By Duncan Hengest • 6/19/09
One of the definitions of “tragedy” is a fall brought about by excess of virtue. Oedipus is destroyed by his thirst for truth, and Macbeth by his originally high-minded ambition. By this definition, the people of Minnesota are truly tragic figures, as their spirit of compassion is leading them to import third-world immigrants who threaten to erode the social fabric of the state.
Minnesota is best known for a polite, “Minnesota-nice” way. The state was founded by a mixture of Scandinavian, Yankee, and German settlers and has always led the nation in progressive causes. This political orientation is deeply rooted in the German/Scandinavian, and Puritan/Quaker folkways of community order, civic virtue, and an equitable society. Liberal politicians like Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Al Franken are typical of the state.
Minnesota’s progressivism has never been tempered with bitter racial strife. When it comes to race matters, these Nordics are what Wilmot Robertson called “Old Believers” in his classic book The Dispossessed Majority.1 Old Believers are whites who are so accustomed to a homogeneous society that they do not understand how destructive non-whites can be. Old Believers remain mired in the outlook of past social reformers and still seem to think that a dose of “understanding,” church attendance, jobs programs, welfare reform, and the like will turn third-world peoples into respectable Midwesterners overnight.
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| Our point, exactly. |
These egalitarian progressive folkways have led Minnesotans to import various groups from the Third World. In the 1970s, the Hmong, a Southeast Asian tribe, were a popular import; there are now 46,000 of them living in Minnesota, and 38,000 in neighboring Wisconsin. Hmong have proven a disaster. They are heavily involved in gangs, which, in addition to committing the usual crimes of auto theft, drug dealing, pimping, and murder, have distinguished themselves through their practice of gang rape. Welfare use among Minnesota Hmong is also sky high. There are few better portraits of the trauma that unassimilated immigrants inflict on white communities than Roy Beck’s classic article on the Hmong in Wisconsin.
Minnesotans still have not learned their lesson. Since the 1990s, they have been importing another third-world people, Somalis, who are also proving inassimilable. When one looks at Somalis’ background, their failure to adopt Minnesota-nice ways is unsurprising.
Known to Americans today principally for piracy and the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident, Somalia epitomizes third-world anarchy. Torn by war and governed by a military dictatorship until 1991, this Muslim nation today has no government, no effective currency, no banking, and no economic activity that creates real wealth. My combat service was in Iraq, and I never went to Somalia, but many of the men and women serving next to me were veterans of Operation Restore Hope, the United Nations-led military campaign in Somalia of 1992-93. Their stories described a people who do little but steal, burn tires, chew khat—a stimulant drug like a very strong form of tobacco—and fight. This culture of sloth, crime, and violence is visible even in the behavior of the children. I once spoke to a female colonel who said that a Somali child had snatched her sunglasses right off her face. Another soldier told me that while he was on a patrol he saw two Somali children, each armed with an AK-47, arguing over a jacket. The patrol passed by unconcerned, then a shot rang out—one of the kids had gotten the jacket, and the other was dying in the street. Another soldier, a truck driver, described his convoys as Wild West gunfights: “You needed to drive, pedal to the metal, from the base to the edge of town where the empty desert started before the shooting stopped.”
The majority of Somalis are not only illiterate, but ignorant of the basic characteristics of modern societies. Credit reports, driver’s licenses, tax forms, electrical appliances, even timekeeping—all are beyond their understanding. Would-be Somali immigrants, who take a crash course on American life at Kenyan refugee camps, require clarification on the most basic points:
After hearing a description of coats, scarves, gloves and long underwear, another student, Lelya Yussuf, 23, asked: “How can we walk while wearing all that? Isn’t it too heavy?” In an effort to explain snow to people who have never seen it, the instructor asked students to imagine how it would feel to live inside a refrigerator. But the analogy fell flat for some, because they’d never heard of such an appliance.
Somalis started to come to the United States after the Refugee Act of 1980, and they began to settle in Minnesota in large numbers in the 1990s. Today there are roughly 50,000 Somalis living in the Minneapolis area.
