Proud Somali-American up in hurr
I don't think I would feel like I belong anywhere else(besides maybe Canuckia). Australia, Western Europe, the UK ee Mamo Elizabeth, Scandaniva, may all be more liberal and have a higher quality of life, and even have stronger civil rights & freedoms, but I still would not feel like I belong to the land. Part of me would always feel like a foreigner. Maybe this is unfounded, since I have never been there, but from what I read, and the people I talk to.....that's just how I feel. A German, a Swede, an Aussie, an Englishman, can always tell me: "Go back to where you came from".....and he would have a point, even when/if I karbaash the qashin out of him(dat somali temper doe).
Here tho, in the New World, I feel like I belong,...dhulka yaa iga xigo? yaa ii dhihi karo: "go back to where you came from". More importantly, I identify strongly with the principles & values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and (most, not all) of the Constitution, the first such official statement of liberal values and the triumph of the individual & individual-rights, over the tyranny of religion, culture, dogma, & tradition. Here, in the New World, from the craggy New England coastline to the warm sun & fun of SoCal, there is no talk of jizya/poll-tax nor pogroms; no Official State Orthodoxy; no "waryaa-hee, ma faqash baa tahay".
May this Great Democratic Republic of Ours, a unique experiment in the history of mankind grow and prosper; and may we truly live up to our secular-liberal principles & values and become that "shining city on the hill" where all men are not only created equal, but treated equal, and afforded opportunities equally and where every man and woman is judged not by color, creed, or orientation, but by the "content of their character", as Ditoore King Yare put it.
And may we, Soomalida ee geeska Afrika, idin'Ebbe, create a similar "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" back in a Gobolo Mideysan ee Soomaliyeed(GMS)
Eebbow, Aamiin.
Why? Just Why?!!
