#147notjustanumber: As a Kenyan Somali, somehow I blame myself for the #GarissaAttack

I was born in Garissa, the epicentre of the deadly terrorist attack on Moi University, Garissa campus. 

This is where 147 young, beautiful ambitious college kids were slaughtered. They were seekers of knowledge, full of dreams & hope and majority of them were the only hope their families had to get out of a vicious cycle of poverty. The ruthless barbaric Al-Shabaab terrorists suddenly snuffed out their lives.

And my hometown became the scene of a massacre. 

When the news broke, I remember muttering under my breath, "oh no not again". Then I was transfixed on TV channels, twitter handles and anywhere and everywhere I could find an update. Each update that came with a rising death toll sank me lower. As the hostage situation was unfolding, a glimmer of hope lit inside me whenever I heard the government saying, "We have cornered the terrorists". The hope would suddenly fade, when the realization hit me that terrorists do not give up easily. They come to die and they make sure they die having taken as many lives as they possibly can.

I have no words to describe how sad I have been feeling for the past six days. I am all cried out; my tears have stopped flowing. I have stopped asking why my government's security apparatus failed the hostages. Why it took 17 hours to end the siege. I have stopped asking how many more lives could have been saved had the government acted in time to bring in the Recce Company - a specialist unit trained for counter terrorism.

I have stopped being a security expert.

Instead, now I am asking myself, how could this have happened in the first place? What could I have done as an individual, as a Kenyan Somali to stop it all? Somewhere deep in my heart, I blame myself. I blame myself for being angry when Somalis from Somalia were rounded up at Kasarani. I blame myself for defending people who would hurt my countrymen. I blame myself for not choosing sides, for not sticking to the Kenyan side.

Why do I blame myself? 

There is no two ways about it; I can choose to be a real Kenyan and not sympathize with terrorists & their uncles. Or I can be unknowingly, silently aiding them. If I am silent, I am an accomplice in the atrocities of Al-Shabaab, who by the way, have mastered how to hide behind me. They have easily acquired the Kenyans IDs that I, as a Kenyan, have to jump loops to attain. And they speak better Swahili than me. Thy have also learnt to recruit my brightest son. When I am silent about my son’s radicalization, I have played a part in their killing spree. That’s why I blame myself. Because of my silence, people of my lineage, people of my religion, keep killing Kenyans like flies.

It is heart-breaking living with the fact that the terrorists stayed at a hotel in Garissa town - probably with their Armour - before they began their slaughter. Whether directly or indirectly, I must have seen something somewhere; if I just dig on my memory a little deeper, I am sure I saw something. But I did not say anything. If I was just a little bit more patriotic, if I cared just a little more, I would have seen the movements of those terrorists, I would have smelled their intention and I would have said something. But I did not, so I blame myself.

The blood of 147 lives is now in my hands.

My message @ #147notjustanumber Night vigil at Uhuru Park

Kenya is my only country; my great grand parents were born in Kenya. My grandmother used to tell us a story that happened in their village way before British colonialists arrived in North Eastern Kenya. She used to tell us of a particular incident when her mother - my great grandmother - fought Italian settlers who raided their village. She described of a battle between her mother, and an Italian man who tried to rape her. She said my great grandmother leaned against thorny shrubs to cover her back, as she kept the Italian at bay. I was very young when she used to tell us this story.

The significance of this simple story is to remind my fellow Kenyan Somalis that Somalia is not our country; Kenya is. We may speak the same language as Somalis from Somalia but we are not they. We are we - Kenyan Somalis who are Kenyan first, then Somali by ethnicity second.

I am Kenyan first, Somali Second.

Of the Dan Eldon legacy and why Dan innocently chose my career path.

"Wait a minute! It was Dan Eldon, he had something to do with why I chose to be a journalist!"

It was June of 1996. I was in my second year of high school. I had just come to Nairobi for my short mid term break and was at a house belonging to a friend of my family. You see my school was in Thika, few minutes from Nairobi but my home was in a far away place called Garissa. Travelling to Garissa for a short break was both costly and my mum would not hear of it. So my elder sister always had an army of friends who would host me for the midterm breaks.

