Year: 2014

Return of the quirky Somali diasporans

For the best part of the last three years I’ve been visiting, working and living in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. During that time a lot has changed. Security has improved thanks to al-Shabab retreating from the city. Mogadishu feels like it is finally being resuscitated from the bloody two-decade long civil war-induced coma. Residents are flocking to the white sandy beaches on the edge of the city to pass time and enjoy things they couldn’t afford to because of the war.

Liido Beach, where the ‘cool’ diasporan men go to mingle with the ladies. (Pic: Hamza Mohamed)

There is also a new crowd calling this seaside city of one million people home. Somalis are returning from all corners of the globe – some moving back for good, others to seek business opportunities. As a result of this new addition to the city’s residents, rent is sky-high and competition between diasporans and locals for the few government jobs available is becoming cut throat.

Depending on the countries the diasporans are returning from, they bring with them distinct behaviours and ways alien to Mogadishu.

Somali-Brits – the serial title collectors
They make up the majority of diasporans, and they love titles more than anything. Ask for the business card of a Somali-Brit in Mogadishu – before their name you’ll find at least three titles. Mohamed, a forklift driver from the rundown area of Harlesden in London, will be Pilot, Professor, Doctor, Diplomat Mohamed. Only Somali-Brits can fit so many titles on such small cards.

Titles are not the only thing they love, though. They are also seasoned penny pinchers. They dislike tipping more than they dislike Somalia’s notorious checkpoints, and spend many minutes negotiating the price of a US $5 meal. They are experts in Qudbosiro (secret marriages). The only time Somali-Brits are happy to part with cash is when they’re paying the dowry for a secret second wife. They have a habit of bribing the local Qaadis (men who conduct weddings) so that they don’t alert the first wife back in the UK.

The Americans – the Tea Party type
This bunch is loud, big and in clothes at least two sizes bigger than your usual Somali. From their dress sense it is difficult to tell whether they came from Dadaab or Denver. Some dress in FUBU and Karl Kani labels. Unlike the Brits they will tip – only $1 dollar – and then proudly tell the whole city about their ‘generous’ deed. Because they are used to American food portions, they endlessly complain about the ‘small’ portions in local restaurants.

The Tea Party types obsessively boast about the small achievements they accomplished in American cities that the average Somali person will find impossible to find on a map – like the time they graduated from a beginner’s English language course ten years ago.

They are experts in local clan politics thanks to the liberal number of years they spent out of work and in tea shops in Minneapolis. They are Somalia’ tea party – their views and loyalty to their clans trumps everything.

They usually visit Somalia in large numbers after they have received their tax returns – the only time they can afford economy class tickets from Minneapolis to Mogadishu.

Every second sentence usually starts with, “I’m American, and you know in America…”

Despite their views corresponding with the Republican Party, they claim to vote for the Democratic Party.

The Canadians – Team Yolo (You Only Live Once)
They are ciyaalka xafada (the cool kids on the block) and mooryans (gangsters) in the making. They are everyone’s friends. This group treats life as a party and Somalia as a dance floor. They usually arrive with few things – like a minor criminal record and a Mongolian scripture tattoo they got while under the influence on a night out in Toronto. It’s hard to find them talking about serious issues. Don’t mention school – they have usually dropped out of school and are sensitive discussing this subject. If you want them to unfriend you on Facebook, tag them in photos from your graduation ceremony.

They often blame the Canadian ‘system’ for their failure in school, and regularly point to Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs as examples of people who succeeded in life without completing school. Team Yolo’s favourite topic of conversation is binge-drinking in Nairobi. They’re the company to keep on a weekend when anything Halaal is not on the list.

The Scandinavians – Catwalk crew
Unlike their American counterparts, they don’t have weight issues and dress in body-hugging J Lindeberg T-shirts and slim-fit Jack & Jones jeans. They lack the social skills of the Canadians and have a dry sense of humour. They are the quietest of the diasporans because they speak a language no Somali in Somalia understands. Locals say the Somali-Scandinavians speak af shimbir (birds’ language).

Due to their poor grasp of the English language they often lose out to local university graduates for the few international NGO jobs in the market. Because they’re linguistically challenged, they are often found sitting alone in the corners of restaurants or in meetings, and making hand signals no one understands. The Scandinavians are obsessed with their looks and clothes. They can be heard complaining about how Mogadishu’s hard water is ruining their Afro or hair colour. Thanks to the long hours they spend in front of the mirror, they are easy on the eye and take likable selfies on Instagram.

