The Sound of My Creed

For he who loves death

I pillage, I steal

I command, I follow

Death betrays me

A sin by god

A nemesis of the devil

A sacred song for hope

Is this the sound of my creed

I have become hollow

In this company of hard knocks

A shallow hero

A morbid existence

A fighter with no manifesto

I see a torn map

It has been fixed before

Where is this silent cartographer

A soldier lost in a storm

A pigeon stranded in the wind

An angel trying to find his way home

A philosopher of the universe

A devil child of the Earth

What lie have I become

So loose

So strong

A ferocious beast

A rebel of the underground

A warrior for peace

Undeniably alien to my former

I seek no revenge

I have no regrets

What truth have I become

A wayward sailor

A crime by nature

A tale to tell no soul

Waiting for Columbus

When the original conflict between “Native Americans” and Europeans began it was largely an arms struggle. From the natives side it was a European invasion. From the European side it was a conquest. It is important to note that Europeans did not recognize the natives right to the land of the “Americas”. With this reasoning the Europeans did not consider themselves as a invasion force. The word invasion implies that the victim of such an attack is obligated to defend themselves. This was not the case for the natives according to the Europeans.
In this essay I will explain how the conflicts between Native Americans and whites have evolved not resolved. From the books Journey of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall and Mountain Windsong by Robert J. Conley examples of the past will be extracted. For a more contemporary perspective, the books The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie and Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson will be examined. How the relationship between Native Americans and the whites will judge is by way how respect, rights, and equality between the two groups have changed over time.
There is a photo on shirts and other merchandise that claims to be a picture of Geronimo and other Apache warriors. The subtitle under the picture reads “Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism since 1492”. While humorous to some it can be offensive to others. It may also be true. Terrorism can take many forms. Is forcing removing a group of people at gun point a form of terrorism? Is stripping away land from its native occupants and putting them in a reservation a form of terrorism? I would say it is. While America is today fixated on this “new” threat called terrorism for the rest of the world it is nothing new. Terrorism has been sponsored by both vigilante groups and governments. What is most disturbing is America’s lack of interest to resolve this conflict. It was once an arms conflict now it is a social conflict. Here in the home of liberty and justice for all we have not faced the continuing struggle of the Native American.
In the time of Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, the natives were regarded as savages and inferior. Though there was much talk about religion and the holy mission of the Europeans to “educate” and “civilize” the natives, the true intentions laid in greed for resources. This included wood, land, oil, and especially gold. But as Marsall says “the old men were hoping that the whites would keep going west. There was nothing wrong with trading they said’”. They were not savages to begin with. Although there were instances of mutual cooperation, from the beginning there was lack of respect, lack of rights, and equality was a silly idea. In the story the Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor, Alexie describes a confrontation with a state cop who pulled the characters Jimmy Many Horse and his wife Norma over. While the driver was not drinking, the officer asks whether Norma was. Norma responds that she is a passenger it doesn’t matter. The cop says “That don’t make a differences, Washington State has a new law against riding as a passenger in an Indian car”.
