It All Depends On Whose Culture Is Being Gored
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a half day seminar sponsored in part by my employer, called Accommodating Change: Understanding Somali Culture and Values. I presently don't work directly with anyone who hails from Somalia (although many Somalis are employed by the company I work for) but I elected to attend, thinking that it would be a good learning experience. And indeed it was.
The seminar began with a one hour speech on Somali culture and values delivered by one Dr. Ali Khalif Galaydh. A few years ago Dr. Galaydh was the prime minister of Somalia, now he is a professor at the University of Minnesota. He is a bright, engaging, and very articulate man. After his talk there was a panel discussion with Dr. Galaydh and four other representatives from the Somali community in Minnesota, on particular cultural issues that arise at work and school for Somalis.
There were roughly around one hundred and twenty attendees at the seminar. Most of the audience was made up of educators, diversity trainers, and human resources people. There were a few operations/manufacturing folks such as myself scattered about, but we were clearly in the minority.
My political views would not have been shared by most of the other attendees either. There were a lot of short haired, forty-fifty-somethingish women in the crowd, competing with each other to show who was the most open, accommodating, and accepting of diversity. The parking lot was probably full of Subarus replete with rainbow window decals and green Wellstone! bumper stickers.
As I mentioned earlier it was a very educational experience. I learned a great deal about Somali values and culture including:
- Somalis are very independent and individualistic with a strong work ethic.
- Many Somalis don't trust government institutions or banks.
- Somalis are deeply religious and very committed to their faith.
- Somalis are family orientated and support traditional family structures. .
- Somalis do not believe in or engage in pre-marital sex. (It was mentioned that AIDs is almost non-existent in the Somali community because of this)
- Somalis do not believe in indulging in alcohol or mind altering drugs.
- Somali parents are concerned about passing on their traditional values to their children.
- Somali parents are also concerned about the opportunities for their children to pray at school.
And this diversity sensitive audience was all in favor of respecting and accommodating these aspects of Somali culture as much as possible. They lapped it up. They nodded approvingly as the Somali panel described the various aspects of their culture, and almost to a person they affirmed the "rights" of the Somalis to observe their beliefs and values in all arenas of life.
"I just don't understand what's so hard about allowing these kids to pray in school", one woman puzzled.
The funny thing (at least to me) was that none of them seemed to appreciate the irony of their positions. Let me just say for the record that I concur with their desire to respect the Somali culture and values, and make reasonable accommodations when possible, at work and in schools. But I couldn't help but wondering how these open-minded, culturally sensitive, caring people would have reacted if the panel would not have consisted of Somalis but another group with strong religious and cultural values.
Say evangelical Christians?
For good measure, how about white evangelical Christians?
I'll go out on a limb here and speculate that the concept of religious and cultural diversity that this particular crowd was interested in encouraging, would not encompass followers of the cross. Just a hunch of mine.
By the way, as I was learning about Somali values and culture I could not get one persistent thought out of my head:
Somalis are natural Republicans.
Paging Karl Rove.
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