Drugs and the Somali Family- Is this true?!

[Hawdgirl]

A collegue of mine just told me about an issue within the Somali community that she heard from MN Public Radio... and after she told me what it'z I couldn't beleive what I was hearing.....!

So Soomaaliyeey ma curse baa nahaysta weli...

It was over a decade ago when a brutal civil-war broke out in our motherland, and still we are dealing with the after math of that civil war...

What do you think about this?

Is this really an issue within our communities in qurbo land...or is it something that these gaalos are exagturating-- or does this issue really exist within our community.

 

 

Sending sons home to Somalia for safety

by Sea Stachura, Minnesota Public Radio

December 15, 2005

 

 

Anab Garuf watches a video of her son, Kayse and his wife. Anab is one of the leaders of the Somali community fighting the drug problem in Rochester. (MPR photo/Sea Stachura)

 

Drug dealing amongst Somali teens in Rochester has increased steadily over the past five years according to police and community leaders. Some community members are offering a surprising solution. The mothers of these teenagers want to send the dealers back to Somalia.

 

 

Rochester, Minn. — Afternoon prayer has just finished at Anab Garuf's apartment. It's dimly lit but filled with brightly colored silk flowers. She's lived here eight years with her children. Her husband died last year.

 

 

 

Biyod Shakia

 

As her eldest son, Kayse, comes home they talk and she pours her cardamom and cinnamon tea for Biyod Shakia, another mother. Anab says her son attends college and stays away from drugs, but a lot of Somali males, she says, are selling drugs all over town.

 

"The Somali boys is walking, to groups," she says in broken English. "But they sell drugs, is use drugs, is not listen to the parents."

 

Rochester police say an increasing number of 17 to 22 year old Somalis are dropping out of school to sell cocaine and khat. It's a leaf which some African immigrants chew as a stimulant. Anab says the problem is unbearable now.

 

For years she and other moms saw their sons with plastic baggies full of pot, but they didn't know it was drugs.

 

 

 

Mohamed Kayse Said

 

Yet as more kids have dropped out of school and left home they've learned. Anab says moms and aunts have tried talking with their kids. Her approach has sometimes been even more direct.

 

She's chased dealers out of parks. Some kids, she says, run away when they see her. But others ignore her even after she's yelled at them and told them she's calling the police.

 

"I said, 'Stop selling the drugs!" she says. "He said, 'I need the money.' I said 'I'm calling the police.' He said "I don't care.'"

 

But Anab didn't call the police because, she says, they don't do anything. Maybe they arrest the dealer, she says, but he's out the next day.

 

Avni Patel is a project coordinator at the Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association.

 

"And so what these moms are saying is: 'This is mighty America? Why are kids not getting locked up for doing the wrong thing?'"

 

 

 

Anab

 

She says mothers called their friends crying about their sons. One mom would hear about another in a different clan with the same trouble. They felt helpless. So Anab and Biyod took it upon themselves to organize.

 

At a community meeting Avni says the mothers told her they wanted police to discipline their children severely and immediately. If they didn't, the teens would be lost.

 

"Oh, they want them deported," she says. "That is what my subgroup told me. Deport these children. If they are only in America to cause trouble for their family and their community they shouldn't be here. Send them back. And one of these mothers who's leading this effort did send her son back to Somalia."

 

 

 

Mohamed Sharif Osman

 

Biyod is that mom. Her 15 year old cut school and dis-respected her. He wasn't selling drugs yet, she says. But Biyod saw no other solution. In March she returned to Somalia with him. He lives with her mother and uncle.

 

"Because why I sent him because I'm going to save him," she says. "That's why I send him. I'm going to save my kids, why I came here, yeah, civil war."

 

"He's happy too," Anab adds

 

Biyod says Somalia is safer today than it was at the start of the civil war in 1991. By and large representatives of Somalia agree. And Biyod says American culture got in the way of Somalian values.

 

The clan structure has weakened in the US, she adds. Back home people watched out for her son, and he respected adults. She knows he's in danger in the turmoil of Somalia. But she says it would be better to die in a civil war than live as a drug dealer.

 

Anab says for Somali people their children are their lifeline. She says just as Americans depend on social security for their retirement, Somalis depend on their children. Without their sons, they're lost.

 

"You use the social security. But Somalian people, we don't have social security," she says. "My social security is my kids. You understand? My social security is lost. That's why the Somalian parent is worried."

 

In Rochester many of these women are widowed or their husbands are missing. A lot of the women have limited job skills and little English. Still Anab says knowing their sons are selling drugs in the alley behind the tea house in downtown Rochester is a disgrace.