Anyway, that day as I entered the living room of my would be hosts for the next three days, I stumbled upon some sort of a magazine. I cannot truly recall whether it was a magazine, a booklet or a photo catalogue but it was something I innocently picked and started perusing through. Maybe out of boredom or the fact that I did want to intrude on my hosts by making myself at home and turning on the television. I do not recall the reason nor the title. I picked it up and started reading. It had numerous photographs, photos about a war in Somalia I had little knowledge of, I was only 15 years old, I had no interest in the news and was hardly aware of what went on around the world beyond what went on in my teenage head.

This booklet/magazine was the first glimpse I had of a world outside TV sitcoms and VCR movies which I was fond of at the time. It told a story through photos, I remember reading some of the captions below the photos; something in the lines of "...the Somalia war started as 'my tribe against your tribe', then turned to 'me and my clan against your clan' to 'me and my brother against your clan' then 'me against my brother'...." or something similar. I am not absolutely certain of the exact text as I am writing this from pure memory of 18 years ago. I tried researching the booklet/magazine but without recollecting a name, author or something to help the search engines throw familiar words in my face, I am relying on this dim memory of mine.

The memory takes me back to one particular name I do recall though. Dan Eldon. I remember reading at the time that he died in Somalia, killed by an angry mob. I recall the pictures he took, they were vivid, sort of stuck in my mind to date. There were pictures of very malnourished grown men, of a 4 or 5 year old boy with a gun. There was a picture of someone with a begging bowl. I wish I could find this booklet/magazine again.

Why does the title of this post say "Of the Dan Eldon legacy and why Dan innocently chose my career path"? Simple. From the moment I picked up that booklet/magazine, I wanted to be in his shoes, not wanting to die or anything, but to take risks, to be in the middle of the action. But that must have soon faded as I went back to school three days later, and my head was again swamped with homework, passing tests and the good old teenage girl's boy-dramas.

However, the day we were filling out our career prospective forms, I remember jotting down "broadcaster" to the question 'what career path would you like to pursue'. At the time I had no idea 'broadcaster' actually meant the guys who own the TV stations!

So apart from that simple jotting down, I really never gave it too much thought until the year 2000, when my elder sister (she was sort of the head of the family after dad died in 1995) came home one day armed with application forms to the local Medical Training College, fondly referred to as MTC. She wanted me to be a nurse or some clinical officer. I told her I was not interested and that I had already applied to join Kenya Institute of Mass Communication, which was considered the place where all successful journalists in Kenya passed through.

I may not have actively obsessed over Dan Eldon or the author of that strange booklet/magazine but I did become a journalist: a TV journalist, then a radio journalist then freelance producer which I am doing at present. I am now 34 years old and as I was doing some soul searching on new year's day, I stumbled upon that little memory and I thought to myself "wait a minute, it was Dan Eldon, he had something to do with why I chose to be a journalist!" So I just but began obsessively searching for his work, I still haven't found that booklet/magazine, whatever it was called.

In reflection I remember I did travel to Mogadishu in 2006 while working as a TV reporter with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. It was more than a decade after he did. I remember sensing the danger, the smell of gun powder and the general unsafeness of the place. Even at that time, for some reason the memory of the booklet/magazine did not trigger at all. I don't recall, reflecting on it at the time, maybe because the surrounding was too intense to go back in time into childhood memory.

It is strange why it only came back to me now. On new year's day, when the rest of the world was nursing a hungover. But since then, I have watched a bunch of documentaries about his life, about his family's honouring his work and about his journals. I rang the family's foundation called "The DEPOT"(The Dan Eldon Place Of Tomorrow) in Nairobi and tried to see if I could volunteer. I also managed to write this post. I don't know why, but I feel like he or the information my subconscious absorbed from that booklet/magazine had a lot to do with why I chose to be in this field. I do not know if I will go through with volunteering for his legacy, but I do know that until I find that little piece of collection again, I may never be able to pin-point exactly how he inspired me.

