Members of Which Society?

There are specific cultures within which traditions are so well-engrained that it makes it difficult-to-impossible for their members to integrate as responsible citizens of a welcoming country. When the indigenous culture with its social system and its own traditions are not recognized as valid and valuable to those entering the country, what results is culture clash.

When tribal antipathies and a social caste system, along with misogynistic practises are imported into a country like Canada, the imported clannish customs run afoul of the acceptable norms of the welcoming country. In turn, the immigrants who live in their little set-apart and comforting exclusionary zones of contact begin to view the prevailing social customs as inferior and competing with their own.

For many Somalians living in Canada problems have erupted with the prevalence of young men of Somalian descent harbouring feelings of resentment that they are no longer invested with their traditional cultural mores and customs, and yet they feel alienated by the country's existing social values. They don't feel committed to Canada's social customs and feel drawn to some aspects of those from the country their parents left.

A concern has been that Somali youth have been subjected to radicalization and brought into the fold of would-be jihadists by fanatical imams preaching at mosques, or by accessing jihadi sites on the Internet. Inspiring these young man to surreptitiously engage in sessions for further radicalization, and finally impelling them to leave North America for Somalia to join al Shabab.

Canada's security agencies fear that some of these radicalized and weapons-trained jihadists may return to North American to execute attacks on the soil of their new homes. A number of Somali youth who travelled from Canada to Somalia have become leaders with al Shabab. And the Canadian Somali community, alarmed, charges the government to do something to stop their youth from leaving.

Young Somali-Canadian men have also surrendered to the allure of criminal gangs within Canada, of becoming involved in drugs, in club scenes where violence is inflicted one upon the other. Wherever easy money can be made, flogging drugs or carrying weapons as members of criminal clubs, Somali youth seem to find their way.

And while security agencies within Canada may feel that there is a proclivity within the culture of tribalism and warfare endemic within the country of origin that attracts their youth to this way of life, the Somali-Canadian community seems to feel that it is the deranged, anti-religious culture prevailing in the West that is responsible for way-laying their youth.

Within the Somali-Canadian community the youth demographic is high; 80% under the age of 30. The average household boasts seven children, and the income levels fall well below average. Parents don't seem to be sufficiently aware what their young men are involved with; certainly not, they claim, organized crime gangs.

They complain their sons are not being attracted to life within the Somali community. Nor do they feel themselves part of the mainstream Canadian community. The suggestion is made that society make a greater effort to offer more services to their disenchanted young, to move them away from crime and the harms that come with those associations.

"The people who are dying are the young ones and they have no connection or involvement in our community." Then whose responsibility is it? That of the wider Canadian society, or that of the Somali Community itself, to attract and to educate and to stimulate their young to become worthy members of society?