On Politics, Cultural Conflicts, Ideologies, Random Observations

The Captain is Free. What Now?

2009-04-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

Captain Phillips is freed. Horeeeey. Victory to navy seals and Barack Obama. But is this over? No. The only solution (there is no silver bullet solution) is to root out the pirates' land bases in Harardheere and Eyl and wherever else in Somalia, to assist the government of Somalia to train their own navy forces. Though this was a tragic incident, it refocuses the attention on Somalia's plight.

Baning Headwear on Drivers License: Safety before Morality

2009-03-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

A Minnesota state legislature is considering introducing a bill that would prohibit headwear on state issued IDs on grounds of national security. A Muslim outcry erupted even before the bill got to the floor for a committee hearing simply because it is in opposition to “what God told us to do”, as a young Somali activist, Suban Khalif, puts it.

Ok, I don’t get it. As far as I’m concerned, safety is of a top priority. What is the harm for removing headgear for a quick 30-second photo ID shootout if it enhances our security? I’m not naïve. I understand the moral implications this issue presents for Muslim women, specifically. Muslims can and should adopt progressivism and compromise for the sake of national security, however.

I don’t get this line too: “The Muslim community points out that Jews, Christians and other religions would also be affected if the bill passed”.
Could someone, please, explain to me how this bill would affect Christian and Jews Americans. I cannot think of seeing a mainstream American woman wearing a head veil. Banning

Deficiencies in the Somali Parenting Scheme

2009-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of examples of deficiencies in the Somali parenting scheme.

The Somali culture, in general, discourages children to engage their parents in a constructive dialogue, let alone challenge them. It is culturally inappropriate for children to answer or to disagree (respectfully or disrespectfully) with their parents or elders. Children are supposed to listen only. They know nothing. Parents and elders know everything. Whenever a child attempts to voice an opinion, he/she is accused of “talking back”. Talking back is sacrilege. In the process, the child’s opportunity to develop critical consciousness, which requires intercommunication as opposed to receiving communiqués, and a voice is suppressed. I would encourage Somali parents to start conversing with their children. Most importantly, to listen to their voices.

Somali parents routinely swear at their children: balaayo kugu dhacdey, stubid, jinni kula tag, belo kuqaadey, etc. Consequently, children also begin swearing. Somali parents must start curbing their swearing tendencies if they want to raise disciplined children.

Seal (pronounced as siil)

2009-01-09T11:48:00.001-08:00

A Somali female friend of mine instructs a business training class for upcoming Somali entrepreneurs. At the end of the four weeklong course, she distributes certificates of accomplishment stamped with a gold seal featuring the business training center’s logo. Seal is pronounced as SIIL, the Somali word for vagina—phonetics at work. Hearing SIIL, some of the Somali men, due to their lower proficiency level in English, thought the instructor is generously awarding them with great sex for their success. Their hearts pounded with excitement. Others noticed that the words are phonetically parallel but distinctive in meaning. The noises that run deep inside their head were saying, “it must mean something else”. When the instructor reiterated, they felt weird and out of the norm to hear the name of the organ that is every man’s fantasy.

Discussing sex and sex life candidly is a taboo within the Somali culture. It is a culture that treats (not always but often) sex as a means of reproduction, not of attaining pleasure and emotional attachment. Or one that puts more emphasis on the former than the latter.

All the Somali clichés in one post

2008-12-29T20:58:00.001-08:00

Here are a few of the recycled talking points that the Abubakar Asadique Islamic Center (AAIC) disseminates to its surrogates in defence from any accusations related to the current Somali Minnesota predicament. All the clichés in one post.

1- We are all Muslims and Somalis. Therefore, we must think and act alike with one mindset (hint: essentialism).
2- The accusations are politically and tribally motivated
3- The media is the problem (see the Foxnews9 clip)
4- The media is being overtaken by few individuals who don’t represent the views of the Somali community (hint: Omar Jamal)
5- The underlying intent is to destroy and discredit Muslim mosques and centers (the missing men rhyme is merely a scapegoat)
6- We provide valuable services for the youth and the community at large
7- The kids were recruited from the streets and not from the mosques (to the contrary, most of the youngsters were either college or high school students or working, or both)
8- There are those who want to exploit Somali plight for political reasons
9- Our problems stem from lack of a unified leadership among the Somali community; and
10- Lack of a united Somali community organization with one voice. In other words, the community is paralyzed by the existence of so many different community organizations and advocates with different visions and services. Therefore, we need to unite them all and form one community organization with one voice.

