Its not surprising that a handful of Somali-American boys went missing, and have since turned up fighting in Somalia. Unfortunately these boys, in their search for identity and a cause, were pulled into a distant conflict. An event as huge as the Ethiopian occupation was necessary to mobilize a handful of them to leave the relative comfort of the US to defend, as they saw it, their country and culture.
Many non-Somalis do not realize the anger and sense of tragedy that haunted Somalis, in the country and in the diaspora, when Ethiopian troops entered the country in late 2006, and didn't leave until early 2009. The subsequent widespread destruction and chaos politicized many Somalis, but only these few boys felt compelled enough to go to the war torn country and fight. Shabaab, as radical and undesirable as they were and are, was the only force fighting the Ethiopian troops, and so the young boys saw it as a natural militia to join.
The boys were not fighting for Shabbab, they were fighting against Ethiopian occupation. Hence no boys have gone missing since the Ethiopian troop withdrawal from Somalia. It shouldn't surprise anyone that occupation can created the anger and emotions necessary for an insurgency. And because of the interconnectedness of the Somali diaspora to the mainland, it doesn't surprise me that this emotion and movement reached people in distant places. These Somali's were not the first or last Americans to go fight in their country of origin. At this point I'm just praying these boys get a fair trail.
Ken Menkhaus of Davidson College described the situation well:
"First, recruitment of Somali-Americans into the Shabaab is very recent, correlated with politics in Somalia since 2006, not with Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror. The agenda which appears to have initially inspired Somali recruits into joining Shabaab was primarily about Somalia, not global jihadism.
For many Somalis, Al Shabaab was an entirely justifiable liberation movement against Ethiopian occupation, not a terrorist group.
Second, it is important to recall that the Shabaab was not designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government until March 2008, by which time many of the Somali-Americans in question had already been recruited into the movement. For many Somalis, Shabaab was an entirely justifiable liberation movement against Ethiopian occupation, not a terrorist group.
In addition, the recruitment of Somali-Americans into Shabaab is a reflection of the “diasporization” of Somalia. Roughly one million Somalis, about 15 percent of the total population, now live abroad. The diaspora plays a leading role in every aspect of Somali life. Most leaders of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia hold citizenship abroad, as do many of the top Islamist opposition figures, business people and civic leaders."
Menkhaus is a legitimate scholar of Somali issues, almost as insightful as ethnic Somali scholars like Abdi Ismail Samatar of the University of Minnesota. Others who have chimed in on the issue, such as Thomas Sanderson of CSIS and Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University, have proven completely ignorant of the reasons for the boys' disappearances.
See NYT article: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/ways-to-detect-jihadist-threats/
Pundits like them simply don't get Somali people or politics. Their narrow-minded jihad-talk is dangerous and anti-intellectual, reminiscent of Bush-era rhetoric. After years of failed Somalia policies- no one suffering more than the Somali people themselves- its time to move towards a more nuanced and complex understandings of the issues.
Somalia faces a highly complex conflict which requires mastery of the culture, traditions, history and contemporary condition of the country to even begin to grasp whats happening. Its depressing to see how few real scholars of Somali affairs are out there, especially when they are so desperately needed.
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