Update Jan. 17, 2009: I notice that the Conservative Voice has merged with Townhall.com and the link for the article by Brian Ball is gone.
The Somali experiment in Lewiston, Maine continues to cause friction and some Somalis are moving on (although from the article I posted on a couple of weeks ago there are still plenty in Lewiston). In the meantime, school officials there sweep anything distasteful under the rug to limit any culture clashes.
First, here is an article from a writer, Brian Ball, who must live there and write for a publication called Conservative Voice. He says:
At first the Somalis were welcomed into the community. The addition of them made The town almost similar to Lagos, Nairobi or Mecca. But problems began to unfold. Lewiston’s social network was unable to handle the massive influx of refugees. The people began to complain that they would take away jobs and housing. Many people complained of being evicted from public housing to make way for the refugees. Also it had a negative impact on taxes. Maine is one of the most tax burdened states in the nation, just behind New York and New Jersey. Lewiston soon had one of the highest property taxes in the state. Many residents including the mayor began to protest and urged the Somalis to move on. Of course leftist moonbats in Maine also protested citing that those who opposed them were all racists. To make matters worse, Matt Hale’s World Church of the creator, which had chapters in Presque Isle and Portland came to roost along with members of the Aryan Nations which had it’s eastern headquarters in Hampton Beach New Hampshire, causing concerned citizens to shy away. The September 11th attacks also didn’t help. Since most were Muslim, suspicion grew on the community and in 2006 a frozen pigs head was thrown into their mosque.
One thing that didn’t come true, the Somalis did not take any jobs away. Because of Maine’s socialist economy, there were not enough and almost all of them had no education whatsoever. Nearly all of them were unemployed. Most of them receive money from the federal and state government anyway. With this the Somalis with the help of other social workers encouraged and aided them to move to other communities in Maine as well as New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Then in an article in something called The American School, educators learn how to sweep under the rug anything that might cause cultures to clash. Don’t dare discuss the practice of female genital mutilation, that is what they are teaching their children, the community of Lewiston and school leaders everywhere.
Misunderstandings are inevitable when these two very different cultures meet.
An example: Middle school students were assigned to write their autobiographies, which would be included in a book published by the school system. Many Somali middle-schoolers, who had a firmer grip on spoken English than on written English, told their stories to an interviewer.
Word got around that the girls were being interviewed about female circumcision [note they don’t use the word “mutilation”], causing an uproar. The Somalis wondered why the school district was asking about such things. Martin didn’t know how the rumor started, but she contacted two Somali women with whom she frequently works to help quell the suspicion.
So we go down the slippery slope of politically correct accommodation of a practice that is illegal and downright evil because no one will dare to make a judgement. If it’s a religious or cultural practice of the Somalis, we have no right, according to people like educator Sue Martin, to even discuss it.