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| Classes for Somali refugees start with the basics. |
The Congressional Black Caucus has been an influential advocate of Somali immigration, but many foolish whites are also aiding in their own dispossession. Minnesota’s Lutheran Social Services have teamed up with other Christian religious groups to facilitate Somali resettlement. Not to be outdone, the Jewish Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society opened an office in Kenya to maintain the flow of Somali refugees.
Minnesota’s white politicians also get into the act, and not just the Democrats either. Minnesota’s Republican Senator Norm Coleman has enabled Somali colonization throughout his career. In a press release that announced a six figure grant to the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota, Coleman went on to state that he:
has worked closely with the Somali community while in the Senate, having most recently secured the extension of Temporary Protected Status for certain Somalis living in the United States. Coleman also has a Somali immigrant, Mahamoud Wardere, on his staff to help facilitate and increase his outreach to the Somali community.
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| Sen. Coleman—a Somali’s best friend! |
Coleman wanted payback for his efforts: during the 2008 elections, he sent staffers and translators to polling places in Somali neighborhoods to encourage voters to cast their ballot for him.
Somali society is based on violence, and Somali immigrants retain their violent ways. Because Somalis are classified as “black” in police statistics, there is no way to separate Somali crime from black crime in general. Nonetheless, evidence exists for a pattern of major Somali crime on a city-wide scale in Minneapolis. A rash of homicides left seven Somalis dead between December 2007 and November 2008. Police suspect three of the deaths were gang-related. There has even been one incident of racially motivated violence against whites. Last August, after three Somali teenagers attacked a white man, one of the offenders said, by way of explanation, that he does not like white Americans. Just an hour before, the boys had assaulted a white woman.
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| A victim of Somali gang crime. |
The city has taken note of Somali crime. The Minneapolis Police Department now employs Somali-speaking specialists. The city is staging anti-violence workshops in an attempt to suppress Somali bloodshed. The retired rapper Napoleon, a convert to Islam who now goes by his Muslim name Mutah Beale, said in a speech at one of the workshops: “The Somalis came to this country to get away from the violence and make a better life, but some are going down the wrong path. It doesn’t make sense.” Actually it does make sense. The Somali have transported their violent folkways with them to Minnesota. All of the “mentoring” at community centers, blogging against violence, and civics workshops are unlikely to do any good.
Other sources indicate the severity of the Somali crime problem. One police community outreach report noted that “community concerns have frequently been raised about groups of Somali youths.” Minneapolis residents also express frustration and outrage over Somali crime online. Describing the changes in his neighborhood due to Somali immigrants, one writes:
Don’t even get me started on the increased number of police calls on our block. We went from ZERO in more than 14 years to more than two dozen in last two years! Theft, drugs, domestic assault, gang fights—you name it—we’ve now got it in our neighborhood! Yup, it’s colorful all right.
A Somali blogger lamented:
Here in Minneapolis, today as we celebrate Eid with our families and friends, a Somali mother is in tears and in pain for the loss of her only son. He was 19. He came for a hair cut to get ready for the Eid festivities. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. His life was cut short by a bullet probably from another Somali teenager. Just a week ago, a Somali family buried their 20 year old son, a third year college student, who was shot in front of community center where he was volunteering to tutor and mentor younger kids. Three months before that, in the same place of the community center, slain was a 31-year-old youth mentor and basketball coach. Two months before that, [an]18-year-old high school graduate was killed in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. These brothers were killed by other brothers in what now can be only termed as an all-blown-out senseless gang violence within the Somali community.
Somalis have achieved some degree of political organization. The Twin Cities are now home to the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota, the Somali Women’s Organization, the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, and a host of other groups. White liberals have, of course, helped Somalis to organize. As an example, a 2008 initiative to improve Somali voter education was aided by a seemingly endless list of organizations with names like Take Action Minnesota, Got Voice, Got Power, the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits, and Wellstone Action.
