In connection with the June Exhibition 2026: Shifting Coordinates, newly commissioned texts grounded in the participants’ practices and reflections will collectively form a contemporary and situated anthology that opens for further reflection. The texts are can be read here and in the exhibition.
Writers: Daría Sól Andrews, Haweya Jama, Khanyisile Mbongwa and Lara Okafor.
Editor: Muna Jibril
FORTY THREE THOUSAND SOMALIS LIVE IN NORWAY. Our presence is due to the brutal civil war that broke out after the dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, as well as the famine that drove even more out of the country in the early 2000s. The movement of Somalis across the globe is, however, not only due to war. Somalis are known to be a nomadic people; a lifestyle that is said to have arisen due to the weather conditions in the Horn of Africa, where herders wandered to find pasture and water for their animals. The long coastline is dotted with port cities that sprouted thanks to the monsoon over the Indian Ocean, which drove traders from the Arabian Peninsula, India, and China to shore [2]. During the European colonial rule, these port cities became sites for Somali seafarers, who found work on various merchant ships [3].
Forced and voluntary migration are quite different phenomena. Yet, I suspect that if you dig deep enough, the different forms of migration are at their core driven by the same restlessness. Perhaps herders, traders, and refugees leave for different reasons, but move towards the same destination?
Dabandid Yusuf, researcher and founder of the journal Gobanimo, believes that Somalis move towards dignity [4]. Yusuf is inspired by the poet and philosopher Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, better known as Hadraawi[5]. Hadraawi believed that dignity is the space to develop one’s ambitions and needs in line with one’s will. Movement therefore occurs when this necessary space for self-development disappears, whether the circumstances are poor pasture or civil war. Just as the planets orbit the sun, Somalis move in orbit around a dignified life.
Such an upheaval requires enormous adaptability. For Somalis, to adapt does not necessarily mean blending seamlessly into their new circumstances, but rather maintaining a steadfast and proud exterior. Hard ears are not easily subdued. The combination of a nomadic lifestyle and this steadfastness, I believe, forms the contours of Somalinimo, that is, Being-Somali. What is Somalinimo in practice? In the essay “On Particular Lumps”, the British-Somali writer Momtaza Mehri explores this very question:
“Somalinimo manifests in various symptoms. It naturalises itself, presenting as stubborn pride, delusions of grandeur, a celebration of the mythologised haughtiness observed by Arab explorers, European colonisers and Western anthropologists, the residual legacies of the Indian Ocean slave trade and its organisation of blackness, the tortured relationship of dispersed Horners to global Africanity, an ease with transience, the single-mindedness of the pastoralist and the mercenary guile of the seafarer, insularity, a hardened exterior, a wicked sense of humour, tolerance of the intolerable, the compartmentalisation of tragedy, diminished expectations, deferred dreams, large-heartedness, playful cynicism, bitter hope, communal self-obsession, revenge fantasies, deep reservoirs of generosity, resourcefulness, intense temperamentality, quiet patience, the valorisation of strength and an impatience with fragility, and the appreciation of Odysseusian cunning. The geesinimo of geeska Africa.” [6]
Given how many Somalis live in Norway, one might assume there would be a broad understanding that, as Mehri describes, we are a multifaceted people. This is not the case. We are regularly referred to as loud welfare swindlers, violent dwellers of Vatlandsparken, mentally unstable jihadists, and clan-obsessed misogynists. Underneath these caricatured descriptions of Somalis, there is an assumption that our presence here in Norway is paradoxical. Researcher and social anthropologist Dubie Toa-Kwapong notes how Africans are expected to be grateful because we have been welcomed into a country where we are geographically inappropriate[7]. She borrows from Canadian Katherine McKittrick, who has observed that the cold Canadian climate is believed to be fundamentally incompatible with black people, who supposedly belong in a tropical climate[8]. This logic seems to indicate that we are more suited to living under war, famine, and the noose of neo-colonialism [9] than in -15 °C.
