they are ethnic Nepalis and speak that language, a distinction that caused them many problems in the homeland, and led to their exile, first into India, and then into camps in Nepal.

Bhutan is a tiny country not much larger than the upper peninsula of Michigan.  Located in the eastern foothills of the Himalayas, sandwiched between China and India, the country has recently caught the interest of the West because of its pristine landscape and isolation from the rest of the world.  The country boasts more monks than soldiers, and only legalized internet and television in 1999.

In 1616 AD, Lama Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal established Bhutan as a Buddhist kingdom, and that has been the majority religion ever since.  The dominant ethnic groups are the Sharchops and Ngalops, who originated in Tibet and generally live in the mountainous regions of the north.  However, because of its close proximity to Nepal, there has frequently been cultural exchange and migration between the two countries.  When Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal wanted to build a burial shrine for his father in 1620, the craftsmen he hired were Nepali.

The largest wave of Nepali immigration came to Bhutan in the late 1890s.  These immigrants, known as the Lhotsampas, or “Lowlanders,” were invited into the country to farm the undeveloped lowlands along the Indian border.  They arrived in large numbers over the coming years, and though they spoke a different language, wore different clothes, and practiced another religion (Hinduism), they lived alongside the Northerners, contributed to their society, and considered themselves loyal to Bhutan and its king.

However, in the early 1980′s, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan became paranoid about the burgeoning Nepali population in the south.  He began a campaign of cultural homogenization, outlawing the Nepali language, shutting down Nepali schools, and demanding that all citizens wear the gho, a garment worn by northerners which was grossly impractical in the tropical climate of southern Bhutan.  The Lhotsampas, alarmed by the sudden discrimination, began organizing against the monarchy and advocated a democratic movement, which brought swift retribution from the authorities.

The Bhutanese army invaded Lhotsampa villages and drove them from their homes, and leaders of the democracy movement were arrested, imprisoned and tortured.  To this day, the government of Bhutan claims that the refugees were “illegal immigrants” who left the country of their own free will.  They make no mention of the harassment and ethnic discrimination imposed on the refugees by local authorities, or the near-impossibility of even legal immigrants to prove their citizenship, or that the many “Voluntary Migration Certification” forms, in which imprisoned or threatened Lhotsampas signed away all rights of citizenship and land, were anything but voluntary.  In all, over 107,000 Lhotsampas were forced to flee to India, nearly 1/6th of Bhutan’s entire population.  The refugees met resistance from Indian authorities, so they continued on to Nepal, where they settled in seven camps along the Nepali-Indian border.

The Lhotsampas lived in the camps for nearly two decades, while Nepal, unable and unwilling to absorb so many people into its own citizenry, tried to work out an agreement with Bhutan that would allow the Lhotsampas to return, with little success.  Life in the camps was generally comfortable, but tedious, with severe restrictions on movement outside the camps and few legal opportunities for employment in surrounding towns.  In 2007, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees decided that resettlement in a third country was the only viable option for the exiled Lhotsampas, and since then, nearly 50,000 have been resettled abroad, 42,000 of them in the United States (with 60,000 approved), and roughly 400 of those in the Twin Cities, mostly in St. Paul, Roseville, Lauderdale and Minneapolis. 

Resettlement was a contentious issue in the camps, as many believed that the measure was undermining the refugees’ efforts to return to Bhutan.  However, like the situation with the Karen, those Bhutanese refugees living abroad have an opportunity to share their stories and advocate for their people that their compatriots in the camps and in Bhutan do not.  

This is all the more important today, as most Western media coverage of Bhutan consists only of gushing references to its natural beauty, isolation and its standard of “Gross National Happiness,” a measure that is most certainly skewed by not including the many citizens who were driven into exile twenty some years ago, or the many Lhotsampas in Bhutan who are still facing harassment and discrimination, and denied participation in the country they consider home.  Hopefully, with so many refugees from Bhutan predicted to arrive in America and Europe over the coming years, a new conversation will arise, one that will force the authorities in Bhutan to come to terms with their treatment of the Lhotsampas, and to embrace their country’s diversity rather than suppress it.

