Perplexing, what are the causes of our decaying…?

[Hibo]

The future and the prospect of any society are predominantly contingent upon the education, and nurturing of its youth. And the family has been the conventional and most conceivable medium to provide the ethereal and material means, which dispatches a culture from one generation to the next. But the future of tomorrow's Somalis seems be undergoing a rather dim wave. Lately, the "Somali culture" is decaying rapidly without any moderate speed. What are the causes of this phenomenon? Is it because the culture which supposedly was to promote about morals, ethics, striving to achieve one's goals and getting along with your fellow man, were replaced with exact opposite practices i.e killing your fellowman, perceiving others to be inferior purely they subscribe to another clan and so forth. Or there is another underlining factor?

 

Why our current youth is not inclined towards this "Somali culture"? Do we lack current educators that control and produce intellectual property of extraordinary breadth and depth? If so, why is the case? What might an agenda for revival of "Somali culture" like? Would it be one that puts the interests and aspirations of young Somali "western educated" into action and draws fully on their strengths of the knowledge communities and intellectual institutions they attend at the same time orientates them to that "culture"? Are we prone to become people without concrete identity because of the ideological differences between today's youth and tomorrow's leaders? All these answers to these questions are fundamental tool to understand what has gone wrong "granted there is something wrong" about our "sublime" young Somali western erudite? Wherever you go from Paris to Boston, London to Toronto; you will witness dismal Somali youth that does not uphold the ethics of "Somali culture"

 

I welcome any intellectual debate that deals with above inquisitions. And in order to answer those questions one need to define what culture is and whether his/her definition conforms to what the "Somali culture is".

 

 

 

 

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Respectfully-Farah

[Hibo]

Sometimes it's interesting to see how much my own response to a particular topic has been altered by intervening experience or simply the fact that I have grown up. It's not always the same "me" sitting on my computer posting on the net, and it can be enlightening to recognize how different I used to be back in the days. There's something amusingly humbling about realizing that I was once capable of resembling those "sublime young Somali western erudites". Sure, I was a young man goofball at the time, but still.... Also, there are times when a flashback ends up being a bit of a revelation, because I'd missed something by failing to stay true to my origin, despite the fact that it was certainly an available choice. I sort of like my past however, because it reminds me now not to wed myself too vehemently to any particular act unless it's been well-tested. ...

 

In some ways, a good thought can be liberating, taking your focus out of the realm of following others and freeing you up to appreciate your culture. ...And even when I think I can sort of decipher the "language" that comes from the interplay of my past, there's still a great deal of mystery in the process, because I have no idea why I acted the way I acted those days. It's like understanding more about a magician's trick without losing the thrill that comes from the illusion.

[Jamster]

Profasoore,

 

 

I should hope so, though I doubt that the newtonian inertia that many of our brothers ans sisters found themselves would be a hard one to break-- but congrats for your flee from the forlorn to frerdom.

 

Respectfully,

Farah

[Coloow]

A good question!

[Thinkerman]

I think we all could hazard a guess or two as to some of the reasons why we as a people are falling away.

 

Many of which we have contemplated in various debates i.e. social deprevation, lack of represention and justice, demostic turmoil and so forth.

 

What is true (certainly from my personal expirence) is the number of lost somalis in the communtiy has dramatically increased. Somalis who are totally assimilated, who have no morals let alone follow Islam, who are drug addicts, drug dealers..... i could go on forever.

 

I dont think that our decay should be perplexing to us we know where we are going wrong, we also realise that to make the necessary changes we need to act corehisevly (excuse the spelling) and come together on communial platform but will we?? i doubt it. I hope so but i doubt it.

 

Am not perplexed @ our decay, am just perplexed @ the continued reluctance and inability of "us" as a people to come together, not unlike other communities, to try and resolve and mitigate against some of the factors that are causing our decay through some offical somali communtiy that would be our representative in the host countyr that we might reside in.

