While media attention on Somalia seldom strays from terrorism, piracy, and a 20-year-old civil war, those problems are among the least pressing for young Somali-Americans, according to participants in a weekend conference in Boston.The issues most relevant to them, they said, don’t make headlines: the strain between Americanized youths and their Somali parents, the barriers of access to American society, and the stereotypes that plague them as black Muslims.“The goal is to get the Somali youth galvanized and get them to take a hold of their futures,’’ said Abdinasser Egal, 32, of Cambridge, who helped bring the Somalia Diaspora Youth Conference to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury this weekend.“We’re trying to identify the next group of leaders that come out of Somalia because it’s obvious the older ones have failed,’’ he said, referring to the 1991 civil war that continues to ravage the country.The conference is being broadcast over the Internet today. It includes topics ranging from learning from the past to breakdowns in intergenerational communications.
Shadiyo Hussain, 18, of Portland, Maine, said such discussions are rare and welcome.
“Where I’m from, Maine, we don’t have an organization or a community where we have interaction between the old generation and the new generation,’’ she said.
Hussain said she wants to start a chapter of the Somali Diaspora Youth in Maine to spark a dialogue.
The sponsor of the gathering, Somalia Diaspora Youth, is a loose association of community activists based in Virginia, Ohio, and Ottawa, the Canadian capital. They seek to maintain ties among Somalis living abroad, scattered as refugees.About 6,000 Somalis live in the Boston area, Egal estimated.“We have a joke that wherever you go, you won’t need a hotel,’’ said Egal, whose sister moved to Canada while he fled to America.The far-flung population, fearful of losing traditions, has tried to raise children as Somalis, but young Somali-Americans yesterday said keeping a solely African identity is not so simple.“The older generation likes to stay together, but my generation likes to assimilate,’’ said Huda Yusuf, 31, a chemist at Boston Scientific Corp. who lives in Shrewsbury.Having arrived in Canada at age 11, knowing almost no English and having more or less formed her Somali identity, Yusuf said she straddles both generations, insisting that “you have to be respectful of both.’’Amal Ahmed, 18, is firmly in the new generation. She never used to wear a hijab, the traditional Muslim women’s head scarf, because in high school in South Boston, wearing it was too great a risk, she said.Now, as a second-year education and medicine student at Northeastern University, she wears it proudly. baston
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Ex-Somali Police Commissioner General Mohamed Abshir
Sultan Kenadid
Seyyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan
Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire
Designation of Al-Shabaab
SOMALI REPUBLICANS
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The Foundation is dedicated to networking like-minded Somalis opposed to the terrorist insurgency that is plaguing our beloved homeland and informing the international public at large about what is really happening throughout the Horn of Africa region.
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- In Somalia, new famine born of out of old failures
- The US Treasury Department announced on Friday tha...
- Somali: More aid needed; Troops gain new ground
- Genocidal politics and the Somali famin/The blame ...
- AMISOM / TFG Forces contain extremist threat to hu...
- Worst President Ever "Obama Meets West African Le...
- Mama Soul Visits refugee camp in capital Mogadishu...
- New Somalia Minister of Finance Abdinasir Mohamed ...
- AMISOM / TFG Forces contain extremist threat to hu...
- Ex-Recruit Speaks Out on Al-Shabaab Experience, Me...
- Indicted Al-Shabaab Recruiter Continues Jihad on F...
- Top Al shabab officials killed in an ambush milita...
- Kenyan policeman killed by Somali rebels
- Chairman King opening statement at 3rd radicalizat...
- Al Qaeda-linked militants Al shabaab apprehends 30...
- Somali PM charges aid agencies with not properly h...
- 12 suspected Qaeda militants killed in south Yemen
- Conflict Zone Slows Aid For Somalia's Famine Victims
- Al Shabaab: Recruitment and Radicalization within ...
- East Africa Famine: How to Help
- Far right domestic terrorism on par with foreign t...
- It is time for every one to notice the doubleface ...
- Somali people suffer from Islamist cruelty and famine
- AMISOM supplies vehicles to Somali government.AMIS...
- Images of a nation in mourning :Norway gunman warn...
- a right-wing extremist, a Christian, a nationalist...
- Norway attack: Likely suspected groups
- Former Defense minister Somali MP released by Ethi...
- Compare and Contrast : Another Famine in 2011, Ano...
