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Camel-herding boy becomes a true Minnesotan

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Neither his guerilla gunfire nor time in prison were as powerful as the simple seeds of education planted in the life of Dahir Jibreel, 58, a Somalian father of 10 now living in Monticello, MN.

But the inspiration of meeting Hubert Humphrey in Somalia as a 5th grade boy had nearly as much impact on making him the leader he is today.

Known as DJ, a smiling and approachable Augsburg College graduate and Somalian leader, Jibreel told of the roots of the growing garden of East Africans in South Minneapolis since Humphrey first sunk a spade into their soil 40-plus years ago.

Jibreel recalls a day, as a 7-year-old boy herding camels in central Somalia, when “I somehow decided I didn’t belong there and ran away to a nearest village. I spent an entire week behind a restaurant eating whatever scraps I could find.”

After being found and returned to his family, he fled again, this time sneaking onto a semi trailer and traveling 500 miles to the capital Mogadishu where he landed at the crossroads of history.

Dahir arrived at a school just built as an American investment in the high-stakes Horn of Africa, coveted for its oil prospects by Russia, China and the U.S. during the Cold War.

“Senator Humphrey convinced John F. Kennedy to build this sprawling National Teacher Education Center, a demonstration project with only 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade students, and I was in the first class.”

Jibreel still remembers the kindness of Ms. Lori, an American Peace Corps teacher who signed him in. “I repeated my name three times, and I’ve always used her spelling, though Somalians spell it Jibril.”

Jibreel was only one of five students who were “destitute, without money or family,” allowed to join classes reserved for the children of high-ranking Somalian officials driven to school in limousines, he said. “We hadn’t had breakfast, so the highlight of my day was the liter of milk we were given on our break.”

Yet Jibreel climbed to the head of his class and, when Hubert Humphrey visited the U.S. outpost as Vice President in the late 1960’s, “I was among the graduates who were presented as the pride of the institution. We had to learn songs to sing for him in English.”

Not long after Humphrey’s visit, a Moscow-funded coup d’etat, led by Somalia’s military general, overthrew the government. Years later Jibreel was reunited with his father and brother in their efforts to resist this oppressive regime, he said.

“I was in college and received a bachelor’s degree to teach Geography and Physical Education in Somalia, but all of that was interrupted by the worst year of my life,” he said.

His father, a missile specialist and his brother, an armed guerilla, both were executed in 1979. “Before this I was just an urban boy. But this is when I learned what real life is.”

Jibreel joined the cause, seeking to establish democracy in Somalia. “We distributed leaflets protesting the Soviets and wrote on walls at night. I was one of 12 college student resisters in Mogadishu. When two students were arrested, the rest of us fled. It was December 25, 1979.”

For seven years Jibreel helped lead the fight of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), living in the bush. “I grew to manhood through harsh realities,” said Jibreel, including “hunger, no shower, living outdoors, and sleeping in the dirt.”

Finally he was captured in 1986 and held a political prisoner in an Ethiopian prison until 1991. Escaping in a jailbreak during a transition of power in Ethiopia, Jibreel finally sought asylum to the U.S., and first arrived on U.S. soil in 1995.

Given the danger and hardship he’s endured, Jibreel still laughs at what scared him in his first week in America. “It was the end of October and I had never heard of Halloween. I heard a knock on the door and opened it to little ghosts standing there. I actually fainted,” he said laughing.

But clearly he got over it since he soon applied to be a teacher working with kids, eventually hired as a bi-lingual social studies teacher at Edison High School in North Minneapolis and later at Edina schools as well. “There was an influx of Somali families coming to the Twin Cities.”

That influx has grown to a burgeoning community as the first wave of Somalia’s civil war refugees, beginning in 1991, sponsored relatives’ immigration to Minnesota. Today, nearly one in three of the 85,700 Somalis in the U.S. live in Minnesota, and they’re a special class, says Jibreel.

Partly thanks to Hubert Humphrey, he said, “Many of us are ambitious, hard-working, and highly educated.”

“It’s amazing how many hundreds of thousands of Somalis around the globe became educated through the brilliant aid given to the National Teacher Education Center” as teachers were trained and dispatched throughout Somalia. Jibreel estimates that two-dozen of these educators are teaching in Twin Cities schools alone.

Somalis have flourished in Minnesota, because it has provided good starting wages, great education and health services, and a socially progressive climate that Humphrey would be proud of, said Jibreel.

Jibreel is currently director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center from which he helps immigrants assimilate and mediates issues such as job discrimination, tenant rights, and the denial of health services.

“We have reached a critical mass creating our own purchasing power, thanks to our many entrepreneurial business owners. So we have access to the food, clothing and home accessories we’re used to, and have become self-sustaining.”

Jibreel is aware of the fear of terrorism recently associated with the Somali community, but both dispels the concern and gives reasons Somalis will have a greatly beneficial effect on Minnesota’s future, both economically and socially.

Even the U.S. has extremist elements, said Jibreel, but nobody links Caucasians, because they’re white-skinned, to skinheads.

“Al Shabaab, the extremist group that was agitating and mobilizing youth to go back and fight in the last decade is a mortal enemy of the Somali people. They made their appeal during a time when Ethiopia was invading Somalia,” said Jibreel, but that time has past.

There are likely members of every extremist group in America, but Jibreel compares linking Somalians here to terrorists to the irrational way some linked German Americans to the Nazi’s during World War II. “Two-thirds of our people are now American-born and as much a part of the fabric of life, eager to pursue our dreams here, as any American.”

“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of us are legal American citizens who are eagerly raising our families, proud and happy with our citizenship. There are no aliens sitting in the streets.”

Somalis are busily creating hundreds of businesses, most run by Somali women, revitalizing lagging neighborhoods in several bustling South Minneapolis malls. “We are entrepreneurial, opportunistic and restless. We’ll have a huge impact on economic growth over the years in Minnesota.”

Jibreel sees another boon for race relations in Minnesota coming from the Somali community. “Most Somalis have no clue about black history in this country. They are not coming with the associations of slavery in their head, neither internalizing racism nor bringing negative assumptions about the dominant white culture.”

Like Halloween ghosts, it’s been outside of their realm of experience. In fact most have found Minnesota generous and welcoming so animosity has been entirely absent.

“As a result, we’re not afraid. Our children here make friends easily and have sleepovers. This can be helpful to break down barriers of discrimination in this country. It will make Minnesotans more savvy in dealing with other cultures.”

Jibreel expects young Somalis, including the 300-plus who are students at the University of Minnesota alone, to become brilliant scholars who will forge business relationships in African countries, using American specialization and technology, he said.

“Hubert Humphrey had the wisdom and foresight to plant educational seeds in Minnesota,” said Jibreel who appropriately is a former fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

“We need future international leaders in the workforce in Minnesota, and the birthrate is higher among Somalis than in any other ethnic group. In many cases, so is the motivation to excel,” he said.

Jibreel believes Minnesota is about to bear the fruit of Humphrey’s investment.

© 2012 Todd Svanoe. Unauthorized reproduction of this copyrighted material is prohibited.


Todd can be reached via the Contact page.

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