[N.O.R.F]

Just have a look at the UK, we have loads of local organisations doing this, that and the third claiming to be helping our young ppl. When in truth many are just using the funding given to them for their own benefit and have no interest in helping these youth. Having difficulty in taking a group of youngsters on a trip from an annual budget of £40,000 is just one example, oh where did the money go?

 

Farah asked "Do we lack current educators that control and produce intellectual property of extraordinary breadth and depth?"

 

This is very true, many of these potential educators of our youth today are doing their educating in many-a-merfish from Sydney to T.dot believing that they are 'past it' and the knowledge that they do have is not relevant today.

 

As to whether we can tackle these problems, we are somalis, we never do things together, we do them seperately as individuals or individual groups.

 

Looking forward to more posts on thi, gr8 topic farax!

[Jamilah]

Asalamu Calykum,

 

Do we lack current educators that control and produce intellectual property of extraordinary breadth and depth?

From reading all the possible reasons as to why the Somali youth are "decaying", that question is what I believe our community should ask ourselves. .

 

 

Me and a friend were discussing something along those lines when she finally concluded that "It does not matter if an individual has great intellectual influence around them it all comes down to who you are as a person" I disagree it is no coincidence that Somali youth seem to be "decaying" all around the world.

 

Another point we should consider is the lack of restrictions my Somali friends have more freedom than my European friends, surely something must be wrong :confused: . I know being too strict is never a solution but you have to be aware of what your child is doing.

 

About the Somali culture I strongly believe we should boycott it, it never got us anywhere in our country so why would it here. I am not saying lets totally abandon our culture but lets just stick to our Islamic teachings and Inshallah our problems will decrease. I know it is not as easy as I put it but the more religious teachings our youth are exposed the less amount of activities (that are not only morally wrong but Islamically forbidden) they would participate in.

 

Me personally is lucky (al-hamdulilaah ) to be blessed with parents that are very intelligent and wise. Both Islamically and academically. I strongly believe the influence you have in your home environment and even more so your social environment plays a major role on who you are and will become.

[Coloow]

Northerner: 100% true saaxib

 

 

Faarax, the answer to your questions lie perhaps in the recent history of somalis. Our current youth have been concieved either during the last regime which held a tight grip on somalis- and defined culture according to its synthesis or the cilvil war that followed.

 

During the past 40 or so years that somalis have been independent from white colonial rule, we have witnessed the emergence of a sub-culture whose foundation was based on deceit, double standards etc. We have parents whose perception of culture was based was not based somali culture but a normenculture of benchmarking other cultures.

 

Educators? well sxb, the so called somali intellectuals have not achieved the intellectual capacity which frees them from the malices of other cultures or being bondage to their own subliminal culture?. How could warlords, qabiiliste etc become cultural icons or educators when their school of thought is based on trivities, or the will to imitate other cultures?

 

Marka sxb the answer to your questions lie in the fabric of somali society. i.e. greed, passivness and double standards.

 

We need to change as a nation and redifine somali culture because as it is today somali culture is a cocktail of other cultures.

[Darwish]

The problem is not Mr Farah the Somalis but the culture which you subtly agreed upon its existence.

The assumption that such culture is not adhered is perhaps far-fetched.

I can exclaim that there is no Somali culture; indeed our seeming culture is based on Islam, and upon abandoning Islam people have become morally Bankrupted.

 

Without the centrality of Islam our culture is feeble.

[Pig]

Sir Farah, I've given you my thoughts earlier, but let me add one more thing. The corrupt culture embraced by young Somalis on the internet is much more damaging than the usual case of a kid trying to be cool. Nobody realizes the damage done by Somalinet to the young generation of Somalis. Corrupt with no morals or values.

[Jamster]

Prafasoore,

 

As an old vetran of Somalinet (though I seldom visit that site anymore) I do concur with you to the extent that the website cultivated seeds that were already sowed in these youngsters.

 

Entrepreneur

 

Nothing to do with that departed dictator’s regime. This is something that is deeply rooted in our “culture”.