 

 

 

Basketball

 

And at the end of that alley is the local YMCA, where 14 year old Farum plays basketball with his friends. Farum was orphaned by the war and lives with his grandmother. He says everybody knows Somali kids do drugs, and the moms are too late.

 

"If they started this a long time ago none of this would have started," he says. "But they didn't do that first. So it's kinda hard to stop it now cause there are a lot of people doing it."

 

Farum says he doesn't do drugs. But he's seen kids use, even in junior high school. And he says he knows the police aren't stopping them. He doesn't know why kids use. Social service studies show Somali teens feel unsupported by their families with parents often working two jobs. Farum agrees the abusers should be sent back.

 

"Somali ladies have to send the kids that are selling drugs back to Africa. That's the only way it's gonna stop, unless you send all of them back," he says.

 

It's highly unusual for Somali women to take this kind of leading role. They hold meetings with public officials. Anab and Biyod have walked into Congressman Gil Gutknecht's office and demanded he listen to them.

 

Anab's 16 year old daughter, Ishwaq, says the clan system that once watched out for the kids and had people visiting each other's homes constantly is now missing.

 

"And here obviously the clans get divided and mixed up and there's not that sense of community and I guess what their trying to do is unite as Somali parents," she says.

 

The women's action is a major break with Somalian tradition. Sharif Osman, a community leader says Muslim women in Somalia are taught to listen not speak.

 

"Woman should be polite," he says. "Should keep quiet. Should follow orders. Should accept what her man says, and that is how she will go to paradise." Sharif says he doesn't necessarily agree with that, but it's a widely held belief. He acknowledges the moms are taking over some of the father's roles. Sharif says dads feel they can't parent the way they did in Somalia where they could use corporal punishment. Now living in America they'll get in trouble with the law if they hit their kids.

 

"I could give him a slap or beat him and he would stop," he says. "But if I would do that, immediately the police and law enforcement would come and arrest me, so what can I do?"

 

Ultimately he says, under the traditional system father feel the mothers are responsible for their kids. If the moms fail, the fathers will divorce them.

 

But Anab and Biyod don't offer that as a reason for taking action. Anab says the drug problem has spread across Rochester and the future of the Somali community is at stake. She says if her friend's children are selling drugs it's like her kids are selling drugs.

 

"Because I am same country," she says "I am same language I am same religion. That's why."

 

Whether or not Anab and Biyod save the lives of their children they have changed their own. They are leading a community of women from a dining room table covered in silk flowers.

[Yeniceri]

^^

 

This type of case might be getting its first documented edition, but drug dealers within the Somali American community have been prevalent since the early to mid-90s. MPLS is a relative newbie compared to old school niggas who used to keep Diego streets ablaze in the '90s.

 

"I said, 'Stop selling the drugs!" she says. "He said,

'I need the money.'

I said 'I'm calling the police.' He said "I don't care.'"

At least the homie is honest. In Capitalist (Corporate) America, everyone is out to get the quick buck, regardless of the means.

 

Do we blame the individuals (i.e. drug dealers) or the system (Capitalism)? We should realize that this issue transcends beyond the myopic borders of Somali social customs and into the fray of Capitalism - such a system doesn't offer much for disenfranchised youth, Somalis included. If it did, we'd see more successful Afro-American youngsters in American life.

[Castro]

Originally posted by Hawdgirl:

"Because why I sent him because I'm going to save him," she says. "That's why I send him. I'm going to save my kids, why I came here, yeah, civil war."

Save him kulaha. Where's the loser mijo yar whom she had the kids with? Rochester or buulo xaabo, a bad kid is a bad kid. Let em sell crack, weed or what have you. They'll join the 2 million black men in US prisons.

 

War dadyahow naftiina iyo reerkina nin walba ha ka adkaado. Forget this community rubbish you're chasing.

[Baashi]

The problem is real. We are all concerned and many of us, the ones who care about their community, are struggling to find a way to cope with this problem.

 

One of the mindbogling thing about Somali predicament in qurboland is the very parent (some) who supposed to handle the drug problem are themselves addicts. Basically some parents are qaat-chewers and the some kids are hashiish addicts. If I have to guess the odds are that there are correlation bewteen qaat-eaters and kids who turnout to be hashiish addicts. It is no brainer for if the parent (father) is out doing xamaali and when he gets home uu jilbaha laabanaayo then the kids will (a) think it is okay to get high and the method one uses to get that state is not important and (b)they will get too much leeway of doing anything they so desire. Too much TV (more than 2 hours in some cases) and incidently the message they got from TV is being tough, and harsh on women, violence, namecalling, streetsmart, drug use, and what not is cool and the way to go. Do that and all the chicks will be urs and u are the man of the moment...from there is downslide free fall.