Somali Christmas Party in Minneapolis

2008-12-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I attended a Somali Christmas party. Yummy-tasting food and desserts, old-school music and dance highlighted the festivity. A well-decorated Christmas tree lit the room. Handsome men and beautiful women of all ages ready to mingle packed the room. At the door, a gorgeous young woman ushered us in with a cordial greeting. Inside, my eyes were exposed to some of the old recycled faces and strangers. For some, it was an ideal social gathering to meet potential mates. For others, a fun place to relieve themselves of the gloominess of the winter. Whatever intentions there were, everyone had a pleasurable evening.

Only a handful of them were dancing conservatively in a circle, moving their bodies moderately with no booty shaking and body contact, entering the ring one after another and sometimes in duo. O yeah, there was a senior citizen woman who exceptionally swung her booty with great excitement. I give her an A+

There were no alcoholic beverages served as anticipated from Somali gatherings. Paradoxically though it may seem, if I may extrapolate an observed trend from smaller circles of trust, majority of the attendees, men and women alike, drink. However, they prefer to drink covertly and are uncomfortable with exposure to the public eye as the ensuing social backlash is severe. I don’t blame them. I fault but the culture.

Things were quite different at the Shiisha place on Central Ave, our next destination. Young Somali women puff on a smoke pipe liberally and with a great pleasure in the presence of Somali men. How much we have progressed. It is said that social progress is measured by how much social progress women have attained. Somali women endured (the majority of them continue to endure) centuries old misogynistic treatments at the hands of male dominated societies. Thanks to America, smoking shiisha is now an acceptable social norm for the female sex. Free at last!
---RELEVANT POSTS: Young Somali Minnesotans and Soul Mate Searching

Frustrated Young Muslims Build Sub-Culture by Turning to Punk Rock

2008-12-25T11:14:00.000-08:00

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo. The novel’s Muslim characters include Rabeya, a riot girl who plays guitar onstage wearing a burqa and leads a group of men and women in prayer. There is also Fasiq, a pot-smoking skater, and Jehangir, a drunk. Such acts — playing Western music, women leading prayer, men and women praying together, drinking, smoking — are considered haram, or forbidden, by millions of Muslims
---READ MORE---

Bush effigy pelted with shoes

2008-12-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Reuters-Dec 24

Blaming on Non-existent External Factors on the Recruitment of young Jihadists

2008-12-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

Abdirahman Aynte asks: Are jihadist groups luring Minnesota Somalis back to fight?
I say: you betja, yeah.

Before these teenagers went missing, youth programs at mosques went minimally scrutinized, complained some community leaders. To address this, Adam, the Daral Hijra Center director, urges mosque leaders to introduce greater oversight on youth activities. “Our image as a community is tainted,” he said. “Instead of pointing fingers at our mosques and religious leaders, we need to repair our image. We need to minimize the influence of external factors by increasing oversight.”

Minimize the influence of external factors? This is absolutely baloney and a diversion. There is no such thing as external factors. The factors that are luring young men to Jihad activities are already built into the Abubakar mosques’ dynamics. The matter should be framed as to how can we progressively modify and monitor mosques’ and Madrasas’ Islamic curriculum.

Young Somali Minnesotans and Soul Mate Searching (Updated)

2008-12-22T10:40:00.000-08:00

I attended a so-called Somali comedy show by Oday Cabdule on Saturday night. The proceeds will go to charity, the organizers claim. Hopefully it turns out that way. The event took place at Minneapolis Convention Center on 12/20/08 between 9-12midnight.

Most people were there ostensibly to contribute, but in fact to find soul mates. There were many singles. Due to cultural reasons, some Somalis prefer to keep their mate hunting intentions vague. Others are reluctant to appear desperate in their pursuit for a partner-in-love though they are. Consequently, it is convenient for them to join or form pseudo-cause-driven (depending on the founders’ true intentions) ad hoc committees. It's worth noting that some of them have both objectives in mind: the explicit and the implicit one: to assist the needy ones and simultaneously to link hearts. On rare occasions, they kill two birds with one stone.

Outside, in the hallways, they gave each other the looks and the smiles, and gazed on each other's shining high foreheads common to Somalis; each waiting to see whether the other will summon up the courage to ask him/her out while limiting conversations to mundane matters.

