Month: August 2008

Somali Bantu workshop going on in Louisville, KY

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to this article in the Courier-Journal, Louisville has the largest concentration of Somali Bantu in the United States.  This weekend, you the taxpayer, fund a conference to help them get organized as an ethnic community group (just another special interest group?).    The funding comes from Office of Refugee Resettlement grants to the National Somali Bantu Project of Portland State University.  And, is likely part of the federally funded Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs) program I complained about here. 

About the meeting this weekend:

When thousands of Somali Bantu refugees were formally resettled in the United States earlier this decade, Louisville received several hundred.

The last time Hassan Muya counted, there were 1,600 in the River City. And the number is growing daily, said Muya, president of the Somali Bantu Community of Kentucky.

The new arrivals are part of a secondary migration, and they have made Louisville the largest Somali Bantu community in the nation, said Omar Eno, director of the National Somali Bantu Project at Portland State University in Oregon.

This population surge, coupled with Louisville’s central location in the country, made the city the logical spot for the National Somali Bantu Workshops, the first meeting of Somali Bantu leaders in the United States organized by the project, said Eno.

How are the Bantu different from the ethnic Somalis that have taken over cities like Lewiston, ME?   Here is a Wikipedia article that explains how the Bantu were slaves (they don’t say it, but they were enslaved by Muslims) and looked down upon by ethnic Somalis and they never did get along back in Africa (and probably don’t here either).

Be sure to check the Wikipedia article because it does say which cities in the US became Bantu cities and which became ethnic Somali resettlement cities.

I wrote about Louisville here last September when I pointed to an article in the Wall Street Journal about Louisville attracting refugees to work in industries there.   One city official dismissed statistics that showed that Somalis were a financial burden on the city and called this generation the “throw away generation.”

Here is what I asked about these Ethnic organizations (ECBOs) last winter:

Now, here is what I wonder. Why do we need all these ECBO’s? Doesn’t the establishment of groups called Montagnard Human Rights Organization, Bosnian American Association of New York City, and the Boat People SOS simply continue to separate us in America, to continue to accentuate our differences? Shouldn’t we have workshops and conferences on how refugees should assimilate into America?

I envision sessions called perhaps “American Holiday traditions”, “Important people in American history”, “Following the laws, big and small in America”, “What’s acceptible public behavior in America (how to be polite in the supermarket, rules of the road)”, and so on.

Go back and read the article about this weekend’s conference, its about us understanding their culture so we can serve them better!

Church group takes mission trip to Lewiston, ME to give love to Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It used to be that if you wanted to take a Christian mission trip to help impoverished Africans you went to Africa.  But, heck why spend the money on airfare when you can do the same thing right here—in Lewiston, ME.   Here is an article about an Exeter, NH church group that hopped a bus and drove a few hours to nearby Maine to help poor and many presumably unemployed Somalis and other homeless people there.   

You may have heard about Lewiston, Maine.  It became famous for its Somali population a few years ago when the story was that Somalis living in the Atlanta area got sick of being harrassed by local blacks and sent their elders city shopping.   They picked Lewiston, Maine—a very unhappy town at the time (and maybe still is).  

According to this article there are 7000 Somalis living in Lewiston now, with more arriving daily—7000!

So the church group spread around a lot of Christian love even though some among them were set back a bit by the behavior of the Somali kids.  But, it’s o.k. because it’s all post-traumatic stress that makes these kids behave so badly.

It was during this playtime with the Somali kids that we saw frequent flashes of what post-traumatic stress has done to these children.  [Ed:  These Somalis have been in Lewiston a long time and I’m betting many of these kids were born here]   The boys, in particular, are extremely aggressive and do not have any ability to talk out a conflict. They immediately resort to fighting and they fight hard.

Another factor that exacerbates the bad behavior of these children is that the Somali parents in Lewiston allow their children to just wander about town unsupervised and, as a result, are never there to witness the questionable behavior. The Somali parents think of Lewiston as their village rather than as an urban city. The director of the Jubilee Center, Kim Wettlaufer, has initiated dialogue (via interpreters) between the local police and the Somali parents so the police can try to explain why it is not safe for them to let their children wander unsupervised.

Despite the fighting and bad language, our kids recognized that these children needed and wanted the same things that every child wants: to feel safe, to have friends, and to be loved. In the afternoon, we created a safe and organized place for the kids to do crafts. Our kids gave these children endless piggyback rides, played hopscotch, blew bubbles, played soccer and basketball and just hung out and talked. When bad language was used, our kids would gently and consistently let them know that such language was unacceptable. Our kids were important role models for these children for the whole week and it rubbed off on them.

Yup, and after a week the church folks went home.

Four employees of the International Rescue Committee killed in Afghanistan

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update with more detail:   The Washington Post published this more detailed account of what happened here.

The International Rescue Committee has released the names of its four staff members who were tragically killed in an ambush Wednesday morning in Logar Province Afghanistan.

It doesn’t matter to Islamic fighters whether westerners are good people doing charitable work.  I suspect the women in this group were targets because they symbolize freedom for women—something the Taliban and Al-Queda fear the most.

The victims were en route to Kabul and traveling in a clearly marked International Rescue Committee vehicle when they came under fire at mid-morning.

The IRC has suspended operations in Afghanistan indefinitely according to this report.

Spencer tells us why the Tyson’s Labor Day incident was not a little thing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, noted Islamic expert, Robert Spencer, reported to readers at Jihad Watch why the Tyson’s incident was an important event and we ignore it at our peril.    This is how he wraps up the post, but please read the whole thing here:

The idea that non-Muslims must be inconvenienced in order to accommodate Muslims is precisely the problem. And the fact is that there is an organized effort to build on such accommodations in order to create a privileged status for Muslims and Islam in the U.S. The Brotherhood memorandum speaks of the Islamization of the U.S. as happening slowly and incrementally. Obviously they don’t announce their overall goal with each initiative, but the Brotherhood has turned out to be behind many of these incidents — notably the refusal of cab drivers at the Minneapolis airport to carry passengers with alcohol, and the charter school that was teaching Islam while receiving public funds. In light of its involvement with such incidents, can they really be viewed as isolated? Can the Brotherhood’s own stated overall goals safely be discounted as having nothing to do with these initiatives? Is it not possible that their goal of Islamization might be being pursued incrementally, in small steps?

I don’t think that possibility can safely be discounted, and that’s why I am wary of the Tyson incident and other initiatives aimed at accommodating Islamic practices. Each may be in itself utterly innocuous — but that Brotherhood plan is real, and I believe we ignore it at our own risk.

Remember: Islam means “submission.” That’s what it’s all about.

 

Just in at Jihad Watch: Somali found dead in Denver!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 16:  See the latest news here, what role is Omar Jamal playing in this story?

Update:  The Somali was just crazy, not a terrorist so it’s all o.k., more at Jihad Watch.

A Canadian Somali immigrant found dead in a hotel room in Denver with enough cyanide to kill hundreds.  Read the story at Jihad Watch here.    What could be going on in Denver this month?  Hum, let me think.

Note to new readers—to learn more about Somalis in the US, just type the word “Somalis” into our search function.   Also, there are now over 80,000 Somalis legally in the US thanks to the State Department’s Refugee Resettlement program.    Tens of thousands have been admitted since 911.