Opinions
Never belonging
February 19, 2012 · 23 Comments
OPINION | FEBRUARY 19, 2012
By:Bashir Goth
As an expatriate, one lives in perpetual split personality. As you work and socialize with the citizens of the country you adopted for your expatriate life, you develop a sense of belonging and you rarely remember that you had another country or culture; particularly if you have spent a long time in a certain place.
You may think that you have mastered the local language, the history, the cultural nuances of the local people and their culinary tastes, but then by the time you think you have become fully blended and integrated, an innocent fleeting comment or a subtle gesture may jolt you awake and make you realize that integrating is not like being and that being comes with childhood memories ingrained in one’s formative years through the mother’s bedside stories and not through learning in adulthood. What you learn and experience in adulthood gives you knowledge and enables you to find your way in life but it does not necessarily change your being. It is after many years living as an expatriate that I have come to conclusion that lacking that factor of being is the secret that keeps the person as an expatriate and not necessarily the lack of knowledge about the local culture or lack of legal citizenship for that matter.
I met some people who have become citizens of countries that they had migrated to and have lived in them more years than they ever lived in their original homelands, but who still see their original places as their home country. The fact that they have lived, educated, worked and have become citizens with full rights did not change that inside feeling of being alien and an expatriate.
On the other side, when you live many years away from your original country what you have about it is only a memory. The country, the people, the culture and the values you have in your memory may not exist anymore but you still cling to those worn out threads as dearly as you could.
I always find it difficult to understand how many of my fellow Somalis who lived most of their adult lives outside Somalia keep reminiscing about the country they once knew without realizing that what they know about Somalia exists only in their own memories. I received emails from friends who returned home recently after living more than 35 years in the West. And as excited as they were in going back, they were shocked when they could not find the country that they had been dreaming of. They suddenly felt alien and as expatriates in a place they considered as their own homeland.
This may lead the expatriate people, particularly African expats, to living in two different personalities. On one side, they may need to develop a strong sense of belonging to their places of work and residence and on the other side they may have a strong desire to cling to their childhood home even if it remains only a figment of imagination. But while some people may find it quite easy to reconcile between the two worlds and blend to the mainstream culture, others may cocoon in their own psychological enclaves and may forever live in a mental barren land.
Being an expatriate has therefore its ups and downs and its own exotica as well, as we read in the literature of the Europeans colonizers in Africa and elsewhere.
But the truth of the matter remains that once an expatriate always an expatriate. I once read a story about an American cross-country truck driver who saw a couple in different parts of the country. Perplexed by their nomad life, he approached the husband and asked him where he called home. The husband looked at his wife who was sitting close by and said: “Where ever she is.”
So in today’s globalized world, where one may not know where business and life will take him the next day, it may be safe to say that your home is wherever your spouse and your family are.
Bashir Goth
Source: Online Opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate.
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By Mo Guled
Tags: Bashir Goth, Somaliland, Somalilandpress
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Maybe for older people, but your younger ones like me sometimes a culture becomes apart of you so that you kind of come to expect certain ways of living.
Knowing, adhering to and living by the ways of your origin as Mankind and race, ethnic group and down to your family, close or extended coupled with holding steadfast to your religion, culture, traditions and customs, rights and justice ladden with peace, civility, responsibility, good life style, hard work and rectability to all as well as possessing consciousness on all matters in life whether political, economic, social and military affairs, and a willingless to explore and learn more in the world—is sufficient to help you sail or navigate, harvest and rip the various fruits it offers, the bitter, the bitter-sweet and the sweet parts of this planet's life. One should be mindful that this planet is not permanent and that we are in this in transitions to some permanent place in the Hereafter. All you need is to be smart, have positive attitude, be hopeful and to find a good way to balance or blend your ancestral way of life with the modern way of life or modernity and come out with a good and sustainable mix of traditional and Western way of life just like the GUURTI, the Upper House of Somaliland and govern yourself effectively in a civilized manner.
I agree with ComeAgain, the older generations dwell on this nostalgia, but the generations that are brought up in different countries have sense belonging in their countries of upbringing, unless they live in an Arab or an Asian countries, where discrimination and racism are part of daily lives. Unfortunately, the Muslim countries are supposed to be less discriminative to at least their fellow Muslims and Arabs , but the reality is different.
Putting that aside, I was talking to my nephew years ago , who was then studying in a university in Canada about going back to Somaliland and that was about a decade. He told me that he doesn't feel going there to live, because he doesn't have any memories there, for he was born in the UAE and grew up in Canada. I was then shocked to hear this at first, but I later understood his point and took it to heart, when I looked at the nostalgia I had for the places I grew up and played as a child. i have not gone back to Aden, where I played as a child for decades, but those memories are still vividly present in my mind. the question I constantly ask my self is; will that place arouse be the same and rekindle my childhood feelings back to my memories even though most of the people I knew then either passed away or migrated to different countries?
Dhugtame,
Its not that we dont want to live there, its just that we have come to expect a certain kind of life. It will require that Landers abroad and those at home come together to build it if we Landers want our diaspora to return and live there.
