Mention Somalia and most people will immediately think of piracy these days. Either that khat leaves. Khat is the favourite drug of choice around the horn of Africa.
Somalis in Britain are having trouble settling in. Few will disagree with this. In fact it is impossible to disagree with that statement. Regularly coming bottom of educational league tables and top of crime tables the Somali community is mistrusted by others.
As is shown by this article from The Times: - Somalis in Britain find their voice at last
Tomorrow evening, tens of thousands of families across Britain will gather around their television sets, shunning the BBC and commercial channels in favour of Universal TV, the Somali community’s most popular forum.
At 8pm, their eyes will be glued to Somali Voices, a programme that aims to tackle the community’s most difficult issues head on. Last week it highlighted the importance of education and analysed the drop-out rates and academic achievements of young Somalis. This week it will examine drug problems, including the use of qat, the legal drug that is prevalent in Somali society.
Despite the enormity of the issues it tackles, Somali Voices is put together with a tiny budget and produced by a small group of young men — who together form the London Somali Youth Forum (LSYF) — working from a rundown council estate in Camden, North London.
But it is testament to their dedication that they have succeeded in reaching a community that is so often considered unreachable. For decades, one of Britain’s largest African communities (there are up to 160,000 Somalis in London alone, and tens of thousands more in cities including Birmingham, Leicester and Cardiff) has also been one of its most marginalised.
According to Ibrahim Isse in the article above, “In the past, the local authorities had problems with reaching the community. Now, we can do that for them,” he said.
In this article titled: - More Somali migrants say Britain should ban khat it is claimed that, “Britain's large Somali community chews at least seven tons a week of a drug banned in most Western countries”. Khat is a drug that is illegal in most countries.
London - Deep in the bowels of west London, amid the warren of subways running under Edgware Road, two Ethiopians stand behind a sparsely stocked kiosk.
Except for a few Mars Bars, they preside over a shop conspicuous for its lack of confectionary.
Customers instead make a beeline for two large fridges packed with tightly wrapped green bundles of khat – the Horn of Africa's favorite drug.
"It arrived this morning, but you must chew it in two or three days or it will go bad," one of the shopkeepers says as he passes a £4 ($6) bundle of the narcotic leaf to an eager-looking customer.
Although illegal in the United States since 1993 and banned throughout much of Europe, khat remains legal in Britain.
But community campaigners, backed by psychiatrists and a warning from the World Health Organization, have long believed that one of the active ingredients, cathonine, can lead to mental problems among regular users and have called for Britain to join much of the developed world by banning the drug.
Some of the most vocal critics of the drug have emerged recently from within the Somali community here. Khat, they say, is not only bringing harm to individuals, but it's also stymieing wider integration efforts.
"My people are in trouble because of this drug and I tell you ... London hasn't seen the worst of it," says Abdi Hussein, a young Somali migrant and former addict.
Thus far, Britain's Home Office has parried arguments for controlling khat, saying it is a mild narcotic and an innocent cultural past time with few proven social or medical ills.
'Khat has slowly been killing our community'
Each week, according to a widely cited but likely outdated government estimate, around seven tons of the leafy stimulant arrives at Heathrow Airport from the khat fields of Ethiopia and Kenya, to be whisked to khat cafes, known as mafreshis, frequented by many of Britain's 250,000-strong Somali migrant community, as well as the country's smaller Ethiopian and Yemeni groups.
Chewers devour up to two pounds of the leaf in a session. Similar to the chewing of cocoa leaves among Andean people, khat use is a centuries-old tradition originating in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula.
It has a social function of lubricating political debate and religious study – early users reportedly included Koran scholars – as well as quelling hunger in a poor corner of the world. In a Western context, the role of khat is less clear. A growing clamor of voices favor a ban amid concerns that the drug is wreaking havoc in Britain's large Somali population.
"Khat has slowly been killing our community but no one has paid any attention, until now," says former khat addict Abukar Awali. At the height of his habit, Mr. Awali says he chewed up to eight pounds of leaves daily.
"It's no exaggeration to say it is preventing us from integrating," he says. "When you chew, you don't work or meet anyone apart from Somalis. Maybe 80 percent of our men chew khat. When you are not chewing, you become paranoid and depressed. Everybody in my community knows someone with a khat problem; they are just afraid to say it."
While the debate over whether to control the drug continues, campaigners say its use is playing a role in alarming rates of unemployment, crime, and poor educational achievement among the country's Somalis.
You may be wondering how the number of Somali in this country has increased so quickly. You would not be alone. I assume that regular visitors to this blog will not be too surprised to learn that immigration is the answer.
This article on the ‘Pub Philosopher’ blog: - Somali migration to the UK offers some answers.
With migration from Europe to Great Britain being so easy it is not surprising that the Somali people chose soft touch Britain as their next port of call. I wonder where they would go next if the British National Party were likely to form the next government?
I seem to remember that comparatively recently someone rather infamous said that immigrants would be expected to learn English. One obvious conclusion from this failure of the multi-cultural experiment is that the sooner this is seen as a minimum requirement the better. This step would at least ensure that when the British National Party forms a government we will all speak the same language.
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