The Somali community in the UK: What we know and how we ... - ICAR

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which “makes it an offence for the first time for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) abroad, or to aid, abet, counsel or procure the carrying out of FGM abroad, even in countries where the practice is legal. To reflect the serious harm that FGM causes, the Act also increases the maximum penalty from 5 to 14 years’ imprisonment”. 145 But still more effective than legislation is the hard campaigning that lies behind both legal and community change. In contrast to some western feminists’ condemnation of this ‘barbaric practice’, organisations such as the Black Women’s Health and Family Support (BWHAFS) take a holistic approach to Somali women’s problems. 146 A promotional CD-ROM launched in the summer of 2003 explained that “We believe in empowering women, through education and consciousnessraising, and locating the issue of FGM within the context of black women’s rights”. 147 BWHAFS offer a range of support services to women, including advice on FGM. Through contact with health, education, and social work professionals, together with religious leaders, they carry out an educational programme on the topic, and by means of research, literature, conferences, official representations, and outreach work, they aim to influence not only a British but also an international audience. The energetic director of BWHAFS, Shamis Dirir, is but one of a number of women who have founded Somali organisations in the UK. She has retained her position - in some other groups, men have taken over leadership, and women have been relegated to lesser ranks or voluntary workers. But in whatever capacity, women as well as men have sought to better their community through Somali associations. As a Somali proverb says, ‘you can only quench your thirst by lifting water with your own hands’. Self-help and fragmentation: RCOs and the politics of clan 148 The role of Somali RCOs, as those of other ethnic minorities in the settlement experience has been well documented by Griffiths (2000). Associations such as BWHAFS are therefore not confined to service delivery, but encompass research and documentation. Tied into the local community, they also offer courses and social events which encompass other ethnic groups. Then there are the small organisations which may have had as their initial impetus the employment predicaments of the founder. Somali RCOs range from longstanding, well-organised institutions to the ephemeral inspiration of one individual, with continual inauguration and demise. There are, for example, some 100 Somali organisations in London alone, with scores more throughout the country. One explanation for the lack of official Somali representation, expressed both by authorities and by Somalis themselves, is that the community is fragmented and divided and therefore difficult to involve in democratic structures. This has been particularly marked in Tower Hamlets where the original community of seafarers was swollen by new arrivals in the 1980s and 1990s. Griffiths (2000) relates this vacuum in unified organisation to previous political life in Somalia - the absence of a cohesive Somali political project, inexperience with bureaucratic structures, and the lack of independent participation in the public sphere. British voluntary and statutory agencies feel frustrated at the proliferation of Somali organisations and at the lack of representative bodies with a solid base through which to channel funds and assistance. In one of the first discussions of the Somali Community Meeting (25.02.03) on the formation of a coordinating committee to liaise with British organisations, the awareness of disunity constantly surfaced: “How can we select a steering group if we don’t work together? First we must learn to be more united”. Behind this plea lurks a consciousness of what is said - both by Somalis and observers - to be at the root of Somali discord: clanship, or, in more derogatory terminology, ‘clanism’ or ‘tribalism’. This is an extremely sensitive subject - Somalis resent questioning, assumptions, and commentators’ conclusions about this complex social formation (Griffiths, 2002: 101). They take exception to published pie charts calculating the numerical strength of each clan family 149 which could be exploited for political 66 The Somali community in the UK