The US government made hundreds of agreements with the native tribes and broke all of them. As the Lakota leader, Red Cloud said “ They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they kept only one; they promised to take our land, and they did”. In Mountain Windsong it tells of Falling Over Man, a Cherokee, saving the life of Old Hickory (Andrew Jackson). In recognition Jackson said “For as long as the sun shines and the grass grows, you and me are going to be friends, and the feet of the Cherokees will be pointed East”. Jackson did not follow up on his promise. Even though being considered one of the most “civilized” of the savages, the Cherokee Nation faced one of the most painful ordeals of post-Columbus Native American experience. This would be the infamous “Trail of Tears” where thousands of Cherokees where chased out of their homes and made to march West. Even though so many died during the first journey, the remaining Cherokees were made to moving West in another group. However this time led by their own people.
The disunity between the the Native American tribes became a weakness. In most cases diversity is a strong point. But for survival the most important tools to the society as a whole is a large population and unity. Many native tribes joined fights with whites against other native tribes. I wonder if they would have done the same if they realized that the greatest threat to them was their new allies not their old enemies. It has been established that,collectively, the natives had no rights. However the most disastrous policy for the native tribes was not exclusion but inclusion.
The American people and other Western government previous to them collectively labelled all tribes as the “Native Americans” or “the Indians”. In many cases identity in times of struggle is as important as the battles being fought. For what else does one truly fight for? While not giving the natives equality in mainstream America, the native tribes where equal among themselves in the eyes of Americans. The right to be recognized as a unique and independent culture is the ultimate struggle of the Native American tribe. Even in liberal Vermont, the Abenaki tribe has to struggle for recognition from the State. The year long celebration in Vermont of Samuel De Champlain’s “discovery” of the the lake that bears is name is an example of social injustice. The idea that a group of people need to be acknowledged for their existence as a people is an example of lack of respect for native cultures and lack of recognition as a unique and independent nation of people.
The title of this essay is Waiting for Columbus. For the natives Columbus was an unexpected hurricane of horrendous proportion. It brought with it disease, armies, and the reservation. The creation of the United States of America in 1776 was like the second Columbus. The creation of the reservation system and the Bureau of Indian Affairs was the third Columbus and so on. Someone or something is always waiting to break open a horde of terrible problems. Talking about campaigns by the US government to wipe out native resistance Alexie states “They’re all gone, my tribe is gone. Those blankets they gave us, infected with smallpox, have killed us. I’m the last, the very last, and I’m sick, too.” He talks of a man in a desperate situation. The foundation of his society to which we would turn to in time of need no longer exist. Even if there were others he would still be alone.
Today, although it is widely known that Native Americans are not one group of people but consist of many tribes, people are less likely to recognize the significance of that. It is not taught in school and political correctness is thought of as unnecessary. If I was speaking about Sherman Alexie I would probably say that he was Native American before I would say that he was Spokane. In the same way I wouldn’t necessarily mention that Eden Robinson is Haisla and Heiltsuk, or the Joseph Marshall III is a Lakota, a subgroup of the Sioux Nation. Understanding of a culture can become a form of oppression if it is coupled with stubborn ignorance. In Robinson’s Monkey Beach, Lisa’s teacher “forced her to read a book that said that the Indians on the Northwest coast of British Columbia had killed and eaten people as religious sacrifices”. When Lisa referred to it as “….all lies” she got in trouble.
Anger never dies. Anger is like the monarch caterpillar. It changes with the time and the environment. It becomes a butterfly and maybe gets eaten by a bird. But anger can not be shared because like the monarch it is poisonous. Its all about survival. As Sherman Alexie says “Survival = anger X imagination. Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation”. This is comparable to the Cherokee approach being misunderstood, just smile and nod. When you can not win physically you fight your battles mentally.

