Friday, September 17, 2010

PROFILING OF SOMALIS IN KENYA MUST STOP


Look at the following Story and see how some Kenyan people still think of you....as a Somali


There is this story/article that appeared in one website purporting to speak for Kenyans...Expressing Kenyan views to Kenyans.....as if we are not Kenyans.....They call it Breaking newsKenya............that keep educating how Somalis have taken over Kenya.....as if Somalis are not Kenyans....and creating animosity within Kenyan Tribes.....FYI, Somalis are also Kenyans. I was saying surely, Circulating such an article beats my mind of How seriously Kenyan people think of us Kenyan Somalis...........

Assume or refuse to assume, believe or never believe, Kenya Somalis and Somalis have been subjected to Ethnic Profiling in Kenya which we will never accept forthwith. The Kenya National Commission on Integration & Truth Commission knows these issues and keeps mum about them for so long.....It needs our response....There is a lot of Somali profiling going on in Kenya......not any other tribe is profiled more in Kenya than Somalis....nor even foreign citizens including Indians, Italians, Nigerians, Ethiopians who settled in Kenya are profiled like us.... Ask Yourself why....

Just recently, The Kenya National Census Mentioned...Kenya Somali in the list of tribe's census.....There was no mention of Kenya Gikuyus, Kenya Kalenjins.....While not mentiong Kenya Massais, Kenya Luos, Kenya Luhyas etc, The List mentions Kenya Somalis.....Wait a bit....Excuse them, May be, they wanted to differentiate between Kenya Somalis and Somali Somalis.....but that was wrong...That was profiling one community from the rest of Kenya. Why Somalis.....Why not border tribes like Massais....Turkanas....Luos...Luhya etc...Why Somali.......The Somali community owns the third biggest province in Kenya and are number Six in General Population of the Whole Kenya. We Border Somalia where our brothers came from....but many other Tribes border their fellow from other countries.....Massais....are in Kenya and Tanzania....no one profiles them.....Luos are in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya....No one profiles them...Why Somalis..... But Who cares....This is the cause of worry. The National Cohesion Commision admits there are growing trends of alienating Somalis who are classified as among the Big Six Tribes in Kenya....

Many atimes, Editors from Blogs, Facebook threads from the like of BreakingnewsKenya Site put offensive and bigoted articles about Somalis. In one Instances, from the comments of such a website, came the following Comments from a very angry Kenyan....who belives Somalis must leave Kenya....as if Kenya is for "HIS TRIBE"....

"You Somalians .. you take all the money from canada .. WELFARE Europe .. then you come to build houses in kenya .. im a KENYAN CITIZEN . grew up in eastleigh GO BACK TO SOMALIA . LEAVE MY KENYA ALONE OO . Just messing up my home town . LEAVE US ALONE . please and thank you :) .".....

If you read between the Lines.........This means that the writer of the comment having read the article, found that Somalis are not Kenyan Citizen and that he wish them to go back to Somalia...He claims Eastleigh is his home and that he doesn't want to see Somalis im Eastleigh grabbing Land, Buying Land etc. He has or refuse to have a clue that Kenya has almost 3million Somalis as Citizens.....He assumes those are not Kenyan Citizens.....or he is the only one who was born and brought up in Eastleigh.....and forgets that we own our own land in Kenya sio kama yeye.....


Somalis never displaced anyone and they never grabbed anyones’s land, neither did they steal anyone’s wealth. Sometimes, you are amazed that the writer, as in the case of the article, chose to highlight Migori’s Mayor. He is a Migorian, born in Migori, doesn’t he have a right to lead his fellow Migorians if they find him up to the task? How come you forgot to highlight Kisumu Town MP Shakeel Shabir? Is he a Luo? What Basil Criticos who was the former MP for Taita despite being a Greek? What about the Italian who was narrowly defeated in Magarini by Kingi? Is he a Mijikenda? There are so many thousands of Kikuyus and Kambas who have flooded North Eastern Kenya markets and opened business and took over the barbershops, vegetable stalls and other stuff. Do we complain? no.....we appreciate these brave enterprising Kenyans and work with them or do we blame them and even try to subjugate them. Finding excuses in defeatism and blaming others won’t help. Somalis worked hard to be where they are. While there are some miscreants and petty elements, (and every community has that), the majority are genuine people who toiled hard to be where they are.

From the comment came, Mohamed Hersi, One of the few Somalis who speaks for the community.........and goes

"Stop the hate speech not all Somalis are pirates and thugs. Somalis have very strong communal set up and they are good in business. Thanks to the Somalis that today kenyans can afford to acess reasonably prized goods. The Somali hate campaign that is building in our country is not helping anyone. We equally have so many Kenyans who earn a living abroad some as illegal immigrants and you would not like them to be singled out for discrimination. We also have so many Kenyan somalis from North eastern who have sold their livetsock to invest in other business lines like import export,real estate etc. Not all the properties in Eastleigh are owned by Somalis from somalia many are owned by hard working kenyan somalis. As Kenyans we should spend more time fighting our own who steal our tax money meant for school kids, maize scandals, we cant even spare land meant for the dead. Somalis have not denied Kenyans anything and let us move away from this scarcity mentality"...

From that concept, we think there are growing tendencies to see Somalis from an ethnic profiling angle yet no one can do anything to Somalis. If the Worst comes to Worst, Everyone will go to his home and nothing is better than Home. We have our home right here in Kenya...Kenya for your information is a country of patched tribal regions to form a unity government. Each tribe has it's own region............