- Aid ban still in place in Somalia, Islamist milita...
- Somalia: The Possibility of Balkanization
- US to send aid to Al-Shabaab held areas in Somalia...
- update. Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab Terrorist Mili...
- King plans third Islamic terrorism hearing; Will e...
- Somalia’s New Cabinet Approved
- Demolition of buildings continues in Abudwak Dist...
- AU calls for urgent help to the drought displaced ...
- Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali on Wedn...
- Al-Shabaab's stranglehold on Somalia
- U.S. officials fear al Qaeda faction is making gai...
- Access to Al-Shabab-Dominated Somalia Difficult
- Terror training fraud Part 1 - Part 2 also Pham t...
- Somali President, Speaker’s Guards’ Clash Wounding...
- Somalia: What went wrong for Farmajo,the complete ...
- Opama Somalia Missguided policy, al-qaida Somalia ...
- Minnesota Omer Abdi Mohamed, 26 pleads guilty to a...
- Young Somalis seeking dialogue :Assimilation, ster...
- 21 Ships Are Held Captive By Somali Pirates -- Pir...
- Al Qaeda's Yemen branch has aided Somalia militant...
- Al-Qaeda: teenage Brit killed leading terror unit ...
- US House Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Su...
- Ethiopia’s war with Somalia never ends:Ethiopia’s ...
- BOOK REVIEW: Understanding the Somalia conflagrati...
- Somalis flee drought-afflicted town :Latest video ...
- Somalia: The Ethiopian Factor part # 3
- INSIDE SOMALIA-THE FRONTLINE : A NTV VIDEO FEATURE
- Somali terror group linked to Al Qaeda 'recruited ...
- The Soldier: War in a Time of Warlords and Extremists
- As U.S. wars wind down, drones gain new prominence
- Somali forces detain Al shabaab suspects in southe...
- Security beefed up in Abud-wak,Al-Shabaab compels ...
- omali National Television (SNTV) Reaching Europe, ...
- America's Expanding Presence in Somalia
- Somali-Americans from Minnesota Leave to Wage Jiha...
- Islamist rebels seize two aid workers in southern ...
- 23 US senators press Pentagon chief on US plans to...
- 1 million Euros for refugees - Merkel : East Afric...
- Somali pro-government Moderate Islamist Sufi group...
- U.S. official: CIA interrogating terror suspects i...
- Somali Diaspora News: Recognizing Somali Community...
- Post Belatedly Recognizes Growing Internal Terrori...
- Somaliland: The Myth of Clan-Based Statehood . E...
- President Museveni Pays Tribute to The 7/10 Bomb V...
- secret underground prison in Mogadishu ? Intellig...
- MP - Big Internal Rifts Erupted Within Al Shabaab
- Federal government isn't touching Arkansas terrori...
- Italy to give 1 million euros to Somalia aid effor...
- Museveni Versus al Shabab:Uganda's Museveni calls ...
- Somali beauty (Amira Ahmed is Half somali-Half phi...
- Communique released from AU Summit in Kigali
- 7 soldiers die in battle for Mogadishu
- Panetta says U.S. is 'within reach' of defeating A...
- RW C/weli: wuxu ka diiday Sakiin ma ka yeeli doona...
- President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and high-leve...
- Closing Statement by H. E. Zahra M. Ali Samantar, ...
- Muslim activist in Minnesota struggles as one-man ...
- Town of Afmadow al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab Terrori...
- Somali trio charged by US in yacht murder of Chris...
- Homegrown Terrorist Convicted, Inspired by Al Qaed...
- Rep. Royce, Terrorism Chairman, on the Consequence...
- Somali detainee linked to Qaeda cleric: US. Obama ...
- Govt: We started new plans in combating Al shabaab
- Clinton ready to test Al-Shabaab's promise allowin...
- Uganda warns of attacks on bombings anniversary. H...
- Speech by Somali State Minister at the Office of t...
- Punches Thrown in Minneapolis Mosque:Abubakar As-S...
- Somali arrested by U.S. sought to expand al Shabaa...
- Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed iyo lataliyaashiisa
- update US drones or planes, hit three al-Shabaab ...
- Rwanda to host conference on Somalia peacekeeping
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Al-Qaida in Somalia. ...
We Are Winning the War on Terrorism in Horn of Africa
The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.
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