Note these excerpts from Stakelbeck's CBN report and comments by Mosely. Shelbyville is about an hour's drive from Nashville, in the heart of the Bible Belt. Like many Americans, the citizens of Shelbyville knew little about Somalia other than the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident, in which 18 U.S. servicemen were killed while battling warlords and Islamic jihadists in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. So when hundreds of Somalis began turning up in the town--many of them dressed in traditional Islamic garb--locals quickly took notice. "They've had an impact here. Unfortunately, it's not been a good impact," said Brian Mosely, a reporter for the local Shelbyville Times-Gazette. Mosely won an award from the Associated Press for a series of articles he wrote for the paper about Shelbyville's Somalis. "I found that there was just an enormous culture clash going on here," he said. "The Somalis were--according to a lot of the people I talked to here--were being very, very rude, inconsiderate, very demanding. Tthey would go into stores and haggle over prices. They would also demand to see a male salesperson, would not deal with women in stores" Different People, Different Culture "Their culture is totally alien to anything the residents are used to," Mosely added. The problems extend to local schools--where some Somali students won't talk to female administrators. There have also been issues with local law enforcement. "I'm not really sure whether that is because of experiences with the police in their country, or whether that's just the way their culture is," said Shelbyville's Police Chief, Austin Swing. Shelbyville is home to about 17,000 people. The town's Somali population is estimated to be between 400 and 1,000. Stackelbeck interviews the embattled head of the Nashville Somali Community Center, Abdirizak Hassan accused of alleged grant fraud, about the absorption difficulties of Somali emigres in Shlebyville and elsewhere. Abdirizak Hassan is the director of the Somali Community Center in nearby Nashville. He says the state of Tennessee has no programs to help immigrants integrate into their new surroundings. "They come, and the only thing they can do is go to work, and then after work they go back to the apartment," Hassan said. "They're totally isolated and there's no interaction between them and the locals." He added that some have even expressed a desire to return to Somalia. "A lot of them face eviction. They put them in an apartment complex that costs $600 a month. They can't get a job that gives them that much money," Hassan explained. "And sometimes you have families, like, a single mother with eight kids, or seven kids or six kids, and you expect her to go to work in six months time with no English, no driver's skills, nothing? I mean, sometimes it's impossible." "The locals, mostly, when they see a few hundred people in their backyard with a different look, strangers, you know, of course they have the right to be concerned," he added. "But I think if the local authorities and organizations like ours do a lot of outreach, I think we can bridge the gap." Note the comments of the State Department official regarding how the Somalis came to America under Un refugee status-something that we have examined in detail in another NER piece,"Why is the UN determining who becomes a Humanitarian Refugee in the US?" The State Department helps resettle refugees from war-torn countries like Somalia in the United States. The resettlement project is one part of a taxpayer-funded refugee aid program with a billion dollar budget. Immigrants are chosen from UN refugee camps. The selected refugees then undergo a few days of cultural orientation and are soon on their way to America. Although most of the refuges are repatriated to their home countries, the U.S. takes in more refugees than any other nation--with a cap of about 80,000 this year. "What we do is we look at the most vulnerable groups of refugees," said Todd Pierce of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. "One group we've tried to help is Iraqi Christians and those who've worked with U.S. and Coalition forces." Pierce said the resettlement program helps improve America's image in the eyes of the world. "It's one of the best facets of America, that we are a very generous, hospitable country," he said. "This is something that has been bipartisan for decades now--we've brought people in….we look at Africa, we look at the Middle East, we look at Southeast Asia." Best facet for America? In the case of Somali immigrants, that may not be the case given the rise of possible homegrown naturalized Somali youths who have disappeared to war torn Somalia as jihadi recruits. Note what Stakelbeck reports on this subject and the responsed of Pierce at the State Department. More than 150,000 Somalis now live in the U.S., most in larger cities like Minneapolis, Nashville, Boston, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. Gang activity has been a major concern. And according to the U.S. government, at least a dozen young Somali Americans have returned home in recent months to join an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group called al-Shabab. As a result, the FBI is conducting investigations in several cities with large Somali populations. The fear is that the Somalis will return to America and put their terror training to use on U.S. soil. Pierce says the government tries to shut any potential troublemakers out of the refugee resettlement program. "We work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure we vet people coming here, especially since 9/11. It's very important," he said. Both Staklebeck of CBN and Mosely of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette have done a great service to America. By throwing a spotlight on the broken humanitarian refugee program of our State Department and the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement that brought over 150,000 Somali Muslims to this country. The unforeseen consequences of these humanitarian gestures by our government may be the possible threat of homegrown jihadis in our midst.
Erick Stakelbeck of CBN has produced a segment that airs today on the cultural clash with Somali Muslims in a small middle Tennessee town, Shelbyville. Read his story, "Somali Muslims Changing Small Town" and watch the segment,here. We had interviewed AP-award winning Shelbyville Times-Gazette jounalist, Brian Moseley for a NER article in February, 2008, "Somalis, Shelbyville and Severe Culture Shock", read here, who is featured in this CBN report.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Thursday, 26 March 2009
CBN Airs Documentary on Somalis in Shelbyville
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