Safferz

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Posts posted by Safferz

  1. Posted

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    said:</cite>

    I wonder if other "criminals" from say places like Europe and Russia, if they get the same treatment of deportation? Does anyone know?

     

    No they don't Khayr, which is why this CBC investigation was done and aired. Deportations to Somalia are unique and unlike deportations to anywhere else. The question isn't about whether it's right to deport, it's about the ethics of deporting people to dangerous situations where they have a high chance of being killed (particularly by a country that does not believe in the death penalty for even its worst criminals), and the shady logistics of carrying out deportations to Somalia. Canada does this without the cooperation of Somali governments, essentially smuggling people illegally into the country through Kenya, and because Canadian agents are not allowed to go to Somalia, they pay Kenyans $25k to complete the Kenya-Somalia leg of the trip. As the case studies investigated in the program show, there's no mechanism for Canadian agents to confirm whether the deportees have arrived there safely, and in many cases the deportees have been left somewhere else (like the guy dropped off by the Kenyan plane in the desert and attacked by hyenas) or kidnapped upon arrival.

     

    SOLers can type whatever the hell they want about how criminals should be shipped off to Antartica, but Canada is a civilized country with legal and ethical principles it abides by.

  2. Posted

    Listened to this program on CBC radio earlier today, it was quite shocking:

     

     

    Saeed Ibrahim Jama left Edmonton two years ago, forced out of the country in a deportation to a place he had never lived. His story takes us into a gray zone, where Canada - acting on what it says are issues of public safety goes through elaborate efforts to send deportees to a country that would never take them officially, effectively sneaking them in with no travel documents. Today we bring you a special documentary that investigates Canada's curious practices in deportations to Somalia.

     

    Today we're revisiting a story we first brought you two years ago. Saeed Ibrahim Jama, was a permanent resident in Canada. But he faced deportation to Somalia following a 27-month prison sentence for drug trafficking and resisting arrest.

     

    Somalia is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. The Al Qaeda-linked group Al Shabaab fights a bloody insurgency in the South... warlords and clans fight the insurgents ... And the country has struggled without a fully functioning government for more than two decades.

     

    We spoke to Saeed Jama in 2012 from prison, while awaiting deportation.

     

    At that time we asked: Should Canada be deporting even convicted criminals like Saeed Jama, into such a dangerous, lawless country? Today we're looking at a different question: How does Canada deport a person into such a dangerous, lawless country?

     

    CBC Radio documentary producer John Chipman has spent the past year investigating what exactly happened in Saeed Jama's case. And what he discovered was that his deportation was far from routine... it involved a kidnapping, a ransom, and a gun-toting gang. But even more troubling is that his chaotic deportation was not unique.

     

    Canada Border Services Agency - or CBSA - say that Somalia is so dangerous federal regulations prohibit Canadian employees from flying there with deportees. The agency's solution has been to hire pilots or airlines to fly deportees without legal paperwork into Somalia from a neighbouring country such as Kenya. Official travel documents are impossible to come by given the country's unstable government.

     

    We're devoting a full hour to what John learned about how Canada deports people to Somalia with John Chipman's two-part documentary, To No Man's Land.

     

    We requested an interview with Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, who's responsible for the Agency that oversees deportations. He declined our request.

     

    A CBSA spokesperson responded to a list of submitted questions, and we are still waiting for a response to our request for an interview later this week with CBSA President Luc Portelance.

     

    Last week, Mohammed Barre Bulle moved out of the refugee camp in northern Kenya where he's been living for the past several years. He is moving back to a Somali village close to the border.

     

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  3. Posted

    It's pretty damn obtuse of the two of you to think an edited video makes anything "obvious" about how it's "more likely" that black and latino men catcall women, particularly when I've linked you to an article where they've clearly stated that white men in the video were EDITED OUT of final footage. I don't need you to mansplain street harassment to me either, DoctorKenney. For what it's worth, I've experienced far worse male harassment by white men in Europe than I have by any man in NYC or North America more broadly.