 

I know I'm rambling here bear with me...and other point is the fact that we are basically new comers to the west. While there are many other immigrant communities that excelled in this country, there is one thing that separate us from these other newcomer communities and that is: we are refugees not immigrants! There is distinction and that is immigrants especially economic immigrants, as often is the case, are the cream of the crop. That is not the case with refugees. They are cross-section of the country they fled from. The thief, the elite, the rich, the illiterate, the criminals, the afmiinshaar, and what not are what's made up of the refugees. And this fact reflects on their success and failure and how well they do in their new country.

 

Well Somalis in here are refugees and many of them don't have formal education. Language barrier especially older folks is a problem in itself. This has a huge consequence on parenting. For kids become the conduit in which parents communicate to the outside wolrd. From mail to telephone calls and all other forms of communication are handled by the kids. How a parent who can't communicate to the law enforcement, educators, and other authority figures can deal with kids who do all the talking for them?

 

Excuse the run on sentences...the post is unedited and I don't have time to proof read it now but I hope u got my point there.

[Castro]

^ Indeed you ramble old man.

 

First paragraph: all the ills and solutions you offered, though legitimate, are family based. No community involvement necessary or waranted.

 

Second paragraph: indeed the elite, rich and the educated of Somalia made it to the west. The cross-section of which you speak is in refugee camps in countries sharing a border with Somalia.

 

Third paragraph: there's absolutely no excuse to spend decades here and have no decent language skills, no matter how old the person is. To claim the kids run the household because of parents' language difficulties is wrong. The parents (no matter what they speak) could, and should, keep their flock in check. Remember Allah's advice and warning about custodianship and how each one is responsible for those in their custody, atheer?

 

I know you'll come back with less rambling next time.

[STOIC]

There are times when almost any human being can bitterly resent the action of another.He is then apt to be filled with more anger and frustration that would never help.This is the time these parents needs to take control of their kid's actions with great gusto.We are not in Africa where it takes a village to raise a son/daughter;It takes a good parental skills to do it here in America.If anybody ever earned his way in America through repulsive and repellent flattery it would have been the ghetto kids.The Somal kid needs to understand that every action has it's consequences; you will either stick with the right way or else you will go down the drain.

 

PS: its cold and the work clock is dragging

[Baashi]

Originally posted by Castro:

^ Indeed you ramble old man.

 

First paragraph: all the ills and solutions you offered, though legitimate, are family based. No community involvement necessary or waranted.

I didn't offer any solutions. But if you insist... Young stud the comunnity has its role to play. Community is the collective whole of the individual families. When community plays its role wonderful things do happen. Community agents organize sporting events, tutor centers, after school programs, and what not. You should consider to get involved Castro. I know (actually guessing ) you are a responsible father who takes care of his young guns but you should consider helping other kids who are not lucky enough to have father figures in their homes. One day of couching or acting as a referee is one day away from gansgta swamp. Awoowe, whatever happen your socialist's idealogy yaa Fidel wannabee?

 

Second paragraph: indeed the elite, rich and the educated of Somalia made it to the west. The cross-section of which you speak is in refugee camps in countries sharing a border with Somalia.

Really? I was under the impression that Somalis from all walks df life made it to the west. Of course, the fact that elites and educated made up small percentage of Somalis is not lost on anyone. That's why the preferred occupation of the majority of Somalis is menial jobs such as assemblers, budgers, janitors, cab drivers, and what not. Amigo what you got in the states (I can't speak for other localities) is a cross-section of Somali society.

 

Third paragraph: there's absolutely no excuse to spend decades here and have no decent language skills, no matter how old the person is. To claim the kids run the household because of parents' language difficulties is wrong. The parents (no matter what they speak) could, and should, keep their flock in check. Remember Allah's advice and warning about custodianship and how each one is responsible for those in their custody, atheer?

 

I know you'll come back with less rambling next time.

Waryee waxaagu naacna ka badan . Look no one is claiming or has claimed parents speaking through their kids' tongue is right!!! I'm just pointing out the existence of such cases. As to parents however old should master English language, that would be the desirable end I agree. However, illetracy, old age, pressure from the needy (often loved ones) take their tall on the said parents.

 

Having said all of that, your point on individual accountability and responsibility is well taken.