purposes. The same might be said of the map reproduced above which could be taken to reinforce the notion that clans are tied to territory. Originally the relationship to land was fluid - it is often said about Somalis that it is not where you start with an explanation of its role in the country of origin. 150 A clan-based form of social structure is familiar from other African pastoral societies in which kinship forms the basis of social, political, and are from which is significant, but whom; family not place of birth. Clan overlaps with region, but it is genealogy not geography that determines alliances. However, one of the effects of Barre’s regime was to tighten the territorial connection, so as conflict does arise over land, such schematic statements could exacerbate claims to terrain. The map is included here to show the rough geography of clan, which has been politically significant (and also to indicate the extent of territory inhabited by Somali speakers of various groups which lies outside the national boundaries and has been the focus of extended conflict). Although a difficult topic, the question of clan has to be confronted in any discussion of Somalis in the diaspora, and must economic life. A common term for this type of organisation is ‘segmentary’, as each clan family can be broken down into its constituent segments of clan, which in turn divide into subclans, lineages, and, at the bottom of the pyramid, the extended family and finally the household. Each unit bases its identity on the claim - albeit mythic - to be descended from a common male ancestor. Women, even after marriage, remain members of their natal lineage, but descent is not traced through the female line. The lowest level of kin group which is politically significant is the diya-paying group (the kinship unit responsible for settling blood feuds), whose members will be able to trace their ancestry back some four to eight generations. 145. Home Office circular 10/2004, available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/hoc1004.html. 146. There are several other organisations both in London and round the country dedicated both to education and personal support on FGM, such as the Agency for Culture and Change Management in Sheffield. 147. The CD-ROM also includes sections on the history of Tower Hamlets and the Somali community besides information on BWHAFS and on FGM, with bibliography. It is obtainable from BWHAFS, 1st Floor, 82 Russia Lane, London E2 9LU. 148. Sources for this section include: Abdullahi (2001); Griffiths (2002); Lewis (1999 [1961]); Samatar (1988); Stevenson (1995). 149. As reproduced on website: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/somalia-_ethnic_grps_2002.jpg. 150. Griffith’s analysis of the significance of clan in the Somali community (2002: 94-127) is prefaced with an historical account (ibid: 27-46). The Somali community in the UK 67
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The Somali community in the UK What
Page 3 and 4:
Table of contents Foreword 4 Introd
Page 5 and 6:
participate in their children’s s
Page 7 and 8:
esponse to this charge is that the
Page 9 and 10:
topics selected are those which Som
Page 11 and 12:
Table A: Classification of sources
Page 13 and 14:
since the late 1980s have come main
Page 15 and 16: Somali diaspora (2000) includes enc
Page 17 and 18: of accurate numerical data. This is
Page 19 and 20: A she-camel is a mother To him who
Page 21 and 22: - religious leaders, clan elders, i
Page 23 and 24: These men tended to form a separate
Page 25 and 26: Entry into the UK 8000 Figure A: As
Page 27 and 28: Figure B: Number of initial decisio
Page 29 and 30: Non-compliance Asylum applications
Page 31 and 32: (usually Addis Ababa or Nairobi). H
Page 33 and 34: Table F: Estimates of Somali popula
Page 35 and 36: Table H: Estimates of Somali popula
Page 37 and 38: The unreliability of statistics is
Page 39 and 40: London, Liverpool, and Manchester.
Page 41 and 42: industries. But here, too, even giv
Page 43 and 44: own community, potential workers si
Page 45 and 46: Youngster’s [sic] are behind in e
Page 47 and 48: Attitudes to girls’ education by
Page 49 and 50: It is the family that she identifie
Page 51 and 52: British peers. Writing of the “cu
Page 53 and 54: Health Despite the importance of th
Page 55 and 56: colleagues, in a study of Somali me
Page 57 and 58: I have been here since 1983 and the
Page 59 and 60: social parameters” is detrimental
Page 61 and 62: such as those listed in the documen
Page 63 and 64: autonomous control, divorce is not
Page 65: together [of] their birth and their
Page 69 and 70: Although operating in a very differ
Page 71 and 72: Conclusion Despite the seeming diff
Page 73 and 74: Buxton, C. (n.d.), Somali children
Page 75 and 76: women, Diverse Heritage Trust Ltd #
Page 77 and 78: Smyth, K. and Mohamed, A. (1997), R
Page 79: The Somali community in the UK 79
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