All the same I will say "thank you Dan, may the soul with which you did your work, inspire many more who never knew you!"

Disclaimer: I could not put any image of the guy who pulled me to journalism, you know copyright issues but I am sure whoever wants to find out who he was, can easily bury themselves in his work, photos and art which are allover the internet. For me I feel like that is not going to be enough. But that is another story for another day.

Aiding and abetting the terrorists: We are Idiots!

      Am not known to 'analyze' everything that happens in this country and am one not known to put importance on tribe, religion, race and ethnicity on anything from grocery shopping to terrorist attacks.

      But, as a human being with all senses intact, I can say sadly for us - but to the celebration of terrorists - we have handled and continue to handle extremely scary situations with trivial politics. Well played Kenyans, well played. You have not only succeeded in having a shitty security system that has no clue on how to do their job, but you have aided and abetted the Al-Shabaab in achieving their utmost goal ---> to destroy Kenya.

      Not to see the bigger picture, is not only unfortunate but very stupid to say the least. Any terrorist group causing mayhem in someone else's country knows the insides of that country; its weaknesses, its flaws, its sensitive subjects etc, and they will use those weaknesses to their advantage, as long there are a few countrymen who will play into their hands.

       Am also not a supporter of any political grouping - I cant stand the bunch of them - but to say the Mpeketoni massacre had anything to do with trivial tribal bullshit, is not only missing the point but foolishly refusing to see, the bigger threat--> terrorists in our midst.

       I had a small but random discussion with one Somali-Somalian, that I considered liberal/neutral - the things I heard the person say, not only shocked me but also made me realize that we have a bigger problem. It is not your fellow Kenyan that is the problem, it is everyone else that wants to hurt Kenya, and those that want to use you to hurt Kenya.

       If I may briefly describe myself and who I am, I was born and raised a Muslim in an environment and time where it was very okay to go the neighbor's Christmas party and eat all the sweets we can. I cannot stand or stomach anything else that suggests there is anything wrong with that picture. So clearly, I cannot stand any ideology that says, Andrew, Jane and John are not my brothers or that Amina, Yusuf and Ali are the better brothers. In my eyes that is just a load of crap! If I had know John since we were kids and I had never met Yusuf, guess who is my brother? If you could just put same thinking in Omondi vs Kimani.

Wake up Kenyans, wake up. This is way bigger than our shitty tribal differences.

Yours sincerely,

a Kenyan-Somali married to mixed Kikuyu & Mzungu (just so you know how trivial tribe/religion are to me)

Import me a wife! Getting hitched to "American" Somalis. - Part Two

Shrouded in deception; the real stories behind arranged marriages between Somali men living in the United States and very young desperate Somali girls in Africa. In these marriages which can only be termed as sham; buying and selling of brides is ‘normal’- depicting a modern day slavery.

 

This is the second part; so you may want to read the first part here before reading this one.

The testimonies

 

*Ramla and the MIA husband

      I accidentally met a Somali girl while searching for the truth behind the trend of getting hitched to 'American' Somalis. *Ramla (not her real name) is 22 years old and she tells me she has been 'married' for the last three years to a man in America. She says the only thing she knows about her 'husband' in America, is the fact that he once married her. He came to Nairobi, they had a huge extravagant wedding ceremony at a five star hotel; Then he went back and details have been sketchy since then. Although she has been ‘married’ for three year, she has not spent more than a week with her ‘husband’. 

       I asked her how extravagant the ceremony was and she say he spent $10,000 on the wedding alone. Her 'Meher' (dowry) was another $4,000 not to mention travel and hotel costs for the week he was with her. *Ramla says she has been living with her relatives in Nairobi and has been waiting for a visa to enable her to join her 'husband' in America. He calls once, maybe twice in three months and sends about $200 in those three months. She has no listed phone number of him, nor a mobile number. She does not know which state he lives in, how his immigration status is in the US and sadly she does not even know the rest of his family. 

