Speech delivered to The Horn of Africa Peace Forum – at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs- University of Minnesota on December 4, 2009 There are those who may question the very idea of a Diaspora community far away from the daily suffering and challenges of the people of the Horn of Africa trying to get involved in a civic effort that is intended to enhance the possibility of peace in a region desperately starving for lasting peace.
Do we have a right or a duty to get involved in a very volatile region that we have left behind voluntarily or were forced to abandon it due the crisis that seems endemic to the region?
It is a legitimate doubt presented by a way of question.
Those of us who feel that we have a duty and a responsibility to do our share to contribute, to the extent that is possible, be it from the comfort zone of an air-conditioned American conference room, must take the doubt raised with all the seriousness we could master.
The effort to add our modest voice to the expanding conversation on how best to give back to our former homeland while at the same time waging an all-out efforts to find our rightful place in the American quilt will not be an easy process.
Which comes first: the egg or the chicken?
Should the Diaspora first focus in finding a more accelerated way of becoming an integral part of the ongoing American grand experiment or stay confined within the margin while being consumed by cascading events in the country or region of origin? This is not counterpoising two possibilities but setting up the parameters of the challenge to stress the choice being faced by newly arriving immigrants from the Horn Region like all other previous immigrants that had finally blended in into the American society empowered and integrated into the very fiber of the political and economic system.
Could a Diaspora community experimenting with its newly enshrined hyphenated existence be formidable enough to leverage its limited integration into the American civilization to help enhance the possibility of peace in a besieged region?
The most optimistically simple and simplistic answer will be yes it could.
This is an instinctive reaction or response underpinned by a guilty feeling that most immigrants had to deal with when confronted with the practical issue of making the transition to being an American while still trying to stay loyal to the old homeland in some capacity. A unifying optimism based on longing for the old culture. Optimism costs nothing. Elasticized and exaggerated expectation however has real opportunity costs. By choosing priority “A” one has to be aware that it is giving up some aspect of priority “B”.
If the intractable political crisis and consuming violence is unmanageable to the elites that have made the choice to stay at home and try to maneuver the crisis to advance their specific agenda how is it then that we in the Diaspora who have not even voted in “one of our kind” to the Congress of the United States or state government can make a difference? Love of the old motherland by itself is not enough when you are trying to make a strategic impact in highly fragile and volatile region as a Diaspora community with practical and legal limitations. We need leverage to inroad into the American system. The unifying leverage is our right to vote and be voted in.
The courageous answer will be to admit the fact that the Diaspora Horn Community has first to get well acquainted with the Americanization process. Before we can talk on how we can advance the possibility of peace in the Horn Region we need to engage in this kind of open conversation about our process of integration into the American experience. We have to find our voice as Americans without abandoning everything positive that we brought with us from our native culture.
Now that I have stressed the need for rational prioritization of two mutually inclusive demands (at least for the first generation) the need to be a full-fledged citizen of this great nation –USA- and at the same time reach out to our region of origin in some constructive way I would share with you my perspective.
I am a firm believer that our duty to America, once we have voluntarily accepted US citizenship, comes ahead of our loyalty to our former country. Cultural ambiguity and sense of loss that most immigrants feel when giving up their original citizenship is understandable. But failing to grasp the full legal implication of being an American citizen and not deploying this new privilege in its correct and legitimate way has grave consequences.
This nation is a nation of rule of law. Rejecting some aspect of its cultural value that is not in congruence with the immigrants native culture does not give any new citizen the right to violate its constitution and law. Our true transition to Americanization starts by clearly understanding this fundamental principle. Once we become American citizens, leaving aside the lagging psychological transition, the legal transition to new citizenship has implications and limitations on what we can do as a Diaspora community in our effort to help foster peace in the region.
When we choose to engage in a noble effort to, in some modest capacity, contribute to the development of peace in the Horn of Africa we do it as American citizen –in this sense we are trying to help America in a very profound and pragmatic way. We become recent immigrants turned into aspiring “Track Two” diplomats for a nation that has an overriding strategic interest in the region moving forward from 9-11. We are descendents of the Horn of Africa but we are grass root ambassadors of the US- whether we intellectually grasp it or not this is our designated role moving forward.
If we are to help our new country- our new country need to help us help her. That is to say come up with clear polices on how the federal and state governments can work with our new immigrant communities in a non-opportunistic way. They should not start paying attention to us only when our American born children become the headline because of misguided judgment and commit a gruesome terroristic act in the Horn of Africa after leaving the comfort and promise of America. We can handle all legitimate negative attentions if the system has been reaching out to our communities and had built honest and open relationship with a clear understanding that we have strategic positive role to play in explaining Americas intentions and polices to the region’s citizens.
But before we get to explain Americas policy intentions and assume the role of peace advocate, facilitators and citizen ambassadors, the leadership and institutions of our new nation has to give us the respect we deserve and the necessary access to the system so that we can make a very positive input in the way our new country’s polices are formulated and implemented. That is to say the American government must consider us as strategic ally in its endeavor to positively influence the war afflicted region by making us partner in the process and creating a space for us to engage in some capacity. There is a glaring persistent deficiency within the US government on this issue. We hope the new administration will address this critical deficiency in a structured and well thought out ways.
Our immigrant communities have a deeply felt desire to find ways to contribute into the making of a peaceful Horn of Africa but it lacks the training and resources to make a bold contribution and to live up to its full potential. This cannot happen without the American Government coming up with a clear initiative that will create the win –win partnership with the immigrant community as a foundation of an ongoing consultative engagement. America must start its true globalization by creating a healthy relationship with its diverse immigrant community.
To wait until a crisis has reached a devastating scale for the US government to access the Diaspora community is being “a day late and a dollar short” to put it in American vernacular. This kind of short sighted approach is what I call an opportunistic posture. We want you when we need you will never be a good approach to constructing a meaningful relationship with your new citizens.
The flip side of it is, are our communities ready to come out of our cultural cocoons and boldly and clumsily engage the political system at various levels? We have to take the initiative and organize events like this one and go to the polls and cast our vote, study political and economic issues, work as volunteer in election process and learn the rope thus becoming a part of the American mosaic in the truest sense. If we are not ready to engage the system then we will still be marginalized actors both in the process of the American system and in our effort to make a meaningful contribution to enhance a peace process in the Horn of Africa. We have to correctly grasp our new reality while still being nurtured by the positive culture and values we inherited from our country of origin.
In our modest effort we should be clear not to encourage violence as way of resolving intractable national crisis in our dealing with our former homeland. In our civic endeavor we must make sure we do not reinforce any negative solution that will help this or that subgroup so that we feel temporary victory that will end up in exasperating the overall intractability. In the long run only those who value peace over violence can make lasting contribution to building peace in the Horn of Africa. As a Diaspora community we must be agents of peace. We must stand for democracy, rule of law, justice, human rights and fairness.
In the final analysis like all other immigrants who wish to do their best to help their country of origin we will slowly build our skill level and, whether we like it or not, be absorbed into the American system as Eritrean American, Ethiopian American and Somali American- with the hyphenation as a comforting concession to our African (ancestral) soul. We are citizens of the USA. We are Americans. We have to respect the American Constitution and present our concerns under the protection of the Bill of Rights.
Thank you.
The Horn Of Africa Peace Forum was sponsored by EGS and The African News Journal.
