Nuruddin Farah: "Mogadishu was once a beautiful cosmopolitan city"

Text by: Tirthankar Chanda Follow

A giant of contemporary African literature, Nuruddin Farah is Somali. He is the author of fifteen novels, essays and plays, translated into many languages. Living in exile since the 1970s, he testifies through his fiction of the tragic sinking of his country and the tremendous resilience, coupled with a civilizational depth, of the Somali population. He told the RFI microphone about the Mogadishu of his childhood, the descent into hell of the Somalis since the collapse of the country, but also the meaning and substance of his literary work. Interview.

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RFI: On July 1, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Somali independence. You were 15 in 1960. What memories do you keep of this day?

Nuruddin Farah: None. This is explained by the fact that even though I was indeed born in Somalia, I grew up in Ogaden , the Somaliphone province of Ethiopia. My family had settled in this region in 1947 when it was still administered by the British before its return to the Ethiopian fold, much to the dismay of the Somalis. My father had found a job as an interpreter in the British administration. The deadline of July 1, 1960 passed almost unnoticed because we did not have the right in Ethiopia to celebrate the independence day of Somalia because of fratricidal rivalries between our two countries. In fact, in 1964, four years after independence, the two countries went to war. During the war, my family returned to Mogadishu, as they did not feel safe in Ogaden.

What did Mogadishu look like in those years?

Mogadishu was once a beautiful cosmopolitan city, a major commercial crossroads, the meeting place of the Arab and Indian worlds. This city was founded between the 8th and 9th centuries AD by Arab traders. It had become a magnificent metropolis with its beaches, cafes, restaurants, cinemas. In the years 1960-70, the inhabitants were proud to live in this pleasant and ancient city, undoubtedly one of the oldest in sub-Saharan Africa. At the time, people were much more tolerant and secular compared to today. It was because the religious issue that dominates Somali life today was not as significant.

The Somali capital was also, it seems, deeply marked by the passage of the Italians?

Italian colonization was very different from English colonization. While the British, with a handful of officials, were content to hold strategic strongholds in the north-eastern part of the country, in what is now called Somaliland , the Italians for their part brought in numerous colonists to launch large cotton, banana or sugar plantations. They built infrastructure, which benefited the Italians first. This is why the Somali political elite was not very happy with the return of the Italians after the war in 1948, but this time under the supervision of the United Nations. Even if the Somalis got along better with the Italians than with the British, to whom they never forgave the cession of the Ogaden to Ethiopia, it is clear that there have never been good years colonial. As proof, the status of second-class citizen reserved for the Somalis under Italian colonization. The administration also forgot to build schools. At the time of independence, Italian Somalia had some 56 local graduates. The figure was not much different in British Somaliland. After independence, in the space of three years, the number of children in school rose to one million. This development is not specific to Somalia: it has happened everywhere in Africa. Even corrupt, incompetent and authoritarian, African governments have done better than colonial governments in social development.

Why were you forced to go into exile?

I left Somalia in 1974 to pursue a course in theater studies at the University of London. When I returned two years later, I learned that my second novel A naked needle which had just appeared had greatly displeased the dictator Siyaad Barré and that I had become persona non grata in my own country. "  You must now forget Somalia and take it for dead and buried: this country no longer exists for you!"  I will never forget what my brother said when I called from Rome airport before taking the flight to my country. So I stayed in Italy. The novel I wrote later, Sweet and Sour Milk , this time earned me a death sentence in absentia. It was only in 1996 that I was finally able to return to Somalia, but I was still not welcome. When I disembarked at Kismayo airport, I was immediately arrested and put in prison by the henchmen of one of the warlords whose name I forgot today, but who was at the extremely powerful era. The fact remains that I had to sleep in prison during my first seven days in Somalia, after an exile that had lasted twenty-two years. I found myself confined.

How did you feel when you discovered Mogadishu ravaged by the civil war ?

I was horrified, collapsed. Mogadishu is today like a ravaged city, delivered to armed teenagers, khat grazers. It is a city without government, no postal services, no schools, no telephones. Men defecate in the streets. You can only move around it surrounded by protective guards. One has the impression of being in the middle ages. The old city was 80% destroyed. But what is more serious is the destruction of his cosmopolitan spirit. We can always rebuild the buildings, but it will be more difficult to reinvent the spirit of openness and joy that reigned in this city before its destruction.

You have often said that your literary ambition was to bear witness to the fortunes and misfortunes of your country. This is what you do wonderfully through your books, your characters. But how do you do it, since you've spent most of your life abroad?

Except for the first few years when I lived in Europe and the United States, I never really felt exiled. At least, never intellectually. A large part of my expatriate life, I spent it in African countries. Today I share my life between South Africa and the United States. When I'm in Africa, I don't feel like I left Somalia. Besides, my country, I carry it in my head wherever I go. It is enough that I activate my memory and my imagination to find the landscapes, the smells, the sounds of the voices, the cries and the whispers. I've not forgotten anything.

Don't you fear that distance will lead you to romanticize the real experiences of the people you want to testify about ?

No way. I am not a romantic, but rather a realist. I know how difficult life is in Somalia for women, for children, for ordinary people who populate the pages of my books. It is in my familiarity with the daily life of my country that I draw inspiration for my novels. I do not celebrate anything, I do not approach my subjects with preconceptions, I am content to let the flow of life invade me over the sentences. What sets me apart from other African writers is that I have never tried to glorify either the past or the present. I know that independence is a long process of intellectual emancipation. The Somalis acquired formal independence on July 1, 1960, but were not intellectually free. Our unconscious loyalty to the colonizers, Italian colonizers for some and British for others, would explain in part why the country broke up along the colonial line.

At 75, aren't you tempted to return to live in Somalia?

Technically, I am no longer persona non grata since the regime which had expelled me from Somalia has been overthrown and I have been able to go freely to my country several times. But I am a resident of South Africa where I settled in 1999 with my wife and my children. I return once or twice a year to Somalia where I have created a foundation to honor the memory of my sister who was killed in an attack in Afghanistan. I need calm to be able to write my books and anonymity that I would never have in Mogadishu. I am much too well known there.

What are your hopes for the future of Somalia?

I have the impression that the situation has improved compared to the last two decades, but I do not yet feel in people a real confidence in the future. It is undoubtedly because peace remains elusive, with these militias which continue to reign terror in the country. Restoring peace should be the priority of the political class, which unfortunately spends its time negotiating the hypothetical arrangements to be put in place in the future Somali state. These men remind me of this caricature that I saw in the press depicting two men, both bald like an egg, arguing over the color of the comb. Peace first, because with peace all possibilities open to us.

Read Nuruddin Farah in French:
Born from Adam's coast (Hatier, 1987), Sweet and sour milk (Zoë, 1994), Sardines (Zoë, 1995), Territories (Le Serpent à Plumes, 1995), Sesame firm- you (Zoé, 1997), Donations (Le Serpent à Plumes, 1998), Secrets (Le Serpent à Plumes, 1999), Yesterday, tomorrow. Voices and testimonies of the Somali diaspora (Le Serpent à Plumes, 2001)

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