Anti-Somali sentiment

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Anti-Somali sentiment or Somalophobia refers to fear, hostility, or other negative attitudes towards Somalis or Somali culture.

Contents

Terminology

Anti-Somali sentiment is sometimes referred to by the countable sense Somaliphobe or the uncountable sense of Somaliphobia, [1] or Somaliphobic sentiment. [2] The antonym and opposite sentiment is referred to by the countable sense Somaliphile, or its uncountable equivalent of Somaliphilia. [3]

Scope

The 2000s and early 2010s saw major sporadic outbreaks of violence against Somali shopkeepers in South Africa. This violence has been attributed to jealousy over the success of Somali businesses, and ethnic tensions. [4] However, some writers have attributed such hostility to a wider xenophobia, since other non-South Africa Africans were targeted as well. [2]

In the United States

Somali Americans have experienced Anti-Somali sentiment and it is sometimes expressed in the context of anti-immigration sentiment. [5] [6] Anti-Somali sentiments sometimes overlap with Islamophobic sentiments and Racism in the United States.

On 30 October 2015, Asma Jama (a Muslim woman of Somali descent and Kenyan nationality) was viciously beaten for speaking Swahili in an Applebee's on the outskirts of Minneapolis. The perpetrator of that violence was charged with third-degree assault. In June 2016, two Somalis were shot after wearing their traditional clothing. [7] A week prior to the shooting, a Somali halal shop in the city was vandalized. [8] Minneapolis City Council member Abdi Warsame discussed anti-Somali sentiments in the aftermath of the shooting of Justine Damond by a Somali police officer. [9] In Dodge City, Kansas several Somali men were the victims of hate crimes ranging from racial slurs to serious bodily injury in 2016. [10] Due to the high concentration of Somali-Americans in Minnesota, anti-immigration sentiment has been used as a campaign talking point, specifically by former President Donald Trump. [11]

Abusiveness

There are also some pejorative terms that serve to dehumanize Somalis. The term skinnie became popularized with the film Black Hawk Down . The term has been said to allude to reducing Somalis to their humanitarian struggles [12] and National Public Radio has suggested that its usage deprives Somalis of their own point of view. [13] The term Abdi is also sometimes pejoratively used to refer to male Somalis. [14]

The Associated Press's stylebook suggested that Somali is the correct demonym or adjective, rather than Somalian. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Xenophobia is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression which is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-group and an out-group and it may manifest itself in suspicion of one group's activities by members of the other group, a desire to eliminate the presence of the group which is the target of suspicion, and fear of losing a national, ethnic, or racial identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Mogadishu (1993)</span> UN-Somali military incident, October 1993

The Battle of Mogadishu, also known as the Black Hawk Down Incident, was part of Operation Gothic Serpent. It was fought on 3–4 October 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, between forces of the United States—supported by UNOSOM II—against the forces of the Somali National Alliance (SNA) and armed irregulars of south Mogadishu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic Courts Union</span> Former legal and political organisation in Somalia

The Islamic Courts Union was a legal and political organization founded by Mogadishu-based Sharia courts during the early 2000s to combat the lawlessness stemming from the Somali Civil War. By mid-to-late 2006, the Islamic Courts had expanded their influence to become the de facto government in most of southern and central Somalia, succeeding in creating the first semblance of a state since 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 Islamic Courts Union offensive</span> Phase of the Somali Civil War

The 2006 Islamic Courts Union offensive is the period in the Somali Civil War that began in May 2006 with the Islamic Courts Union's (ICU) conquest of Mogadishu from the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and continued with further ICU expansion in the country. Following the outbreak of the war on December 21, 2006; by December 24, direct Ethiopian intervention in the conflict in support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was no longer denied by the Ethiopian government. The Eritrean government denied any involvement despite Ethiopian claims to the contrary.

This is a list of topics related to racism:

The Somali Rebellion was the beginning of the civil war in Somalia that occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s. The rebellion started in 1978 when President Siad Barre began using his special forces, the "Red Berets", to attack clan-based dissident groups opposed to his regime. The dissidents had been becoming more powerful for nearly a decade following his abrupt switch of allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States and the disastrous 1977-78 Ogaden War.

