Examples are Aden Duale, who became the Majority Leader of the National Assembly, Amina Mohammed Jibril, Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Adan Mohammed, Cabinet Secretary for Industrialization. Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). Kenyan Somalis seem to be ambiguous in both of them. )transmission/distribution losses: 2.724 billion kWh (2019 est. Ogden is currently growing at a rate of 0.08% annually and its population has increased by 0.25% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 86,726 in 2020. 14. This status was similar to that of Nubians, see Sarre, The Nubians of Kibera.. 107.53 million vs 49.36 million 49.74$ billion higher GDP (PPP)? Abdullahi, who is in his mid-40s, sees himself first and foremost as Kenyan. About 95% of them are Muslim. ), water pollution from urban and industrial wastes; water shortage and degraded water quality from increased use of pesticides and fertilizers; flooding; water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; poaching, party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping-London Convention, Marine Dumping-London Protocol, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whalingsigned, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements, particulate matter emissions: 25.85 micrograms per cubic meter (2016 est. Changing fortunes in Ethiopia's Ogaden | Features | Al Jazeera The establishment of Jubbaland in 2013 cemented the return of Ogaden political relevance to Somalia. Yuval-Davis, Intersectionality, Citizenship, 563. According to Human Rights Watch in 2008, the Ogaden is the largest Darod clan in Ethiopia's Somali Region, and may account for 40 to 50 percent of the Somali population in Ethiopia. Burns, Feeling the Pinch; HRW, Death and Disappearances, 14, Lind et al., Killing a Mosquito, 2, 10. )$4,500 (2020 est. The successful candidate must secure 25% of votes in more than half of the counties, turning northeastern counties into swing regions. In the colonial classification, urbanized alien Somalis neither counted as European, nor as truly Asian or as clearly African, but as something in between, not fitting the categories. )crude oil and lease condensate imports: 0 bbl/day (2018 est. 11. The situation of an Ogaden born in Kenya is very different from the one of an Ogaden born in Kismayo from one born in Region 5. 40. ), English (official), Kiswahili (official), numerous indigenous languagesmajor-language sample(s): The World Factbook, the indispensable source for basic information. Why Ogaden War [8] In particular, the ONLF operates in Ogaden areas. Somali Entrepreneurs in Kenya Have Transformed the Informal Retail Economy in Substantive Ways, MPI for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, in Association with Cityscapes Magazine, Territorializing Ethnicity: the Imposition of a Model of Statehood on Pastoralists in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. )subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 123 (2021 est. ), revenues: $16.885 billion (2019 est. )-0.25% (2020 est. Typically, the concrete emergence of stubborn informalities is handled [] by a range of delegitimizing and criminalizing discourses. Chau, The Fourth Point, 308. The British labelled Somalis coming from British Somaliland and Aden the Alien Somali,Footnote13 a term later frequently used to describe all urbanized Somalis, excluding them from the general definition of native.Footnote14 This categorization as non-native not only resulted from their intermediary status in the socio-economic hierarchy due to their service to the colonial state,Footnote15 but also from their own attempts to be treated as Asians, set apart from the African population.Footnote16, After independence, the Kenyan state continued to treat Somalis as not quite belonging to the state. 44. Despite the project developing very slowly and the envisioned wall having mutated into a fence,Footnote76 this structure could have effects on the living conditions for Kenyan Somalis inhabiting the northeastern region, many of whom still earn their living through pastoralism. Created in 1994, 3 it has an official population of 4.5 million, 4 predominantly ethnic Somalis, Ethiopia's third largest nationality (around 6.2 per cent), and "roughly one-third of the widely . On the one hand Kenyan Somalis are in a particularly vulnerable position as they are under threat of arrest and deportation, on the other hand they are perceived as overwhelming in numbers and as more dangerous to the status quo due to their greater visibility in the economic and political sphere. Talking Peace in the Ogaden. In 2013, the elections fostered a co-optation of the Kenyan Somali population; at the same time, they were the focus of a securitization discourse, which in turn resulted in another alienation of the Somali population of Kenya. In the case of Kenyan Somalis, this notion is further complicated. 