Call Me American

by Abdi Nor Iftin

  I whispered in her ear some different advice: “Don’t allow him to restrict you. Come home whenever you can.”

  * * *

  —

  With Nima married, Mom was lonely and decided to journey to Baidoa and search for my dad, who had been gone for a year. She set off on the Afgooye road by bus and arrived in Baidoa two days later.

  Baidoa was very different from the last time she saw it, during our flight from Mogadishu. People streamed out of narrow alleys of the city, buying and selling goods. She walked through stall after stall in the market. Giant slabs of red meat were swinging in the sunlight. In other stalls people sold long strips of dried meat called kalaankal, which was chopped into small pieces and fried in ghee. In the grain market, women sold every variety of corn and seeds from sacks that attracted bees, wasps, and flies. Vegetables, watermelons, papayas, and bananas, all grown nearby, were everywhere. Men who were pushing wheelbarrows ran to Mom offering their services. Streets and open spaces were crammed with chickens, mattresses, shoes, and bright fabrics. And everyone spoke her Maay language.

  Mom sat down on a rock near a kiosk that was selling freshly squeezed fruits and ordered a glass of mango juice to cool herself after walking in the hot sun. She scanned her eyes through the crowd to see if our dad was somewhere around there. She asked people if they knew Nur Dhere. No one knew. But then she remembered she needed to say Nur Dhere in Maay, which would be Nurey. She had lived in Mogadishu for so long she forgot to use her native tongue.

  “Do you know Nurey, the tall guy?” she asked a woman.

  The lady said yes. She said our dad could be found working in the charcoal market. Mom walked down to the charcoal market, a filthy place where the air was black with charcoal dust.

  “Nurey!” she cried.

  Within minutes he emerged from the dust like a ghost, covered head to toe in soot. They walked back to his battered tin kiosk, surrounded with bags of charcoal. A little boy, named Deeq, was sitting in the soot drinking camel milk. Dad explained that Deeq was one of his two children with his new wife. She was dark and thin, ten years younger than he, and she sold tea next to his charcoal business.

  In Somali culture a man can marry up to four wives. Mom was respectful and told him that she missed his presence. He cursed Mogadishu as a place of the devil. Then she said good-bye.

  9

  Sin and Punishment

  On the morning of October 3, 2005, I woke up to a loud clamor in the street. Everyone in the neighborhood was running in one direction, down our dusty road toward the sea. I didn’t know what was happening, but I joined the crowd. Block after block, the crowd grew bigger. Were the marines coming back? Had someone brought in food? Nobody knew, but still we ran. The sky was darkening; people pointed at the sun. It was a total eclipse.

  “Mahdi! Mahdi!”

  The cry went up through the crowd. It was the arrival of the Mahdi! The Mahdi is the redeemer of Islam, the savior who will come before Judgment Day and vanquish evil before the world ends and we are all taken to heaven. The Hadith says a solar eclipse will announce the arrival of the Mahdi.

  Soon everyone was chanting, “Mahdi! Mahdi!” and I joined them. Moms were frantically searching for their children, not wanting to lose them on the path to heaven. I found my mom and we ran together. Finally we arrived at the white sand of the Mogadishu beach, just as the moon was halfway across the sun. We looked around for the Mahdi, but what we saw, on a sand dune, was a pile of human skeletons. They had been dug up from a graveyard. There were skulls detached from bodies. One still had long, straight white hair that blew in the ocean breeze—not an African. A man was standing atop the pile of bones, yelling.

  “Spit on them!” he said. “Curse them! These are the Christian bodies buried in Mogadishu!”

  * * *

  —

  Christian bodies buried in Mogadishu? This was definitely the end of the world to me. I thought this man must be the Mahdi, he had come and was killing Christians as we had been taught would happen by Macalin Basbaas. I learned later these were the bodies of Italian soldiers who died during World War II in Somalia. A group of Islamists had dug them up, desecrated the graves, then built a tin-roof mosque on the spot. By now it was afternoon, and the sun had totally disappeared behind the moon. The crowd descended on the bones, happily kicking the skeletons to pieces. I grabbed one of the skulls and threw it to the ground.

