Somali Poetry

Almost anyone who knows a thing about the Somali culture will tell you that Somalia is the nation of the great poets. Every society has their own way to express their emotions, sentiments, and describe the realities of their daily lives to make sense of their existence. These expressions varied depending on the experiences of each society, and depending on the degree of their relations with the world around them. Somalis in the old days were nomads who cherished their camels and flocks, and travelled the desert from one place to another in pursuit of good pastures and new adventures. In the meantime, they expressed their emotions and described the realities of the nomadic lives by arts of poetry.

Poetry meant everything for the nomad man or woman as a way to make sense of their experiences and lives. Almost everyone in the nomad culture tried their luck in poetry as it was deemed to be the best cultural expression. This poetry touched and described every aspect of their lives and experiences. There was poems to express love, bravery, rites, marriages, conflicts, wars, praise of kings, or Ougases, and Sultans, praise of tribes, praise of their camels, horses and other domestic animals. People were trained to be poets from very young age beginning by children songs with different rhythms and rhymes that eventually prepare them to transfer the knowledge of rhyme from songs to poems when they become adults.

Although most poems, transmitted orally, were mainly from men, women also had their place in the Somali poem esteemed society. However, gendered nature of the nomadic paternalistic society meant that women had to settle for less flamboyant type of Gabay (Poetry) that's called Buraanbur. The Buraanbur although never erected to the level of the real Gabay of men was, nevertheless, sweet soft type of Gabay which demonstrated the softness of women and feminist expressions of their lives and experiences, which were different from that of men. However, a lot of women also ventured into men's domain of Gabay and became famous for it.

Where the Gabay usually demonstrated bravery, love for wars and adventures, and love for women and animals, the Buraanbur expressed the happy celebrations of victories, marriages, solidarity with the fighters, encouragement of fighters, and love for children and Hello(equivalent of night clubbing). It was a sort of complimentary to the Gabay.

More articles on the importance of Gabay and Buraanbur will appear here in the future but for now I will leave you with an academic article on Somali Poetry by Joseph John and is entitled 'An Anthology of Somali Poetry'. The article is an academic review of the book written by B. W. Andrezejewski, a distinguished cushitic languages specialist.

Below is also a link to a beautiful poem from the famous Somali poet Abshir Bacadle. No translation in English is available at the moment for this poem (Gabay in Somali).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma2Zt-f6y8A

Somali Diaspora Acculturation problems

This is a new blog that aims to revive the Somali culture and to face the problems of acculturation that occur in the Somali Diasporas in exile, and impact on new generations. Acculturation is a global phenomenon that affects all exiled communities, to some degrees, as their cultures becomes absorbed by the host countries' cultures. Therefore, they adopt the behaviours, and values of the dominant cultures of the adopted countries. This threatens the values, ways of life and identities of exiled communities.

Not that all acculturation are bad as there are many good aspects for every culture that can only be useful for migrant communities and facilitate their integration. However, every culture has also negative and harmful aspects that can be easily copied and adopted by the exiled communities' members, especially the younger ones. Such blind and complete adoption of the dominant culture - host country culture - may produce unwanted side affects, and harm both host and exiled communities. therefore, exiled communities need to be careful not to copy blindly the behaviours of dominant culture as a way of assimilating into it, while neglecting the good aspects of their own culture.

Somali Diaspora in exile - especially in UK, U.S - is becoming bigger and bigger every year, and as our country is still troubled we need to preserve our culture while integrating into our host countries cultures. Preserving our culture is now the duty of the diaspora as our country's cultural contribution is minimal at the moment. It is also important to highlight the problems that our youth faces by being absorbed by the negatives of the new culture, while failing to adopt the better aspects. It is not secret that many of our youth here in UK today are becoming masters in the arts of gangs, drug-dealings, hooded youth on London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Leisure streets who are up to no good. Old school chants are being replaced by foul words, swear chants. Old poets pro genies became the new hapless wannabe hip-hip artists, uttering profanities that shock the passersby. Is this the new culture we need to advance or is it a curse that will harm our chances of survival in our adopted countries? This is the question that we have to look at in this blog.

Blogging about the Somali exile communities' acculturation and the ways in which reclaiming our culture will happen, is a very difficult task and it is a one I look forward to. Therefore, I will highlight some of the problems of acculturation here in UK, and I will be open to other analysis from other European, North America and Arab countries as well. The posts will highlight also the problems of the integration and resistance to host communities' cultures. The emphasis will be placed on the issues of Somali children, and youth and the importance of keeping in touch with their language, stories and culture in general.

This is a new blog and needs suggestions and participation from Somalis, and those who are interested in Somali culture.



O Elmi