55. However, fellow Kenyans at times treat him essentially as (ethnic) Somali. The term Somali is used as an umbrella term, applied to a very heterogeneous population. Almost 40% of Kenyans are under the age of 15 as of 2020 because of sustained high fertility, early marriage and childbearing, and an unmet need for family planning. With his brothers, he plans to start an agricultural business. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The practices around the issuance of identity papers, the discrimination through vetting processes, as well as the forgery of papers, led to hopes that the introduction of biometric databases could make the registration and recognition process more transparent. Since Kenyas independence in 1963, the question of how to incorporate the heterogenous parts of its society has been a vital issue. )5.73% (2020 est. ), total: 20 yearsmale: 19.9 yearsfemale: 20.1 years (2020 est. See also Menkhaus, Conflict Assessment, 94 and 110. Which Countries Border Ethiopia? - WorldAtlas We are one Kenya: Representations of the Nation, Leadership, and de-Ethnicized Identity on Reality TV, The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 193641, The Unaccountable Census: Colonial Enumeration and Its Implications for the Somali People of Kenya, A New Model Village. Weitzberg, The Unaccountable Census.. Ambiguous citizens: Kenyan Somalis and . Making citizens in Kenya after the post-election violence of 20072008, Race and cultural citizenship as two dimensions of Kenyanness, Conclusion: Kenyan Somalis and the question of belonging, http://www.unhcr.org/ke/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/01/Kenya-Operation-Factsheet-December-2017-.pdf, http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Kenyan-Somalis-treated-like-second-class-citizens-/440808-2277348-pj74alz/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/lifestyle/Echoes-of-nationhood-in-the-Silent-Room/1214-3046604-shee9bz/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Census-data-on-Kenyan-Asians-raises-more-questions-than-answers-/440808-1004396-v1yqaw/index.html, www.knbs.or.ke/index.php?Option=com_content&view=article&id=151:ethnic-affiliation&catid=112&Itemid=638, http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Letters/440806-639674-8crbl7z/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/news/How-North-Eastern-figures-went-wrong-/1056-1001530-1d3tow/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/news/High-Court-cancels-closure-of-Dabaab/1056-3806030-7enmgdz/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/news/-Dadaab-Uhuru-Kenyatta-UN-Antonio-Guterres/1056-3841890-2qvff6z/index.html, http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/mandera/Kenya-Somalia-border-fence/1183298-3472166-hyn3f6z/, http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Security-laws-illegal-declares-High-Court/1064-2633342-jw2qp1/index.html, http://securityassistance.org/data/country/military/country/2011/2018/is_all/Africa, http://www.nation.co.ke/news/How-Abdul-Haji-rescued-Westgate-hostages/1056-2007316-5ol57g/index.html, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/kenya0716web_1.pdf, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/insult_to_injury.pdf. )percent of population: 29% (2021 est. 57. )female: 2.7% (2020 est. Numbering 2.4 million, they were now the sixth biggest ethnic group. 39. This paper deals with the first two categories, Kenyan Somalis who have a well-founded claim to Kenyan citizenship. ), production: 0 metric tons (2020 est. 72. It also evokes the oscillating political treatment of Kenyan Somalis by the state, and the manifold ways in which Kenyan Somalis react to it. Meeting Kenyan Somalis from the northeastern part of the country, where Somali is spoken more frequently, can lead to a feeling of double exclusion: to be neither accepted as Somali nor to be able to claim belonging to any other Kenyan ethnic group. For Somalians, Kenyan Somalis are Somali sijui, Somali who do not know (neither Somali language nor culture), brothers and sisters, but not real Somalis. This inability to speak Somali was true even though Abdullahis brothers mainly lived within Somali circles: their closest contacts were members of the extended kin network and of their own clan and the flat in which Abdullahi was living was situated in a Somali middle class neighbourhood. 13. Cheesman et al., Decentralisation in Kenya, 15. One of the biggest took place in April 2014 as usalama watch (security watch), when police went to urban neighbourhoods where ethnic Somalis live to arrest foreign nationals and terrorism suspects.Footnote74 The government also used extra-judicial killings and disappearances mainly in the northeastern region, returning to strategies employed under emergency regulations.Footnote75 Thirdly, the border to Somalia was temporarily closed and in 2015 Kenya started to build a wall along it. Fifty years of abuse and neglect is too long to endure. Ambiguous citizenship, as a concept, not only hints at the changing politics of the Kenyan state concerning its Somali citizens and the manifold ways in which Kenyan Somalis react to it, but it also takes into consideration the various roles Kenyan Somalis play in society. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Fact Sheet, Kenya (01-31 December 2017). McIntosh, Autochthony and Family, 265. 29.6% vs 36.1% 2.22x higher real GDP growth rate? Interview with Cawo, Kopenhagen, August 2015. Concerning Somali shopping centres see Scharrer and Carrier, Giving Informality Room.. Kenyan Somalis, however, likewise reinforce notions of being different when calling their neighbours Africans.Footnote86 This can be read as a colonial legacy, the struggle of urbanized Somalis to be treated like Asians, but it can also be interpreted as a racial marker.Footnote87, Lonsdale noted that the slogan for national unity under Kibaki, Kenya: A Working Nation, also divided the population: Since some work is thought to be morally superior to others some Kenyans are more Kenyan than others.Footnote88 According to him the definition of Kenyanness is linked to idioms of connection to land evolving from the long-standing competition between farming and herding, between working and controling the land. Interview with Ibrahim, Nairobi, September 2010. Even the existence of Somali heroes, as seen in the Westgate Mall AttackFootnote100 or initiatives against that image (#KenyaImNotATerrorist)Footnote101 do not seem to change this picture. )consumption: 0 cubic meters (2021 est. Anderson, Remembering Wagalla, 662663. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kenyans pursued higher education in the UK because of colonial ties, but as British immigration rules tightened, the US, the then Soviet Union, and Canada became attractive study destinations. Visit the Definitions and Notes page to view a description of each topic. While they have been treated as ambiguous citizens since independence, many think of themselves as Kenyans and at least in the last decade, Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland have not been central points of reference for many. 94. The region has an estimated population of about 4.5 million. )5.24% (2019 est.). In the last decade, the government has slowly become more attentive to this region, for instance by the establishment of a Ministry of Northern Kenya and other Arid Areas in 2008.Footnote35 In addition, in 2009, the LAPSSET (Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport) project was announced, aiming at the creation of a infrastructure network linking the northern regions to central Kenya and therefore ideally becoming a means through which northerners could be drawn into the nation proper.Footnote36, The immigration of Somalian refugees enabled more contacts between Kenyan Somalis and Somalians, yet it also led Kenyan Somalis to realign questions of Kenyanness and belonging. 106. With access to education, healthcare, and technology, Kenya is poised for exponential growth. The intriguing conflicts which have been smoldering for a long period in the Horn of Africa erupted as Somalia invaded Ethiopia's Ogaden Province through subversion and direct aggression in an. Aminas father came from Baidoa, Somalia, and married her mother in Mombasa in 1990. (Kiswahili), Christian 85.5% (Protestant 33.4%, Catholic 20.6%, Evangelical 20.4%, African Instituted Churches 7%, other Christian 4.1%), Muslim 10.9%, other 1.8%, none 1.6%,don'tknow/no answer0.2% (2019 est.). 68. Many Kenyan Somalis are tired of these improvised solutions and want to be treated as any other Kenyan.Footnote47 Furthermore, as the ID is associated with citizenship, lack of ID means that, in the eyes of the majority, those without do not belong.Footnote48. Our background is more or less the same. )wind: 10.7% of total installed capacity (2020 est. I argue that many Kenyan Somalis are ready to take this possibility up, if they have the chance to do so. 90. )imports: 822,000 metric tons (2020 est. My thanks go to James Carrier, David OKane, John Eidson and Keren Weitzberg for their fruitful comments and to Fatma A. Hassan for her help during fieldwork in Kenya. Precursors of this paper were presented at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies in December 2013 and the Somali Studies Conference in Helsinki in 2015. These social networks, therefore, not only separate Kenyan Somalis from fellow Kenyans, but also from Somalians. 76. Remembering the Ogaden War 45 Years Later: Four and a Half Lessons As a result, this area remained separated from the rest of Kenya and was ruled under emergency regulations. The changed mode of the presidential election also introduced new competitive elements. Ogden, Utah Population 2023 - worldpopulationreview.com ), Kenyan shillings (KES) per US dollar -109.638 (2021 est. The Ogaden is the historical name for much of the current SNRS. Letter of the chief secretary Turnbull to the Secretary of the East African Ishakia Association, July 1955; ADM 15/1/14/87A (Kenya National Archives, Nakuru). 