Especially Seeking Somalis

Not long ago, I was at the Global Mall and I ran across a neon green handbill. It was a casting call for the Tom Hanks feature film, Capt. Phillips, and it stated that Sony Pictures was "especially seeking Somalis."  Because I found this handbill outside a Somali money-wiring business, and because the auditions were held at the Somali Community Association, I can only assume that some Somalis are on board with this project.

It made me think, though.

On one hand, it would seem to be a step forward to have a film company insist that Somalis play Somalis. Unlike Black Hawk Down which used mostly Nigerian actors. (Or even The Good Wife, a show I love, which has a Somali character who doesn't look to be Somali).

On the other hand, I have actor friends who would argue that it doesn't matter. Actors are actors. They inhabit other identities.

But I think it does matter. When I was writing the Westerns section of my book Adaptations, I did a lot of research into how Native Americans were depicted in film. One of the films I cited, A Man Called Horse, particularly crystalized a lot of the controversy. Ward Churchill, a Native American activist and author, pointed out: "This droll adventure, promoted as 'the most authentic description of North American Indian life ever filmed,' depicts a people whose language is Lakota, whose hairstyles range from Assiniboin through Nez Perce to Comanche, whose tipi design is Crow, and whose Sun Dance ceremony and lodge in which it is held are both typically Mandan."

At the time, most reviewers agreed with Louise Sweeney, who said: "A Man Called Horse does have a documentary realism for several reasons. ... Production notes emphasize the use of members of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in feature roles and behind the scenes, creating accurate costumes, teepees, and weapons." Today, the notion that this film is documentary-like is almost laughable. Watch it. It hasn't held up well.

Our collective opinion has changed because there has been work done to educate people about Native American issues. We've come some distance from images of the Red Man and the Noble Savage.

Which, I guess, is my issue with this Tom Hanks film, however well-intentioned. Pirate is to Somali as Savage is to Native American.

Otherwise, would Jeffrey Gettleman (one of the best and only Western journalists covering Somalia from inside Somalia) have ended a recent article about the drought and famine in Somalia with this paragraph (emphasis mine):

It is important to remember that however plagued Somalia is, however routine conflict, drought and disease have become, however many Somalis have already needlessly died, Somalis are not somehow wired differently from the rest of us. They are not numb to suffering. They are not grief-proof. I’ll never forget the expression on Mr. Kufow’s face as he stumbled out of Benadir Hospital into the penetrating sunshine with his lifeless little girl in his arms. He may not have been weeping openly. But he looked as if he could barely breathe.

Before They Were Pirates

This morning I heard that, in Egypt, the streets are ringing with protest poetry. This is wonderful, and even surprising, but nothing new for that part of the world. In Somalia, many believe poetry helped bring down their dictator. In honor of the moment, I'm excerpting a little from an unpublished essay of mine. 

Long before the Somalis were pirates, they were poets.

Poetry was present in every facet of life. Everything merited a poem, from churning butter to herding goats to visiting a friend to turning down a marriage proposal. If you wanted to request something, you did it with a poem. If you wanted to object to something, you did it with a poem. If you wanted to explain something, you did it with a poem. Somalia was (and still is, to a large extent) an oral society and poems contained the information needed to live. They taught botany, animal husbandry, geography, history, ethics, philosophy. Poetry was also a political force. Each clan appointed a poet who played a key role in making war or protecting peace. In fact, some say it was poetry, as recently as a few decades ago, that finally brought Somalia’s dictator down. 

I’ve read everything I can find on the subject, although there’s less than you might think, given poetry’s importance in Somali culture. Nobody knows how far back their poetic tradition goes. British explorer Sir Richard Burton, one of the first Westerners to venture into the land of the Somalis, made note of it in the 1850s:

The country teems with “poets, poetasters, poetitos, poetaccios:” every man has his recognized position in literature as accurately defined as though he had been reviewed in a century of magazines.

The complexity of the art form he described has led people to believe that the practice stretches much further back, but, mysteriously, there are no surviving poems prior to the 1700s.

Poetry contests, much like our poetry slams, have long been a common form of entertainment in Somalia. Canadian author Margaret Laurence, who lived in Somaliland in the 1950s and who made the first attempt to translate Somali poetry into English, describes a competition in which the objective was to write a poem about the vagina without using the word and without offending public sensibilities. One can only imagine the neologisms that were created in the service of that set of constraints.

Sometimes the contests weren’t as playful. In the early 1980s, when Somalia was nearing its breaking point and its president, Siad Barre, had shown himself to be just another corrupt and cruel African dictator, two poets decided to challenge one another to a poetic duel that would directly confront the regime. Where do these Japanese cars come from, one poem asked, when most people have nothing? Cassette tapes, which had been enthusiastically adopted by the nomads, became the delivery method. Poets from around the country, and the world, added their voices to the debate. Poetry cassettes were everywhere. All told, around sixty poets contributed about one-hundred-and-twenty poems.

Not long after the contest began, the SNM—one of the first and largest resistance movements— was formed, operating out of a base in Ethiopia. Some say the country’s turning point came when the two poets who began the contest defected to Ethiopia in the middle of the night and began to actively work with the resistance. “And the armed poetry started,” as one poet put it.