The timeline of events in the War in Somalia during 2006 is set out below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racism in Ukraine</span>

Ukraine is a multi-ethnic country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Valeriy Govgalenko argues that racism and ethnic discrimination has arguably been a largely fringe issue in the past, but has had a climb in social influence due to ultra-nationalist parties gaining attention in recent years. There have been recorded incidents of violence where the victim's race is widely thought to have played a role, these incidents receive extensive media coverage and are usually condemned by all mainstream political forces. Human Rights Watch reported that "racism and xenophobia remain entrenched problems in Ukraine". In 2012 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reported that "tolerance towards Jews, Russians and Romani appears to have significantly declined in Ukraine since 2000 and prejudices are also reflected in daily life against other groups, who experience problems in accessing goods and services". From 2006 to 2008, 184 attacks and 12 racially motivated murders took place. In 2009, no such murders were recorded, but 40 racial incidents of violence were reported. It is worth considering that, according to Alexander Feldman, president of the Association of National and Cultural Unions of Ukraine, "People attacked on racial grounds do not report the incidents to the police and police often fail to classify such attacks as racially motivated and often write them off as domestic offence or hooliganism".

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Abukar Hassan Mohamoud, also known as Kadaf, was a Somali activist and the manager/director for the independent Somaliweyn Radio in Mogadishu, Somalia. At the time of his murder, he had been working on a re-launch of Radio Somaliweyn, which had been attacked and looted by Al-Shabaab in 2010.

Somalis are an ethnic group in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area that makes up the largest Somali diasporas in the United States. By 2018, approximately 43,000 people born in Somalia were living in Minnesota, and approximately 94,000 Minnesotans spoke Somali language at home.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamud Noor</span> American politician

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 timeline of the Somali Civil War</span>

This is a 2015 timeline of events in the Somali Civil War (2009–present).

The 2016 Minneapolis shooting took place on June 29, 2016, in Minneapolis, Minnesota when a man named Anthony Sawina shot at five Somali-Americans, wounding two of them. Witnesses later recounted that Sawina shouted anti-Muslim expletives and claimed he was "going to kill [them] all." The attack was condemned by civil rights groups as part of a larger rise of Islamophobia in the United States leading up the 2016 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Justine Damond</span> 2017 police killing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

On July 15, 2017, Justine Damond, a 40-year-old Australian-American woman, was fatally shot by 31-year-old Somali-American Minneapolis Police Department officer Mohamed Noor after she had called 9-1-1 to report the possible assault of a woman in an alley behind her house. Occurring weeks after a high-profile manslaughter trial acquittal in the 2016 police killing of Philando Castile, also in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the shooting exacerbated existing tensions and attracted national and international press.

Anti-Fulani sentiment is the hostility that exists towards Fulani people in Nigeria, Mali and other West African nations and the discrimination that they are subjected to as a result of it. The Fulani are a semi-nomadic ethnic group that is dispersed across several West African countries. Fulani people represent 6% of Nigeria's population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mogadishu riots of July 1989</span>

The Mogadishu riots of July 1989 were a series of violent events that took place in the capital city of Somalia on 14 and 15 July 1989. A significant event in modern Somali history, the riot and killings that followed were the first serious violence Mogadishu had seen and preluded the approaching Somali Civil War. The event was sparked by the assassination of Roman Catholic Bishop of Mogadishu Salvatore Colombo and the subsequent arrest of several Muslim religious leaders by the Barre regime.

References

  1. "Tension Runs High In Kenya's 'Little Mogadishu'". NPR.org.
  2. 1 2 "Does South Africa black-phobic blacks suffer inferiority complex? – Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan". www.sudantribune.com.
  3. The Road to Hell, Michael Maren, 2009
  4. Charman, Andrew, and Laurence Piper. "Xenophobia, criminality and violent entrepreneurship: violence against Somali shopkeepers in Delft South, Cape Town, South Africa." South African Review of Sociology 43.3 (2012): 81–105.
  5. "Integration Center coffee encourages communication". 18 December 2017.
  6. "MPS and Somali Community Gather on Parliament Hill to Mourn the Victims of the Mogadishu Attack".
  7. "Lauderdale Man Charged In Alleged 'Hate Crime' Shootings". CBS News. 25 July 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  8. Harvard, Sarah A. (1 July 2016). "2 Muslim Men Were Shot Near Minneapolis Mosque, Police Are Investigating as Hate Crime". Mic. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  9. "Warsame blasts anti-Somali rhetoric in wake of Damond shooting". Star Tribune .
  10. "Kansas Men Sentenced for Roles in Federal Hate Crime Against Black Somali Men". www.justice.gov. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2022.
  11. Herndon, Astead W. (20 June 2019). "'These People Aren't Coming From Norway': Refugees in a Minnesota City Face a Backlash". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 25 November 2022.
  12. Behnke, Andreas. "The re-enchantment of war in popular culture." Millennium 34.3 (2006): 937–949.
  13. Jacobson, Harlan. "Bad day at black rock." Film Comment 38.1 (2002): 28.
  14. Phoenix, Aisha. "Somali young women and hierarchies of belonging." Young 19.3 (2011): 313–331.
  15. "AP Stylebook on Twitter".