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International Scholars, Renowned Somali Poets Gather At York University for 7th World Congress on the Somali Diaspora
Prof. Ali Jimale Ahmed, a leading critic on African literature and professor at Queen's College in New York, will give the keynote address on what it means to be a part of the Somali Diaspora. York's Dean of the Faculty of Arts, George Fallis, will welcome participants, and the Hon. Roy Cullen, M.P. for Etobicoke North--which is home to the majority of the 50,000-strong population of Somalis of greater Toronto--will send his representative, Darlene Warner, to address the opening.
The popular Somali poet and dramatist, Mohamud Abdullahi Isse, a.k.a. SANGUB, will also address the conference and lead participants in a cultural evening of poetry and music Saturday evening.
"Somalia is a country of poets in the oral tradition," said York University Professor Pablo Idahosa, noting that many Somalis are able to recite from memory much of the collected works of the nation's poetry.
Profs. Idahosa and Abdulkadir Moallim Alim, organizers of the Congress and members of York's African Studies Program, have assembled a strong lineup of local and global speakers. Discussions will range from: Rebuilding of Somalia by Donor Countries, Local Authorities and the Diaspora by Richard Ford of the United States Agency for International Development; The Breakup of the Somali Family in the Diaspora by Prof. Ahmed Botan of the University of Mogadishu; hindrances to Somali integration in Canadian society; access to housing; the mental health of Somali youth in Toronto; Somali family violence against women; and the traditional use of the pacifying stimulant leaf nut, Khat, whose import is now banned in Canada.
York University Education Professors Neita Israelite and Arlene Herman have collaborated with Faduma Alim and Hawa Mohamed, of the local Somali Immigrant Aid Organization and Yasmin Khan, of the Community and Social Planning Council of Toronto, to present a survey of the Settlement Experiences of Somali Women Refugees in Toronto.
The powerful stories of a people fleeing the violence of their homeland, with no vocation for emigration, and catapulted into a reality so completely different from the one they have lived, is evocatively told by Somali poets and scholars quoting the poetry of longing that lives in the hearts of some two-million Somalis dispersed around the globe.
Mogadishu University Prof. Botan will argue that the principle causes of the tragic situation of the Somali family in the Diaspora include family members' insufficient knowledge of how basic Islamic principles should govern family life; the impact of the new environment; and the arbitrary interference in intimate family matters by the social and law enforcement institutions of the host countries, which do not understand the closeness and unity of the Islamic family.
For many Somalis, the answer to their suffering is their ultimate return home, and the Congress will look at how the Diaspora continues to contribute to the rebuilding of their homeland as the place to which they or their descendants should eventually return.
A special feature of the Congress is a roundtable on revered Canadian author Margaret Laurence, whose experience as a resident in Somalia and in co-translating Somali literature has helped to define Canada's non-paternalistic connection to the country in the post-colonial era. York's Faculty of Arts is home to some of Canada's foremost Laurence scholars, such as John Lennox, Susan Warwick and Ruth Panofsky, who will lead the discussion.
The Congress will open at Curtis Lecture Hall I in the Ross Bldg., Central Square at 2 p.m. on the York Campus, 4700 Keele St. The full conference agenda can be found at: http://somalinet.com.
For more information, please contact:
Prof. Pablo Idahosa
Susan Bigelow |
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