Souls in Exile

[xiinfaniin]

Souls in Exile: Memory, creativity and opportunity

An Evening with, the world renowned author, Nuruddin Farah in Ottawa, Canada

December 12, 2009

 

An ad hoc committee of Canadian-Somalis in Ottawa informally requested the world renowned Somali writer, Nuruddin Farah, to come and deliver a lecture in Ottawa. The committee members were merely motivated by their admiration of Farah’s work and had no expectation that their invitation would be accepted. Farah, has not only accepted the invitation, but has gracefully waived his normal fees, which was a tremendous relief to the organizers who at that point did not have any sponsors.

 

In an attempt to focus and capitalize on the opportunity of engaging with Nuruddin Farah, the committee decided to make the event relevant to Somali life in the Diaspora. The committee combed through Nuruddin’s body of work, reflecting particularly on “Yesterday, Tomorrow Voices from the Somali Diaspora” (2000), Nuruddin’s only non-fiction book and countless interviews he has given over the years.

 

The committee decided that what would be beneficial is to have a session where participants, through the exchange of views and ideas, share and learn from Nuruddin’s wealth of experience, and hear him talk about how he came to find his creative talent in exile. The organizers found an earlier interview where Nuruddin, in an article titled “In Praise of Exile” had succinctly articulated live in exile:

 

"One of the pleasures of living away from home is that you become the master of your destiny, you avoid the constraints and limitations of your past and if need be create an alternative life for yourself. That way everybody becomes the other and you are the centre of the universe. You are a community when you are away from home – the communal mind remembering. Memory is active when you are in exile"

 

In contrast to the above quote, the organizers pondered on the fact that for many Somalis in the Diaspora exile has not been liberating, to the contrary, it is oftentimes painful, uncertain, and memory is a burden for many – remembering is heavy and often leads to unrealistic or over idealized past which makes the present less enjoyable and many look forward to a return of the golden past rather than moving forward. Hence, in this case memory is active to the extent it blocks creativity and living in the present.

 

To set the overall theme for an evening of learning, the organizers sent Nuruddin the above written quote from him, juxtaposing it with the hard reality of exile for many Somalis. He accepted this theme for the Ottawa evening, which was set for Saturday December, 12, 2009, and the preparation wheels were set in motion.

 

 

With support from Carleton University’s Institute of African Studies, which hosted the event, other Ottawa community organizations, and CBC’s own Adrian Harewood as the MC, the Ottawa community came out, on a frigid winter evening, in large numbers and listened to what has proven to be a fascinating literary event. The organizing committee, and all those who came, Somalis and non-Somalis, were blown away at the richness of the lecture and the questions and answers session that followed. True to all the accolades he has received over the years, Nuruddin Farah has delivered a classic lecture full of wisdom rooted in his exceptionally very rich life experience, laced with few light-hearted self deprecating jokes, and an overall amazing delivery style, eloquent and articulate presentation.

 

In his presentation, Nuruddin touched upon numerous dimension of life in exile, rejecting victimhood, he spoke about the human being’s innate ability to survive hardships and continue to thrive and recreate lives in foreign lands, where one can choose to self actualize and live up to his/her potential. Nuruddin shared his experiences of utilizing memories of Somalia combined with his gifted imagination, and writing to keep Somalia alive within him in exile. He underlined the notion of memory as critical ingredient of creative thinking, and when combined with imagination, how it can lead to creativity. Creativity in this sense does not just mean in terms of artistic expression but it also means the creativity to live meaningful and productive life in exile.

 

The take-away message from Nuruddin’s Ottawa lecture, (there are more than one key message here), for the diasporic Somalis is this: if we want our children to thrive, then we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to plant roots in our adapted homelands. We should not waste the opportunity to recreate our lives by getting stuck and dwelling on what we have lost; rather we should focus on what we have gained, even if life in exile does not perfectly match our ideal aspirations of what should have been.

 

Contact: Fowsia Abdulkadir

Event organizers,

Ottawa, Canada

E-mail: fowsia@sympatico.ca

[Warrior of Light]

Bro xiin,

thanks for the article.

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

"One of the pleasures of living away from home is that you become the master of your destiny, you avoid the constraints and limitations of your past and if need be create an alternative life for yourself. That way everybody becomes the other and you are the centre of the universe. You are a community when you are away from home – the communal mind remembering. Memory is active when you are in exile"

 

 

 

The take-away message from Nuruddin’s Ottawa lecture, (there are more than one key message here), for the diasporic Somalis is this: if we want our children to thrive, then we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to plant roots in our adapted homelands. We should not waste the opportunity to recreate our lives by getting stuck and dwelling on what we have lost; rather we should focus on what we have gained, even if life in exile does not perfectly match our ideal aspirations of what should have been.

Nurradin is a great author and very intelligent but his speeches are sometimes anit-Islam and very offensive

[xiinfaniin]

^^Nuradin is not anti Islam. That he at times hazards to talk about theological matters on which he has no full grasp is a pardonable offense. His anti Arab rhetoric is also, in the context of the prevalent Somali attitude towards Arabs, explainable.

[Abu-Salman]

I came accross him as a man with somewhat of a secular outlook though I'm not sure whether he may be worse than many average Somalis; anti Arab rhetoric is also anti-Islamic no matter how common this may be, just as typical somalis Kufr swear words involving usually the prophet, Deen etc (even more so if coming from an "educated" individual).

 

Anyway, many of the "Muslim" writers celebrated by the West or the Westernised ones are hardly quite Islamic individuals while their work could often be described, at best, as "Lahw" or despicable frivolities, without a clear Shariah sanctioned purpose...

[xiinfaniin]

^There were Muslim writers in the most celebrated era of Islamic civilization whose works could clearly fall in the 'Lahw' category. Take the clasics of Al Hariri and Hamathaani (teh maqaamaat), and tell me yaa Abu Salman what shariicah purpose did they serve.

 

bt, those are my favorate Arabic literature and I fully appriciate the literary gems and gramitical riddles with which they contain but I just wanted to point out that it is not only Muslim writers in the West as you put that chose to write about non Shariicah related stuff.

[Abu-Salman]

On a different note ya Xiin and sorry for the hijacking, I used to read almost anything and we had our own micro library albeit in "French"; I remember Looyaan and Sooyaan drama in Nuradin's "Sweet and Sour MIlk". There are some poignant description of social decay in other authors, eg "Les Miserables", "My sweet Orange tree" etc which affected me as I'm curious and quite sentimental, deeply moved by injustice (I remember an episode 20 years ago, at barely 6 of age, my habo carried me to her office, telling the collegues that I was a "genius" because she found me having a go at her IT manual).

 

However, I just found out that these readings, alongside TV and video-games to be increasingly frivolous at around a decade ago, when still a young teen; avoiding them is also the best option islamically (the top Western class dispense with TV altogether here but dishes are a status symbol back in africa).

 

But do tell us how best to approach Arabic litterature for linguistics purposes (brothers at the mosque peruse the mucallaqaat al cashara/as-sabca); some guidance, best practice, practical tips etc would be greatly appreciated...

[xiinfaniin]

^^

If you are interested in Arabic literature you must read Maqaamaat al-Hariri. Find, if you can, the original works of Badi al-Zaman al-Hamadhani. Find al-Jahiz's work, the sheikh of the Bazrah litterateurs. Muculaqaats (poems selected from 7-9 pre Islam Arab poets) are childs play when contrasted with polished and elegant style aforementioned authors employ, which is elaborately rich, to the degree it almost rhymes (it's where i got my signature )

[Jacaylbaro]

Nuradin Farah is the man ...............