After a great deal of indecision about how to move the night forward without making it appear like a blind date, a group of about a dozen (myself included) moved on to a popular rendezvous for after-party breakfast goers in uptown Minneapolis. There, they devoured their food, chitchatted, laughed, bored each other to death, took up their bill to the counter and departed. I cannot tell who got whose contact. I wish them all luck, however.
Me wondering how many of them hooked up.
---RELEVANT POSTS: Somali Christmas Party in Minneapolis

Al-Shabab declares global Jihad

2008-12-21T14:25:00.000-08:00

Al-Shabab declares global Jihad:

"We wish to tell Bush and our opponents our real intentions," Ibrahim Almaqdis, one of the fighters, told Al Jazeera news during an interview in Marka 56 miles outside the capital Mogadishu. "We will establish Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, Japan, Russia, the Solomon Islands and all the way to Iceland, be warned, we are coming."

US Federal Agents Hunt for the Missing Somali-Americans

2008-12-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

FT reports:

US federal agents have intensified the hunt for more than a dozen Somali-American youths missing from their homes in Minnesota, after a suicide bomber involved in a series of attacks by an al-Qaeda-linked group in east Africa in October was identified as an American citizen, the Financial Times has learnt.

How Kids are Turned into Jihadists

2008-12-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

A former Somali terrorist who is now a resident of Minnesota, Yusuf Shaba, has some fascinating insights on the evolution of radicalism and how Jihadists penetrate young Muslims’ minds only to become like them. The missing young Muslim Somalis of Minnesota is a case in point.

Yusuf Shaba, who writes about Islamic ideology and radicalism for the Warsan Times, a Somali-English monthly newspaper published in Minneapolis, says he decided to speak out about what he considers Islamic indoctrination at Minneapolis mosques because he doesn't want his sons to follow the same path he did. Shaba, 34, joined Al Ittihad Al-Islami (Islamic Union) at age 16 and was wounded at age 19 in Somalia. Al Ittihad was Somalia's largest Islamic terrorist group in the 1990s. Shaba says jihadists generally recruit young men from among two groups: those shunned by their families because they've turned to drugs, gangs or alcohol; and the sons of families who forbid exposure to Western culture and allow them to socialize only at the mosque. Shaba says he and his three teenage sons attended a program two months ago at Abubaker As-Saddique Islamic Center, where a former Somali warrior sat in a circle with other young people and delivered a passionate recitation of his experiences during the Somali civil war.

Some mosques also screen videos about the war in Afghanistan and about Muslim victims of perceived injustices in such places as Nigeria and the Palestinian territories. "They give them all the grievances that Osama Bin Laden has," Shaba says. "They talk about nothing but jihad and it's the best thing that can happen to a Muslim." When the brainwashing is done and the teachers are confident students will do anything asked of them, the teachers give them tazkia, or clearance, to get more specialized training in the United States or abroad, Shaba says. "The people who trained us encouraged us to not get married, to sever our ties with our families, so that when the mission comes we won't worry about family." Shaba says similar activities occur at Minnesota Da'wah Institute in St. Paul, another mosque. Sheik Mahamud Hassan, the institute's imam, says nothing like that is happening as his mosque. "It's liars," he says. "I'm not missing any members."
---READ MORE---

Muslim preachers in Iraq demanded the immediate release of 'the shoe-thrower'

2008-12-19T08:32:00.000-08:00

Muslim preachers in Iraq demanded the immediate release of 'the shoe-thrower' who rose to prominence after aiming his shoes (though missed narrowly) at President George W. Bush at a press confrence in Iraq.

"From this place we call on the prime minister and ask him, 'Tell us why you have detained a person who made such a heroic and fair act? A stand that all of us should have taken a long time ago'," Uthman Raheem said in his sermon. "Why do you detain a man who stood up in the face of injustice?"

The Shoe-thrower is Awarded with Hand in Marriage

2008-12-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

Middle East’s Muntazer Al-zaidi ‘the shoe-thrower’, America’s irritating Joe ‘the plumber’ counterpart, was eulogized widely in the Arab world for his weird but brave act for throwing his shoes, one after the other, to president Bush. He received the highest accolade when one Arab pronounced that his daughter and the shoe-thrower be joined in matrimony. “I find nothing more valuable than my daughter to offer to him”. In other words, his daughter is his most valuable property.