For more information on the crisis, on life in the the camps, and on the many ways resettled Bhutanese refugees are advocating for their people, click here: 

www.bhutaneserefugees.com

Refugee Profile: The Somalis (Part II)

Throughout the Middle Ages, several states and empires rose and fell in Somalia. During the Golden Age of the Sultanate of Mogadishu, the city dominated 13^th Century trade in the Indian Ocean, and the Ajuuraan State of the 14^th to 17^th Centuries was famous for its castles, coastal fortresses, and its many defensive wars against the Portuguese invaders along Africa’s east coast.  However, Somalia soon found itself divided up between the British and the Italians during the rapid period of colonization that took place in the late 20th century, called the “Scramble for Africa.”  Many years of European domination culminated in an uprising led by the “Mad Mullah” Mohammed Abdullah Hassan.  For 20 years, Hassan successfully drove back the European colonizers and established the Dervish State, until his men suffered crippling  losses during a British air attack in 1920.  

Somalia under the colonialist powers was sharply divided into British Somaliland in the north, and Italian Somaliland along the southern and eastern coasts.  The two colonies frequently clashed during World War II, and both left the country in 1960 when Somalia was granted independence.  In 1969, Major General Mohammed Siad Barre seized control of the government after a military coup, and ran the country under a combination of Marxist and Islamic ideals (though his demand for strong, centralized government and his methods of getting it had much more in common with his Italian Fascist predecessors).

In spite of Barre’s attempts to obliterate the clan system, his own regime was known for targeting and carrying out brutal attacks against certain clans viewed as rivals.  The collapse of the Soviet Union led to diminished support for his regime abroad, and a car accident in 1986 left Barre severely injured and weakened.  In the meantime, the clans that his regime had abused and oppressed began organizing into militias.  In 1991, Siad Barre was driven from Mogadishu, his regime brought down, and with the notable exceptions of Somaliland and Puntland in the north (who quickly withdrew and claimed autonomy from the rest of Somalia), the country erupted into civil war.

Unfortunately, this is the point where most American’s awareness of Somalia begins.  In the coming years, many forces would have their hands in Somali politics, including various warring clans, UN Peacekeepers, the Ethiopian and Kenyan armies, and more recently, the Al-Qaeda affiliated militant group Al-Shabaab.  Though frequently in the news, Al-Shabaab has been struggling, partly out of an inability to unite people across clan divides, but also because of their dismal handling of the famine last year.  Extremist forms of Islam have never been popular in Somalia, and many Somalis resent the intrusion of what they see as a foreign influence into their country.  There were other unwelcome interlopers as well.  The lack of an official government has made the waters around Somalia a free-for-all for foreign fishing trawlers who have decimated the country’s fishing industry, to say nothing for the countries that have been silently dumping toxic waste into the coastal waters, causing many in the north to fall violently ill.  Much has been said about Somali piracy off the Horn of Africa; much more ought to be said about the factors that helped to create that problem.

And yet, in spite of twenty years of civil war, there are signs of hope.  The fighting never killed the Somalis’ entrepreneurial spirit, and they have established a vast telecommunications industry in their country, and even founded a university in Mogadishu that has gone on to become one of the top 100 Universities in Africa.  Al-Shabaab has relinquished control over much of Mogadishu, allowing local business owners and entrepreneurs to flourish.  This recent article from the New York Times highlights the remarkable changes that have come over Mogadishu in just the last few months, partly enabled by financial capital streaming in from the Somali Diaspora (our friends here in the Twin Cities, and elsewhere around the world).  Though much remains uncertain, Somalis abroad have not given up on their homeland, and are proving themselves invaluable in the process of rebuilding.  

Refugee Profile: The Somalis (Part 1)

In the spirit of my last two-parter blog post, I’d like to leave St. Paul and take a trip over to South Minneapolis (and many other communities in Minnesota) to explore the history and culture of another large refugee population we work with at World Relief: the Somalis. In Part I, I’ll give a brief overview of Somalia’s history and culture, and in Part II, go in-depth on the causes and aftermath of the 20-year civil war that has plagued the country and the many ways the Somalis have adapted and reinvented themselves in the Diaspora.

