The Somali-Canadian Connection

"I hope that I will fulfill the duties I am entrusted with, and if parliament approves my nomination, I will swiftly name a high calibre cabinet."                                        Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed

"I'm hoping that the naming of a new prime minister will herald the beginning of real work by this government. "So those are the issues [corruption and impunity, human rights abuses, rape epidemic] that we hope this new prime minister will deal with, but I am skeptical. I don't have a lot of faith in this administration. I don't think a new prime minister will really do much."
Ahmed Hussen, Canadian Somali Congress

"We feel a little bit now that we are more secure than before. In a sense, yes, they have been defeated [al-Shabab] but at the same time it looks like they are coming back ... Once and for all this has to be eradicated."
Abdurahman Adan Ibrahim, Somali MP, former deputy prime minister

 Another distinction for Canada. Home to the world's largest ethnic Somali diaspora. Somalians who fled the civil war consuming their country, the general lawlessness that followed, the aura of desperate fear and all-consuming will to survive the turmoil, fled for haven elsewhere, anywhere but Somalia. And Canada welcomed large numbers, giving them a sense of security. Enough so that many have decided to return to a resurgent civil Somalia.

There are those who have been written of in the language of dire warnings emanating from Canada's security establishments; young men whose mothers wring their hands in helpless fear and concern for the well-being of their sons, conscripted by mosque or social-centre figures of sinister intent, to persuade them to return to a country of their heritage, to fight for 'freedom' with the Islamist group that has instilled fear and loathing, al-Shabab, a creature of al-Qaeda.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has named Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, 54, as prime minister of Somalia. Sheikh Ahmed is not the first Somali-Canadian to have had this honour pressed upon him. Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a graduate of Carleton University, held the post from 2009 to 2010. So far there have been six prime ministers presiding over the country in six years.

Mr. Ahmed arrived in Canada in 1998, then earned a Master's degree in economics from the University of Ottawa, along with a diploma in computer programming at Algonquin College. He worked as an international trade and development analyst, then left in 2003 to work for the African Union in Nairobi. Finally he worked at the Bank of Canada and Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia.

The current government formed in August 2012 under international backing has a number of challenges to face; to instill order and bring economic development to a nation that has been lawless, and isolated from the global community for two decades. When the general public thought of Somalia it was in terms of the U.S. 'peacekeeping' debacle captured in the film Blackhawk Down, and more latterly, Somali pirates plying their trade on the high seas, taking foreign vessels and seamen hostage for ransom.

The Al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab has been a psychopathic presence within Somalia, battling the government and African Union forces, mounting attacks as far afield as Kenya, in revenge for its troops fighting the terror group in Somalia. A report issued by the New York Police claimed that al-Shabab had recruited "radicalized" members of the Somalia diaspora from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and Sweden.

"The fear is that these trained individuals could also be used to conduct attacks on U.S. soil or against U.S. interests overseas" concluded the report. Canada' security agencies also reached a similar conclusion, warning of the possibility that trained jihadists originally travelling from Canada to Somalia to join al-Shabab could conceivably return to Canada and proceed to mount havoc there.

A counterbalance of possibility against the more usefully humane traffic of Somali-Canadians exiting Canada to return to their country of birth to effect a civil renaissance and finally combat the forces of evil that violent Islamist militias represent.