Why is she lying about our culture?

[Burqad]

it is culture though back in those days they married them off quickly like at 15-18, yes the ones that were wealthy got an education who lived in the city but most common folk didn’t educate their girls due to ignorance or culture.

My mother was a goatherder from rural bari and she finished the Quran at 15 and married at 23, average Somali lamagoodle believes that you don’t get to heaven unless you can read, and that applies to women and men.

What type of Somalia are you talking about?

 

[Burqad]

She’s a murtard married to a non-Muslim who groomed her and she’s laundering islamophobic narratives.

 

[Angelina]

Nothing incorrect was said. I only dislike the fact that she is trying to garner sympathy from these gaalo for monetary gain. You can tell she is performing an act.

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Thank you, we have an honest individual here. This topic is incredibly nuanced tbh and I’ll explain further. Issues like rural vs urban, ethnic vs non ethnic, middle class vs working class and even the older vs younger sisters plays a role in the education of women in Somalia in the past.

When that cadcad girl first spoke, my first reaction was like that of everyone else. ‘Why is she speaking for all us Somalis when she’s cadcad, that’s not our culture!’ Until I remembered that during my grandmother’s generation women being educated was seen as a waste of time or even ceeb.

Many on here are only aware of the post colonial and K’aan time period, before that the vast majority of Somali women were illiterate and weren’t encouraged to learn at all.

Key points before anyone attacks me.

1. I’m an ethnic Somali woman with women in their 60s in my family who all went to school. My mother went to school and even uni. Most of my mother’s peers who were middle class city girls aimed to go uni. Girls were encouraged to get a higher education especially for ethnic Somali girls from a middle class background growing up in a big city in the 70s and 80s. We also need to take into account, class and city vs rural as well. My mother’s cousins from the Meey were illiterate and their families thought a girl being educated as being a joke. They’d much rather she fetch water from the well.
Hence we also need to look at class and location within the Somali peninsula rather than just ethnic vs non ethnic Somali.

2.I know Ramla is mostly talking of her community since my mother notes that the cadcad Reer Xamar community did not educate their girls and kept them indoors. My mother and aunts have strong memories of never seeing Cadcad female neighbors being allowed to venture out and be educated ect. When my mother was young, middle class ethnic Somali women would go to the cinema and theater with friends. Cadcad women didn’t have that freedom. So even in Somalia with people living in the same city there were different sub cultures.

3. Yet for ethnic city dwelling Somali women it’s different. I think ethnic Somalis whilst being very patriarchal moved on with the times quicker than Cadcad Reer Xamaris. By the time the older generation women of my family were growing up in the 70s and 80s, such behavior of not allowing any of the girls go school was seen as odd and strange. However I have to note, there were injustices, sometimes it was a prevailing issue of eldest daughters being made to not go school because they would have to help their mothers. So even in the same family, narratives can be different

4. I dislike that Ramla presents this as still being a recent issue because for ethnic Somalis it isn’t. Ethnic Somali girls have been going to school since the late 60s with parents pushing for their daughters.

5. However, we cannot deny that Somali culture was incredibly patriarchal. Women over 75 many of them were denied schooling, some didn’t even attend dugsi and there was a prevailing culture of thinking educating girls isn’t becoming or a waste of time so you even get cases of older sisters being denied an education so that they can slave away at home whilst younger more disposable sisters attend due to being unneeded.

 

[Angelina]

@Burqad

You’re a liar if you try and come for me.

All the women in my family under 70 are educated. I do not deny that ethnic Somali women raised in the late 60s, 70s and 80s were encouraged to be educated, however before that many young women were not encouraged and were thus illerate.

Siyad Barre literally had a program called ‘Isbara’ that was the nickname for it in which young adults held classes for older women so that they can learn to read. My own father was part of the program. Special emphasis on women – Women in nomadic and farming communities were a primary target group, since literacy rates among them were especially low.

As much as I hate people that lie negatively about Somalis and portray them in a harsher light, I also hate liars and dislike people ignorant of their history and try to brush reality under the carpet.

What I said isn’t shameful at all. Somalia was in fact more progressive and advanced than most Arab and other Muslim societies with regards to women in schools and public spaces. But what I also noted is true.

 

[Burqad]

@Burqad

You’re a liar if you try and come for me.

All the women in my family under 70 are educated. I do not deny that ethnic Somali women raised in the late 60s, 70s and 80s were encouraged to be educated, however before that many young women were not encouraged and were thus illerate.

Siyad Barre literally had a program called ‘Isbara’ that was the nickname for it in which young adults held classes for older women so that they can learn to read. My own father was part of the program. Special emphasis on women – Women in nomadic and farming communities were a primary target group, since literacy rates among them were especially low.

As much as I hate people that lie negatively about Somalis and portray them in a harsher light, I also hate liars of people ignorant of his history and try to brush reality under the carpet.

What I said isn’t shameful at all. Somalia was in fact more progressive and advanced than most Arab and other Muslim societies with regards to women in schools and public spaces. But what I also noted is true.

you are an urban xamari, one of the few things the rural geeljere is better on than the urbanites is female education, every women in my family was educated at least as much as the men were.

 

[Angelina]

you are an urban xamari, one of the few things the rural geeljere is better on than the urbanites is female education, every women in my family was educated at least as much as the men were.