  But the sun came back; the sand again baked under our feet. The Mahdi had not arrived and the world had not ended. I went home. This was not the first time the world had almost ended in Somalia. Every day while I was growing up, the world was ending the next day when you would probably be shot. There was never any future. No Mahdi, no marines, would come to save us. But there was one prophetic sign on that day: the Islamists who madly dug up those graves would soon change the world as I knew it.

  * * *

  —

  By early 2005, Somalia had a transitional government for the first time since the civil war started. But this government was based abroad, in Kenya, because the warlords with their thousands of militiamen were still in charge of Mogadishu. The new government had given the warlords ministerial positions in the hope they would back down, but the warlords had no intention of giving up control. They were making millions of dollars in ransom by pirating merchant ships off the coast. Then they found a source for even more money: the American taxpayer.

  The U.S. government believed that some of the terrorists who had bombed the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998 were hiding in Somalia. And it knew that the warlords had the power to find and capture terrorists. Soon the warlords—the same groups that had brought down the two Black Hawk helicopters and dragged the bodies of U.S. troops through the streets of Mogadishu—were helping the U.S. government hunt down radical and foreign Islamists.

  Of course the Americans didn’t publicize this new partnership, but the warlords were happy to make it known, and in fact everyone could see that they were swimming in money while raiding mosques and grabbing radical sheikhs. This began a massive purge of not just potential terrorists but Islamic scholars and madrassa teachers, who were abducted, deported, and “disappeared.” The warlords grew bolder by the day, turning the hunt for terrorists into a reign of terror—culminating in the shocking assassination of the chairman of the Ifka Halane Islamic Court.

  At that time there were five Islamic courts in Mogadishu, each corresponding to a clan. In the absence of any government these courts settled routine cases and disagreements, everything from divorces to petty crimes. Mostly they ordered payments of animals or cash; there was no corporal punishment, and they had no armed enforcers. The Ifka Halane Court chairman was a popular man and a Hawiye, the same clan as the warlords and most residents of Mogadishu, which is what made his killing such a shock. In mosques across Mogadishu, the assassination inspired tirades against the warlords and their American supporters. Public opinion quickly turned against the warlords, and this shift became an opportunity for the courts to unite, despite their clan differences, against a common enemy. They soon gained the support of the Hawiye people, which made it even harder for the Hawiye warlords to claim leadership. People in Mogadishu were tired of lawlessness, tired of warlords, tired of attacks on their religion. The world’s war on terrorism since 9/11 had become perceived in Mogadishu as a war on Islam. This in turn boosted public support for the Islamic courts and against the Western-backed warlords. When the courts banded together, calling themselves the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the stage was set for a radical Islamic takeover.

  The first chairman of the ICU was Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a madrassa teacher who was able to bring together a group of his students and other young men to train for a war against the warlords. Even though he was Hawiye himself, he reached out to other tribes including my own, the Rahanweyn. Everything he said was based on the Koran and Sharia law, and every time he talked, h
e cursed the United States and its allies like Ethiopia. People in Mogadishu who were furious at the American war on Islam found a man they could listen to.

  Soon the Islamic Courts Union established a unified Sharia legal system throughout Mogadishu, as opposed to the earlier courts, which were independent and unorganized. It trained its own well-disciplined magistrates, young men with shaved heads and long beards, to settle cases of theft, forgery, rape, and divorce, all based on the Koran. They also were secretly training young men as Islamic soldiers, practicing weaponry outside the city late at night. Out of these trainings emerged a religious army that could retaliate against the warlords. But first they began killing anyone who resisted Islamic law.