The New Sound of K’naan

His name means traveler. In his first album, K’Naan called himself the dusty foot philosopher. He said the dusty foot philosopher is someone that has never been in a plane but can tell you what’s beyond the clouds. Though in his recent album titled, “Troubadour, he no longer calls himself that, he still speaks as if he is preaching.

Hip-hop is a broad category. It includes music, culture, and style. If I had to label K’Naan’s style it probably be alternative hip-hop. That is, music that refuses to fall into the stereotypes of gansta, hardcore, or party rap. Now rap and hip-hop are not the same thing. Rap is a style of hip-hop, hip-hop is a style of music, they are not interchangeable.

K’Naan is a Somali-Canadian. He was born in northern Somalia but grew up in Mogadishu, the capital city. When the civil war broke out in 1991 many intellectuals had left the country to places like London and New York City. K’Naan’s father left for New York and became a cab driver. K’Naan’s mother petitioned the United States for a visa and it was approved on the last day the US embassy remained open in Somalia. The family lived with relatives in Harlem until moving to Toronto, Ontario. He left school at grade ten to travel and sing. He still lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons. Though in his thirties he looks so young, a poster child for people who grow up in hard times.

People tell me he is similar to this artist or that artist. I have not found one other artist like him. Yes there are similarities between him and artists like k-os and Michael Franti. But K’naan is unique. He himself said “I got my own sound. I don’t sound like the rest, and even my attire and my choice of dress”. I first heard K’Naan on NPR. I make sure to listen to anything and anyone that has something to say about Somalia. There are so few good things that come out of Somalia these days that K’Naan was an inspiration. I had never liked or listen to rap or hip-hop. I felt that to listen to the music and to enjoy it was to conform to traditional black stereotypes. K’Naan proved to me that hip-hop has something to say and should not be neglected. What can only called as in the true spirit of hip-hop, K’Naan collaborates with a number of artist including Chubb Rock, Damian Marley, Nelly Furtado, and Mos Def.

K’Naan speaks to an audience that has experienced injustice, hardships, and personal struggles. As he says in T.I.A (This is Africa) “I take rappers on a field trip any day, they’ve never been opposite real clip anyway. I know where all the looters and the shooters stay. Welcome to the city we call Doomsday”. News flash to American raps who think they have it hard, Africans have it harder. K’Naan tries to tell the world about Somalia and the conflict that has stagnated the nation. I don’t know if people are listening. As he says himself “they love me in the slums and the native reservations”. These places are where people that are marginalized and misunderstood are found. It some sense I fear that he is preaching to the choir. But in defense I must say that K’Naan’s songs are a sort of protest. Music is more than a few notes on the guitar. Music is a language. And K’Naan speaks the language not only as a hip-hop artist but also a poet. His lyrics are not simple and stark but often melancholy and disturbing, at the same time being true. When K’Naan sings about all the things wrong in the world he sings it from the perspective of hope and pride. Its constructive criticism.

The so called “World Music” genre is an arbitrary category as it is. It is as dynamic and diverse as what can be considered “African Music”. K’Naan has proved this by combining styles of funk, rap, and traditional music. With the ever popular sound of the drum, and the soul of Somalia, the language of the poets, K’Naan has created his own unique sound. African musicians are breaking out of their mold. Just as K’Naan experiments with American rap lines, other African musicians are extending their influence beyond the artificially created expectation of what African music really is. The first major introduction of African music to the United States was through Paul Simon’s Graceland album in which he collaborated with many artists including the now famous Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The few problems I have with K’Naan’s is his use of language, the use of the word nigger (or nigga) and sometimes you can’t understand what he is saying. In other words not much. He does use bad language but it is used appropriately. Many people disrespect these words and overuse them with out meaning them. When K’Naan swears he does in a way that emphasize his position and tells that he is angry and frustrated. His slight accent it is readily understood to most even though English is not his first language. And in Somali the sound ‘p’ does not exist so it often comes out sounding like a ‘b’. On the use of the word nigger, I can not understand why anyone would use this word black, white, or otherwise.

The Dalai Lama once said “Never give up, develop the heart, too much energy in your country is spent developing the mind instead of the heart”. In the most poetic sense I believe that is what K’Naan does. His music is not just entertainment. Its a discussion between philosophers, you and him. An artist should speak to you. And if they possess the gift of tongue and heart it will seem as if they are speaking only to you. K’Naan proclaims that he does not speak of Africa in general but of Somalia specifically because he was born into it. Though we share different experiences from similar circumstances, I feel that K’Naan speaks of Somalia the way I have thought of it. That though we are not proud of what is happening there, we are still proud to be Somali. It may seem like a simple idea but it is very important these days after hear so much negative news from Somalia of warlords with AKs and pirates with RPGs.

While I try to approach this analysis objectively, I am ware that I am biased. I am not a critic, I am a fan. And as such I realize that there may be things about K’Naan I don’t like, now and in the future, but K’Naan is only a man. He is obligated to live his life anyway he sees fit. His music might be a misleading representation of his character but his messages hold universal truth. They can not be denied. For example Bob Dylan’s famous song “The Times They are a Changin” influence on that

generation can not be denied. Even if he says himself that he sang and wrote these songs purely because no one else was. What K’Naan says is revealing of the situations of refugees and other displaced people. To make his case he speaks from experience. That experience and his words of expression of that journey can not be denied.

