Thanks for posting, I look forward to watching this interview.

And if you had asked him (as you've admitted you had not), you would know that the family was Christian. That doesn't mean people don't convert to Islam, Edna did too.

STOIC;943834 wrote: Now you are making this a debate. You said her family were maybe Christians.I gave an example of her blood relative who is a good muslim (better than me)..I don't know why you taking on us Somalis for saying something is a rumor when we don't have the proof...Waaar ya Islam aaah When I say "family," I'm referring to the immediate, nuclear family, not every Somali extended relative she has.

STOIC;943825 wrote: ^^^Why you quoting me Xaajiyoow? I wasn't even questioning your veracity.I didn’t deny the possibility of that being the case after all there is rumor circulating. I just referenced the blood relative of hers that I met.All I said if someone doesn’t have the proof it will be wise to not brand some Christian. If you personally know her (or related to her) and you are familiar with her personal life then we can safely assume there is something to the rumours.. This is not up for debate after all it is a personal life.Names don’t mean anything Why not? You called it a rumour, like several others in the thread, which is absurd. I'm just baffled by a common response I've seen on here when folks encounter information that's new to them and involves a rethinking of their essentialist and ahistorical notions of what Somalis are (or what Somalia is or was), the response is denial and erasure rather than realizing they don't know everything. I only entered this thread to respond to Mad_Mullah's original post about there being no Somali Christians except current asylum seekers and half-Italians, which is false... and ironic, considering the "Mad Mullah" himself started his campaign when he was angered by the numbers of Somali Christians he was seeing at the turn of the 20th century. That war is also directly responsible for the Christians in my family, Somalis who bore the brunt of the conflict when much of the fighting took place in their region and then fled to Yemen to escape the violence, right into the arms of the churches who took them in. And names mean everything, particularly when they are Biblical ones like Edna.

STOIC;943759 wrote: I have met a very close blood relative of Edna who lives in London.He is a very good Muslim guy .I have heard someone In there family was Christian at some point, but this is all waxaalayiri.It I would be wrong to say Edna is/was a Christian if we don't have the proof.The rumors are there and I think it's safe to say they are just rumors. I couldn't bring up the topic with nice gentleman.. lol like I said, I am a Muslim with Somali Christian relatives, does the fact I'm Muslim mean they don't exist? I can't believe you guys think this is something up for debate. Clue -- is Edna a Somali name?

Call up your parents and ask. This is not a "pernicious rumour," the woman has a white European first name taken from the Bible and was born to Christians - who were accepted in Somali society for most of our history - and the only gossip in Somalia has been when or if she converted to Islam, which I believe she has in recent decades.

AfricaOwn;943732 wrote: You made the wild claim on someone that you don't even know, prove it. Isn't it presumptuous to assume you know what I know or who I know? Wadani, the question here is how do you not know this when her family is among the noted Somali Christian families as I mentioned (and there are at least 20-30 well known, historical families) and why is the onus on me to prove their existence to you?

Wadani;943725 wrote: How does asking for proof equate to denial of truth? I said Edna Aden comes from a Somali Christian family, and you called it a "big claim" and an allegation.

Wadani;943717 wrote: Where'd u hear that from? These are big big claims Safferz. U need to prove these allegations. Just because you're not aware of something, doesn't mean it's not fact.

Wadani;943698 wrote: loool @ Edna Aden. I don't think shes still Christian. I'm not even sure she ever was. Even though anything is possible this sounds like the usual sheeko beeralay of Somalis. I heard she even made Hajj recently. No, her family was Christian.

Mad_Mullah;943663 wrote: There are no Somali Christians the only ones are: Quxootis that converted for money (I reckon a lot of them don't even believe in their new religion) and mixed (usually Italian grandparents). Go to Somali Christians on Facebook you won't even find a single Somali, and the Somalis that you DO find are the ones that joined just to say there are no Somali Christians. I think the hostility would not exist if we DID have a Somali Christian community (Like the Egyptian cops) but they simply do not exist and don't give me the bull that they're scared... Scared to make their own forum/website? It has to be THEIRS though and not made by some Cadaan and translated by some Faarax This is not true at all. Somali Christians are a minority, but they certainly exist and have for centuries, and many Somali families of note have been/are Christians (ie. Michael Mariano, Peter Raymond, Anthony James, Edna Aden, etc). I have a number of Christian relatives.

You have a great taste in movies, Alpha.

Chimera;943581 wrote: Alphy, not everyone enjoys smearing themselves in bird-poo like you do, inaar lolololololol. +1 lmao ElPunto, how could they not be refined? Thing 1 and Thing 2 spend their days around the various cultural and educational institutions in my area, mixing with and charming residents and tourists.

ElPunto;943562 wrote: ^Surely humanitarian instincts would trump concern about these turkeys! I did notice you didn't photograph the little presents these birds leave behind everywhere(Pro-Turkey bias much). We had the same issue but they got moved - there is only so much toleration after Very Important People got their shiny loafers soiled. Clearly my urban turkeys are more cultured and refined than your wild turkeys were, because I have had no such issue

No one is going to eat them :mad:

This one is so moving...

SomaliPhilosopher;943367 wrote: Who is this warsan shire? A young Somali woman based in the UK who writes beautiful poetry, and recently published her first collection of poems. I love her.

It's not a new poem, so you've probably come across it before. The video is new-ish though, I think it came out earlier this year. Poems that speak to the soul

Why do you say "supposedly happened," oba? Edit: discussion went to PMs to avoid derailing the thread

SomaliPhilosopher;943352 wrote: ^^Oba wrote the review Wha? I read this review before and thought it was horrible. I'm familiar with his books too and he's in no place to accuse anyone of qabiil bias.

oba hiloowlow;943345 wrote: I read it, BS book biased as F Can you elaborate? I like Ladan's work a lot but haven't had the chance to read this book yet. I was thinking of suggesting her as a speaker at my university next semester, we have a weekly African studies workshop with grad students and professors presenting their recent research and I'd love to see someone talk about Somalia.

SomaliPhilosopher;943344 wrote: Safferz tus tus ba la yiraada. War was this thread made to show us all the big books your reading :rolleyes: ? lol no I wanted a thread where we could all share what we're reading, it's not my fault more of you aren't posting

Beautiful poem and video. "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love" - written and performed by Warsan Shire You are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highway to a burning house says you are blinding him that he could never leave you forget you want anything but you you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours but you are always too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and you tried to change didn’t you? closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettier less volatile, less awake but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams so what did you want to do love split his head open? you can’t make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that and if he wants to leave then let him leave you are terrifying and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.

The Global South has become shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, incivility, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the Global North spins theories. Rarely the Global South is seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events. Yet, as many nation-states of the Northern Hemisphere experience increasing fiscal meltdown, state privatization, corruption, ethnic conflict, and other crises, it seems as though they are evolving southward, so to speak, in both positive and problematic ways. Is this so? How? In what measure? Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff take on these questions, reversing the usual order of things. Drawing on their long experience of living in Africa and teaching in Europe and the U.S., they address a range of familiar themes democracy, law, national borders, labor and capital, religion and the occult, liberalism and multiculturalism with the imagination and agile prose for which they are well known. They ask how we might understand these things anew with theory developed in the South. Their ethnographic eye stresses the salience of the local without losing sight of the large-scale processes in everyday lives that are everywhere enmeshed. This view from the South renders key problems of our time at once strange and familiar, giving an ironic twist to the evolutionary pathways long assumed by social scientists.

This should not be news.