Many forces have been mobilized to keep Somalis from moving. In 2014, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security launched an extensive information campaign in the largest cities in Somalia. The message was not to warn about the dangers associated with the journey across the Mediterranean (dangers that are meticulously orchestrated by European authorities), but that being an asylum seeker in Norway is so difficult that it is not worth the trip. In the illustrated booklet Irregular Migration: Truths and Misconceptions, we meet the fictional character Hassan, who is a Somali migrant in Norway [10]. He is denied health care, experiences gross racism, and ends up sleeping outside on a bench. Flipping through the booklet, it is as if the Norwegian government is adorning itself with its own systematic failures and racist discrimination, which it otherwise denies exist in all other contexts. [11]
Fanonian professor Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan points out how individuals are made responsible for sorting out the mess racism creates in our minds [12]. Psychology may obscure the power relations that breed these ailments. Racialized individuals are convinced that dignity is something they are rewarded with after distancing themselves from their cultural heritage. In other words, being treated with respect is not a basic right, but something to be earned through assimilation — a form of self-betrayal that is turned into a routine. “You have to be twice as good to get half as much” is a well-known idea among minorities. What is often left out is how you are left twice as disappointed when this effort is not recognized. Shame seeps into the body, leaving you emaciated and alienated [13]. For Bulhan, the solution to minority stress is not better coping techniques but rather societal upheaval.
One might wonder how Somalis still manage to maintain their hardheaded disposition. As Mehri points out, a kind of self-assured brazenness is found where you would expect an inferiority complex [14]. Somalis use idioms and expressions to maintain this steadfastness. It is a collective effort; we are all responsible for each other's hardened exterior. Naag nool iska dhig. Baahi iyo baryo badan waa laysku nacaa. Somalinimo is to perform ontological repair; telling our loved ones to toughen up, uproots the self-loathing racism plants in our consciousness.
Somalinimo also involves cunning. You don't stand still long enough for someone to get a good look at you because you don't trust the conclusions they draw from what they observe. Someone might whip out a caliper to measure the circumference of your skull, claiming that this is somehow related to your cognitive ability or character [15]. Dignity is gained not only through geographical movement, i.e., migration, but also by deflecting any attempt to be pigeonholed. Somalinimo is therefore to evade legibility, refusing to give oneself away or to be seen in one’s entirety.
Somalinimo is fluid; it manifests differently across geography and generations. Younger Somalis belonging to the diaspora often develop their Somalinimo on social media, where postcolonial expressions abound. I am no exception. Through clumsy and clichéd search terms, Somalia after its liberation in the sixties, became a fundamental part of my multimodal digital self-portrait [16]. Haawo Taako and Dur-Dur Band, camel bells, and Somali architecture that had not yet been blown to shreds, hands and feet dipped in henna. The tired tale of having one foot in two worlds but being insufficient for either evaporated. How could I ever believe that I was not enough? I could have scrolled for an eternity and still not seen all that constituted me. Longing for the homeland is also an expression of dignity. The past is unsoiled by the undignifying narrative that dominates here in the West. We are not the things they say we are, and the proof lies in this movement, in the way we are attracted to the past.
Our elders seem to hate our longing. Postcolonial nostalgia is like a childhood disease, one to which they became immune when escaping from the violence enacted by their own countrymen. To them, the future is the fertile ground where dignity may flourish. At least this is the impression I got when some of them booed after I turned on “Rog Rogosho” during a road trip and Maryam Mursal’s voice filled the car. Synth music from contemporary musicians like Suldaan Seeraar seems to resonate with them more, as electronic music provides a more futuristic soundscape than drums and lutes do. I see this in the simulations of construction projects for yet another gated community, those that have now multiplied due to the use of AI. For the older generation of Somalis, Somalinimo is a vision of the future that transcends history and continuity, brought to life through tech-savviness.