K’Naan maybe my favorite artist but I recognize his faults. The first time I heard K’Naan live was in December at Higher Ground. The same day I had a math exam at the time the performance was suppose to begin. However K’Naan was the last of the opening acts. The main performance was by some guy with the stage name Matisyahu. Apparently he was a Jewish musician who blends styles of traditional music with hip-hop, rock and roll, and reggae. But I came to see K’Naan. I arrived an hour and half past the scheduled time. But K’Naan was just getting on stage. I have listened to his his songs a hundred times (probably more) but I never expected what came about in that room. The sound and energy of his live performance was far beyond expectation. After his session my mother and I waited by his bus to get his autograph. After an hour and a half in the freezing December wind, my mother left. All this time I was clenching his first album “The Dusty Foot Philosopher”. Even though his band mates kept saying ‘he’ll be right out, he’ll be right out’, he never came. I held out for another hour. Though I kept thinking “How many fans could he possible have in Vermont? Wouldn’t he be glad of just two?”. I don’t really blame him. I am disappointed I didn’t get to meet K’Naan. But I don’t consider him an idol to looked at as an example or to be criticized at every step he makes. I think of him as a man who has something to say and he says it with his voice. I do not know the man. I am a fan of his music because that is what I know. His thoughts and words about Somalia speak to me.

In 2006 I got his first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher. In June of that year I went to visit my uncle, who had travelled from Somalia to meet me. Much of our time was spent travelling around in the same taxi cab. And as the radio signals went in and out of tune you would hear spontaneous outburst of 50 Cent and to my surprise K’Naan. It surprised me to hear the same thing half way around the world. But at the same time I was touched to see that music has no borders.

In Search of My Country

There once was an average man. He was born in the desert. He lived in the desert. All his friends and family would say that he was easily irritable. But this is not his story. He married a beautiful woman and they inherited a farm. But this is not her story. They had four kids. The second child was the only boy. He was rash and got into a lot of trouble. This is his story.

There is an old Somali proverb that goes like this: Me and my clan against the world, me and my brother against the clan, me against my brother. If I were to tell the story of Somalia it would go like this: First we fought against the Arabs. Then we thought we where Arab. Then we fought against each other. We pretended we weren’t brothers. Then we fought against the Portuguese and we won. Then we fought against the Italians and the British and we won…some of the time. They made us fight their World Wars. They made us fight each other. Then we were free. We fought each other. Then we fought Ethiopia and we lost…twice. Then we fought each other. We lost. The world came to help us. We fought the world. We said we won but now we’re not sure.

Unlike the rest of Africa, Somalis tend to be more homogenous, in that they share a common language (Somali), and a common religion (Islam). In that sense the Somali people were divided into five territories. Present day Djibouti was called French Somaliland until 1977. Until 1949, the northern section of Somalia was known to Western Powers as British Somaliland. The south-central section was known as Italian Somaliland. The southern section of Somalia, known as the Northern Frontier District, was given to Kenya. While a large western portion known as the Ogaden was given to Ethiopia. It is needless to say that Somalia went to war to twice with Ethiopia over this disenfranchised territory.

After World War II, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the USSR acquired jurisdiction as the Allied powers of World War II over the fate of the lands of the former colonies. As they could not come to an agreement on the issue of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, the matter was referred to the United Nations. The United Nations resolution granted independence to Italian Somaliland after ten years and named the area a UN Trust Territory under Italian administration. After ten years, the north and south agreed to join and called themselves the Republic of Somalia. And so told is the invention of Somalia.

Only two years after Abdi Rashid Ali Shirmarke defeated the first president in elections, Ali Shirmarke was assassinated. A military group, led by General Mohammed Siad Barre, seized power and declared Somalia a socialist state. Siad Barre made it illegal for anyone to ask someone else what clan they were, but soon he began to deny people in the north certain rights like positions in the central government. Acts of nepotism was exacerbated by the fact that the central government consisted of a southern majority. These same regions in the north were able to establish order after the capital, Mogadishu fell in 1992, mainly because the area consisted of one major clan. The south became an array of clans in battle armor.