Just how many Somalis live in Minnesota is disputed: the official 2010 census numbers them at around 25,000, which some say is a gross underestimate. Though many equate the Somali community with the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in South Minneapolis, there are growing communities in suburbs like Burnsville, Coon Rapids and Shakopee, drawn there by job opportunities and the appeal of quieter, more family-friendly neighborhoods. Elsewhere in and around Minnesota, there are Somali communities in St. Cloud, Rochester and Duluth, and even in small towns like Willmar, Pelican Rapids, Barron, Wisconsin, and Postville, Iowa.

Somalia is a country in eastern Africa, bordered by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya to the west, and by the Gulf of Aden on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to the east. It’s tempting to picture Somalia as a lifeless, barren desert, but the country has a semi-arid, monsoonal climate and many areas, particularly along the Shabelle and Jubba rivers in the south, are lush and green. Palms grow in the cities, mangroves along the coasts, and junipers in the mountains to the north around Hargeisa. Dense thickets of acacia provide forage for grazing herds of sheep and goats, and frankincense and myrrh trees are among the trade goods that drew the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut on an expedition to the north coast of “Punt” in the 15^th century BC. Her account of this expedition is the earliest written record we have of Somalia.

The Somalis themselves are an Afro-Asiatic people genetically related to the Oromo, Amhara, and other ethnic groups in neighboring Ethiopia, many of whom have also come to Minnesota as refugees. Traditionally, Somalis lived as nomads and camel-herders, though some groups along the southern coast took advantage of the arable, well-watered landscape and grew crops. Additionally, many of our clients come from urban areas like Mogadishu.

To many Americans, the very name “Mogadishu” conjurs up images of Black Hawk helicopters, gun battles and chaos.  Though much of Mogadishu has been destroyed or overtaken by the militant group Al-Shabaab, and many Somalis are still fleeing the city, prior to the civil war, Mogadishu was considered one of Africa’s premier beach resorts and as sophisticated a city as any in Africa–never mind its centuries of history as a key trading port on the Indian Ocean. Excavations there have turned up coins from 10th-century China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and Mogadishu even exchanged ambassadors with Emperor Yong-lo Ti of the Ming Dynasty in 1430 AD, which should give some idea of Mogadishu’s reach in ancient trade. This link contains many photos of Mogadishu and other urban areas in Somalia taken prior to 1991, in which the Italian architectural influences are evident in many of the buildings. 

To understand the Somali worldview, one must understand two things: Islam, and the clan system. Somalis are proud of their Muslim identity, though a survey of various local practices can turn up remnants of older folk traditions as well. In fact, Islam and its radical monotheism found a welcome home in Somalia, as the Somalis (as well as the Oromos), already practiced a kind of monotheism in the worship of the sky-god Waaq. Today, the population of Somalia is almost 100% Muslim, predominantly Sunni. Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, is also widely practiced in Somalia.

Somalia’s clan system is loosely divided into four main clans: the Darod, the Hawiye, the Isaaq, and the Dir, with the Rehenwayn of southern Somalia sometimes included in the list. These major clans are subdivided into many layers of subclans, and most Somalis have a long memory of their lineage and the origin stories behind them. In addition to the main clans, there are many other minority groups, such as the Yibir, Tumal and Madhiban, who have historically been considered “lower class” and have often been subject to discrimination and mistreatment. The clans serve a protective function; Somalia is a land with more people than resources, and having the backing of a large, powerful clan offers not only protection from livestock rustlers and invaders, but financial and community support when disaster strikes. Clan identification still plays an important role in the lives of many Somalis in Minnesota, though the civil war has made it a sensitive topic and it may be best for volunteers not to dig too deeply into their family’s clan allegiances, especially if other, unrelated Somalis are present.

I’ll end this post on that note. Next week, I’ll pick up with the Italian and British colonial period, the Said Barre regime, and the civil war of 1991, and some thoughts on how media portrayals of the conflict in Somalia—and the Somalis themselves—are often in conflict with the reality.

 

For Further Reading:

Abdullahi, Mohamud Diriye. “Culture and Customs of Somalia.”

(This is a fantastic book written by a Somali-Canadian scholar. Most of the information in this post that I didn’t cite with a link came from this book—it describes the history of Somalia in detail, and many of the nomadic folk traditions, though it doesn’t seem to have much information on modern urban life or on the Diaspora.)