🚀 go-pugleaf

Cuthbert Thistlethwaite <nosillygods@myface.net> wrote in message news:<3DD7AC19.952C2CD7@myface.net>...
> http://www.amconmag.com/11_18/cover4.html


Whoopee! Just what America needs, more population. We must commend our
noble and fearless leaders in Washington.

Burt


> 
> The Great Somali Welfare Hunt
> The Refugee Act of 1980 has turned thousands of Somali Bantu into
> American dependents. Millions more &#8220;refugees&#8221; may be eligible for
> resettlement in your neighborhood.
> 
> By Roger D. McGrath
> 
> The deconstruction of America is well underway. This has been clear to
> anyone living in California since the 1970s. Back then I remember
> talking with people who lived out of state about the changes that were
> being wrought by immigration, both legal and illegal, to California
> from countries of the Third World. No one could quite believe that the
> changes were as drastic and far-reaching as I described. Many
> considered me an alarmist. Those who did not thought that what I
> described was peculiar to California. The last decade has changed all
> that. What began in California thirty years ago is now happening
> everywhere. I would like to say that I take a perverse delight in
> having reality smack those nonbelievers in the face. I don&#8217;t. The
> America that I love, the America that I joined the Marine Corps to
> defend, the America of my ancestors, is being destroyed.
> 
> The latest community to enjoy the delights of Third World mass
> immigration is Lewiston, Maine, which, since February 2001, has been
> the destination for hundreds of Somali Muslims. The first Muslim to
> arrive in the town actually got there in May 1965, but his stay was
> brief. He was there to fight Sonny Liston in a rematch. The year
> before, as Cassius Clay, he took Liston&#8217;s crown in a bizarre
> seven-round battle in Miami that saw the dreaded Liston, a 7-1
> favorite, quit while sitting on his stool. &#8220;The fix was in,&#8221; was the
> consensus. Between fights Clay converted to Islam and adopted the name
> Muhammad Ali. He won his second fight with Liston, a 7-5 favorite this
> time, in an equally bizarre one-round match. Again came the cry, &#8220;The
> fix was in.&#8221; Little did the citizens of Lewiston realize that, 36
> years later, Muslims would begin arriving in their town again. This
> time they would stay. Once more the fix seems to be in.
> 
> Lewiston, a former mill town of 36,000 on the Androscoggin River, was
> virtually all white when the federal census was taken in 2000. Blacks,
> with 383 people, accounted for 1.1% of the population. No other
> nonwhite group accounted for more than a fraction of a percent. The
> exact percentage for whites was recorded as 97.3. With the mills shut
> down and a less than robust economy, it would seem an unlikely place
> for Somalis to flock to. Nonetheless, upwards of 2,000 have already
> done so, and more are on the way.
> 
> The problem goes back to the Refugee Act of 1980, which amended the
> Immigration and Nationality Act and changed a traditional American
> policy of favoring refugees from Communist countries. The act put the
> United States in line with the United Nations by redefining &#8220;refugee&#8221;
> more broadly to include anyone &#8220;who is unwilling or unable to return
> to his country of nationality or habitual residence because of
> persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race,
> religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or
> political opinion.&#8221; Potentially half the world falls under the
> definition. The Refugee Act also provided for both a regular flow and
> the emergency admission of refugees as well as federal monies for
> their resettlement.
> 
> In 1999, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
> declared the Somali Bantu &#8220;refugees,&#8221; and the United States agreed to
> resettle them. The ancestral home of these particular Bantu was
> Tanzania, but Arab slave traders took them to Somalia during the 18th
> and 19th centuries. Despite the end of slavery during the 20th
> century, the transplanted Bantu remained less than equal in Somalia.
> They were restricted to jobs considered demeaning, excluded from the
> Somali clan system, and referred to by pejorative names, generally
> meaning something like &#8220;lowly slave.&#8221; Most of them lived in the Juba
> River valley of southern Somalia. When civil war erupted with the
> overthrow of the dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991, they fell prey
> to various warlords. Mostly lacking arms themselves, they were
> dispossessed of their land and property by whatever faction
> temporarily took power. Eventually, more than 12,000 of the Somali
> Bantu crossed into Kenya and settled in a UN sponsored refugee camp at
> Dadaab in eastern Kenya, where more than 100,000 other Somali had also
> fled.
> 
> Logic would suggest that these 12,000 black, African Muslims be
> resettled in their former homeland, the black, African nation of
> Tanzania, which is more than a third Muslim and borders Kenya, instead
> of being transported thousands of miles to the United States. But
> somehow, the UN commissioners and American officials think the good,
> old U.S.A. is just right for the Somali Bantu&#8212;and other Somali
> refugees as well.