For the years I’ve been teaching Somalis, I’ve searched for evidence of their poetry. Not amongst the intellectuals in African Studies programs, but in the homes of newly arrived refugees. I’ve heard that poetry cassettes still circulate, but I’ve also heard the old poetic tradition, based as it is on the pastoral lifestyle, is being wrecked by war and usurped by the Somali love for new technology. So who knows? Once, when I was trying to buy a Somali-English dictionary, a Somali friend gave me a ride to the market where they are sold. Her car was old, low-slung and rusty. Beneath the sound of the exhaust, I heard something verse-like coming from the cassette deck. It was in a language I didn’t understand. Is that poetry? I asked excitedly. No, she said gently. That is Qr’aan.

When I’ve asked Somali women about their poetry, they tell me to talk to the men. (The women’s poetry is usually private and domestic, the men’s is far more public.) When I ask the men, they shrug, but not unkindly.  

Is it because it is too difficult to translate? Or because I won’t understand? Don’t know enough about camels? Or drought? Or clan politics? Or is it because they are refugees, and have other things to think about?

  
Note: Alexander Stille's The Future of the Past has a wonderful chapter about how technology is impacting Somali poetry. He talks at length about the impact of poetry on Barre's downfall.

Confetti from a Giant's Wedding

I am currently reading Richard Dowden's Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. It's a great book with some of the most insightful thoughts about Africa, Somalia and Somalis that I've read in a long time. He's also a good writer.

Tonight I was struck by his fanciful description of the landscape as he is driving south from Hargeisa, Somalia, "into a world of sand, rock, thorn trees and plastic bags [italics mine]. Given away free in markets, millions of blue and pink thin plastic bags blow across Somalia like confetti from a giant's wedding."

This is just as true in the desert in Northwest Kenya. Littering is not a concept that holds any sway there.

This became clear to me one day when I was walking through the streets of Kakuma and my backpack fell open. Peter, my guide, stooped down to help me retrieve the things that had fallen out. He put my camera and water bottles back in my pack, then he showed me a phone card.

Has this been used? he asked.

Yes, I said.

He zipped up my backpack and dropped the phone card on the ground.

I was shocked. I wanted to pick the phone card back up and put it in my pocket, but all I had to do was look around in order to see how pointless that would be. Water bottles, plastic bags, paper, cans, feedbags. Junk everywhere.

I remembered someone telling me that plastic bags were going to be banned in Kenya. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous. With all that corruption, they're going to worry about plastic bags? I thought. But then I saw how bad the problem was .... and I thought, Well at least they're doing something.

So I asked Peter, What about the plastic bags? Is it true they're going to be against the law?

He seemed puzzled. How can they be against the law? he asked. If you are moving from one house to another house, where would you put your clothes?


NOTE: The ban was enacted on January 6th of this year. And there must be something about plastic bags that brings out the poetry in people. Here's what the National Environment Management Authority's Acting Director General said in his statement:

“Our country has many colours and when God was creating the world, he only allowed plants to give us flowers, so when our landscape becomes flooded with many artificial flowers of varied colours due to poor management of plastic bags and wrappers, then it becomes a problem."

Nicely put.

The Drug of Choice

What you see here are crewmembers chewing qat (as it is called in Somalia) or mirra (as it is called in Kenya). Mirra is or is not a drug, depending on who you're talking with. In any case, it's legal in Kenya and the attitude towards it is extremely accepting, even among highly religious people. It seems to viewed as something as harmless as, say, a shot of espresso.

Mirra comes from a slow-growing tree or shrub that grows well in Northern Kenya. Its use is pervasive in Kenya, Yemen and Somalia. Consumption causes mild euphoria and excitement.

In Lamu I was told that nearly all the men partake (the estimate 90% was tossed out) and that this is why the town is so sleepy in the morning. The plane with the mirra doesn't arrive until 10-11am. Our guide told us that when journalists are arranging interviews, he always tells them to wait until around 11. Then the subjects will be very talkative.

In Kakuma refugee camp, I saw women and men relaxing with a bag of stems during the long hot afternoon.

The Worst Place in the World to be a School Child

When I stopped teaching adult ESL, one of the Somali men in my class asked if I had any lesson books I would be willing to donate to a school his friend was running in Mogadishu, Somalia. I did. I gave him a trunk-full, probably more than a hundred books. He was so excited! He was going to send them over a few at a time, with people who were traveling to that part of the world.

The next time I saw him, I asked him how it was going. Turns out, his friend had had to close the school because of ongoing violence. They weren't sure when he would be able to open it again.

I haven't talked to Ahmed recently, but those books are probably still sitting in his apartment.

Here are the facts, according to a report on the world's schools recently released by The Global Campaign for Education. No surprise: Somalia ranked dead last. In the world.

80% of Somalia's children do not receive primary school education. 93% do not receive secondary school eduction. And things are getting worse because of ongoing conflict. The most recent estimate is that only 10% of children are enrolled in primary school.

When you think about it, those are staggering numbers. Four-fifths (or more) of Somalia's children do not learn basic reading, writing and math skills. How do you lift yourself out of poverty under those circumstances?

See: Global Campaign for Education Report