10. The term furthermore encompasses the diverse roles in which Kenyan Somalis can find themselves: as marginalized citizens in the northeastern region, as high-ranking politicians, as businesspeople in the metropoles and as urbanized (lower) middle class Kenyans. Morgan, "Ethnic Geography of Kenya," 79. This relevance is reflected in arguments about the census, taken every 10 years. Abyssinia of eastern Africa. The Ongoing Struggle for Kenya and Ethiopia's, Is There a Solution? East African Countries - WorldAtlas ), -0.19 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023 est. Not only are they singled out by the police because of their physical appearance, but when walking along the street people whisper terms like warya,Footnote85 strengthening feelings of not-quite belonging. 112. This argument was already raised in 1974 during a discussion about the motion Compulsary birth registration for Isiolo and Marsabit Somali (Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, May 17, 1974, p. 1408). Wiesmann, Kiteme and Mwangi, Socio-Economic Atlas, 122128. There is a kind of national excitement coming with the elections they can be regarded as a national ritual in which the residents of Kenya fully participate.Footnote63 This is also the case for the northeastern region, despite the low voter registration in these counties, standing at 32.25% in Wajir, Mandera and Garissa,Footnote64 compared to 66% for overall Kenyan.Footnote65 Although Carrier and Kochore do not explain this low registration, it appears to result from a mixture of factors, from the complicated registration processes in remote areas, difficulties in acquiring identification documents for Kenyan Somalis to flawed population estimations. )imports of goods and services: -25.5% (2017 est. 51. The Nubians of Kibera Revisited: Detribalized Natives, Slum Dwellers, Middle Class? Similar living experiences can also result from internal migration, often for educational reasons or because of work. Interview with Mzee Jamal, November 2010. According to a Somali MP (interviewed in September 2014), about 100,000 Somalians were living in Eastleigh (Nairobi) alone, many of them not registered. This is especially pronounced in the case of urbanized Somalis living outside the northeastern region. Otherwise the background can have a very big impact on somebodys life.Footnote95. ), 17.709 million metric tonnes of CO2 (2019 est. )$233.852 billion (2020 est. The main part of the data, consisting of open and structured interviews (such as social network interviews) as well as participant observation, was collected in several periods of extended field research since 2010 mainly in urban Somali neighbourhoods, Somali shopping centres, and Islamic institutions. Kenya has experienced dramatic population growth since the mid-20th century as a result of its high birth rate and its declining mortality rate. P. Leftie and J. Otieno, How North Eastern Figures Went Wrong, Daily Nation, 1 September 2010. http://www.nation.co.ke/news/How-North-Eastern-figures-went-wrong-/1056-1001530-1d3tow/index.html. 100. note: data are in current year dollars$9.709 billion (2020 est.) )crude oil and lease condensate exports: 0 bbl/day (2018 est. )-$4.792 billion (2020 est. )subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: (2021 est.) Simultaneously, Islam can serve as a means for claiming entitlement for higher positions in Kenyan society, a significant argument in consideration of actors with an overtly Christian commitment standing at the core of Kenyan politics. ), lowest 10%: 1.8%highest 10%: 37.8% (2005), 3.42% of GDP (2021 est. 104. Walaal means sister or brother in Somali and is, similar to warya, a reminder of difference. AIAI's goal was to establish an Islamic government in Somalia and the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. In 1884, the British declared that the Ogaden region belonged to Ethiopia, but Kenya refused to recognize this decision. While the government aimed at confining Somalian refugees to camps far away from central Kenya, it lifted the emergency regulations governing the North Eastern Province in 1991.Footnote32 This move, which allowed more Kenyan Somalis to take part in the countrys socio-political structures, was not only inspired by constitutional reforms in the 1990s and the introduction of multi-party politics, but probably also out of fear that the conflict in Somalia could spill over into Kenya.Footnote33, The crisis in Somalia and the changes in the Kenyan political framework (in combination with a drought) resulted in a transformation of the economic and political structures in the northeastern territories. Cheeseman et al., Decentralisation in Kenya, 3. ), -$5.744 billion (2021 est. Administrative boundaries and names changed over time. Even though other communities, such as Maasai, Kalenjin, or Luo likewise spread over national borders, Kenyan Somali Members of Parliament lamented repeatedly that Kenya treats its Somali citizens differently than those other groups.Footnote90 The notion of pastoralism can, however, also serve as a binding element, as the elections 2013 showed. 