> 
> Most of the early arrivals in the United States settled in Clarkston,
> next-door to Atlanta, but problems quickly developed with local blacks
> who, the Somali contend, preyed on them. A few Somali had problems
> with another form of American diversity. Mohammed Abdi said that he
> was resettled north of Atlanta in a &#8220;war zone&#8221; between Vietnamese and
> Mexican gangs. Moreover, Somalis soon learned that welfare benefits
> and public housing were more generous and better elsewhere, especially
> in New England. By February 2001, they had discovered Lewiston, and
> the influx began. The numbers of those arriving accelerated last
> summer, exceeding 100 a month. Although it is difficult to get an
> exact fix on the figures, it seems that more than half of all Somalis
> in Lewiston are on the dole. Welfare spending has more than doubled
> since their arrival.
> 
> One of the Somalis who has a job is Abdiaziz Ali, a 31-year-old father
> of five who arrived in Lewiston last year. Ali is a welfare
> caseworker. He greets new arrivals, puts them on welfare, and finds
> them housing. He is happy to be in Lewiston, where benefits are
> substantial, schools good, and crime low. He himself was robbed twice
> by local blacks in Atlanta.
> 
> Mohammed Maye, the president of the African Community and Refugee
> Center in Clarkston, has a map of Lewiston on the wall of his office.
> &#8220;Go to Maine,&#8221; he advises Somalis. He has recently opened a second
> office in Lewiston. Abdullahi Abdullahi, the president of the Somali
> Community Development Organization in Clarkston, tells Somalis that,
> unlike Georgia, Maine has terribly cold winters, but &#8220;the welfare
> system is better.&#8221; Better for sure. Lewiston provides welfare to
> anyone in need, and the state picks up half the tab. Recipients are
> allowed a generous five years of assistance before benefits are
> terminated, and, even at that point, extensions are not difficult to
> obtain. Single parents can stay on welfare and go to college. Public
> housing is also available, although, because of the influx of Somalis,
> there is now a waiting list. More than a third of the apartments at
> Hillview, Lewiston&#8217;s largest public housing project, are occupied by
> Somalis, many of them single mothers with large broods of children.
> The fathers are unaccounted for or still in Georgia or Africa. Those
> who are unable to obtain public housing are eligible for Section 8
> vouchers, which the federal government provides to subsidize rental of
> private housing.
> 
> Just where all the Somalis will eventually be employed is a mystery.
> The mills of Lewiston, once upon a time, produced a quarter of all
> American textiles. Across the Androscoggin River, the factories of
> Auburn turned out shoes by the thousands. Foreign competition has
> destroyed those industries. Like many other communities in the United
> States, Lewiston has tried to re-invent itself and create a
> service-based economy. Banking, insurance, healthcare, and the like,
> however, do not provide the blue-collar jobs that have sustained
> generations of immigrants with few skills and limited English. Perhaps
> the demise of the old industries is of little consequence to the
> Somalis. When Renee Bernier, the president of the Lewiston city
> council, offered to hire 30 Somalis at $8 an hour to hold warning
> signs at road construction sites, few showed any interest. Those who
> did wanted to work no more than a half-day, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
> 
> With the welfare system, public housing, and, to a rapidly increasing
> degree, the schools creaking under the strain of the Somalis, some in
> Lewiston have dared to speak out. Recently, mayor Laurier Raymond, in
> a public letter, asked the Somali leaders to discourage the migration
> to Lewiston, saying the city was &#8220;maxed out financially, physically
> and emotionally.&#8221; He was immediately attacked by the former mayor,
> Kaileigh Tara, who said she &#8220;wanted to cry&#8221; when she read Raymond&#8217;s
> letter. Somali leaders said he is &#8220;an ill-informed leader who is bent
> toward bigotry.&#8221; The usual terms xenophobe and racist were bandied
> about. A protest march of some 200 Somalis and their white
> sympathizers traveled several blocks from a downtown Methodist church
> to Lewiston&#8217;s first mosque, a converted grocery store on Lisbon
> Street. The U.S. Department of Justice was called upon to conduct an
> investigation to ensure that the Somalis are not discriminated
> against. The UN cannot be far behind.
> 
> Meanwhile, the 71-year-old Raymond, a former probate judge, has been
> brought to heel. He met with local Somali leaders at city hall and
> vowed to co-operate with the Somali community to reduce tensions in
> Lewiston. After the meeting, the Somalis issued a written statement
> saying, &#8220;Like all families, we have our misunderstandings, but
> families draw strength from resolving their issues.&#8221; Raymond had
> evidently been operating under the misapprehension that Muslim Somali
> Bantu were not part of his family.
