That you are Somali is a fact
That Somalia for whatever reason (which is beyond the scope of this thread) is not doing that great is a fact
That further to being Somali we are divided along qabiil lines and sub qabiil and sub sub qabiil etc is also a fact
Then there's you, the individual with your likes and dislikes and how you like to eat your food, what you like to talk about with your friends, how you act around someone you like and what you want out of life
How do you marry the outside world's perception of "Somali" and your own identity as one of those people. Do you think of the outside noise as positive or negative?
Do you filter out any negativity so that what you hear/see about them remains in-line with your idea of what it means to be Somali
Do you accept the good and the bad and just disassociate yourself with the whole Somali thing and see yourself as an outside observer looking in
Do you take all the negatives and place it squarely on another qabiil so that the difficult and the ugly has nothing to do with you - it's those other Somalis
Do you just stay away from Somalis all together and live your life such that being Somali is a fact like your hair colour which doesn't have any real significance in your day to day life
You're probably not conscious of what you do but if you were to observe yourself, which category do you think you fall into. Or have I left out something else that you do instead?