The Karachi crew – the shipwrecks
This group is not considered fully diasporans nor fully local. They consist mainly of Somalis who attempted to get to Europe but weren’t lucky and ended up studying on the Indian subcontinent.

They are extremely good at lecturing others on things they know little of. They are experts on all matters mysterious, like where to find water if you end up on the moon – not that many Somalis will end up on the moon.

Local girls call them Kumel gar (the temporary ones) until the real diasporans turn up.

Their business cards usually say advisor, consultant, analyst or researcher for a diasporan taxi-driver-turned-minister or a foreign NGO.

To look cool and diasporan, they’re often found coughing on shisha or, if they’re in Nairobi, with an empty Tusker bottle – the local beer.

A Karachi crew member’s Facebook profile is filled with photos they took with other diasporans in Europe and America. They harass diasporans coming from the US for Starbucks coffee sachets.

They speak English with a heavy Indian accent but they believe they sound American. They have diplomatic passports issued under a president Somalis have long forgotten about.

A changing Somalia
These five groups aren’t the only ones who have moved back but they are the ones who stand out the most. The city is the liveliest it has been in more than 23 years. Locals have welcomed their long-lost countrymen with open arms, despite finding their new habits odd and funny at times.

With peace holding and at least five international flights landing in Mogadishu every day, it’s just a matter of time before the Somali-Aussies arrive from the end of the world. And with new shisha parlours popping up everywhere, I bet the Somalis in the Gulf are packing their bags too. The banana-flavoured shisha here is really good.

Hamza Mohamed is a journalist at Al Jazeera. Follow him on Twitter: @Hamza_Africa

11 years ago

Alice and Emmanuel: A story of reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda

Emotional scenes played out in Rwanda this week as the country commemorated 20 years since the genocide that left close to a million people dead.

April 1994 is a long time ago, but physical and emotional scars remain fresh.

One wonders, every time the word Rwanda is mentioned, how the country managed to pull itself out of one of the darkest periods in the history of human existence.

Even more astounding is how people in Rwanda managed to find each other, forgive and bridge the gap that was left by the ethnic cleansing that happened 20 years ago.

Other nations are still struggling to find themselves almost a century after wars.

But Rwanda’s is a miracle of unimaginable scale. I know this because I walked the roads the killers walked and visited the sites of mass murders, where only skulls and bloodied garments now bear testimony to the gruesome events that began in April 1994.

I saw this miracle in the eyes of Alice Mukarurinda when she spoke of her boyfriend, Emmanuel Ndayisaba. Theirs is a tale of post-genocide forgiveness.

I met the two in June 2012 when I was a guest of the Rwandan president during the closure of the Gacaca courts – a locally-brewed justice system where trials where held publicly and community members, including women, were elected as judges. It was modelled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission but had better results.

During 2001 until they closed in June 2012, the Gacaca courts heard over two million cases and in the process healed the wounds of many. Even at the closing function, more Rwandans were still wishing it would remain operational.

Locals from the Kigali’s Gikondo District One attend a session of the Gacaca grassroots tribunal on March 28 2004. (Pic: AFP)

Although criticised by few human rights organisations for not subscribing to minimum legal standards, the courts not only heard many cases which would have taken a conventional court years to finish, but they was far cheaper to maintain. Compare it to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which in 2012 had cost $1.7-billion to run, having only tried 60 suspects in its 17 years of existence.

Most of the people I spoke to in Rwanda in 2012, both victims and perpetrators, were happy with the Gacaca tribunal process thus far. This was despite the fact that many families still didn’t know how their family members were killed or where they were buried.

Mass graves were still being discovered in June 2012, which disputes the 800 000 fixed figure of those killed.

In Nyamwata, at a church in which hundreds were killed as they sought safety from the Hutus, families were still coming through to clean the recently exhumed bones in bags which they believe belong to their loved ones.

I asked how they knew the bones belonged to their families members, and they said just by cleaning the bones, it gave them some kind of closure. They felt they had paid their last respects to those they loved, those they will never see again.

But it was how forgiveness brought people from tribal divides together that fascinated me.