        She says they were 'introduced' on phone after he saw her dancing in a home video of a relative's wedding. The video was being watched in a house somewhere in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Apparently they ‘dated’ through the phone made plans to get married via telephone. He only came for the wedding even though they hardly knew each other. They hardly know each other now three years into the 'marriage'. She explains to me that her family met some representatives from his family when dowry negotiations were being made. But that was all she could tell me. I asked her if she knew whether he was working or was on social welfare back in the States. She looked at me bewildered. She does not have any details of his life abroad yet she is his wife. This story made me want to find out more. So I found more similar stories and even more deceitful ones. 

Istarleen and the family plan

     Istarleen is a young refugee woman who has just come to Eastleigh, Nairobi from the Dadaab refugee camp in North Eastern Kenya. Her parents and siblings are all resettled in the US. When her family was leaving she was ‘missing’ so she could not leave with them at the time. She says she is here because her brother is soon arriving from the U.S to come and ‘marry a girl in her name’.

      This baffled me and I sought to know what she meant by ‘marry in her name’. She said the plan was for her to join the rest of her family in the U.S. And since she is above 21 neither her parents nor her siblings can directly sponsor her. Her brother then devised a plan; since he cannot in principle really marry her; then he will hoodwink some other gullible desperate girl into a sham marriage. She says he will then use the legitimate marriage certificate, a few photo-shopped pictures of the wedding,  and use her adopted name to file an AoR as his wife! All he has to prove to the authorities is the fact he indeed travelled to Kenya to get married! 

         She adds her brother has already identified the girl and she has agreed to marry him. At this point I ask Istarleen whether she considers what her and her family are doing, to be illegal. When we arranged for the interview, I promised her that I would not reveal her identity, as she is the source of my information. But this had me question my ethics as well.  She quickly jumped and said to me that I did not keep my promise.

       Despite my assurances that she was still safe and that I will not use her name,she immediately became defensive and uncooperative. Unfortunately, I have now lost her trust and any questions I ask after this, are met with suspicion. I ask her or rather beg her for one final request. I ask whether she would let me meet her ‘sister-in-law’ to be. As you would expect, she vigorously shakes her head and tells me, this would gravely compromise the family’s plan. Ethics burning my brain, I tell her that if she does not let me see the girl, then I will have no choice but to report her for fraud. She immediately gets up, leaving me clearing bills and disappears in the sea of 'buibui' clad Eastleigh humanity. Jilted, guilty and feeling rather powerless, I leave for my next interview. 

Abdullahi and his two girls

      In the middle of these deception and sham marriages are also Kenyan-Somali’s who due to the heritage they share with the Somali refugees, have jumped on this seemingly 'quick-solve to all problems poverty' bandwagon.

      For your information, Kenyan Somalis are among the Kenyan indigenous tribes and - contrary to popular belief - are not immigrants who hold Kenyan citizenship. They live in the largely arid and unproductive province of North Eastern Kenya. In comparison to other provinces in Kenya, poverty is the order the day here. Poverty stricken Kenyan-Somali families are vigorously searching and soliciting for suitable ‘husbands’ for their daughters from the Somali refugees who have made it to the other side of the world.

     My next interview was with a Kenyan Somali man who has married off two of his daughters to a Somalian refugee family. At his house, I am met by a girl at the door; she looks not older than 15. Her father, *Abdullahi (not his real name), looks frail and the struggles of poverty clearly shows in his face. I begin by asking to be introduced to the two girls, he points them out. One of them is the one who greeted me at the door. He insists she is 18. (Note; under Kenyan law, it is illegal to marry off a girl under the age of 18, even though some acts allows the minimum age in customary/religious marriages to be at 16. Abdullahi knows this already.)