     

    Tallaabo, for someone generally more progressive on issues than most SOLers, I'm really disappointed by your comment. It should be common knowledge at this point that most black men are imprisoned for non-violent drug charges - in a system where you will get 100 TIMES LONGER of a sentence length for crack-cocaine (a poor people's drug) than you will for powder cocaine (the designer drug of choice for wealthier white people), even though the only difference between the two is baking soda and water. This is compounded by the fact that there is overpolicing in black communities, and statistically black men are more likely to be arrested, tried and convicted (and receive longer prison terms) for the SAME crimes as white men. There's an entire literature on this, but Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow is a good start, or perhaps a documentary like The House I Live In.

     

    Anyway, this is my last post in the thread. Not really interested in endless pages of enraging posts, particularly during this time of the year, so it's best to disengage.

  4. Posted

    <cite>
    said:</cite>

    Freedom of speech ma maqashay? If u don't like him, ignore him. I heard about this weirdo and his Gaalnimo, but u just ignore him.

     

    Don't give him anymore attention and he'd go away and be forgotten about in matter of days.

     

    Hiiraan was disappointing for giving him any attention, but it's a media company outfit from Ottawa and they can do whatever they want. U just ignore em. Problem solved.

     

    How is he a gaal? lol. He has an advanced degree from Umm al-Qura, and wrote a provocative, researched book about apostasy in Islam. You engage someone like that with counter-arguments and productive debate, not death threats that have him fearing for his life and that of his family, and making it impossible for him to ever go to Somalia again. It's sad and embarrassing.

  5. Posted

    I don't like the racial politics of the video -- they've edited out the footage of white guys catcalling her. I find most conversations about street harassment have racist undertones, focusing on the language of black and latino men, their presence in public space, etc with the message that they're thirsty and threatening to women (read: white women).

     

    That said, I'm not opposed to raising awareness about street harassment and having a conversation about it, I just don't like how it's often framed.

  6. Posted

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    said:</cite>

    Is he promised to build some low income housing, fight drugs and keep the community save?. What is the major reason Somalis are throwing their lot to ford.

     

    It's unexplainable and most don't even know enough about the different platforms to articulate a reason for voting for Doug Ford (and Rob Ford, as many Somalis are in Ward 1 where Rob was running for a city council seat). A friend of my dad's was at the Ward 1 polling station and saw lines of Somalis, and when he asked them to vote for Munira they said no -- we're Ford Nation.

  9. Posted

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    said:</cite>

    Safferz, that would have been the wise decision. Broken Somali is not very popular among the older generation who tend to vote in larger numbers.

     

    I find it varies... some older Somalis are pleased when a diaspora youth can even speak a few words, while others mock youngins who are quite competent in the language (despite never living in or even visited Somalia in most cases) while they themselves have lived 20+ years in Canada without learning proper English.

  11. Posted

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    said:</cite>

    So help me understand this, if she's not running for a mayorship, what's the connection between her and fatty Ford? Butacoow is a mayor and she's running for a council seat right?

     

    Or are the two the same in Canada?

     

    She's running for Doug Ford's city council seat -- the equally gross and idiotic brother of mayor Rob Ford. Rob Ford was city councillor for Ward 2 before becoming mayor, and Doug Ford is the current city councillor there. But after Rob Ford was diagnosed with cancer and dropped out of the mayoral race for re-election, his brother Doug decided to run for mayor while Rob runs for the city council seat again. So she's dealing with TWO Fords campaigning against her.

     

    A Somali candidate running in Ward 2 Etobicoke-North is meaningless when Somalis do not show up and vote.

  14. Posted

    <cite>
    said:</cite>People here in America are extremely pissed off about this incident. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see for yourself

     

    Yes, but they are also mad about the Moozlums, Mexican "illegals" stealing their jobs, white males becoming the new persecuted minorities, and now diseased Africans at their gates, spreading ebola just by looking at you. It's interesting to see how ebola panic has fused with xenophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric.

  15. Posted

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    said:</cite>

    And I'm not blaming him for doing so.