I met Alice at one of the functions held to bring down the curtain on these special courts in 2012. Alice still bears machete scars on her head, cheek and neck, and only has half of her arm. The other half was cut off. All this happened one day in April 1994 when Hutu militia came to her village and went on a killing spree of anyone who was slimmer and taller – an indication that they were Tutsis.

Within a few minutes, 33 members of her family were killed in front of her, including her nine-month-old daughter.

During the killing spree, one bearded Hutu man unleashed a machete several times on Alice’s head, and blood gushed onto her face. He tried to finish her, but she managed to use her right arm to block the machete. Her arm got cut, severed just above the wrist. The bearded man sliced her face. His colleague pierced a spear through her left shoulder.

She fainted. The men thought she was dead, and left. She was found alive three days later.

The bearded man who severed Alice’s arm with a machete is Emmanuel Ndayisaba. He is her boyfriend now. The two met during one of the Gacaca court sessions. They were standing on opposing sides – Emmanuel, a genocide perpetrator and Alice, the victim who needed answers.

Emmanuel Ndayisaba and Alice Mukarurinda sit in Alice’s home in Nyamata, Rwanda. (Pic: AP Exchange)

That day, he confessed to the court what he did to Alice and her family. In fact he was surprised to see her alive. She remembered him because of his beard, the same beard he had when he killed her family members, and the same beard that always came to mind when someone asked her about the killings.

Alice told me at first that it was difficult to forgive Emmanuel. She cried until she had no more tears. But she forgave Emmanuel and today the two are very close. “I have learnt to forgive, even the one who tried to kill me,” she told me.

Alice and Emmanuel continue to spread the message of forgiveness at forums where they talk about reconciliation. They hope that this will help heal the wounds of the past atrocities. They have become an inspiration for those who believe in the impossibility of reconciliation after brutal ethnic conflict such as the one that happened in Rwanda.

While theirs is an extraordinary story of reconciliation and forgiveness, it remains to be seen if this will inspire the nation to put its past behind it. Two decades later, many hope that Rwandan leaders and residents will give meaning to the messages of “Never Again” and chart the country to extraordinary healing and hope. To me, that is what is there for Rwanda to celebrate as it commemorates 20 years.

Isaac Masilo Mangena is a communicator/activist. He has spent much of the past decade in newsrooms around Africa, and visited Rwanda as a journalist in 2012. He believes that the African dream will not die.

11 years ago

‘How can you be a vegetarian and an African?’

(Pic: Flickr / itsokaystay_calm)

I have observed that many Africans, specifically West Africans, share this idea that there is a checklist of things one must do in order to be a “real African”. Some things on that list may include eating jollof, azonto-ing and reading Things Fall Apart. I most recently found out that eating meat is also on that list. Being a vegetarian, my African pass, as I jokingly say, was called into question when I revealed I don’t eat meat to many of my African associates.

“You are a vegetarian and you are African?” I often hear. “How can you be a vegetarian and an African? That is unnatural.”

My decision to become a vegetarian is a part of my African identity and not separate although many have argued that, “I am not a real African because real Africans eat meat.” My decision had nothing to do with animals or the environment. It really had nothing to do with health either, as I’ve always been conscious of the food I eat even when they included meat. I became a vegetarian because of my views on immigration reform, the meatpacking industry and how it directly relates to Africans. About 3% of all undocumented immigrants in the United States are from Africa. Almost a quarter of the workers who butcher and process meat, poultry and fish are undocumented. We always hear the stories of those Africans who immigrated to the United States and worked their way to the “American dream”, but what about the others whose voices we never hear?

I became a vegetarian because I disagree with the exploitation of immigrant workers in the meatpacking industry. I disagree with the cruel work environments. According to a report by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, the meatpacking industry has a rate of 7.5 cases per 100 full-time workers when it comes to injuries. This may not seem high, but in fact, it is about 21% higher than the food manufacturing industry as a whole and 50% higher than the manufacturing industry as a whole. Furthermore, almost none of these immigrant workers have health insurance to treat their injuries due to the cost. Besides a poor work environment, they are paid wages that anyone would find ludicrous. Wages are based on the judgment of those in charge and can range from $2 an hour to $9 an hour. Undocumented workers are unable to assert their rights and have no protection of labour laws. They are faced with abuse and discrimination.

Being a vegetarian is a personal choice I made due to my views on this social and human rights issue. Just as I do not wear diamonds due to the conflict, I do not eat meat. These are not decisions that I would force on anyone, but I find it disheartening when my African identity is put into question because my eating habit is considered “unnatural” for an African.

