By Osman A. Hassan
Yeah! Somali conflicts echoes ghostly in every Somali household and business hallways in North America and in Western European Countries. This ghostly echoing dream flashback becomes non-fiction or real life situation when one attends any political meetings or forums that involve regional political birthday celebrations, political chit-chats at the coffee shops such as Starbucks and become real factor at the DFL political caucuses at BrianCoyleCommunity Center. This has left many bystanders such as mainstream Americans or other minorities wondering or amazed at the fracturing of the peaceful political caucuses, history or culture. However, many Somalis see conflict as part and parcel of their culture and house hold livelihood in televisions, you tube, and the diverse Somali clan and inter-clan online news webpage or websites.
The question one may ask is, why is Brian Coyle at the Cedar Minneapolis, Minnesota? To answer the above question, one should glance at the political side mirror of the Minnesotan Somali history. Sadik Warfa deserves credit since he gave many Minnesotan Somali political dreamers a great window to do political window shopping. He led by being the role model of the caravan; Mohamed Noor joined him and was defeated by a narrow margin. The Somali ambitions’ political caravan became real when the late Samatar successfully opened the political seal of the gate by becoming the first Education School Board member at Minneapolis Public Schools. This success nourished political Somalis to salivate for more political office which showed great response and support. Unfortunately, we lost a great unifier, Samatar, who departed the world leaving the Minneapolis public Schools board member position vacant. This caused friction for many Somali community members who wished the position could be inherited by the late Samatar’s wife but was negated by Mohamed Noor and his wailers by winning the board membership. The widow’s supporters were ached by Mohamed Noor’s betrayal but swallowed the pain and bitterness.
However, the caravan lost its cohesiveness and its covalent bonding during the election campaign of the mayor’s office, Minneapolis Parks and recreation and council ward, before Mohamed Noor’s win. The mayor’s park and recreation and the Civic Ward election campaign became sour causing the disintegration of the political caravans into two at first round. Hashim Yonis supported the opponent of the current mayor and Abdi Warsame who won the civic ward supported the current mayor. Many of the Somali community bystanders believe that Hashim lost because he supported LGBT candidate against the wishes of his religious beliefs.
The internal political frown line got its momentum during the celebration of the Puntland region new government and the mourning of the late hero, the second Prime Minister, Abdirizak Haji Hussein. Here, the DFL caucuses recruitments and their candidate campaign reached its climax when the current DFL district 60B state representative and Abdi Warsame invited the DFL chain of command from the State governor to the DFL civic ward Abdi Warsame himself. This marginalized Mohamed Noor who seemed to be a get crusher at DFL politics at district 60B. He moved from his North home where he bought a house and purposely imposed himself as one of the district’s resident by renting an apartment at Cedar River side. He abandoned by sacrificing his current position of the Minneapolis board membership for this great district 60B election challenging Dr. Kahn.
After the Puntland celebration, Mohamed Noor and his wailers felt the heat for the great rapport of Dr. Kahn and the man she supported to the rim, Mr. Abdi Warsame. They both conducted tough door to door caucus campaign as Mohamed Noor doubled his effort to recruit more delegates. The delegate recruitment process became unhealthy as the situation changed into Somali way of fabric clan politics. The recruitment process created clan relatedness and kin selection.
Definitely both DFL candidates recruited their caucus delegates through clan line affiliation that lacked inclusiveness. For example, Groan Spong and Scott Creel state that, “Inclusive fitness theory predicts that cost of tolerant behavior during competitive interactions is lower for relatives than for nonrelatives. Many studies have examined the effect of relatedness on behavior within social groups. In contrast, kin selection acting among groups has received less attention. The genetic structure of African lion (Panthera leo) populations creates a strong possibility that kin selection among groups modifies behavior during group conflicts” as argued by Spong & Creel. The behavior prediction of Spong and Creel was exactly what caused the Brian Coyle DFL delegate registration at the caucus on the night of February 14, 2014.
However, the DFL and the main stream don’t understand the nature of such complex conflicts. The DFL delegate required number was 43 or 44. But one could not understand the ignorance behind recruiting 500-600 members for such a small number of delegate requirements. The bystanders believed that the over recruitment was caused by the high level of Somali illiteracy, the poor electoral management skills from those manning the precinct caucus, and the historical clan conflicts.
On the other hand, the Republicans must have shown a great strong political maturity at their precinct caucus. They only recruited those who were willing to participate in the precinct caucus. Although many of their precinct caucus members were new, they did show great patience and focus on the program. The old members educated the new members and explained the process shoulder to shoulder. The Somali DFL members deserved to have an educational field trip to enhance their political skills and manner that could have been conducive to the conduct and participation of the precinct caucus. The GOP members such as the front runner Mr. Abdimalik Askar should develop and design political training programs that can enhance the political skills of those who wish to run for a political office. Mr. Askar’s political slogan “upholding diversity” should benefit not only the GOPs but also the DFL young politicians in the district.
Finally, many of the Somali clan political movers and shakers should understand that we live and share a living culture with multi-American diversities. The other diversities had shown us ways to go and how to live with others directly or indirectly by the mutual way of electing their leaders. But as the saying goes, “you can take a horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink”. Tribal or clannish cultures can only work in the U.S. as the Holy Quran States, “
“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you into communities and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted” (Holy Quran: Surat Al-Hujurat, 49:13).
Osman A Hassan
Email:abayounis@yahoo.com
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