You silly man. My mother and all the women apart from my grandmothers and great aunts in my family went to high school with some even attending university. It was due to them being an urban ethnic middle class Somali from a major city during the K’aan period as to why they are more educated than other Somali women. I am not cadcad.

It is a fact if you know anything about the K’aan period, reer Meey women were in fact the most illiterate. That is why Siyad Barre had a lot of literacy campaigns targeting the rural community especially the females.The women in those communities even had a lower dugsi attendance forget schooling.

Also, my grandmothers are in fact NOT city women. They came to the city as teens but they’re rural geelgire women and they couldn’t read at all until later in life via attending schooling for older women after having kids in Xamar. One of my grandmothers simply memorized some Surahs. She couldn’t even read Arabic.

Do not speak to me like I’m cadcad. They had a different sub culture that didn’t reflect the vast majority of Somalis living in Xamar.

 

[Burqad]

You silly man. My mother and all the women apart from my grandmothers and great aunts in my family went to high school with some even attending university. It was due to them being an urban ethnic middle class Somali from a major city during the K’aan period as to why they are more educated than other Somali women. I am not cadcad.

It is a fact if you know anything about the K’aan period, reer Meey women were in fact the most illiterate. That is why Siyad Barre had a lot of literacy campaigns targeting the rural community especially the females.The women in those communities even had a lower dugsi attendance forget schooling.

Also, my grandmothers are in fact NOT city women. They came to the city as teens but they’re rural geelgire women and they couldn’t read at all until later in life via attending schooling for older women after having kids in Xamar. One of my grandmothers simply memorized some Surahs. She couldn’t even read Arabic.

Do not speak to me like I’m cadcad. They had a different sub culture that didn’t reflect the vast majority of Somalis living in Xamar.

Anyone living south of Galkayo is a xamari to some people. In the region I’m from my great grandmother and my grandmother were well-educated. Somaliweyne is a big country.

 

[Angelina]

Anyone living south of Galkayo is a xamari to some

Stop being dumb. Xamar is Xamar and a rural camel herder living in the South or central Somalia has got nothing to with Xamar nor are they urban.

people. In the region I’m from my great grandmother and my grandmother were well-educated. Somaliweyne is a big country.

Saxib, the most illiterate were the reer Meey for both men and women. This isn’t something you can deny. We have enough data and texts from that time period to support this. We don’t need your fantasy. We even have Northerners on this very thread who have mothers over 50 who were never educated. Literally two posters who are from the North have said this.

Xamar is a city. People that were nomadic roaming with camels are geelgires regardless of whether they’re Northern or Southern hence you need to stop shifting the goal post and the fact that you’re using this argument shows me you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Plus you have no idea where my grandmothers are from. I said they came to Xamar as teens. Post colonialism, Somalis from all regions were coming into the city.

 

[Burqad]

Stop being dumb. Xamar is Xamar and a rural camel herder living in the South or central Somalia has got nothing to with Xamar nor are they urban.

Saxib, the most illiterate were the reer Meey for both men and women. This isn’t something you can deny. We have enough data and texts from that time period to support this. We don’t need your fantasy. We even have Northerners on this very thread who have mothers over 50 who were never educated. Literally two posters who are from the North have said this.

Xamar is a city. People that were nomadic roaming with camels are geelgires regardless of whether they’re Northern or Southern hence you need to stop shifting the goal post and the fact that you’re using this argument shows me you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Plus you have no idea where my grandmothers are from. I said they came to Xamar as teens. Post colonialism, Somalis from all regions were coming into the city.

Anything south of the Tomaselli line was Xamar historically to my family. All the female members of my family and many of our cousins were well educated. You need to make a distinction between culturally not wanting to educate girls and not being able to afford to educate them as well.

 

[Angelina]

Anything south of the Tomaselli line was Xamar historically to my family.

Xamar is a major city. Hence what your family think is irrelevant. If your family think a random grazing spot with camels 70km away from Xamar is Xamar than I will question this so called education you talk about. It’s like someone from Liverpool saying that a tiny town outside of Birmingham is London because anything below Sheffield is London.

Also, I have to note, what you’re saying is a joke and you know it. It’s funny how as a Northerner, your people knew where precisely Xamar was as that is where many would run to for jobs and better pay. You’re not fooling anyone. In the 70s and 80s, nearly every single qabil was found in Xamar.

All the female members of my family and many of our cousins were well educated. You need to make a distinction between culturally not wanting to educate girls and not being able to afford to educate them as well.

If you’ve bothered to read my post, I made the distinction. I talk about the nuance of it deeply. I talk about the different factors.

 

[sh-89]

Some of the minorities have a different view on these things.. She’s benadiri (cadcad). The mobility and participation in public life of their women was limited pre-war and still is (from what I’ve heard). There’s a famous benadiri makeup artist called Maryan Ahmedey that discusses this.

The tribes have different experiences. Reer xamar or similar groups do not have our culture and are more similar to Arabs etc. Somalis don't tend to enforce assimilation. There different groups who reside there and they have different daqan. Imo they are similar to other M.E, and don't have the Somali nomad/free culture with poetry/gabay etc. There culture just reminds me of Saudis, Yemenis etc. One my friends would say she was arab and people used bully her for it, but she was right, she was not like the rest of us. They did cousin marriages, imo reminded me of Sudanese, Kenyan tribes mixed with arab not Somali.