10.9% vs 4.9% 36.62% lower obesity rate among adults? See for instance, Soysal, Limits of Citizenship; Al-Sharmani and Horst, Marginal Actors?. While she described the first and the third group as being closed, she depicted Kenyan Somalis as open. Her mother grew up in Garissa in northeastern Kenya. 96. Although some of these instruments potentially open new spaces for the socio-political involvement of the Somali inhabitants of Kenya, those spaces are constricted by securitization discourses persistent othering of Kenyas Somali communities. )101.302 (2018 est. This notion laid the basis for rendering all Kenyan Somalis as non-native Africans after independence.Footnote81 In the late 1990s and early 2000s Somali Members of Parliament spoke about a policy of apartheid and of biological nationalism.Footnote82 The only other group having such an in-between status are Nubians,Footnote83 who have to go through a similar vetting process when applying for national identification documents, which includes not only the presentation of numerous documents (such as parents birth certificates), but also the recognition by a chief to indeed belong to the local community.Footnote84, The racial component also plays out in the daily life of Kenyan Somalis. )spirits: 0.81 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est. ), household consumption: 79.5% (2017 est. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article in part or whole. )government consumption: 14.3% (2017 est. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. During the Wagalla massacre in 1984, for instance, between 1,000 and 5,000 Somalis were killed by security personnel, demonstrating a continuity of military and state policy towards the north.Footnote23 Yet despite the violence of the Kenyan state in the northeastern region, Lewis could write in the late 1980s The large Somali community in Northern Kenyatends tobe quite firmly integrated into Kenya.Footnote24. The most credible attempt at talks to end decades of armed conflict in Ogaden may soon . ), $29.289 billion (2019 est. KHRC, Foreigners at home, 42. Overall NFD population is 2.2 million. Their perception of religious, economic and political marginalization partly derives from the feeling of lost power, which emerged with colonialism and intensified after independence. These clashes revived the discussion over what it means to be Kenyan, yet who is imagined as belonging to the nation, and to what degree, remains a situational matter. ), 5.74% (2021 est. Kenyan Somalis are not the only ambiguous citizens of Kenya. The majority of ethnic Somalis lived in the eastern half of the Northern Frontier District (NFD),Footnote11 a semi-arid region governed as a closed district by the British, keeping its mainly pastoral inhabitants away from the southern part of the colony.Footnote12 Outside of the Northern Frontier District ethnic Somalis, mainly from British Somaliland, were living in the newly developed towns. 52. Lonsdale, Soil, Work, Civilization, 309. Lochery, Rendering Difference Visible, 617. In such families, members can often understand Somali, but do not speak it properly. Ethnicity is a highly relevant category for political discussions and practices in Kenya, not only during elections, but also, for example, for the allocation of positions in the public sector. Almost 40% of Kenyans are under the age of 15 as of 2020 because of sustained high fertility, early marriage and childbearing, and an unmet need for family planning. 1. Ceuppens and Geschiere, Autochthony: Local Or Global.. ), improved: urban: 84% of populationrural: 48.1% of populationtotal: 58.2% of populationunimproved: urban: 16% of populationrural: 51.9% of populationtotal: 41.8% of population (2020 est. North Eastern Province (Kenya) - Wikipedia Daily Nation, Security laws illegal, declares High Court, 23 February 2015. http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Security-laws-illegal-declares-High-Court/1064-2633342-jw2qp1/index.html. 78. He now lives there with a Kikuyu woman and their young daughter. In the 1970s, Somalia, supported by the United States, invaded Ethiopia, igniting the Ogaden War, which Somalia lost due to timely military intervention from the Soviet Union and its ally Cuba. )consumption: 8.243 billion kWh (2019 est. Both of them, as good Muslims, did not go out to bars, but instead played video games in the evening and enjoyed Somali music. Both of his parents come from families urbanized during colonial times. This paper deals with the way the politics of belonging have been enacted in Kenya in the last decade and what this has meant for Kenyan Somalis.
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