Somali Poetry & Culture

For newly founded nations in Africa emerging in the aftermath of European colonialism, cities often evoked suspicion from their new leaders. Although the history of Mogadishu extends well beyond its Italian colonial history, the modes of development and extractive capitalism that helped figure mid-nineteenth-century Mogadishu created ennui for the new regime. Concurrently, however, the impulses to fashion a nation state built on the artificial borders of European colonialism necessitated cities like Mogadishu—cities where the surplus of labor and time could help to catalyze cultural production and concretize the post-WWII conception of nationhood, a conception fundamental to the potential success of the governing regime.

The nation of Somalia comprises two colonial territories—British and Italian Somaliland. However, the Somali people and language extend into parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, an extension that’s created significant tensions throughout the twentieth century, instigating multiple Cold War-era military interventions and a genocide that killed 200,000 Somalis.

Somali culture itself coalesces around a common language—Somali. One of the most documented Cushitic language, Somali language itself comprises multiple dialects that are spoken in different regions of the country. The Somali language has a strong oral history, which has helped to cement Somali identity, while its written history has been constantly rewritten throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, using Arabic, Latin, and proprietary scripts.

The strong oral history is perhaps what both ties Somali identity together and while also presenting challenges to Somali national unity. Examples of this oral history in practice also present opportunities to reflect upon how linguistics both fashion identity and (so far) prevented Somali cultural identity from fitting seamlessly into the structures of nation-state formation.

Somali poet Said Sheikh Samatar examines the “unwritten copyright law” observed by the Somali poetic tradition. While chewing qat, a mildly intoxicating leaf and a staple of Somali culture, a young poet may be questioned by his elders. In one example from John William Johnson’s The Politics of Poetry in the Horn of Africa, a young poet was called a charlatan by an elder. When probed about why, the elder responded, “Because thou claimest what thou hast not laboured for.” The elders then fetched some other elders, who could then recite the poem verbatim, attributing it to Ugaas Nuur, a mid-nineteenth century ruler in northwestern Somalia, not the poet that was claimed. The young poet left in silence and shame. (in Peace and Milk, Drought and War, 228–29).

Because of Somali poetry’s rhythmic and rhyming structure, attributions are relatively easy to maintain within oral tradition. The attributions and subsequent ethnic or clan-based allegiances that are preserved within this structure make it so that Somali poetry preserves a united culture while also maintaining divisions, a challenge that continues to haunt Somali culture and the Somali nation state.

 

Borama Script

Ciismaniya Script