Al-Shabab, Somalia's Taliban

2008-12-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

From the Economist

The Shabab has learnt from its mistakes in 2006, when it was overwhelmed in a few days by the Ethiopian army. It is now more pragmatic and more aggressive. This time round, it is apparently not picking fights with wealthy qat merchants. Men can chew what they like—but won’t be “clean enough” to get a lucrative job in Kismayo’s port. Education is encouraged. Girls can go to school. Charcoal burning is forbidden for the sake of the environment.
But the Shabab has also tightened its own security. Alleged spies for the transitional government or for Ethiopia are routinely beheaded with blunt knives. Mr Turki, the jihadist leader who lives mostly in the bush near the Kenyan border, sleeps in different houses when he is in a town. Public floggings and executions strike fear. So do masked faces. “Before, we knew who killed our relatives,” says a Kismayo merchant. “Now we don’t even know that.”
Most tellingly, the Shabab has learnt how to get hold of money faster. It concentrates its fighters in towns where there is money to be earned. The aim is to create an army that puts Islamist identity above divisive clan loyalties. Shabab commanders say a pious state will emerge once weaker militias have been disarmed. Some reckon that the Shabab shares some of the ransoms earned by pirates who operate out of the central Somali port of Haradheere. Those in Puntland, farther north, are apparently beyond the Shabab’s reach
---READ MORE---

The U.N. General Assembly condemned defamation of religion

2008-12-18T14:36:00.000-08:00

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly condemned defamation of religion for the fourth year running on Thursday, ignoring critics who said the resolution threatens freedom of speech.

The non-binding resolution, championed by Islamic states and opposed by Western countries, passed by 86 votes to 53 with 42 abstentions. Opponents noted that support had fallen since last year, when the vote was 108-51 with 25 abstentions
Islamic states say such resolutions do not aim to limit free speech but to stop publications like the Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed that sparked bloody protests by Muslims around the world in 2005
---READ MORE---

The Origins and Purpose of Life

2008-12-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

By Lisa Zyga

In a recent study called “Why did life emerge?”, two scientists, son and father Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki and Erkki Annila of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, offer some insight into the general driving force of life’s origins in terms of thermodynamics. As they explain, all organisms are composed of molecules that assemble together via numerous chemical reactions. Just as heat flows from hot to cold, these molecules obey the universal tendency to diminish energy differences, so that the most likely chemical reactions are those in which energy flows “downhill” toward a stationary state, or chemical equilibrium.

Although the researchers don’t speculate on the specific chemical reactions that created life, they explain that the molecules involved most likely underwent a series of more and more complex reactions to minimize mutual energy differences between matter on Earth and with respect to high-energy radiation from Sun. The process eventually advanced so far that it cumulated into such sophisticated functional structures that could be called living.
---READ MORE---

How the Qur'an Can Be Used to Justify Gay Marriage

2008-12-14T22:23:00.000-08:00

By Pamela K. Taylor

It may be a radical reading to use the Qur'an and the teachings of the Prophet to justify gay marriage, but to me it is the only one which upholds the fundamental Islamic ideals of fairness, equality of all human beings, compassion and mercy.

Like the Bible, and most other religious texts, the Qur'an doesn't have any verse that says, "God has made you black and white, male and female, straight and gay. Be you as brothers to one another, working, eating, praying, loving as one family." On the other hand, it also does not say "Marriage is only between one man and one woman," or even "between one man and up to four women."

There is a clear assumption in many passages in the Qur'an that marriage is between men and women. Passages that talk about how a couple should decide when to wean a child, what times of day it is permissible to have sexual relations during Ramadan, or what to do when conflict arises and a divorce seems the best solution.

But other passages -- passages that talk about the fundamental nature of human relationships as a duality -- do not have a gender dichotomy. The word "zauj," often translated as mate or spouse, signifies one half of a partnership, both husband and wife. This is a powerful concept which affirms the fundamental equality of both spouses and leaves room for a genderless conception of human partnering.
---READ MORE---

Gay marriage and the Bible

2008-12-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

John Meacham of Newsweek reacting to conservative reactionaries standing, unwavering, the path to gay marriage because they believe the biblical scriptures ordain against it writes:

No matter what one thinks about gay rights—for, against or somewhere in between--this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.