     

    But you can't blame the American authorities for being pissed off about this

     

    It's not American authorities who are pissed, it's Liberia that's pissed lol. They're the ones who disclosed his name (patient confidentiality is the law in the US, so his name would not have gotten out if it wasn't for the Liberian government) and they announced they'll prosecute him when he returns for allegedly lying on the questionnaire. The US doesn't care -- their only concern is containing the disease and making sure it doesn't spread. Don't conflate how the media is talking about him and public hysteria with how the CDC is treating the case.

  19. Posted

    Germany too, and elsewhere. International exhibitions in Europe included imperial displays to show everyday Europeans what their distant empires looked like, so "natives" were included too. But there were actual, permanent "human zoos" as well, notably Carl Hagenbeck's zoos in Germany (he's considered the father of the modern zoo, but not everyone is aware that his zoos included the regular display of Africans).

     

    Actually if you look closely at a lot of old images of Somalis from pre-WWI, they seem to be staged photos, props and all. Fortunately these ones happen to indicate where they were taken, but many do not.

     

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  21. Posted

    Libaax, you are right and I do think Osmaniya is fascinating as an indigenous script, but it is clearly derivative of the Amharic fidel system. Here are a few Amharic characters that come to mind which look identical or similar to some of the ones on the Osmaniya chart to me (though Osmaniya sounds do not correspond) -- I hope my Amharic keyboard characters show up:

     

    ዐ = a (looks like Osmaniya's deel)

    ገ = ge (looks like ra)

    ኺ = shi (looks like saddex)

    ር = re (looks like sideed)

    ሀ = ha (looks like sagaal)

    ቢ = bi (looks like laan)

    ዓ = aa (looks like shiin)

    ሤ = se (looks like ba)

  22. Posted

    <cite>
    said:</cite>

    People like Burahadeer weren't complaining about "The Death of Somali culture" in the 1970's......

     

    When Somalis had an Atheist Marxist Regime governing our country. When our youth were speaking Italian better than they even knew Af-Somaali. When Siyaad Barre was killing thousands of nomads in Bari. When our dress, customs, and food were being influenced by Europeans. When we adopted a Latin Alphabet instead of our own unique Somali alphabet. When Somali youth were being sent to Italy or Russia and adopting their cultural practices.

     

    That government was the height of Somali cultural nationalism, I'm not sure what you're talking about. The regime developed a writing system for Somali (the alternatives put forward were Arabic and Somali scripts derived from Amharic/Ge'ez), encouraged the creation of a Somali language print culture evidenced by the many newspapers, magazines and books published during that period, established an academy for Somali language and culture full of experts who standardized the language and developed Somali terms for words we did not have, switched the primary language of school instruction to Somali, and carried out a widely successful literacy campaign across the country. They also encouraged popular culture and the arts, and it was the heyday for Somali music, literature, plays and the first Somali movies. Though like all cities, dress was influenced by fashion internationally, in the rest of Somalia women wore guntiino and sadex qayd, which has been the cultural dress of Somalis for centuries.

     

    I'm also not sure why you describe the regime as "atheist" -- Siyaad Barre quite famously described the socialism of Somalia to be one rooted in Somali Islamic communal culture, which was a stunning proclamation and a huge gamble to take when you consider the Somali Republic's need for Soviet/Soviet-allied support internationally (states that DID declare themselves secular).

     

    There was no "death of Somali culture" in the 1970s, it was its renaissance and modernization.

  24. Posted

    burahadeer has a point... in Somalia, custom - not religion - is king. Like all Muslim societies, we pick and choose what aspects of Islam to incorporate into our culture, and what parts of our culture persist in spite of it. Somali customary law (xeer) has always overruled sharia, traditionally. That said, I wouldn't say that makes Somalis "secular," just that the dominant legal system in Somali society is not a religious one. Sharia law has been around as long as Somalis have been Muslim, and has coexisted with customary law.

     

    <cite>
    said:</cite>

    Hi Saffy (:

     

    Hi SP :)