Somalia, Al-Shabaab And Preserving The Human Spirit

[Somalina]

The propagandist

By Patrick Ross

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

 

Canadians were captivated by the plight of Amanda Lindhout in 2008 and 2009. She was an Albertan freelance journalist taken captive in Somalia. Speaking in Edmonton this week, Lindhout recounted her experiences in Somalia, and spoke about the plight of women there. However, she did not omit any silver lining to the misogynistic cloud hanging over Somalia; hope remains.

Al-Shabaab translates as “The Youth”. This militia group has been credited as having taken control of vast portions of Somalia, and has begun imposing a Taliban-esque interpretation of Sharia law wherever they can.

 

Al-Shabaab would later claim that Lindhout had given birth to a child while in captivity, allegedly fathered by one of their members. They claimed to have named the baby “Osama”. (Apparently, nothing in Al-Shabaab’s favoured version of the Koran forbids rape.) So one thing quickly becomes crystal-clear about Al-Shabaab. They’re a very classy bunch.

 

(Note that they made the claim after Lindhout had been released. There is no evidence to suggest that Lindhout ever gave birth to such a child, and she has never herself reported that she had been raped during captivity.)

Lindhout certainly has great insight to the plight of women in Somalia, a land where no law would protect the rights of women, even if any such law existed in any significant form. She nonetheless perceived many hopeful glimmers during her experience as a kidnapping victim; in the rare kindnesses offered to her by her captors (such kindness became more and more sparse following an escape attempt), from the efforts that a Muslim woman went to try to save her from her captors, and even in the youthful enthusiasm of Somali children.

 

“I’ve always been inspired by the dignity of the people there, and before I had ever even set foot in Somalia, I already felt great admiration for the Somali people, for enduring what appears to be insurmountable hardship on a daily basis,” Lindhout remarked.

 

“I’ll never forget my first glimpse of the country, flying in over the sunny coastline, white sand beaches below, the turquoise water of the Indian Ocean, and the breathtaking effect it had on me,” Lindhout recounted. “From the sky, it looked like paradise.”

 

“During my first days in Somalia the sight of young barefoot children running throughout Mogadishu’s war-torn streets was incredibly heart-warming, especially considering that one out of three children is severely malnourished. I was really fascinated by their ability to transcend the overwhelming difficulties of their daily lives through laughter, play and imagination.”

 

“I was deeply moved on my second day in Somalia when I visited a World Foot Programme feeding centre, the place where 8,000 women and children go for food supplies, to see how kind and generous Somali women are,” she recalled. “Even in the midst of famine, a young woman with an emaciated baby on her lap shyly asked if I was hungry, and if I would like to share some of her food. The watery porridge in the pail was all the food she would have for the next two days’ time, until she and her baby would again risk their lives walking through a war zone to stand in the blazing sun, waiting in a line for hours for that tiny bit of nourishment. You never forget a moment like that.”

 

Lindhout’s early enchantment with Somalia would soon be wiped away by her kidnapping.

 

On day three, she and her photographer, Nigel Brennan, left to visit a refugee camp. On the way there, they encountered a car pulled over on the side of the road as if broken down. The car was merely bait.

 

Gunmen emerged from their hiding place, and took control of their vehicle.

 

The youngest of Lindhout’s kidnappers was only 14.

 

Lindhout at first hoped that her empathy for Somalia would convince her captors to set her free.

 

“I was still clinging to the hope that there was some confusion and we’d be let go,” she said. “That they’d realize that I really cared about their country, their people, and the war that was happening there. But they didn’t care.”

 

“What Nigel and I represented to them, besides just money, was the western world that had failed them... They wouldn’t have been able to represent Canada on a map, but they knew that it was one of ‘those countries that had supported the Ethiopian invasion of 2006. I would later learn that several of my captors’ parents had been killed during that war.”

 

The leader of Lindhout’s kidnappers was not what one would expect. Approximately 25 years old at the time, this individual was well-travelled and seemingly well-educated.