And so it goes, each of us enveloped in our own temporal realm. Where we youngins plunder their past in search of dignity, our elders use our future to find theirs; too preoccupied with appropriating each other’s eras than finding common ground. Is there a place where we can meet in the middle? Where, if so, might this midway point for first- and second-generation Somalis be?
When I asked Norwegian-Somali filmmaker Nadra Hassan this, she suggested the early 2000s as a common point of reference. After all, it is this period where our memories overlap. Hassan’s video work is a tribute to this temporal junction. She exhibits an inverted version of a satellite dish, using it as a canvas instead of a transmitter, where her film Qabridahar is projected.
The satellite dish has long been a signifier of immigrant neighborhoods. In 1987, commercial operators were allowed to offer satellite TV in Norway, but it was not until the early 2000s that satellite dishes sprouted like mushrooms on the apartment buildings on the east side of Oslo [17]. Tøyen, Stovner, Holmlia, Furuset, Manglerud. Adeer from Grønland charged fifteen hundred kroner to mount them on our roofs and balconies. The satellite dishes were, however, treated like weeds by several housing associations. They believed it disrupted the delicate ecosystem of the urban residential areas. Resolution after resolution was written without them being able to control this growth, the technology being too valuable for the residents to be cowed. The satellite dish enabled the development of a common political and cultural awareness across generations. Through Al Jazeera, we saw the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, as well as the Iraq war, unfold uncensored in our living rooms. On Universal TV, we watched muxaadaro and riwayad, which gave us a deeper understanding of our religious beliefs and culture.
Where the satellite dish created commonality across generations, the film Qabridahar shows how this was achieved across geography. The diaspora interacted with the homeland using video and audio cassettes. The cassettes were either sent by travelers or by mail, and contained family members’ greetings and blessings, advice, and status reports. The fact that we are scattered around the world does not eliminate our responsibility to each other.
Somalinimo seems invaluable to me in today’s polycrisis, this intertwining of a right-wing wave, climate crisis, and a recession that has made the world a more hostile place to live. But like the nomads before us, we can be prepared for such unpredictability. Together, we maintain a keen instinct for when the possibilities of a dignified life are exhausted, and we must move again. I was reminded of this during Hassan’s film, where a man greets his family here in Norway and follows it up with a warning. Is ilaaliya reer yurub. Take care of yourselves, he says, you who live in Europe.
Notes
[1] Rog rogosho is an onomatopoeia. It means change, but phonetically it imitates the sound of something being knocked over. The word stops and picks up speed before folding back into itself, like dough being kneaded. Somali has many such words: Nash (grab), juug (impact/injury), sholshol (wavy), qababac (scuffle), dhagdhag (something clicks into place).
[2] Iman Mohamed, “Colonial Amnesia and the Material Remains of Italian Colonialism in Mogadishu”, 2023 & Qamar Ahmed Abikar, “Oslo i verden i middelalderen”, 2024
[3] Like their Arab and Chinese counterparts, Somali seafarers left their mark wherever they went. See for instance Haji Sateen Yusuf, who landed in Harlem in 1911 and developed the distinctive scent known as the Harlem rose. Huda Hassan, “Tracing Somali Rose”, 2026.
[4] Dabandid Yusuf, “Reclaiming Being: Dignity, Authenticity, and the Task of the Revolutionary Intellectual in Somalia”, 2025
[5] In an interview with the news site Geeska, Yusuf explains it as follows:
“We’re at a critical juncture marked by an enforced political stasis managed by social forces working against the interests of the Somali people. To be in movement, as Hadraawi gestures towards, is to engage in a revolutionary praxis which rejects the current neocolonial hegemonic project of subordination that has pacified, alienated and stripped people of historical agency. We’re talking about the internally displaced people reduced to mere bodies counted and managed, disillusioned youth risking death through tahriib in search of dignity elsewhere, to the urban precariat forced into daily survival, caught in cycles of informal labour, dispossession and despair. All fundamentally disconnected from any meaningful collective political horizon.” (Yusuf, “Imagination is a political battleground”, 2025)
[6] Momtaza Mehri, “On Particular Lumps”, 2023
[7] Sometimes, children of immigrants are also complicit in spreading the same narratives. As we begin developing a curiosity about our background, we ask our parents what it was like for them to see snow for the first time. Our parents' first encounter with snow is then presented as a contradictory image that may fascinate and amuse. When comedian Jonis Josef toured the US, he was often asked if there were Black people in Norway. Yes, but not at the moment, he said, because I'm here now. The joke only works if it is already perceived as absurd that there are black people living in the Nordic countries, and that those who accidentally found their way here are a rare exception.