 

There it is...my biggest ramble ever

[Castro]

^ Nice ramble atheer. As STOIC indicated, we're all on the same page here.

 

Just a couple of points, the menial jobs we do take are not 'prefered' but rather imposed because of the economic climate. But to have second and third generation Somalis in those same menial jobs is unacceptable.

 

Involvement in the community is a must. But to hold the community responsible for the failures of the parents is wrong. I've no excuse for my lack of involvement. I should put my money where my mouth is. Though I also wanna make sure the ones I brought into this world are A-OK first. There's no point fixing the neigbour's doors when my own are broken, is there atheer?

 

Castro Tutoring School (sponsored by SOL, let LSK foot the bill ) coming soon inshallah.

[Baashi]

^That's very kind of you young stud

 

I will be the first one to attend your tutoring sessions awoowe. Let me know when CTS start offering Programming 101 class.

[Faarax-Brawn]

Originally posted by Castro:

quote:Originally posted by Hawdgirl:

"Because why I sent him because I'm going to save him," she says. "That's why I send him. I'm going to save my kids, why I came here, yeah, civil war."

War dadyahow naftiina iyo reerkina nin walba ha ka adkaado. Forget this community rubbish you're chasing.

Most of these 'community' members all hail from one clan or region back in somalia. . The reason they congregated in small towns in the first place is wehel and a sense of qaraabanimo. The larger reason of settling in places with higher somali populations is mainly in aad 'dadkaada ag joogtid'[For dugsi,food,culture and all that].

 

Every community plays a role in raising a child. Even in non immigrant communities,theY play a role. Be it mentoring a child, neighborhood watches, adopting a street or even adopting a child,the community has a role.They have worked for the most part. Some of these communities are internationally recognised,endorsed by celebrities and national figures alike.They get extensive support from the federal government & wellwishers. UnitedWay leads the way,partnership for drugfree america,Bigbrother Bigsister ,mentor a child ,YMCA/YWCA, Boys scouts are just but a few examples. Its not "rubbish" as you put. It is part and parcel of strengthening communities. And somali communities more than any other needs this the most.

 

Yes:Its every family's job to raise a child,but as the old adage goes, 'it takes a village to raise a child'. Most of these somali communities are an extention of some buulo back from somalia.[As I have said in my opening line]. My child is your child. If Eedo Culuso's child is selling drugs, its as if eedo cajabo's son did it. It has always been like that,it will always be as such. The zipcodes might have changed, but somaliyeey the concept is still alive. Lets applaude this & if you can,lets contribute to it. Heblow Fitzgerald aint gonna do it, so let Mama Anab and her likes handle it.

[Castro]

^ Atheer my child is my child. When I die, you can help. As long as I live, you ain't got to worry about her. And few of those drug dealer kids are orphans. They all have Anab, Asha and Maryan as mothers but, unfortunately, no Faarax, Muuse and Cali to go with them.

[xiinfaniin]

^^How bizarre ! War goormaad dib uguraty sow adigii hadda schoolka soo waday!

[Castro]

Why bizarre good Xiin? Help should be coming to those who need it. If someone has difficulty raising their kids, after they've exhausted all their resources, why not help those. Those in dereliction of duty and have abondoned their posts should be scolded. Maaha?

[Faarax-Brawn]

^^LoooL@ Xiin.

 

Atheer my child is my child. When I die, you can help. As long as I live, you ain't got to worry about her. And few of those drug dealer kids are orphans. They all have Anab, Asha and Maryan as mothers but, unfortunately, no Faarax, Muuse and Cali to go with them

Thats commendable; We wouldnt need Maama Anab if every farax took responsibility of his kids maaha?

 

If everyone was as determined as you,or had the foresight,strength and resolve as you;well surely there will be no need for all these community based organizations right?

 

The fact that they are in existence and prooven to have worked is in itself an indication that something is not going right. Unfortunatly the situation in rochester and many other cities has reached at the stage where the families were unable to handle it. Somali baa hor ku maah maahday something like: "Hal far fool ma dhaqdo" . The more the merrier sxbow.

 

I Repeat it is not "RUBBISH" :cool:

[xiinfaniin]

Advocating community involvement in bringing about healthy youth and facilitating neighborhood services that could prevent potential social ills (crimes, drugs, prostitution, etc) is what it takes for your child grow in a healthy environment where he/she could develop its potential.

 

It does not encourage neglecting parents neither does it let them off the hook, rather it helps them be a better parents. Collective efforts are what needed to save this community, saaxiib. That, I thought, would not elude our socialist Castro. But it did.