If I was born a century earlier I could have looked around, looked at the sky, and predicted that this was going to happen. I would have said that all of it was inevitable. But nothing is inevitable. I left my country when I was around five. I do not know how old I am. We do not celebrate birthdays in Somalia. When a country blows up, literally blows up, everybody knows that they face tough times around the corner. I lived with my family. My mother, father, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins all in one village. Because Somalia is a semi-arid desert, crops often fail. In preparation the government had grain storages for these hard times. Some time in 1992, my family and I walked for six days on foot to the nearest town, Baardhere. There were thousands of other families looking for food. There was no food. In order to feed their army, the government had taken the food. And so we sat and waited. Slowly, we starved. Somehow, I got to a feeding center wrapped in a smelly little blanket, and was severely sick and was not responding. The center was closing so they called the clinic near by. The doctor didn’t want to go out because it was after dark. If you go anywhere even during the day you need personal bodyguards which involve “technicals” crowded was teenage boys shouldering AK 47s. A “technical” is a modified pick-up truck with an anti-aircraft gun mounted to the back. But a nurse volunteered to go with the doctor and he finally agreed. I spent a month recuperating. But I wasn’t healing. There was no medicine for me.

The war had not ended, but everyone was finished. A group of Botswanan peacekeepers visited the hospital. Their army doctor saved my life, he had the medicine I needed. The Americans were pulling out, the UN was pulling out, the aid agencies where pulling out. Somalia was too much for the world. If you were to look at a history book or other works of historical literature under Somalia, you would find very little. Maybe a reference to pirates or one incident called black hawk down. The world does not understand Somalia. And I am not sure we understand ourselves. We are on the African continent, in the African Union, but we are also in the Arab League. We speak Somali, English, Swahili, French, Italian, and Arabic. We are nearly all Muslims. We claim to be a nation of poets yet we speak with the barrel of a gun instead of our voices. We have Africa’s longest coastline yet we don’t like seafood. In Somalia we have people who speak the same language, eat the same food, and pray in the same mosque trying to kill each other. I don’t understand.

I came to the United States in 1995. My first years in Vermont were difficult and confusing. I had never seen snow before. I tried to come up with an explanation as to why the seasons changed. I thought it was because during the summer people are too hot so they run their fans and air-conditioner. Some how this cools the air. In the winter people are too cold so they fire up their stoves and drive a lot more. Somehow this heats up the planet again. I started school that fall. I was very excited to be around other kids even if I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The first time I got in trouble in school was in first grade when some kid cut me in line. I couldn’t talk to him, so I punched him. I got to know the principal. Around this time, the Disney movie The Lion King had come out. So when the kids heard I was from Africa, it was like, “Oooh, Lion King”. I just like to reiterate that Africa is the second largest and populated continent. Countries are very different, the people are very different, it is not a country. If you went on vacation to Canada, there’s no reason to say you went on a vacation to North America. The language used in The Lion King was not made up. Its Swahili; Simba means lion, Rafiki means friend, Mufasa means king, and so on. More importantly that language is specific to southern Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania.

The more I knew about American culture the less I knew about Somali culture. When I came to Vermont there was only one other Somali family here. However, I am adopted. That nurse that came from the clinic with the doctor is now my mother. So I am the only Somali within like forty miles. In addition I am a Muslim in a Christian house. I do believe that this has helped me understand the world better so it was not a bad thing. The older I got the more I wanted to find out about where I came from, but I had no one to tell me. I am an orphan. When my family and I walked six days to Baardhere, there was fifty-four of us. Now there are only two.

