I saw only 2 of her videos (which I didn’t finish) yesterday and honestly she should’ve kept these in the drafts. I’m familiar with who this person is and how ignorant they can be so I wasn’t expecting much, I’m just surprised about how chill she was in the video. One thing that I’ll say is that I’m glad she brought up the cultural diffusion part, I also kinda agree with her on the whole baati discourse.
People in the Horn of Africa (especially our generation) completely fail to see the heavy amount of cultural diffusion present within these 4 countries. People have always been migrating, settling, mixing, exchanging, having fluid identities....hopefully you guys get the point because this is lowkey hard for me to explain. She’s Ethiopian, but more specifically Oromo, so she should really know this (the Ethiopian culture we think of is literally just components of things from different areas of that country. They’re all mixed, people adopt stuff from each other simply because they like it, that’s literally what Ethiopia is and I’ll never understand the extreme tribalism within that country). People who you are close to will also be the most similar as well HENCE Hararis, Somalis, and Hararghes in Ethiopia being more culturally similar to each other.
Also you have things like Amhara and Oromo Shewans or even the Jarso Somalis and Oromos who didn’t even see each other as different people despite coming from different tribes.
You’ll find Djiboutians and (obviously) Eritreans doing coffee ceremonies which is a practice that came all the way from these little communities in Southern Ethiopia - the point is that the HoA is just a very connected place and I don’t understand why you guys do the absolute most on social media....especially when it comes to particular clothings like baatis and alhindis which aren’t even indigenous to our countries.
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As Somalis, why are we being dishonest with ourselves and calling out “cultural appropriation” knowing damn well we have SOOOOOOOO MUCH influence from other cultures? Like be fr!?
We DO NOT produce or import Baatis, there’s no factories to even make them and we don’t have any textiles or prints. People from around the world wear it and have a specific name for this type of lounge/night wear, yet nobody acts the way Somalis do. Its a very common article of clothing so please dead this discussion and stop bothering people from different backgrounds who can’t even point to where Somalia is.
For Alhindi, even the name itself is enough to know its origins aren’t from Somalia (Al-Hindi). Almost ALL of East Africa wears this fabric. The islands like Madagascar and Comoros have it, so does Kenya and Uganda, even Yemen too! Theres so many different names for it like Kikoi, Shuka, Sahari Na Subaya, Maswa(n) and Mwawou.
Please look into the Omani Empire and Omani-Indian influence on the costal areas and islands of East Africa. In the 19th/20th century this particular fabric was on high demand and its been implemented into a lot of East African cultures. There’s literally books dedicated to the Omani-Indian influence on East Africa and books strictly on the textiles brought to East Africa. You guys literally live in a day and age where information like this is easily accessible!
(Also do you guys notice how its always the costal regions and mixed Somali communities that are the first to be introduced to these clothings and cuisines within the Somali community?)
Somalis originally wore stuff made out of cotton or leather (from animal hide), while using stuff like cowrie shells for decoration. You can still find photos of Somali less than a century ago still wearing it.
And before anyone gets it twisted- obviously cultures change and develop. NO I’m not saying we should stop wearing stuff like macawiis, baatis or alhindi just because it’s foreign! I’m just pointing out the lack of self awareness and ignorance within our community.
I don’t even blame non-Somalis for disliking us atp lol
diversify the gene pool
