Ok, I don’t know if this is a typo or what, but it’s definitely perplexing – at least for me. First of all, I acknowledge that minority groups are persecuted very badly in Somalia and that is not a new thing. It has been happening for as long as Somalia existed. In fact, most of us Somalis (including myself) are not native to Somalia. We just popped up to the coast, and spread to the hinterland. As it has been said, the Bantus are the indigenous people of Somalia. I don’t remember other groups of the top of my head. Correct me if I’m wrong. Ok, enough with the history lesson. So why am I perplexed, you ask?
Well, I just came across this article on the BBC online, talking about a report released by the Minority Rights Group International which says Somalia is the worst country for minorities to live in, ahead of Iraq, Sudan, and Israel. Mind you, I’m not perplexed at why Somalia is the worst country for minorities to live in, but rather the report writes only one paragraph about this important issue! One fucking paragraph! One paragraph for the country they just named “The most dangerous place in the world for minorities.” Are you kidding me? I can write a master’s thesis on this. Yet they give me a one lousy paragraph that they plagiarized from news reports. Give me a break!
Ok, I can give them a pass for only giving one paragraph to such an important subject, which they made it super-important themselves. But what I can’t forgive them is to write, “the Darood, Hawiye and Issaq clans are under threat.” Huh? did they just write that? Have these people ever been to Somalia? Or did they just cook up this report at Fox Noise Channel (think of Rupert Murdoch)? I know I’m not well versed in clan/qabiil issues – I just never bothered with it. But as much as I’m less informed about qabiil in Somalia, I definitely know that the aforementioned groups are no minorities or under threat from anyone. Do these people even know that Darood, Hawiye, and Issaq are the three biggest tribes in Somalia?
It’s a shame that they didn’t get the right groups to speak for – the truly repressed and near extinction minorities of Somalia. At least they managed to include the Bantus at the end as if it’s a footnote to their useless paragraph.
The East African Philosopher 
I just wanted to correct you the issaw, darood, and hawiye I don’t how to spell that aren’t tribes beacuse to be considered a tribe it has to have its own culture, lanugage, and customs. So instead of calling them tribes I justed wanted to tell you the word your looking for is clans.
Somalia cant be the worst place for minorities since there is targeted or systemic discrimination. Unlike places like Israel, USA, Russia, most of the arab world and eastern europe, no one will wake up in somalia and just go and kill a somali bantu no reason other than for being somali bantu … This happens in other countries, in russia, people get killied just because they are black, in Israel, you are shot dead just because you are an arab and in Iraq, guys get killied just because they are sunni or christian. I say these doesnt happen in Somalia…and if it happens, they are very rare and isolated incidents.
The part about Isaaq, Hawiye and Darood being under threat just shows the makers of these report never went to the field to verify their claims…I guess it is just part of getting some money from the donors so they want to show that they are really working by Just writing a report and include the world’s hotspots and if you are not from one of these countries, you’ll really believe it.
I meant that there is no targeted discrimination…
Anonymous,
Uhm, Daarood and Hawiye are tribes, not clans. Clans come UNDER tribe, so one Hawiye clan would be Habr Gidir or Abgal, and Mareexan or Majeerteen would a clan of Daarood. Obviously, there will be hundreds of sub-clans in each clan. As for Issaq, I do not know whether they’re Darood clan or a tribe all by itself. If you find out more, please share with us.
Wasmaniac,
I’m 100% sure the writers of this report did not even come to your neck of the wood, much less than Somalia. Otherwise they would have known such a basic fact of the groups they said are “under” threat. So that leads me to conclude that they have no evidence to support their claim of Somalia being the worst place minorities to live because as you mentioned, no Somali person goes out to attack or murder a minority person just because they’re a particular group – their claim is baseless. What infuriated me the most was how little research and effort they devoted to this claim, so your right that they only want to show their donors that they’re doing work by putting together some cooked up report that is absolutely ludicrous.
Om,
You don’t need much to spew nonsense about so-called third world countries. You just need a fancy ‘watchdog’ title, some money from western governments and unethical media outlets to spread your nonsense. I was laughing hysterically at the absurd claims and wondering why western countries with significant (but unofficial racial policies) are not in the top of this ridiculous list.