Somali Culture Police (rant)

hayran

hayran

Ride The Lightning
came across this video on my fyp earlier today, this is gonna be a pretty long post

I have several issues with this video, first off this guy is a moron who shouldn't be speaking on these things.

My main gripe with it, which is a wider trend among diaspora cultural discourse is that he appeals to this total nonsensical view of history and human culture.

"baaaah we got it from ajnabi therefore it's not our KULCHA mayne"

nevermind the fact that garbs, food, art, language, religion etc are things that spread from one group to another, cultural exchange has always existed throughout human history and happens today on a mass scale (as evidenced by his own argument itself which finds its root in a western university sometime around the 1960s, not from his "elders").

basically everyone is cool with that because it's the most normal thing ever, japanese use a chinese script, the french and spanish got their language from the romans, the romans copied nearly everything from the greeks you can go on with this stuff, hell everything you associate with imperial ethiopia was made by armenians. no one actually gives a f*ck about where something came from as long as it works

but somalis will be the first to shut you down if you show interest in anything related to your own culture, even if that's what you known your whole life.

bananas? "ummm thats FASCIST actually" (real thing safia aideed said on Xitter last week, not even joking)

bariis? "ooh yeah sorry but thats from india or yemen"

"oh that word isn't somali, it's an arabic loanword or something"
"ok so what's an actual native somali word for this?"
"........"

as for the jouke, even if what he said is true (i don't even care enough to research that, neither should you) the fact is that it was real, people wore it and it's appealing enough for those redditors to try and revive it. end of story. if that many people wore it, it is part of the culture and if people wear it now and in the future it will be somali culture. regardless of where it came from. not everything has to grow off a gob tree to be considered somali culture. maybe you dislike it but don't deny it's existence

how far does this purity spiral go? i've never seen them talk about cambuulo, which is made up of beans that are native to the new world.. if you keep going down this purity rabbit hole all you will have is go' iyo maro and camels which is pretty much all they know. that is just unappealing and turns anyone off. the term "kitsch" isn't low enough to describe that camel fetishization. i'm getting sick of it

this is the somalia i know, f*ck your stupid camels
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V

vivids

woman.
I see the opposite on my fyp. People arguing that xyz is ours and always has been. It’s usually when they’re arguing against yemenis tho. Loanwords are tricky but I think people saying shisheeye instead of ajnabi isn’t bad
 
hayran

hayran

Ride The Lightning
vivids said:
I see the opposite on my fyp. People arguing that xyz is ours and always has been. It’s usually when they’re arguing against yemenis tho. Loanwords are tricky but I think people saying shisheeye instead of ajnabi isn’t bad
Click to expand...
i'm generally in favor of native words and native names. i think lots of money should be poured into our linguistic studies but nitpicking is the most useless shit ever.
 
JamalFarah

JamalFarah

Cultural exchange has always existed and will continue to do so. Cultures assimilate, synthesize, and integrate new concepts and ideas into their practices. This applies to all aspects, from clothing to speech, food, and beyond. This is a positive phenomenon.

The best example is the Japanese. They came into contact with Westerners and learned, copied, adapted, improved, and integrated new technologies, ideas, philosophies, and sciences. Through this synthesis within their culture, Japan has arguably been a significant global power for the last century.

By assimilating and adapting these external influences on their terms, they have made them a part of their own culture.

Conversely, examples of cultures being destroyed or rendered unrecognizable include Native American communities. The stark difference here is that their cultural changes were forced upon them through genocide and mass killings, leading to the loss of languages, histories, and other cultural elements forever.

Is Somali poetry not part of Somali culture because it uses a Somali-adapted Latin script? Clearly, that notion is absurd.

I would argue that certain aspects of Somali culture must change to enable the Somali nation to truly thrive and blossom.

The whole thobe stuff is just cope because it became big in the Western Muslim scenes and has been misinterpreted by non-Arab Muslims. Truth is, non-Arab Muslims see anything Arabic as being inherently good and the way things have to be, regardless of whether it's reinforced by the Qur'an or the Hadiths. If an Arab would watch Naruto before breakfast, non-Arabs would say it's actually a very Islamic, holy thing to do and would blindly follow; it's to the point of self-mutilation.

The thobe is just an article of clothing, but some non-Arabs see it as fancy wear. This is why there is a rise of non-Arabs wearing Arab clothing for special occasions that are viewed by Arabs as just being regular clothes, which is kind of embarrassing.
 
Devilsadvocate

Devilsadvocate

A lot of Korean culture is originally from China or Japan, but it’s been changed to suit them and is now very unique. But you don’t see people say Korean culture isn’t theirs when it is. Every single country has been influenced by another, and it’s not that serious.
 
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