By Mariam Ibrahim, edmontonjournal.com
Jaamac Jaamac’s wedding day nearly four years ago was supposed to be a day for celebration.
Instead, he mourned the loss of a friend — the same friend who was supposed to emcee his wedding reception.
Farhan Hassan, 27, and Kasim Mohamed, 28, were gunned down on Sept. 2, 2007 outside the Fulton Place Community Hall during an after-hours party. Neither man had ties to gangs or drugs, police said at the time.
“My cousin called me at 6 a.m. and he said, ‘Farhan is dead.’” Jaamac recalled. “From that day, things went wrong.”
In the years that followed, 12 more Somali-Canadian men would be killed in the Edmonton area.
With barely a fraction of the crimes solved, Jaamac said fear in the community has been growing.
Jaamac, 36, has hosted Edmonton’s only Somali radio show for more than six years.
His one-hour Somali-language show delivers diverse news to Somalis in the city, with a focus on issues facing the community in Edmonton and Canada. His show is a forum for debate among Somalis in the city, who often call in to discuss the hot-button issues of the week.
Some weeks the discussion turns to the disproportionate number of homicides affecting the community, which numbers between 10,000 and 15,000.
He says he has heard different arguments from people phoning in on the subject.
“Some say these kids (who were killed) moved here from Toronto or Ottawa and they’re not connected to this community,” he said. “I heard people who have a counter-argument to that, saying we’re all new here; we all moved from somewhere else.”
He said the perceived lack of co-operation with police among Edmonton’s Somali community is unfair. Many people who call in attribute many of the homicides to the victims’ involvement in drugs or gangs, he said.
“Those people who have information are probably criminals themselves,” he said. “We know the code of silence exists with criminals.”
But the perception remains, he said, and his full-time job driving a taxi gives him the opportunity to hear from Edmontonians about the killings.
He senses there is a public perception that Somalis accept criminality or don’t help police because police in Somalia were corrupt. “But when other people involved in crimes don’t co-operate with police, the blame doesn’t go beyond them,” he said.
“Now as a taxi driver, I’m on the defensive all the time. When people ask me where I’m from, and I say, ‘Somalia,’ I’m ready to get a negative reaction,” he said.
Jaamac left his native Somalia in 2002, resettling in Calgary after a few months in Kenya.
Almost as soon as he arrived in Calgary, Jaamac pushed ahead on fulfilling his dream of becoming a journalist, a passion he has pursued since he was a 14-year-old boy growing up in Mogadishu listening to a government-run radio station and BBC’s Somalia service.
“I memorized every show and every broadcast,” Jaamac recalled. “I was listening to shows constantly. Then I developed a sense that I wanted to do it too, that I could do it.”
He eventually got a gig as an assistant for a Somali radio sports commentator in Mogadishu and later developed a radio program aimed at deterring Somali youth from joining the fighting in the country’s civil war, which has raged since 1991.
Earning $9 per hour as a dishwasher in Calgary, Jaamac paid $34 for a weekly one-hour slot on a cable radio station. He slowly gained a small following, but he realized his show would be limited in Calgary. The community there was smaller than in Edmonton and there were fewer businesses to canvass for support.
“Calgary is a very tough city to open a business in,” he said. “I needed more listeners.”
He set his sights on an open time slot at CJSR, the University of Alberta campus radio station. By 2005, Jaamac was in Edmonton, and in May, his radio show debuted. It was a tough go at first he said, especially because of the time slot he had — Sundays at 11 a.m.
“It’s really tough to get Somali listeners on a Sunday morning. It’s not like Somalis go to church,” he explained with a laugh.
His show has since moved to the 8 p.m. slot on Sundays, which helped spur its popularity.
Jaamac, married with a two-year-old daughter, drives a cab full-time and manages the minimum five hours of prep work his show demands each week.
“During the week, while I’m driving my taxi, I find time to take notes, interview people,” he said. Jaamac says he began the radio show because he was always interested in journalism and media, but over time his motivations have changed.
“When I first started, I wasn’t doing it for the Somali community. I did it for myself. I liked it,” he explained. “But then the sense of community started building up. I started realizing what I was doing wasn’t just for me.”
Now he views his show as a service for people in the community, many of whom may not pay attention to mainstream media reports. The show has been crucial to getting information to Somalis, especially those who have difficulties with English. During the H1N1 crisis three years ago, Jaamac hosted guests who provided advice on how to avoid infection.
“We started bringing in people we thought were important to speak to the community,” he said. “When I stop for coffee or food at Somali restaurants, people stop me and thank me.”
He says the community can be very isolated, with a culture gap existing between Somali parents who came to Canada and their children who were raised here.
“This is a closed society. There is a culture gap. The youth have a Canadian way of living and speak English,” he explained. “Their parents are Somali-speaking and live a Somali way of life.”
He acknowledged some Somali youth are struggling in Edmonton, with many dropping out of school, but said youth in many minority groups often face similar challenges.
But there are real contributions this community has brought to Edmonton, too, he said, like the dozens of Somali businesses that have popped up around the city. And, he said, many young Somalis, mostly women, are graduating from university and moving on to professional careers.
“And there’s a high number of young men and women who are contributing to this society and are filling unwanted jobs in this city,” he said.
“There are a lot of positive things happening in this city. And although there are a lot of organizations doing good work, there is still a lot of work to be done.”
mibrahim@edmontonjournal.com
twitter.com/mariam_di
Source: The Edmonton Journal
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