My question to this thinking is simply, why? Why is it unnatural for an African to not eat meat? Africa is a continent compromised of 54 countries. Fifty four countries bursting with tribes, traditions, languages and eating habits. Of those 54 countries, are you telling me that all of its citizens have the same diet? From the North to the South to the East to the West, are we really all meat eaters?

For those who believe it is unnatural because “it is a part of our culture”, who creates culture? Is it not the people? Furthermore, seeing that Africans are dispersed all around the world due to voluntary migration and the trading of enslaved people, can we really box what African culture is? Who determines what culture is for an African on the continent and an African in South America?

I am an African woman. I am a vegetarian. There is no “and” because those two identities aren’t independent of each other. My Africanness led to my decision to become a vegetarian.

*Immigration statistics sourced from migrationpolicy.org.

Bilphena Yahwon is a Liberian artist, writer, womanist, social justice activist and student currently pursuing a BS in Information Systems/Business Administration. She is editor of Rise Africa, a blog written by a group of individuals who seek to create an atmosphere that encourages conversation between Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Connect with them on Twitter: @riseafrica

11 years ago

The legacy of the Rwandan genocide

I went back to Rwanda last month for the first time in almost 20 years. I was head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) during and after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The experience changed me completely; my innocence died there.

In April and May 1994, I was working just across the border in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), receiving refugees fleeing the violence. But very few managed to escape the horrors. Eight hundred thousand people died in 100 days. The rivers were full of mutilated bodies. Most of the corpses were headless, except for those victims who had paid a dollar to be murdered with a bullet.

Photographs of people who were killed during the 1994 genocide are seen inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum. (Pic: Reuters)

I remember some Rwandan boys who came across the border and told me what had happened in their village. While they hid in the bushes, they saw their mother raped and murdered, their sisters killed and their father taken away. Then they ran and ran for days until they reached the border. One of the boys had badly injured his arm – it was barely attached. His little brother had died in his arms.

Return to Rwanda
These were the images that I brought back with me. But on arriving in Kigali, the capital, I found a prosperous African city full of cars, commerce and people living their lives. My memories of a post-apocalyptic ghost town, of bullets, blood and hastily dug mass graves, the air heavy with death and fear, seemed a lifetime ago.

The former MSF hospital in Ruhengeri, northwest of Kigali, is now a beautiful, bustling referral facility, treating a normal range of human ailments. No more patients with war wounds and landmine injuries, like those who came to us in the days and weeks following the genocide. Only people’s mental trauma persists as evidence of the horror they suffered.

Simple memorials and mass grave sites testify to the great evil that sucked up this tiny country. I stopped in Butare to pay my respects to the hundreds of Rwandan MSF aid workers who were slaughtered in April and May 1994. A mass grave has been constructed on the grounds of the University of Butare opposite the hospital – a simple memorial, with photos of the dead. It was here, in this quiet and lovely spot that I was finally able to cry.

Crossing the border
There could not have been a greater contrast between the peace and calm of Rwanda and what I found when I crossed the border into DRC. Goma, previously a small town, has become a bustling city of one million inhabitants sprawled along the shore of Lake Kivu.

More than 100 international humanitarian organisations help fuel a booming economy. It is hot and dusty, dirty and chaotic. The black volcanic rock everywhere reminds you that the city lives in the shadow of active volcanoes that erupted in 2002.

Just outside Goma, terrible roads took us past camps for displaced people that litter the hills and roadsides. The improvised shacks in these camps are home to hundreds of thousands of people, about 80 per cent of them displaced by the armed conflict and violence in Masisi Territory, a beautiful mountainous region north of Goma.

I had last been in Masisi in 1996, but this was not the same place I remembered. Back then the war was just beginning; the Masisi of today is soaked in violence, the people experienced at fleeing conflict.

Driving past a police station, we heard the sounds of a man being beaten inside. Outside, children laughed at his screams of pain and anger. They are part of a new generation of Congolese children who have only known violence, displacement and deprivation.

Struggle to reach care
We reached the MSF hospital in Masisi town. In the emergency room, a baby lay motionless, breathing hard. Medical staff had started treating his severe pneumonia. He got sick while hiding in the forest with his mother and six brothers and sisters, as they fled the battles raging in their small village.