     I ask why he chose to give away two sisters to one family. He says *Mumina - the older of the two - and her suitor are practically in love and that it is not an arranged marriage in his eyes - meaning she chose. He says *Saadia is however supposed to ‘sweeten’ the deal with the family. He quickly adds that *Saadia is giving him a hard time as she is adamant that she wants to continue with her studies. I ask him “If she is 18, shouldn’t she be making her own decision as regards to whom and when she marries?” He looks at me sternly and says “who gives a girl, that privilege to choose in these times?"

     Abdullahi is not the only one giving away one daughter for prosperity and another as a compensation price for the ‘favor’ bestowed upon the family. It is not strange to see two Somali families, one refugee, another local sitting down to make some sort of a ‘trade’. One family (the refugee) needs their son to get legal papers to do business in Kenya; the other (Kenyan) just want to get out of poverty by sending their daughter abroad (so that she can send money back home).

       Only in this scenario poor little *Saadia finds herself forced out of school prematurely to settle down with a stranger. I stole a few words with *Saadia and it is evident she is a bright little girl. If things had gone her way, she had a dream of becoming a doctor after finishing her studies. But that dream will never be, because she was sacrificed for her sister’s ‘exportation’.

      I am still having trouble with these stories; because the thin line between journalistic ethics - as in protecting my source - and a moral responsibility towards these girls, has put me between a rock and a hard place so to speak. I hope the followup to these stories, will do some redeeming for me - in some way.

Import me a wife! Getting hitched to "American" Somalis. - Part One

Shrouded in deception; the real stories behind arranged marriages between Somali men living in the United States and very young desperate Somali girls in Africa. In these marriages which can only be termed as sham; buying and selling of brides is ‘normal’- depicting a modern day slavery. 

        The glamorous weddings in five star hotels, the expensive gold chains and the opportunity to set foot in the first world is drawing thousands of oblivious young Somali girls into strange arranged marriages without much protest. The illusion to get hitched to ‘husbands’ living abroad, is becoming more of an accepted lifestyle among Somali families. So much so that girls who land such opportunity are even considered ‘lucky’ among their peers. 

       Once a man has repatriated to the United States/Europe - whether legally or illegally - even the lamest of them all, becomes the world’s most eligible bachelor in the eyes of Somali girls who are still living in Africa. It doesn’t matter if the guy is working wherever he is, or is sitting on his behind waiting on the American social welfare system to take care of his bills. As long as he can afford the wedding (mostly through family contributions), and is willing to file paperwork in regards to his wife joining him, then it is a done deal. So popular is this kind of marriages that men use pick up lines with the exact words “am on a flight list” to pick up girls in social gatherings in Eastleigh - a suburb in Nairobi Kenya largely populated by Somalis. Loosely translated from the Somali language the phrase means, that his papers are in order and he is just awaiting a confirmation date of travel.

      

       Girls dress to kill whenever there is a ‘wedding’ ceremony (mostly of similar arrangements) whose video recording is likely to land in a Somali home somewhere in America. This they say, will increase the chance of being spotted by a ‘suitor in America’. The real story of these import/export marriages however, is one shrouded in deception and misrepresentation. I researched and found out the depth of deception in these sham marriages that purposely exploit the victim’s illusion of better life in the first world. I came across crashed dreams and unfulfilled promises set off by half-truths and and deception.

            Somalia disintegrated into a civil war more than two decades ago and since then, the world refugee program has helped millions of Somalis settle in America and several other first world countries. In America the program allows those who have stabilized to apply for an affidavit or relationship for his/her core family left behind, whether in Somalia or a third safe country - Kenya. This is commonly known among refugee agencies as ‘AoR’. 

       In the context of this article, an AoR will enable single men in America the opportunity to 'import' his 'wife' but many hardly do. This will make more sense as we get deeper into the story. But just to explain; once a man finds a suitable bride to marry, he hopes on a plane with everything else prearranged and attends a wedding. He then hopes back on the next flight and files an AoR. This also happens to be thriving business running into hundreds of thousands of Dollars. In the next post I will share the testimonies of several Somalis I spoke to in Eastleigh who narrated to me the complex business deals that involves buying and selling of young Somali girls to men abroad.