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| Planting Islam in Minnesota. |
It is likely that Somalis will use any political power they gain for the advancement of Islam—all Somalis are Muslims. This is already happening in a minor way. America’s first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, who represents Minneapolis, has stated that his election victory was due to support from Somalis. At a meeting designed to drum up Somali support for Democratic senate candidate Al Franken, Congressman Ellison invited Somali cleric Abdullahi Ugas Farah to speak. Farah advocated the opening of Sharia courts in Mogadishu in 2003. We should be concerned about the links between Somali voters, a black Muslim Congressman, and Sharia law advocates in the Muslim world. Somali Sharia courts were deemed such a threat to American interests that the United States has used the Ethiopian Army in a proxy war against them in an ongoing conflict that started in 2006.
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| Rep. Keith Ellison meets with Somalis. |
Minnesota Somalis have already begun lobbying to legitimate Islamic law. Somali taxi drivers created a media firestorm in 2007 when they refused to transport people with dogs or alcohol in their cabs. While the this effort was beaten back, the Somali campaign for “Islamic mortgages” was successful. Under Islamic law, charging interest is illegal, so Islamic activists at the African Development Center pressured the state of Minnesota to implement a program that would purchase homes and sell them to Muslims for a higher price, but with interest-free loans. This pandering will likely harm Minnesota’s economy, as peoples of third-world origin are likely to default on mortgage payments.
Wherever diaspora communities of Muslims exist, they lobby fervently for the right to be governed by Islamic law. The phenomenon even has a name: “creeping Sharia.” In Quebec, due to Muslim activism, Muslim women can wear their face-covering veils when they get photographs taken for voter identification cards, which defeats the purpose of a photograph ID. In Britain, Sharia courts operate with the full support of the government. There is no reason to think that Minnesota Somalis, especially with the aid of their Muslim congressman, will not continue to act as their coreligionists elsewhere do.
Somalis are gaining increased political clout that they can use against whites, but they need a great deal of white money to keep the heat on during Minnesota’s winters. Somalis are largely unemployable in America’s fast, productive economy. The sloth described by American troops stationed in Somalia is also evident in the work performance of Somali immigrants. In 2008, meatpacking companies became targets for DHS raids on illegal immigrants from Mexico. Still seeking to avoid paying higher wages to whites, a Colorado meatpacking plant replaced the Mexicans with Somalis who were legal residents of the US. At first the hire seemed a good move, but the Somalis demanded an unreasonable amount of time off to practice their religion. The plant ended up firing hundreds.
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| Somali workers in Colorado. |
Idle Somalis are a major concern for Minnesota’s civic authorities. As Somali activist Nimco Ahmed has complained, “It’s hard to see them just being on the streets and not doing anything with themselves.” Along with Amerindians, native blacks, and Hmong, Somalis are unable to move off welfare despite Minnesota’s well-run welfare-to-work programs, according to a report by the Wilder Research Center. Although the report suggests the problem can be solved through more caseworkers and counselors, it is more likely that Somalis will continue to be a burden to Minnesota. Amerindians, to whom Somalis are compared in the report, have been the beneficiaries of government programs since the end of the Civil War, and they are still not self-supporting.
In 2001 and 2002, the settlement of 1,000 Somali refugees in Lewiston, Maine put such pressure on the welfare system there that the mayor wrote a public letter to Somali leaders asking them to stop further migration to the town because it was “maxed out financially, physically and emotionally.” How long will it be before Minneapolis reaches its breaking point?
Many Somalis are involved in the Islamic jihad against the West. Indeed anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism have long been a key theme in Somali politics. When the nation had a functioning government, it worked against American interests as a member of the Arab League and as a Cold War client of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Somalia received a great deal of support from the oil-rich Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia. This Saudi money brought in anti-Western, Wahhabi influence. Those contacts with Islamic extremists caused Americans great harm during Operation Restore Hope. Osama Bin Laden claimed that al-Qaeda was directly responsible for the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu and also trained Somali combatants.
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| Minnesota Somalis are leaving to wage jihad. |
Today, Somalis continue to wage jihad, even some of those who are US residents. Many Minnesota Somalis are returning to their homeland to join Islamist militias. While welfare agents and progressive whites attempt to inculcate Minnesota-nice ways, Somalis are getting a very different message from their mosques, many of which, according to journalist Yusuf Shaba, “talk about nothing but jihad.” The situation is so disconcerting that Senator Joe Lieberman has conducted hearings on the matter.