[8] Dubie Toa-Kwapong, “Norsk-afrikanarar og til høyrslepolitikk,” in å falle mellom to stoler, Jelsen Lee Innocent (Hverdag Books, 2023)
[9] In recent decades, Somalia’s coastline has been polluted by international ships, completely decimating the country’s fishing industry. Fishermen collected lost income by way of AK-47s. The precariousness of the Somali fishing industry, however, is overshadowed by how pitiful Tom Hanks looked in the Oscar-nominated film Captain Philips. Somalia is regularly referred to as a “failed state,” but is seemingly the ideal place for radical market liberals to exploit, like the Dutch Michael van Notten, who attempted to turn the Awdal region in the northwest into his anarcho-capitalist utopia (see Quinn Slobodian, “Crack-up Capitalism,” 2023).
[10] Stine Sandnes, “Informasjonskampanjer som virkemiddel i asylpolitikken”, 2015
[11] Like in 1996, when the Norwegian Health Authority's director, Anne Alvik, cautioned against having sexual relations with Africans due to the supposed risk of contracting AIDS. When this caused a great deal of pushback, Alvik doubled down on her original statement. In an interview with Arbeiderbladet, several Norwegian-Somalis said the Norwegian Health Authority omitted the crucial detail that Africans had to test negative before being allowed to stay in the country. Kjetil Stormark, “Munnhuggeri og sterke ord.”, 1996. It should be noted that the wording of the article is not without its faults either.
[12] Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan, “Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression”, 1985
[13] In the book Et liv i redningsvest (2023), Sumaya Jirde Ali quotes a passage from Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks:
“The crippled veteran of the Pacific war says to my brother, ‘Resign yourself to your color the way I got used to my stump; we're both victims.’ Nevertheless, with all my strength, I refuse to accept that amputation. I feel in myself a soul as immense as the world, truly a soul as deep as the deepest of rivers; my chest has the power to expand without limit. I am a master, and I am advised to adopt the humility of the cripple. Yesterday, awakening to the world, I saw the sky turn upon itself utterly and wholly. I wanted to rise, but the disemboweled silence fell back upon me, its wings paralyzed. Without responsibility, straddling Nothingness and Infinity, I began to weep.”
Jirde Ali reciprocates Fanon's revelation with her own: "Here is where the urge to no longer exist in the mercy and gratitude of the Other arises; cowed and waiting, always waiting for this Other to finally want to approach you. Fanon's words make you feel like crying, then begin living again." (p. 67, my own translation).
[14] Mehri, “On Particular lumps”, 2023
[15] Skull measurements were carried out in Norway by race biologists such as Jon Alfred Mjøen in his private institute called Vinderen Biological Laboratory. In 1918, Mjøen conducted a study for the Government on the preservation of the Nordic race, which he described as a "master race". https://www.norgeshistorie.no/kilder/forste-verdenskrig-og-mellomkrigstiden/K1645-Det-norske-program-for-rasehygiene.html
[16] Hamse Jama said it first in his text "Et lite stykke minne" (2024): "I spent a lot of time on random internet searches, digital archives and clichéd terms like "vintage" and "1960s" [...]." (my own translation).
Publisert 3. juni 2026
Sist oppdatert 3. juni 2026