  By now the wealthier members of the Hawiye clan were contributing money to the ICU, which enabled the Islamists to buy more arms and attract more young soldiers. Soon they had taken over the important seaport of El Ma’an, just north of Mogadishu. Following that takeover, a series of clashes between the ICU militias and the warlord militias brought Islamic control over several neighborhoods right in Mogadishu. Besides Sharia law, the ICU restored security and provided social services and charitable works. People were happy to find freshwater available and police on the streets. This popular support for the ICU motivated the religious militias to face the warlords in other areas of Mogadishu, which started months of bitter battles across the city.

  Those fights required more Islamist soldiers to battle the warlords, who had thousands of troops, so the ICU launched a massive recruitment effort. It held huge demonstrations all over town, where clever speakers preached of the holy mission and the rewards of the afterlife for Islamic martyrs. Young men in Mogadishu who had no jobs, no future, and nothing to do jostled to be first to sign up. Like young Americans who enlisted after 9/11, they were eager to make a difference and be heroes for their country. The ICU provided breakfast and dinner to its soldiers. Fresh goat meat, bread, and hot tea were offered daily, and also women they could marry—the dowry paid by the ICU, no problem if you’re broke. But the best benefit was the promise of entering paradise if you die in the name of Allah. In that paradise you would encounter the hoor al’ayn (the beauty of the eye), a group of seventy-two virgins just for you whom no eyes have ever seen.

  Long lines of young men queued for the sign-up. After just one day of training, the new recruits were thrown into the front lines of battle with the warlord militias, who had been fighting professionally for years. The Islamic soldiers were highly motivated by their afterlife in paradise and did not fear death; they chased down the heavily armed militias of the warlords on the streets, taking over positions and advancing. As the warlords began to flee, the ICU seized their heavy weaponry and took over strategic neighborhoods and even the airport. By April 2006, most of Mogadishu was under the control of the ICU and the warlords had scattered.

  People started volunteering for civic duties such as clearing the rubbish from the streets, rebuilding houses, and opening the airport that had been closed for sixteen years. For the first time since the Americans left Mogadishu in 1994, I returned to the airport. This time it was being run by men with long beards and kanzus, not by U.S. Marines in their camouflage uniforms. I watched as the first airplane landed, bringing a group of Somali diaspora who were eager to return to the city and reclaim their houses destroyed or confiscated by the warlords. Along the tarmac the ICU militiamen sat in the beds of their trucks, wrapping their faces in turbans so only their angry eyes appeared. Unlike the marines, who showed their faces and even wore their names on their jackets, these soldiers didn’t want you to know who they were. I waved at them like I did to the marines, but they did not wave back. They only held their fists up and shouted, “Allahu akbar!” I realized waving was now a sin, and all we should do is say, “Allahu akbar!” God is great.

  The districts that divided clan warlord control were eliminated. Clans didn’t matter anymore, only Allah. I was walking in places where I once dodged bullets, places gangs and militias had ruled, now without fear. The city was different. One flag, the color black with a white script that said “There is no god but God himself,” was flying everywhere. The houses were still in ruins, but Mogadishu felt reborn. Instead of gunshots constantly, we heard Islamic chants blaring from huge speakers on the trucks of the ICU fighters. The chants were all jihadi: “Go to the war! Go to the war!” Mosques were filled with people who again felt the freedom to worship without fear of being abducted by warlords. After prayers the sheikhs would curse America and praise Osama bin Laden. America is the enemy of Allah, God bless Osama inshallah.

  * * *

  —

  Among the people happy for the change was my mom, who had opened a kiosk in Bakara market where she sold maize, sorghum, and rice. To increase her sales, I scampered back and forth in the alleys, coaxing shoppers to come down and check out our food. But everyone else did the same thing, so the loudest voice got all the attention. Also it was so noisy there because right next door was the gun market called Cir Toogte (Sky Shooter), where customers tested the guns on the spot, all day long. Many times the shell casings fell on Mom and her maize. My mom and I were raising our voices so high all day long, trying to make money, until by sunset I was hoarse. When I sat next to my friends at the movies, they complained they could no longer hear my translation because of my scratchy voice.