Lest we forget Westgate: Lets be nosy & spy on our neighbors, if we are to 'nip terrorism in the bud'.

Terrorists don't live in an Island, they are among you, renting your property, strolling the streets and chatting with you at the local market: Surely the least you could do is pay a little more attention!

       On a perfect Saturday morning on September 21st, patrons at various spots at the Westgate mall were blissfully having coffees, chatting animatedly and spending time with their loved ones, completely unaware of what was to befall upon them. Then horror struck. The horror was brought upon by a group of very well armed, well organized terrorists who obviously - before that day - had planned every detail of their heinous act.

      In storming the mall the terrorists of Westgate sent patrons disoriented. It took some time and before the victims could even grasp what was going on. Shooting randomly at innocent children, at women, at non-Muslims, at Muslims, the massacre began.

                                 The children's cookery competition that went horribly wrong at Westgate mall. 
                                             (Image courtesy of BBC)

    The siege that ensued for the next four days has not only shaken Kenya to the core but has gripped the world's attention indeed. And in unison the world and Kenyans in particular responded with utter shock, utter fear and utter condemnation. Visibly loud in condemnation was also the Muslim community in Kenya.

      But I dare ask the question, is condemnation really enough? I say not. Condemn yes but for heaven sake do something, anything, however insignificant to nip it in the bud; this terrible despicable acts of terrorism. Do something to ‘cut the seedling before the tree grows strong’, so to speak.

      Obviously before storming the mall, those who slaughtered the innocent at Westgate, were tenants of a building, neighbors, friends or acquaintances to somebody somewhere. Had we been nosy, they would have probably not made it that far. Had we cared to look closely at someone’s jittery behavior, had we paid more attention to their movements, had we spared a moment to spy, who knows, maybe this would have been avoided. Wishful thinking, you say. I say, do the right thing, snoop around and don't be shy to be nosy. Being aware of our surrounding is such a small price to pay for the general good and safety of our world, of our country.

     I, especially, would like to see significant nosiness from the Muslim community. Muslims have to be willing to snoop on that fellow you suspect may be harboring thoughts of terrorism. That person who attends the mosque with you who is a little too passionate in opinions of how his community/religion/race is being targeted by the larger community; or whoever he deems to be the enemy of his 'minority'. I dare say, it is especially right at the door of the Muslims, to be willing to give up their family members who get a little too 'radicalized'.

     Of course this should not be misconstrued to mean that those with strong opinions are automatically branded terrorists. It is a free world after all. But come on, we all know it starts somewhere.

      I dare give an example of a well known radical Muslim cleric who is on the radar of the FBI and by extension our own Anti Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU). Sadly this cleric is left to roam freely and radicalize more youths despite his open support for Somalia's Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab. It was Al-Shabaab's men who slaughtered the innocent at Westage mall. He does not just stop at supporting them. He believes in their 'cause'.

        In an interview with Peter Taylor of the BBC's Panorama program which aired days after the Westgate terror attack, the cleric publicly declared that Al-Shabaab were 'justified' in what they did. In his own words, "They (Alshabaab) have every right to invade....eh stop an invasion in their own country", he said. "It is justified in Islam, we cannot be slaughtered everywhere in the world and just sit and cry. We have to react" Yet this guy is free, under the protective blanket of the larger Muslim community. If you think I am speculating, I bet if he’s arrested today, the community would be united in condemnation.

      But let us leave it up to the security agencies to decide on the radical clerics. What can you and I do? We can still be nosy neighbors and open our eyes to the goings on around us. Not just in terrorism but all crimes going around us. We can be vigilant. If they (security agencies) refuse to act on it, then we would have done our civic duty of being nosy. Otherwise, it is 'God help us' if those tasked with our internal security, continue to ignore the tell-tale signs of those who clearly harbor dangerous ideologies.

      Just my two cents, I am not a security expert but I believe to fight terrorism we must really put our safety above any religious, tribe or family affiliations. You are your brother's keeper yes but more importantly you are your neighbor's spy.  Have a nosy day.