I personally dont mind coming and helping build the country but I dont see myself making it a mainstay, simply because it really isnt as free socially as I would like it to be. There are for instance people that still think that men and women should not be in the same coffee/tea house. Where in the west my female and male class mates can go into a starbucks without worrying about what odayal are going to say to their parents etcc….and sit at the same table and discuss, study, have coffee and to the chagrin of many maybe even flirt…ohhhhhhhh…..how dare weeeeee…bismillah…..xuuuuuuuuxxxxxx lmaoooooooo
Just hang in there I'm sure you will out grow these ideas, once you get married and think less about going out with girl friends/ female colleagues. Believe me, I have been there and had the same concerns, when I was in the same age group as you. I was in Europe before the HIV era, make your calculations from there and think how wild a late teen from Somaliland would love to hold hands with his blond girl friend (blond girls were then cooool) and go where ever he wanted.
No all that is forgotten and busy dealing with live as I see my hair getting grayer by the hour. Son do not waste your life, just go home and get married.
The thing is I dont want my children to live in a place where there are different seating arrangements between the sexes. I wanna sit with my wife and socialize with her outside of our home when I am old and gray, and yea I would like to hold the hajiyos hand every once in while when we go out, without some self appointed wadaad coming out of the side street telling us to xishood, for god sake I married the woman!
Correction: not rectability but, respectability is I meant.
Somaliland is not the west and will never be the west, no matter how much our westernized expats would want us to be. Is it ok to embrace the culture and social norms of the west, but when "back home" not accepting the social norms of that country. Typical western centric thinking, Please stay in Starbucks with your westernised friends and hold their hands and see if they will bury you when you die.
i couldnt agree it's really sad to hear comments like @comeagain appreaciating the western culture than somali. remember we are not saudi arabia with the burqas, somali culture is the best in the world, there are no restrictions to both genders socializing with each other as long as it doesn't get too far… you dont find that in a lot of muslim countries. somali's consider women as equals and treat them with respect…trust me if a gaal converts to islam he'd definetly consider following the culture of somali's as its both liberal and conservative. so @Comeagain BE PROUD OF WHO U ARE!!
SORRY–top sentence.(.i couldnt agree more)
I left home at five and grew up in Aden to live with my Aunt, then moved to Kuwait and eventually emigrated to the west. But never liked the western permissive lifestyle nor did I liked discrimination and isolation. Although the best of my life was growing up in Aden and sequently living in Kuwait because it closer to home and I was able to come from time to time. But now I am sick and tired of pinning to come home and I am planning to home for good soon.
home? in aden, kuwait or somaliland??
Home, home, sweet home. Of course, Somaliland hon!
… tired of pining, that is.
I would prefer no to use the terms liberal/conservertive when relating to Islam. There is differance of opinion. Liberal / conservitive terms are mired in western political thought.
I refuse to believe the hardlines some of you are trying to advocate, things change and I think Somaliland will change with the times in a tastefull way. I am not advocating people getting it on in the street but you have to admit women and men do not socialize freely in Somali culture maybe its not as restrictive as the arabs but just because your 1 degree below hell doesnt mean your in a temperate climate!
@ComeAgain
What do you mean by socializing? Does that mean wasting time holding hands on the streets? or standing on street corners and teasing girls? I think all these are waste of time. No body will tell you not to hold hands with your wife on the street and I do not even understand why this is very important to you. There are so many ways in expressing your love to your wife without resorting to hypocrisy and showing off. I have lived long enough to know so many couples in the West , who do not love each other but hold hands and kiss each other in the street.
You need to see the bigger picture and not waste your time on small details in life. Good education, decent family, earning living and contributing to the society should be the priories of all.
@ComeAgain,
We are not Western brother, you should understand that. When in Somaliland the custom is that you should go out everyday after casar prayers to the suuqa hoose and sit in your favourite makhaayad with all your mates sipping a mug of strong tea or chewing qaad or both and putting down your rival tribe's b@stard politicians. Meanwhile, your xaajiyo should go over to the house of one of your neighbours every evening and talk in detail about the sorry life of the wife of your next door Faarax. No need for Starbuck's nonsense.
lmaoooooooooooo@abraham especially the rival tribes bast…. politicians I dont think I am that old i am not even thirty god forbid I end up like one of those old somali guys at the tim hortons allah kareem!
Excellent article,you've articulated a state of being for many of us and experiences we grapple with!
Comeagain,the only advocating going on here is your wish for somaliland to become like your adopted country,dream on. You put it as Somali's have to change with the times, who's times, yours and and west, LOL.
You state and women do not mix freely enough, this desire of yours reflects an inner frustration with our social customs , which has resulted in being among Gaalo for extended periods.
What do you have against socializing with women? Its healthy. I would be worried about men that dont seem to want women around, if it quacks like a duck then its a duck! get my meaning? I have seen this in the arab states as well always the ones who were talking about we should be more religous were the ones always trying to get you alone. Asbaax laka saabaax
The only thing quacking is your sick mind.Your personal frustrations as sad. I reckon you must have spent time in an institution for your urges ! It seems you have intimate knowledge of the seedier side of life. Better clean up your act before you become one of them.