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rfmcdonaldThat's the question that this grim article from the Globe and Mail, by Joe Friesen and Colin Freeze, asks.
Of note is the fact of the young men's new invented community, related not to the region of their origins or to their clan allegiances or to Canada (in whatever degree), but to al-Shahab's particular blend of religious extremism and pan-Somali nationalism.
The classic sort of diaspora extremism is evidenced here, I think.
The men left the country without a word of warning. They range in age from early 20s to early 30s and all worshiped at the Abu Huraira mosque in North York, community leaders say. Two or three have since called home to say they travelled to Kenya, but didn't say whether they ever plan to return to Toronto. The language they used in the phone calls is similar, an indication that they may have been told what to say.
Security officials believe the missing men have crossed Kenya's northern border with Somalia to join al-Shabab – literally “the youth” – an al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist movement that has swept across southern and central Somalia.
“Somalia's fragile coalition government appears helpless against a widespread Islamist insurgency that is gradually tightening its grip,” RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said in a speech last month. He added he was particularly concerned about the jihad spreading to “Somali-Canadians who travel to Somalia to fight and then return.”
On Thursday, a suicide bombing believed to be the work of the al-Shabab ripped through a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu, killing three Somali cabinet ministers, several journalists and more than a dozen students. Similar bombings have been perpetrated by Somalis raised in Europe and the United States.
In Somalia, and increasingly in Canada, community leaders view such attacks as war on their own futures. The refugee communities that fled the civil strife 20 years ago had hoped that generations raised in the West would break the cycle of bloodshed, poverty and anarchy. The cruel twist is that a handful of youth within the Somali diaspora are being pulled back to their homeland to perpetuate it.
[. . .]
Last month, U.S. prosecutors charged a group of American Somalis with recruiting at least 20 of their own kinsmen from the Minneapolis area to join the al-Shabab, including some who have become suicide bombers. Until recently, no one in Canada thought Toronto would be the next target.
“We used to argue with our American friends. We would say, ‘We will never have this extremism in Canada because we are a tolerant society.' … None of our mosques were known for spreading an extremist message,” said Abdurahman Jibril, head of the Somali Canadian National Council, a group that lobbies to improve social services for Somali immigrants.
Of note is the fact of the young men's new invented community, related not to the region of their origins or to their clan allegiances or to Canada (in whatever degree), but to al-Shahab's particular blend of religious extremism and pan-Somali nationalism.
What's most troubling for Somali-Canadian leaders is that these are not young men who struggled to adjust to life in the West. At least two were born in Canada. The others were educated here from primary school onwards. They are the children of respected families who have found work and integrated into the broader community, leaders say. They attended either college or university. Most of the missing men can't even speak Somali, the community leaders add.
[. . .]
A further contradiction is that they may have joined a movement based primarily in Somalia's south, in the city of Kismayo, even though four of the five men are descended from families from the relatively stable northern province of Somaliland.
Somaliland was overseen by the British during the colonial era, while the south was run by the Italians. Somalis generalize by describing northerners as more reserved, and southerners as more outgoing. Northerners live primarily in the Scarborough area, while southerners dominate the area known as Little Mogadishu, around Kipling Avenue and Dixon Road. The bulk of Toronto's 50,000 Somalis live in the apartment towers and public-housing projects that dot that corner of Etobicoke.
Omar Kireh, administrator of the Abu Huraira mosque, where the men prayed, said it's strange that northerners would join a southern insurgency. But nothing is predictable with the younger generation, he added, who know little of the country's fractious tribal politics.
The classic sort of diaspora extremism is evidenced here, I think.