All this time Somalia has been in chaos. I have one uncle that lives there. We don’t talk very often but we stay in touch. In June of 2006, my mother and I went to Nairobi, Kenya, to visit him. He had to travel from the small village in Somalia on the back of a pick-up truck that was smuggling narcotics. They had to bribe the border guards. It was the first time that I had seen him in over 12 years. During the three days that I saw him, I could not make myself believe that we were related. “Who was this man?” I thought. But more importantly ,if we are connected, “Who am I”? After meeting my, uncle I did not sleep for three nights. During this time in Somalia there was sporadic gun fights. Somalia was burning.

In 2007, my grandmother died. That’s my adopted mother’s mother. After my visit with my uncle I had been struggling to reinvent myself. In the year 2007 I was planning on going to called in Canada. My grandmother died a month before I left for school. Somehow she had been the glue that held together my foundation. So at school instead of inventing myself, I spent my first year discovering new foundation.

As I gotten older I have liked Vermont more and more. I have liked it for its wilderness and its general acceptance of others. But most all I liked it because I could see the sky especially at night. I was able to run through the woods behind our house in my bare feet during the summer. I was able to look at the stars at night and wonder what lay beyond. I was able to freeze my toes while flying down a hill on a slim piece of plastic called a board and I was able to enjoy it. To this days I do not do well in big cities. When I went to New York City with a high school class, I wanted to crawl under the buildings. It was so loud, so crowed, and the buildings were so tall it made me sick. If you want to be able to see the night sky and touch the evergreen trees during the summer, then Vermont is the place to be. But if you want to learn about the world and see where you stand, then you could do better than Vermont. Of course I only learned this when I visited Toronto.

When I was in Nairobi, I saw on the TV for the first time video footage of the continuing chaos in Somalia. After 13 attempts by the International Community to create a functioning government for Somalia, in 2004 they established in their 14^th attempt, in what was this time called the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG). The TFG was supposed to coordinate between the warring parties and create a more organized interim and representative political system through to a democratic election in 2009. Unfortunately, the TFG had to fill the power void of a previous political body that, in many ways, had more legitimate power. In this way we describe legitimate power as that which is approved by the people. This previous political power was called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) which based governmental law on traditional and religious ideology. Never-the-less, the situation gets more chaotic when in 2006 the historic foe of Somalia, Ethiopia, militarily supports the TFG. The invasion by Ethiopia is not only due to the political domestic interest of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, but also due to the political interests of the United States, and its ruthless campaign in the “war on terror”. As already proven by the catastrophic Iraq War, it is extremely unlikely and difficult for occupation to lead to sovereignty.

The truth is the there are no reasons for this to be happening. Wars are the failures of society not the failures of individuals. As much as I blame the United States, Ethiopia, and the United Nations, I blame the average Somali much more. This was our fight. This was our loss. The globalization gremlins will tell you that the world is getting smaller. I am here to tell you that its still 40,000 KM around. Feel the earth that you walk on. The Earth is not dirty, we are the Earth, we should be humbly by it presence. Face it, the world is too big for you. You can not understand it all, none of us can. Relish your family, because they are all you’ve got. They will tell you where you come from. Somalia is my country. I do not love its politics, but I believe in its people. The past and the future are very much connected. This was then, that is now. People some times see me as anti- American. Pay attention folks: having socialist idea does not make you a communist nor anti-American. The US has always left with the feeling that there is something more to be desired. There are other counties out there, other people that are just as brave, smart, and beautiful. The US is just not my country, I just live here. I’d move to Canada, but its too cold. I wonder how long it would take to skateboard to Mexico. Until that day I will be searching for my country.

Do it Yourself

For the longest time I have been trying to find like-minded people to help me do great things. This was all in the idea that no individual person can on their own save or change the world.
So I waited…and waited…and waited. And finally none came. I realized that most people are followers. I hate to say this but my aunt was right. Some people need for others to brake the wall for them before they are willing to look at the other side. And then there are those people who have already seen whats on the other side because they just climbed over the wall.
You have to do it yourself. Its your ideas, your dreams, your goals. You have to do it yourself. Because there are few people willing to put the effort into a project that you dream up. But you may find those people along the way. I guess that is were really visionaries are born.