Talk:Somalis in Kenya

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I'm aware that this is a highly political subject, and will likely be controversial, but the characterisation of Somalis as a) Recent migrants b) Naturalised citizens and residents

promotes a narrative that defines these Kenyan people as newcomers, interlopers and generally foreign. Such a characterisation leads to the entrenchment of the kind of exclusion and marginalisation that really has a negative effect on many, many lives.

I am also of the opinion that the census results were disputed. This isn't quite the same as an a priori characterisation of them as inaccurate. Again, this plays into a general anti-Somali agenda, a perception of Somalis as suspicious citizens with divided loyalties. Galana (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Somalis are for the most part recent migrants to the area. They only began trickling in toward the end of the 19th century. As such, they were the last of the Cushitic ethnic minority groups to enter the Kenya region (c.f. ). Also, the official count of Somalis in the recent Kenyan census was not just disputed; it was completely nullified by the Kenyan government and is being recounted . Regards, Middayexpress (talk) 20:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I am assuming you're not just hateful crusader. Alright, then let's stick to the facts. Somalis in Kenya are not 'immigrants', a line was drawn in the sand and some people were declared Kenyan, others Ethiopian and others Somalian. Please do not characterise them as immigrants again.

Secondly, you are putting really offensive links, like the one that says Kenya should thank God for its Somali troubles. I suppose you don't care, but those are very poisonous and ruinous P.O.V you are pushing. I have asked more people to come and pay attention to the really malicious work you are doing here, and will be asking that someone moderate this.

Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Galana (talk) 12:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sigh* Please see WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:AGF and this. Thanks, Middayexpress (talk) 17:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I am gathering up the information that should lead to the correction of your really damaging assertions here. I see that perhaps you don't realise how important it is not to act as though we are certain about things we simply know nothing about, but there we are.

I think it is inappropriate to use personal opinions as resources. The link you have for the 900,000 number, the offensive one marked 'Kenya should thank God for its Somali troubles' is an opinion piece. I will ask again that you use another reference to bolster your case.

The line you've jumped on from the AllAfrica link to establish that Somali and Asian numbers were conflated in an opinion of an official of a Kenyan Asian organisation who has obviously got an interest in having his group's numbers raised. If you read through the piece you'll find several other opinions of similarly interested group officials. The newspaper piece which you cite has the minister effectively annulling the results. I will tell you for free that those aren't powers he has, the reporter got that wrong. If you follow the parliamentary debate, and even from looking at the several and conflicting opinions on

i) why the figures are suspicious ii) what the Somali did to inflate their figures

you will realise that there isn't even a unified theory for why those results should not stand. What it is, is that they are under review. I'm putting this on record here so others can know the full story, beyond what's available for linking as resources. I think you should also take a step back and recognise that put together your work advances an agenda that is harmful (even if innocent) to the welfare of many of the people concerned.

Galana (talk) 11:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and thank you for the changes you've allowed to stand. It really does make a big difference to acknowledge that there are Kenyan Somali citizens - and to avoid the formulation 'naturalised and immigrant' as you had it earlier. It would be have been preferable to make clear as I had that among these are 'natural-born citizens, naturalised citizens and immigrants' but you clearly have your agenda, and until we can get a neutral party for arbitration, I'll not do the back and forth with you.

--Galana (talk) 11:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks overall. I am learning the ropes, hope you will be understanding. I have read the links on how Wikipedia is conducted, hence my resort to looking for sources and letting you have your way. This isn't to say that I don't think you're very wrong, or that your choices betray an unhelpful agenda, but just that I will be more patient and try to persuade you.

--Galana (talk) 11:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I will be understanding and ignore those continued personal attacks above. WP:NPA stipulates that:


 * "'Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to blocks.'"


 * I suggest you start heeding it. With regard to the rise in population, the Kenyan "Immigration ministry [already] said it was not due to the influx of refugees from war-torn Somalia, as advanced by some experts. Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang’ ruled out the influx of refugees saying there were not more than 350,000, most of whom are in refugee camps and were counted" . The government later reviewed the results and annulled them for an official recount. They're not merely "disputed" or "under review". There was a court case filed shortly after the recount was first announced in 2010 that attempted to block it, but the Kenyan government (which actually takes the census) officially announced in August of this year that it would go ahead with the recount anyway since it had now amassed the necessary funds to do so: "The recount, said Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya, was important and could not be wished away since the results would guide the government in formulating its development strategies in future[...] He said the court case and other hurdles would not make the government call off the repeat census, arguing that it was too late to stop the exercise that had been held back by lack of funds since August 2009."


 * The official reason for the recount provided by the Kenyan government itself (as opposed to the speculations you allude to) is due to "inconsistencies" stemming in large part from manipulation of the figures of naturalized Somalis in the country. That's probably also when the reported aggregation of the Kenya Asians and Somalis using the same 700 ethnic code took place (btw, it was the Star that established the link, not the Kenya Asian community: "The Star established that the same code - 700 - was used to enumerate Kenyan Somalis and Kenyan Asians" ):


 * "Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya fixed Kenya's population at 38,610,097. He annulled figures from eight districts because of "inconsistencies" and said the count will be repeated in those areas.".


 * "An impromptu Cabinet meeting, chaired by President Kibaki at Harambee House and also attended by Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday to get a briefing on the census decided to shelve the release of the census results after they indicated that the number of Somalis had risen by 140% over the last ten years[...] Some of those who attended said the meeting was alarmed when Oparanya explained that the huge rise in number was boosted by naturalised Somalis and not those who were citizens by birth[...] A Cabinet minister who was present at the briefing[...] said from the presentation it was clear that some officials at the National Bureau of Statistics Bureau and the Ministry of Planning had been involved in manipulating the census data."


 * For the rest, please leave a response, if any, here so that the discussion is in one place. Regards, Middayexpress (talk) 17:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I see how misleading those quotes on the news articles are when you do not have the full background information. You see quotes in a news article that are not ascribed really could mean anything from the mere and wholly biased opinions of an official to the editorialising of a news reporter. I see your reference in re the census code 700 and also with regard to its source but cannot understand that either that, or the allegation of large scale naturalisations by the minister are anything but the grappling of officials for an explanation when they haven't got one.

The wealth number of conflicting explanations in those links demonstrate the lack of a coherent theory, and a lot of flapping about. Notice that the Immigration Minister does not back the naturalisation theory, even though he'd be the one best placed to promote and explain it. Instead he dismisses the refugees theory. How many naturalisations - over the natural population growth - would be needed to turn 900,000 people into 2.4 million? How does this evade all attention in a country that is almost constantly on the look out for undocumented migrants from Somalia?

It is clear that these explanations haven't the weight in truth that your referencing them grants. Kenya has a long history of such tensions over census results, and politicians have pedigree in making bald faced assertions that influence opinion one way or the other. The state's agenda with regard to Somalis isn't a secret either.

That said, I'd be happy with whatever formulation you decide to employ. However, I propose that we asterisk and date the population figure, explain that it is an old one, this serving to notify users that the true present population figure is higher. There are other ways we can arrive at a proper estimate, not all Wikipedia population numbers are based on censuses. To pretend that this is the correct figure - which is what we are doing by not asterisking and bracketing a date - is just wrong and intentionally misleading.

More, there are plenty of reasons why we should think the published 2009 number is plausible - better, more efficient, modern census, better life conditions, more settled people, a national endorsement of its thoroughness and the professionalism of enumerators, the absence of reports that it was rigged during the count, etc and a good theory for why the Kenyan state and its officials - see the resistance from 'security officials' - would want to diminish that number after the results were out.

Now, regarding the initial entry of Somalis into Kenya. I will concede that we have two conflicting meta-theories, each of which can be ascribed to some scholarship - regardless our opinions of those scholars. Your own contribution above shows that the North to South theory is in contention. My links to 'The Invention of Somalia' and the theory of Lewis backed up by Turton's work as you demonstrate yourself, and my explanations of the size of Kenya's north, including where the colonial Somali-Galla line was, and the reach of Kenya's borders upto 1926 when Jubaland was ceded to the Italians together show that the 19th Century assertion is false. The point about the Somali-Galla line to reiterate, is immaterial, as there was a lot of land to be in, to still be in Kenya, and yet to be north of the Somali-line.

I think it would be best to demonstrate that there are two theories of the first presence of Somalis in the borders of what we now call Kenya, reference these and allow the user the knowledge that neither one has been resolved as factual, both are theories - one based on linguistic theory plus historical record, and another based largely on oral histories and untestable claims to a similitude with cultures mentioned in ancient documents. This is to say nothing of a long interaction and shared civilisation between the people of the littoral of present day Somalia and the coast of present day Kenya.

Please see also the Wajir entry on Wikipedia - under history

"A cluster of cairns near Wajir are generally ascribed by the local inhabitants to the Madanle, a semi-legendary people of high stature, who are associated with the Somali Ajuuraan. A. T. Curle has reported the excavation of two of these large tumuli, finding traces of skeletal remains which crumbled at his touch, as well as earthenware shards and a copper ring."

So there, another academic who links early settlements in present day Kenya to the Somali people.

Overall, I'd hope to persuade you that a proper entry should concede the following. i) That Somali people are a large ethnic group in Kenya. That there is a discounted and therefore nullified resent census count of over 2.3 million of their number resident there, and that the 900,000 figure you insist on be explained with an asterisk or a date as being 22 years old (1989 Census).

ii) That Somali people's presence within the present borders of Kenya is not as recent as the 19th Century. That may be true for some of the groups we presently call Somali, but not for all Somali people. It is true that there are even yesterday Somali people who migrated into Kenya, but that is not the subject of this article. The initial date refers to the first existence of Somali people between 1°00'N and 38°00'E. I will assume we agree that the myth of homogeneity has been debunked?

iii) That most Somalis in Kenya are natural-born citizens in Kenya.

iv) That Somalis live across Kenya, there's no need to lock them up in North Eastern Province. We can even add that the mayor of Migori town in Western Kenya close to Lake Victoria is ethnic Somali, or that the wealthiest person in the breadbasket town of Bungoma is an ethnic Somali lady who's family has been there for maybe 40 years, or that the present Kenyan Postmaster-General (former commissioner of police) is an ethnic Somali born in the North Rift Valley town of Eldoret in 1956.

I will repeat again that there's real life consequences, considering the power of Wikipedia, for how this article is toned and what clarifications, elisions and obscurities it contains. I was drawn here by the very confident pronouncements of a bigot who drew on what's published here as fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Galana (talk • contribs) 23:55, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I see.

It seems to me that you contravene the rules when you so casually dismiss as polemical and unworthy any evidence that does not back your already held theories. What facts speak for themselves? What is your theory for Prof. Ali Jimale Ahmed and his fellow scholar's very well researched and laid out falsehoods? As I said above there seem to be two theories, their age as any scholar would know does not matter.

It is difficult to understand why you would constantly make references to the Somali line in spite of my explanation of just how far south it is and that you keep on harping about a book that cites as evidence of links to ancient Egypt, words that are shared between the two cultures, and the similarity of hairstyle and dress between the depictions of Ancient Egyptians and the people they met on the Red Sea Coast. Is this your idea of serious scholarship?

The north-south theory is intended to create an ancestral link to Arabia. It also privileges some Somali groups migration histories while cancelling out those of others. It isn't my contention that the migrations were necessarily out of Kenya, but that there were south to north migrations, and west to east migrations - depending on the groups involved.

The review you cite demonstrates a political agenda that is offended by the book. It however also proves that there's a difference between a northern theory, and a southern one, and that rather than contest certain academic theories, it prefers to tar them with the charge that they are 'western' and imposed by the external masters.

--Galana (talk) 00:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

From your link that tears into an essay in Prof. Ahmed's The Invention of Somalia,

"The scope of my short essay is not an account of early Islam in Somalia nor is it a comparative study of Zayla and Mogadishu, its a simple awakening call for so called Somali specialist to cease the old speculative theories on the origin of some Somali clans and concede the historical record and unique history of every clan, there was no such a thing as 'Somalis' during early Islamic times, there was only a group of Black Berber as Ibn Batuta himself a white Berber referred to them, tribes living in modern horn of Africa each had their own historical arrival be from across Arabia or from central Ethiopia highland, each should be studied separately and this over all inclusive term 'Somali' should be avoided , no modern Somali clan considered himself 'Somali' as late as one century ago, the Dir were Dir and Isaaq were decendent of Isaaq and Daarood of their Daarood ancestor. The southern collusion can't discredit the medival Arabic manuscripts and literature almost a thousand (Al-Basri) years old regarding the history of Sharif Isxaaq Ibn Axmed Al'awali with few pages written in western institutions financed to perpetuate the Europeans theories on the origin of the so called Somalis collectivly, its well established fact that shiekh Isxaaq and the Isaaq people have a legitmate case of their origin judging the flimsy opinions by somali students and their Western masters versues the well documented history of sheikh Isxaaq through the Arab literature."

That's what the scholarship, including this one suggests. If we concede the homogeneity theory's debunked, then we have the possibility of multiple origins, and from the evidence, the reality of multiple languages, modes of production and economic organisation. An honest article should reflect these, and you should admit that without a unified theory of origin, it is difficult to accept - given the evidence supplied in Prof. Ahmed's book - that there were no Somali in Kenya until 'they started trickling in in the 19th Century'.

Galana (talk) 07:44, 11 October 2011 (UTC) Galana (talk) 07:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that was already answered here. Per WP:TALK:


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 * Again, please leave a response, if any, here so that the discussion is in one place. Regards, Middayexpress (talk) 17:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Somali citizens in Kenya
This page is misleading. Considering that the demonym "Somali" is used both to denote ethnicity and also to denote nationality, I think there should be a disambiguation page that lists two options: Somali nationals in Kenya, and Kenyans of Somali ethnicity.

There doesn't seem to be any page addressing the first category, which is quite unfortunate given the fairly large number of Somali nationals living in Kenya as refugees and as business people. I might even find the time to put it together myself, soon, unless someone more informed does it.

114.134.3.146 (talk) 20:25, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The page is on citizens and residents in Kenya who are of Somali descent (as noted in the lead), just as Indians in Kenya is on local citizens and residents of Indian ancestry. That includes both Kenya and Somalia nationals of Somali ethnicity, but not nationals of other ethnicities. Each local ethnicity is instead a distinct entity . Soupforone (talk) 02:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Differentiation between Somali Nationals and Kenyan Nationals
I think this article should be split into two separate articles: Kenyans of Somali ethnicity (as an article that addresses a specific Kenyan ethnic group), and Somali migrants / refugees in Kenya (who are a separate group altogether). The current article deliberately tries to amalgamate the two, which is absurd since the information one would seek about the one group doesn't necessarily apply to the other. 114.134.3.154 (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

somalis are somalis regardless of where they are this article clearly states the number of somalis in kenya by decent and citizenship so its an accurat article — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sahasu (talk • contribs) 16:49, 30 September 2019 (UTC)