His mother explained that after a year of living in a camp for displaced people, she had recently returned home with her young family. Then the fighting resumed and they had to flee yet again. They had no food, no shelter, no medical care and no protection from the voracious mosquitoes and heavy rains. After four days they turned back, preferring to die at home rather than in the forest.

Her baby became increasingly sick, and there was no medical care in the village; the MSF health centre had been looted, the medicines stolen. She decided to make the long walk to Masisi hospital with her small children in tow. Fortunately an MSF ambulance spotted her on the road. After another day of walking in the heavy rain, it might have been too late for her baby.

The everyday emergency in the DRC
This family is among the 1.7 million people displaced by violent conflict in eastern DRC. You don’t hear much about the Congolese people who have fled their homes and lost what little they have not once, but multiple times over the past 20 years. We have been working in eastern DRC since 1992 providing emergency medical care to this forgotten population.

The people of eastern DRC live in a state of everyday emergency. Our teams routinely respond to outbreaks of measles and cholera; just last week a typhoid epidemic claimed many lives. Local health facilities do not function and the medical situation is desperate.

As we remember the Rwandan genocide of 20 years ago, my hope is that we will look to DRC and the everyday emergency that is bringing a people to its knees. Every day in Congo armed men are pillaging towns and villages and forcing people to flee. Every day children are dying from preventable diseases like pneumonia. Every day mothers are dying in childbirth and every day women are victims of sexual abuse. These people deserve our help.

Rachel Kiddell-Monroe is a Canadian doctor who served as emergency co-ordinator and later head of mission in the DRC (then Zaire) for MSF/Doctors Without Borders from 1993 to the end of 1996.

11 years ago

Zimbabwe’s crocs go veggie for high fashion

Crocodiles are some of the most feared predators in Africa, ruthless reptiles renowned for tearing their prey to pieces before swallowing hunks of meat raw.

But in the baking sun at Nyanyana crocodile farm on the shores of Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba, feeding time has a surreal edge as the beasts nibble lazily at bowls of vegetarian pellets.

Besides being cheaper than meat, the diet of protein concentrate, minerals, vitamins, maize meal and water is said to enhance crocodile skin destined to become handbags or shoes on the catwalks of New York, Paris, London or Milan.

“We don’t feed them meat any more,” said Oliver Kamundimu, financial director of farm owner Padenga Holdings.

“It actually improves the quality because we now measure all the nutrients that we are putting in there, which the crocodile may not get from meat only,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Crocodiles feed on vegetarian pellets inside a pen at Nyanyana Crocodile Farm in Kariba. (Pic: Reuters)

Four hundred kilometres northwest of Harare, Nyanyana is home to 50 000 Nile crocodiles and is one of three Padenga farms around Kariba, Africa’s largest man-made lake.

The company has 164 000 crocodiles in all and started feeding pellets in 2006 at the height of an economic crisis in Zimbabwe that made meat scarce and very expensive.

Initially, the pellets contained 50% meat but that has gradually been phased out to an entirely vegetarian diet.

“We have moved gradually to a point where we reduced the meat to about 15% then to 7% and where we are now there is zero meat, zero fish,” he said.

“It’s a much cleaner operation and the crocs are getting all the nutrients they want from that pellet.”

Fed every second day, the crocodiles are largely docile and lie asleep in their enclosures as workers walk around casually cleaning up leftovers.

Hermes, Gucci
The crocodiles are slaughtered at 30 months, when they are about 1.5 metres long and their skin is soft and supple.

Last year Harare-listed Padenga sold 42 000 skins to tanneries in Europe, especially France, where the average skin fetches $550.

Ninety percent of the leather becomes high-end handbags, Kamundimu said, while the remainder makes belts, shoes and watch straps for some of the biggest names in world fashion.

“When you hear names like Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Gucci – those are the brand names we are talking about,” he said with a satisfied smile.

Having survived economic collapse and hyperinflation of 500 billion percent in Zimbabwe, Padenga then had to deal with fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis, and economic contraction in the euro zone, its main market.

However, while appetite for crocodile meat cooled in Europe and Asia, super-wealthy European shoppers shrugged off recession and continued to snap up crocodile-skin items, Kamundimu said.

“When you look at people who buy handbags for their wives or daughters that cost $40 000 a piece, even when the euro zone problems came, they could still afford to buy,” he said. We didn’t feel a decline.”

MacDonald Dzirutwe for Reuters