 

Lindhout noted that the leaders of Al-Shabaab – like the leaders of so many Islamic extremist organizations – used their knowledge of the world to manipulate their followers, who Lindhout noted were “incredibly bright”.

 

“I was curious: what events in their lives had led them to fighting in such a militia group? The stories I heard from them were sadly common.”

 

The life story of each shared common threads: each of them born into war, having never known peacetime. Violence, hunger and disease have remained a constant throughout their lives, in a land that offers no peaceful job opportunities, and no opportunities to receive an education.

 

"Innocent young children become both the victims and perpetuators of violence," Lindhout remarked.

 

The comparisons between Al-Shabaab and the Taliban are far from spurious. As Lindhout herself noted, the ideology that animates Al-Shabaab is similar to that which motivates the Taliban in both form and origin: Islamist extremists import to Somalia not only their weapons to arm Al-Shabaab, but also their warped interpretation of Islam.

 

Lindhout seems to believe that the extreme poverty and war that Somalia have been subject to has made it a breeding ground for fundamentalist Islamic extremism. There is certainly a case to be made for this, but there should almost certainly be debate over whether or not the Somali historical scenario is more of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Does Somalia breed Islamic extremism because of poverty and war? Or is Somalia wrought with poverty and war because of Islamic extremism? It’s not an easy question to answer.

 

Lindhout’s experiences in Somalia may also shed some light on what the greatest challenge for women living under the thumb of groups like the Taliban and Al-Shabaab actually is: in Lindhout’s view, the greatest challenge is that of preserving the human spirit.

 

"The most difficult times were when my faith in human decency were lost,” Lindhout said. ”I could not understand how some people could reach those depths to inflict that kind of pain upon another."

 

For Lindhout, the answer turned out to be learning how to forgive her captors for the abuses they heaped upon her. She seems to feel that this has changed her for the better, and perhaps it has.

 

However, Somali women don’t really have the same option. It’s one thing for Amanda Lindhout, a foreigner who can be liberated by the payment of a ransom – and for the record, she agrees with the Canadian government’s policy of refusing to pay these ransoms – to adopt this stance.

 

For Somali women – and Afghan women – who cannot be liberated by any such means, forgiveness does not deliver them from the abuses they suffer under groups such as Al-Shabaab and the Taliban. It may help them preserve their human spirit, but it does not set them free.

 

Some of Lindhout’s current work with the Global Enrichment Foundation offers Somali women some light at the end of the tunnel. Through education scholarships and now micro-finance, the GEF offers them the opportunity to bring hope back to what is otherwise a hopeless land.

 

But it’s important to remember that Al-Shabaab, if allowed to spread its malignant dominance across Somalia, would turn out that light in a heartbeat. Amanda Lindhout is now doing wonderful work for Somalia – a land she can never return to – but Al-Shabaab poses a clear and present danger to her ability to continue helping a land that desperately needs it.

 

The question of what to do about Al-Shabaab is not one that is easily answered. If the western world were to deploy troops in every corner of the globe where this vile brand of Islamic militancy runs rampant we would quickly run out of troops.

 

Canada’s role in Somalia – which once included a peacekeeping mission (however poorly-planned and equipped) – is now miniscule. Somalia is not on the Canadian International Development Agency’s list of beneficiary states. Even if the government decided to amend this egregious oversight, it’s questionable if Canada could muster enough troops to protect any CIDA presence on the ground in Somalia. Perhaps especially when Afghanistan desperately needs the presence of Canadian troops as well, and the Sudan may quickly need them even more urgently.

 

There are no easy answers. But Somalia doesn’t need easy answers. It needs answers, period.

 

The Somalia in which Lindhout’s admirable humanitarian work can best be successful is one in which Al-Shabaab is marginalized and contained. Even if it’s easier said than done, it still needs to be done. If it isn’t, Amanda Lindhout’s experience will have been in vain.

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Patrick Ross is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist