Continued from last week

By E. R. Turton ‎
University of Zambia ‎
Source: WardheerNews ‎
Kenya has always regarded the Somali as either an infernal ‎nuisance or embarrassment’. ‎
Glenday to Beckett, 21 June 1941 ‎
November 05, 2005‎

At the beginning of 1939, the Governor visited the Atiya Rahmani Association and specifically criticized the use of the club for political discussion. Haji Farah Omar dropped out of the Isaq movement and the club does not seem to have played any further part in supporting the Isaq of Kenya. However, the situation was still potentially explosive in the Protectorate, and on 18 May 1939 the Director of Education was stoned by a hostile crowd when he was visiting the Koranic school at Burao.

Nevertheless, the ‘spokesman’ movement did not entirely disappear. At the same time that Haji Farah seemed to be losing popularity a new candidate appeared on the scene, Jama Siyad (also known as Jama Telephone), a Dolbahanta Herti. The Protectorate administration was never quite sure whether he was a potential rival to Haji Farah or working in league with him, but later events and oral testimony suggest that the two were co-operating closely. Haji Farah had achieved no success in British Somaliland . It was clearly time to start campaigning elsewhere and Jama Siyad was in an excellent position to do this, for he had lived almost 33 years in England and was obviously going to return there. In November 1938 he started visiting Erigavo, Burao and Las Anod in connection with the ‘spokesman’ movement, collecting money and signatures. The following year he undertook an extensive trip to the out­ lying areas of the Protectorate, always trying and sometimes succeeding to get himself appointed as delegate to represent the Somali in England where he returned in March 1940.

The attempt by the Kenya Isaq to gain effective support from their clansmen in British Somaliland had not proved to be very productive, whilst at the same time being a costly undertaking. Far from contributing to the financial resources of the Kenya Somali, their clansmen in British Somaliland demanded payment for their assistance. Moreover, the orchestration of Isaq grievances from Burao and Berbera probably only intensified and widened the opposition of the British Government to their demands. Strongly worded dispatches from the Somaliland Protectorate, warning of the dangers and pointing out the broader implications of granting them Asiatic status, were often referred to by Colonial Officials as one reason for not acceding to Isaq requests. As their allies in British Somaliland proved less effective than anticipated, so the Isaq increasingly pinned their hopes on their supporters in Britain .

Somali agitation in Britain

Most of the Somali who visited or lived in Britain were seamen, and many of the latter were stokers. Others were involved in service industries associated with the sea: a few owned cafes at sea-side ports offering light refreshment and entertainment; rather more were hotel-keepers providing accommodation for seamen, frequently finding employment for them as well and even smuggling them into the country if necessary.

There are no accurate statistics yet available on the number of Somali in Britain at the time when their poll tax agitation began. However, in 1930 there were approximately 500 Somali in Britain and close on half of these were Herti Darod and not Isaq. The small number of Isaq clearly limited their scope for action. Moreover, there was a long history of competition and hostility between the Somali and other much larger immigrant groups, such as the Arabs and the Indians. An alliance with the Arabs would have been particularly useful. In Cardiff , where there was the greatest concentration of Somali, they numbered 227 in 1930, while the Arabs there numbered 1,241. Further­ more, all of these Arabs professed to have come from Aden , thus claiming Asiatic status on precisely the same grounds as the Isaq. But destitute Adenese and Indians long remained a problem at Cardiff and competition for jobs between these groups and the Somali was often acute. In a notice concerning the rules of employment in the port it was written that officers engaging Somali and Arab crews shall be informed that it is very undesirable to mix Somalis and Arabs’.

Because of their relative isolation and the lack of support they could obtain from other immigrant groups, and because of their small numbers, the Isaq never attempted to mobilize mass support to gather petitions or to raise money. Nor did they try to mobilize the support of other Isaq in Britain , since many of the latter were often only transient visitors. Instead, they sensibly concentrated their efforts on a campaign of political lobbying.

As early as 1930 the three members of Parliament for Cardiff had arranged a meeting with officials from the Board of Trade, the Home Office and the India Office to discuss the plight of the Somali and of the Aden Arabs. Later that year, Mr. Henderson Jr. wrote to the Prime Minister about the problems that the Herti and the Isaq were facing. When, therefore, the Kenya Isaq approached Mr. Abi Farah, a Somali lodging-house keeper who lived at Barry Dock, to be their representative in Britain the Somali community there had already formed its contacts with a firm of Cardiff solicitors and the local members of Parliament, and they had also formed their own Somali Society.

Through Mr. Abi Farah and a Cardiff solicitor, Mr. Morgan, the Isaq com­munity managed to make direct contact with the Colonial Office where their grievances were made known. Much more important, they got a succession of MPs to write about their aspirations and difficulties to the Colonial Secretary. In retrospect it is tempting to be skeptical of the practical value of this lobbying and to conclude that it achieved nothing. Certainly it produced no change in British Colonial policy. Yet, in fact, there were two very important results.

First, the Colonial Office approached any question relating to the Isaq with a constant awareness that what they were doing might at any moment be brought to the attention of a wider public in Britain and that awkward questions might easily be raised in Parliament. This factor alone encouraged a certain caution where otherwise one imagines there would have been little. Moreover, the mere fact that Governors in Kenya were asked to write much fuller explanations of the motives behind their decisions than they were wont, the mere fact that their dispatches were often found to be wanting in detail, meant that Governors themselves were aware of some pressure, however slight, which in itself was useful to the Isaq.

Secondly, and this surely was the real importance of the lobbying, it gave the political organization of the Isaq community a truly formidable appearance to their followers in East Africa . It must have greatly assisted both their recruitment of new members and also their fund-raising campaigns to defray the costs of Mr. Morgan’s services. The fact that they were apparently able to circumvent an unsympathetic administration in Nairobi and that they had their own direct line of contact with the Colonial Secretary, so that they could plead their case directly to those responsible for the formulation of policy, brought them immense prestige. These were powerful psychological props which boosted the morale of the Isaq and encouraged them to pursue their action with determination. There can be no doubt that their contacts with Isaq in Britain and the knowledge that their representatives there had access to the Colonial Office, added a new dimension to their struggle and made it seem almost impossible to their supporters that it should fail.

Jama Siyad's return to Britain in 1940 also added to the barrage of Parliamentary representatives pleading the case of the Isaq. Sir Richard Acland wrote stating that he was thinking of putting a question in the House of Commons about the Somali. He emphasized that the ‘question of the status of Somalis has been represented to me very strongly by some of them’, and it was assumed at the Colonial Office that Jama Siyad had been his main source of information. It was obviously embarrassing for the Government to have a question brought up in Parliament. A long and detailed reply was sent to Sir Richard with the plea that it was earnestly hoped he would not find it necessary to raise the question in the Commons. At about the same time, similar queries were raised by Creech-Jones and it was again thought that Jama Siyad had been in contact with him. Indeed although Jama Siyad was regarded at the Colonial Office as ‘quite a pleasant gentleman’, he was also the one Somali in Britain with a sufficiently wide range of contacts to cause the authorities some uneasiness. Not only did he have contacts with a number of well-known Labor political figures such as Clement Attlee, Fenner Brockway and Creech- Jones, but he was also one of the Joint Secretaries of the Somali Society and from 1935 had been an office holder on the League against Imperialism.

However, the Isaq campaign in Britain , as in British Somaliland , was an expensive foray. There was a heavy price to be paid for the kudos of being able to lobby support there. The essence of the Isaq movement was therefore necessarily concentrated in East Africa , and particularly in Kenya , where their numbers were sufficiently large to support their agitation.

.........................to be continued

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