Somalis and the desire for social mobility

When I was 21, I started my career in politics. I believed that if I worked on progressive issues and candidates that things will change. But the more and more I went on with it, I started to see things that have bothered my soul in more ways than one. Those years have allowed me to start to view my relationship with politics and the US political structure differently. I worked on 3 campaigns in those 3 years and it has taught me a lot about what I now know will work and what won't. The thing is we all believe that our search for power comes from those who have always had it, the people who have always benefited from our power structures. We believe that if we receive power from these people then maybe we can get some type of social, economic, and political mobility at the end of the day. In reality, that’s what being in capitalist politics means, the search for some upward mobility and we believe we can only achieve this by the top %1 giving it to us. This requires us to play the same game that they have built. The same game that was made by and for them. When it comes to the political games, all we are is pawns in their agenda, figureheads that they can use, and nothing else. Having political power however is no joke, you have control over thousands of people’s lives. You can decide what happens to a regular person who you are serving. But in our imperialistic, capitalistic, society, any type of political power means it’s being exploited by the very people who have built the system, to begin with. The same game that so many people play because they are under the false illusion that it’ll give them some type of social mobility. But what they don’t often realize is that it is all a lie.

This last year, was the year that a record number of Somali-Americans ran for office and won. After Ilhan Omar’s 2018 historic congressional run, it inspired probably hundreds of Somalis to follow in her footsteps and win their respective seats. Somalis who are searching for that same social mobility that Omar received when she won her seat. Politics doesn’t just come with an individual title but it also comes with respect, acknowledgment, and fame. Though I have never agreed with politicians playing their part in celebrity culture. A lot of politicians do play a part in it, including Ilhan Omar. Both Democrats and Republicans alike, are coming out and campaigning on the same principles that I believe have ruined our communities and our people back home. They are participating within the same system that has murdered millions of people and colonized many countries in the global south. But what can you expect to receive from your oppressors? What can you imagine would happen when you work by their rules? Do you believe you’ll receive your freedom from them? Or do you believe that you’ll just be a bit ahead of people like you? Assata Shakur once said in her autobiography, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

Every system in this country whether economic, political, or social was built on the praxis of exploitation and domination. It has never been about the well-being and the health of our communities. They make millions off of us by keeping us sick, poor, and in need. When we do well, they lose millions. What makes you think that they want what’s best for you? They’ll use you until they accomplish what’s on their agenda and until you cave so much, you’ll start changing into them, complacent and docile creatures working to do anything to keep the title but without the power, because you’ll take any bit of freedom from your oppressors. You’ll do anything for that upward mobility. It was because of US influence in the Ogaden war in the 1980s that became a catalyst for the government to slowly crumble. It was the attempted coup carried out by the US and many Somali counterrevolutionaries to assassinate the honorable President Siad Barre that inflicted fear on the Somali people. There has been a large interest to keep Somalia destabilized, keep it broken, and unwaning for so many years because the US and many other western countries know how valuable Somalia is. Their ultimate goal is to keep it broken long enough so that they can take advantage of Somalia’s resources because they know if they do, they’ll make millions. But for Somalia to be thriving and free was never in their best interest.

This has caused the US to establish, Africom, anti-terrorism missions led by the CIA, US bombs being dropped onto innocent civilians in Somalia, and the constant negative depiction made by US western media; google images of Somalia being ravaged by war, and media outlets calling Somalia, “the most dangerous country in the world.”

All to destabilize a country that used to be the crowning jewel of the Horn of Africa. This is the same country that these Somali politicians want to participate in. They are fighting for crumbs in a country that won’t even give them a full 5-course meal. They are diligent in playing the same game that they have created. All so that they can receive the tiniest bit of freedom from a country that only sees them as dollar signs.

Now, what does this mean? How do we move past this? How do we build systems by us and for us? What does that mean for the Somali diaspora all over the country? The reality is, we will never find freedom from our oppressors, from the same people that every system and institution in our country has benefited from because all that does is us fighting to be something in their eyes. Being Black, Muslim, and Somali in the US means we become the most criminalized, economically disadvantaged, and surveilled community here in America. It puts us at the intersection where we are fighting to survive every day. We are fighting to receive any type of social mobility, any type of economic freedom even if it’s a little bit. However, this requires us to play the same game; the same game that was never created for us in the first place.

There are always two types of people in this country, the exploited and the exploiter. The exploited is the embodiment of an 80-year-old man who works 40 hours a week just so he can pay his bills, at just 25$/hour. He has worked his whole life, working his ass off, barely making enough to survive. The exploiter is the person who has learned the rules of the game, the capitalistic and political game, and played the game to their benefit. Not realizing that they have been pawns in this game all long because to play this game means that they are forced to sacrifice their morals and values for the game. But really, who are we without our morals? Who are we without our values? When we wake up to our material reality, that’s when we find out which one we are, we begin to see that the freedom that we are always seeking has always been within us. We have always held the answers to the world’s best-kept secrets because there is a reason, a big reason, why these people don’t want us to know these secrets, why they don’t teach it in schools, because they know if we do have access to it, we will be free. To be free means that they can no longer exploit us. It means that we don’t have to play by their rules anymore. It means we have the autonomy to create the material conditions that are made by and for us. We can start fighting to free our communities, our loved ones, and our lives. We start learning from our ancestors, from our history, we start to become enlightened, and finally, we become radicalized. In that, we are born anew. But this starts with us. It takes us looking within our own communities. It takes a close look at the people who are the most impacted by our imperialistic, capitalistic society. It takes us looking at the houseless folks who aren’t able to find housing, the working class mother who barely makes enough to feed her kids, and the people who learned the rules of the game and ended up changing. It takes us to watch with our hearts, our minds, and our consciousness to show us that capitalism and imperialism is very much alive; a raging beast that just consumes everything it comes across violently. When we wake up, the whole world starts to look different. The same upward mobility that you are seeking, the same game you were told you had to play to win, will seem like a scam. You will soon realize all of it, even the American dream that you have been sold on a golden platter—— has been a lie. That’s when you are called to act, organize, and learn the ways of our powerful ancestors who have saved us from the violence of western hegemonic imperialistic, capitalism.

That’s when you will become a revolutionary. Are you with us?