So far, these radicalized Somali have focused on fighting in Somalia, but it is possible that they will attack the United States. The FBI certainly thinks they might. Last month, investigators reported that they were watching Somalis in the Washington, D.C. area because many of them hold “militant” anti-American views, sympathize with al-Qaeda, and attend a mosque tied to 9/11.
Minnesota Somalis are providing aid to Somali pirates as well. Recently, Omar Jamal, director of the St.Paul-based Somali Justice Activism Center, announced that his organization was making sure Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, one of the pirates involved in the attack on the Maersk Alabama in April, would get a fair trial. Such a misplaced sense of justice is too much even for Minnesotans, however. State representative Marty Seifert has made it his mission to see that all federal funds to the organization are blocked.
Addicts of drugs and alcohol, in their madness, are often oblivious to the damage their habits inflict on their own lives and those of their loved ones. If an addict is unable to come to a moment of clarity and find help on his own, families and friends will sometimes stage an intervention to make the addict face up to his destructive behavior. Minnesota’s Old Believers have been drunk on a self-indulgent refugee policy that is doing great harm to themselves and their fellow Americans. This article is an attempted intervention. Minnesotans must recognize their madness and sober up.
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| An intervention is needed. |
To turn from madness, Minnesotans need to start to dismantle their welfare system and turn their refugee agents into resettlement agents. Somalis in Minnesota should be resettled in Africa—if not in Somalia itself, then in Djibouti, Kenya, or Ethiopia. Additionally, plans to import any more tragic third-world peoples must be halted. Minnesotans have now brought in two disastrous minorities, and it is only a matter of time before some Old Believer will discover a new tribe requiring salvation. Interventionists must be on the lookout for such impulses and nip them in the bud.
There are signs that our cause may not be hopeless. One way many Somalis have entered the US is through family reunification, which brought in the relations of Somalis who are already here. In 2008, DNA tests revealed such thorough-going fraud in claims of relatedness that the entire program designed to bring in Somalis was temporarily suspended last November. Activists should work to ensure that such fraud detection programs are implemented permanently across the whole range of immigration to the US.
Another encouraging development is the success of activism in Postville, Iowa in closing down a meatpacking plant whose owners had imported third-world workers, including Somalis. The normally staid mid-westerners were energized by the disruptive behavior of the immigrants. Through aggressive campaigning, the Iowans were able to induce the federal immigration police to raid the plant. The owners of the plant were arrested and the immigrants deported or sent elsewhere. Iowans and Minnesotans share the same mid-Western culture, so, if it can happen in Iowa, it can happen in Minnesota too.
Furthermore, there is some evidence that attitudes are changing. Minnesota’s online police threads show an incredible amount of realism about Somalis. One participant stated:
America has opened its doors to a country ravaged by civil war. At a certain point, our country has to consider whether it has been a net gain or a net loss to allow groups with refugee status into our country. The older refugees often have no desire to assimilate, and the youth gang problem is getting out of control. Now we have this possible terrorism issue, not to mention the billions (yes, billions) in welfare and food stamps fraud. Yes, we are painting with broad strokes for the purposes of discussion, but that does not equal racism. In fact, NOT discussing these issues would be gross negligence.
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| Riverside Plaza: symbol of Minnesota? |
This sort of thinking was beyond the pale in the 1990s, but now it apparently is not.
Perhaps the best symbol of the folly of Minnesota’s Old Believers is the Riverside Plaza, once a stylish block of high rises that were the fictional home of Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the actual home of the rock star Prince. Before the era of third-world immigration, these apartments were fashionable digs for the upwardly mobile. Today, however, the buildings are a dreary vertical holding facility for non-whites, especially Somalis, paid for by the taxpayer. The complex knows its share of murder and other violence. Should Minnesotans fail to wake up, their cherished progressive institutions, tranquil prosperity, and Minnesota-nice lifestyle could meet a similar fate.
Duncan Hengest (a pen name) can be e-mailed at d.hengest at yahoo dot com.