Briefly put, the Judeo-Christian religious case for supporting gay marriage begins with the recognition that sexual orientation is not a choice—a matter of behavior—but is as intrinsic to a person's makeup as skin color. The analogy with race is apt, for Christians in particular long cited scriptural authority to justify and perpetuate slavery with the same certitude that some now use to point to certain passages in the Bible to condemn homosexuality and to deny the sacrament of marriage to homosexuals. This argument from Scripture is difficult to take seriously—though many, many people do—since the passages in question are part and parcel of texts that, with equal ferocity, forbid particular haircuts. The Devil, as Shakespeare once noted, can cite Scripture for his purpose, and the texts have been ready sources for those seeking to promote anti-Semitism and limit the human rights of women, among other things that few people in the first decade of the 21st century would think reasonable.

---READ MORE---

Teen disappears: 'Mom, I'm in Somalia'

2008-12-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

CNN has the story of Burhan Hassan, 17, one of the young missing Somalis from Minnesota possibly enticed to go fight Jihad in Somalia. The most concern now by U.S. officials is the ramification of their return to U.S. soil after acquiring terrorism training. Omar Jamal seems to know: “I don’t see anything that would prevent from those kids to carry out suicide bombs right here [in the United States].”

Hassan's mother speaks out:

---RELEVANT POSTS:
The Somali American suicide bomber, a victim or a villain?
Islamism and college campuses
Do Terrorists deserve a proper Muslim burial?

I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist

2008-12-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

A former radical Islamist writes:

There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians. The notion of a global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state - typically by starting debate with the question: "Are you British or Muslim?"

But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Muslim institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology.

They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that Islam can be interpreted as condoning violence against the unbeliever - and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace and hope that all of this debate will go away.

This has left the territory open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, I repeatedly came across those who had tried to raise these issues with mosque authorities only to be banned from their grounds.
--READ MORE--

Sorry, Blame it on Omar Jamal

2008-12-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

It is a well known fact that Muslim extremists are minority in number yet their voices reign supreme. Check out this video and observe how they rebuttal accusations aimed at their Abubakar Assadique mosque—linked with an ongoing FBI investigation about the missing young Somali Minnesotans—with considerable vigor. They are blaming the messenger (the outspoken, sometimes hyperbolic, Omar Jamal who is a vocal critic of local Somali religious ideologues), and the media for creating public awareness of possible nascent Muslim radical cells in Minnesota and around the country.

“[Omar Jamal] is going to the media and saying something bad about our community and that’s unacceptable”, shouts one Islamist. What is bad about talking about young teenagers lured into fighting evil war?

The religious fanatics are succeeding in convincing the media and the public that Omar Jamal is tribally motivated and thus his comments merit no attention. They understand the fluid nature of tribalism and are doing their best to inject it into the conversation.

Two of the many missing Somalis were Students of University of MN

2008-12-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I blogged about the danger religious ideologies' infiltration into college campuses in Minnesota pose. An article by AP reports that two of the many missing Somali teenagers who have traveled to Somalia to join the Jihadists, Al-shabab, were attending the University of Minnesota. Like I said, college campuses are rich with youngsters with hearts easy to change.

Do Terrorists deserve a proper Muslim burial?

2008-12-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

The controversy and resentment surrounding the proper Muslim burial given to the Somali Minnesotan suicide bomber, Shirwa Ahmed, last week is simmering within the conservative blogs and some commentary sites. Ahmed was buried at a Muslim cemetery in Burnsville, Minnesota after the FBI shipped his corpse back to Minnesota. Fox news reported that Ahmed was neither hailed as a hero nor was he condemned as a killer but buried and the last rites performed on him as an ordinary Muslim.

This causes a PR nightmare for Somalis and Muslims in general. Ahmed, an unrepentant terrorist, took innocent lives down with him. Thus, giving him a proper burial sends the wrong signals that the community isn’t doing enough to condemn terrorism. The Somali community would have done a great service—to mend relations with the mainstream society—for themselves had they taken a stance similar to the one the Indian Muslims adopted. Influential Indian Muslim clerics refused to give burial service to the nine gunned down Mumbai terrorists.

The men are not true followers of the Islamic faith, according to the influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the 7.5-acre (three-hectare) Badakabrastan graveyard in downtown Mumbai.
"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a trustee. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."

I wonder whether the Somali community believes that Ahmed was a true believer who died for an Islamic cause.