  The ICU had announced a curfew from dusk to dawn. Anyone seen on the street was assumed to be breaking the law and could be imprisoned or shot. This meant there was no chance of theft in Bakara market overnight, so Mom could leave her bags of corn, beans, and grain in her kiosk without lugging them back and forth from our house every day. Her load was lightened, but now my mom’s clothes became a new weight. Like every woman in Mogadishu under the new rule, she had to wear heavy clothes and face cover under the hot sun. Everyone was either covered or bearded and listened to Islamic chants, so it was hard to tell who was a member of the Islamic Court fighters and who was just doing their bidding; you had to be careful what you said to anyone.

  But with no fear of crime, the market was packed. Bearded men walked up and down the alleys, making change for large American bills. All this commerce had become the main source of revenue for the Islamists; they came and collected money they called charity, really a tax, from the small businesses including my mom. But she was happy. “Alhamdulilah!” Mom said every time I complained. Praise be to Allah!

  “Who thought of this peace?” she would say. “Alhamdulilah!”

  I knew what she meant. The Islamists were doing a good job by not allowing bullying or clan superiority and by kicking out the clan-affiliated militias. If anyone bullied anyone else under their rule, you could just call out for help and an enforcer would show up, like calling 911 in America. But to me, the Islamists were not in Mogadishu to serve and protect, they were here to deprive me of my freedoms. I was not sure what to do with the new changes in the city. Wearing my hat that said “Titanic” almost got me killed one day when a young Islamist thought it was the name of an American city. If he had known it was a Hollywood movie, he surely would have killed me. Pictures and names associated with America were crimes, not counting the pictures and names on the American dollar bills that they had in their pockets.

  My mom regularly went to a three-hour workshop. An Islamic leader, a former Taliban fighter, and his wife stood under the shade of a tree. On the first day the subject was “How to force your kids to pray regularly.” The second day was “The benefits of committing suicide in the name of Allah by killing Christians and Jews.” And the workshops went on and on, nothing but death, killing, and Sharia law. Mom got an Islamic flag and flew it over our house. I could not remove it, because houses without the flag would be targeted.

  One day Mom came to me and suggested I join the Islamists. “They are going to be rich,” she said. “There is no other faith but Islam; they will conquer the whole world! They are acting on the Sharia!”r />
  “Mom, I want to be who I am. I can’t carry guns and shoot at people.”

  Then she talked about all the good things the Islamists had done, her eyes getting bigger to show me how wrong I was. “If you want to get married to Faisa, have kids, and have money, this is your chance,” she said.

  She might have been right. If I joined the Islamist fighters, it would have been easy to visit Faisa’s house with a long beard; her dad would have been so happy with the wedding. But I would probably be killed in battle soon after. At night, when the air cooled down, everyone was forced to go to former soccer fields and watch young Islamists train for battle. It was like U.S. Marines boot camp—strenuous fitness drills, tactical foot marching, situational training exercises, and weapons use—except these soldiers were all dressed in black and gray kanzus. I was bored and wanted to leave, but attendance was mandatory. When it finally ended, the soldiers prayed not for peace but for war with America and Europe: “God make us meet American troops, make us wipe them out. Give us the upper hand. We are your soldiers.”

  These events lured thousands more young men to sign up for what I always called “the one-way ticket.” But they were too late to get me. I didn’t want to die for them; I wanted to live in a beautiful American city with paved roads, gorgeous women, money, cars, and jobs. Every day I wondered if the world knew what was happening in Mogadishu. At times I was mad at America for leaving us behind in 1994. When I told my friends that America would come back and rescue me from this nightmare, or I told Faisa that America would be my future home, they all rolled their eyes, but I didn’t care; I knew it was true. Now, under the Islamists, I wasn’t so sure.