> 
> Raymond&#8217;s new family practices female genital mutilation, specifically
> clitorectomy. Termed &#8220;female circumcision&#8221; by the culturally sensitive
> and euphemistically inclined, the barbaric practice is common among
> African Muslims. Not infrequently the clitoris is cut out without the
> benefit of anesthesia or surgical instruments. Broken bottles or tin
> can lids occasionally serve as scalpels. This means that often not
> only is the clitoris cut out but that portions of the labia are also
> cut away or severely damaged. According to reports from the refugee
> camps in Kenya, hundreds of girls are being rushed through the
> mutilation because U.S.-sponsored cultural orientation classes have
> informed the refugees that the practice is illegal in the United
> States. The Somali Bantu usually excise the clitoris when girls reach
> the age of eight or nine. In recent weeks, girls as young as two have
> undergone the ordeal.
> 
> More than 12,000 Somali Bantu have now been transferred from the
> Dadaab camp, near the border with Somalia, across 600 miles of Kenya
> to the Kakuma camp in the northwest. Next stop, the United States. The
> Somalis do not have to worry about using their credit card air
> miles&#8212;it is all courtesy of Uncle Sam. There are plenty more refugees
> in Kenya. The UNHCR counts nearly 200,000, most of them Somalis but
> large numbers of Sudanese as well. The Somali Bantu could be just the
> beginning.
> 
> Those Somali already in Lewiston have found what they call their
> &#8220;dream place.&#8221; Nonetheless, they understand that there are other dream
> places in the United States, and they mean to find them. Following
> their ancient practice of &#8220;sahan,&#8221; they send young men out in all
> directions to find not water and good grazing, as in Somalia, but
> public housing and generous welfare benefits. The tribe then follows.
> &#8220;They came in droves off the buses,&#8221; said Lewiston council president
> Bernier, and &#8220;some made the welfare office their first stop.&#8221; The
> practice of sahan has become more sophisticated in the United States.
> The Somalis use the Internet to access the websites of states and
> towns across the nation, checking crime rates, welfare programs,
> housing, and schools. Employment opportunities are evidently a low
> priority. This certainly removes the main obstacle for most of us
> relocating to dream places. Abdiaziz Ali, the welfare caseworker, is
> not shy about announcing the Somalis&#8217; intentions. &#8220;We can spread
> out&#8212;anywhere we want.&#8221;
> 
> Anywhere, for now, means mostly towns in New England. Holyoke,
> Massachusetts has been targeted for Somali Bantu settlement by a
> coalition of religious charities. The coalition has received a
> million-dollar grant from the federal government to establish the
> Somalis in the town famous for the first women&#8217;s college. Holyoke city
> councilors, however, say that even with the grant the costs of
> absorbing the Somalis would be prohibitive. By a 12-2 vote the
> councilors passed a resolution that stated, &#8220;The city does not have
> the resources to care for, educate, train, house or protect said
> individuals.&#8221; The resolution concluded by firmly proclaiming that the
> councilors &#8220;do not support the decision to place the refugees in our
> city.&#8221; Federal officials say the local townsfolk have no control over
> the resettlement grant and cannot prevent the Somalis from moving to
> Holyoke. Local sentiment against the anticipated arrival of the
> Somalis has been so strong that the charities coalition canceled a
> public presentation and slide show on the plight of the refugees. I
> suspect the slide show did not include photos of mutilated genitalia.
> 
> Holyoke mayor Michael Sullivan tried to calm the citizens, saying,
> &#8220;Don&#8217;t blame the victims. The victims are the city&#8212;and the Bantus. Its
> not fair that Holyoke has to be alone in this, but if nobody&#8217;s going
> to do it, we have to try.&#8221; Actually, the federal government does not
> have to do this to Holyoke or to any town in America. The American
> people, in poll after poll, have voiced their opposition to our
> current immigration policies. We are under no obligation to destroy
> the ethnic, religious, and cultural traditions that have built this
> country. We are under no obligation to destroy the homogeneity of
> small towns in America.
> 
> With upwards of 130,000 Somalis in Kenyan camps hoping to be resettled
> in the United States, towns throughout America might soon have the
> opportunity to enjoy the diversity that a thousand or two African
> Muslims will bring them. Meanwhile, we send our boys overseas to fight
> and die, ostensibly to protect the United States. One of those boys
> who died in Somalia, in our ill-conceived raid on Mogadishu&#8212;so
> brilliantly dramatized in &#8220;Black Hawk Down&#8221;&#8212;was SSgt. Thomas J. Field,
> Army Ranger and native son of Lisbon, just downriver from Lewiston.
> Local folk got the state highway that connects Lisbon and Lewiston
> named in his honor. In Lewiston, the highway becomes Lisbon Street,
> which now features Lewiston&#8217;s first mosque, regularly crowded with
> Somalis. May God rest your soul brave young man&#8212;because somewhere &#8220;the
> fix is in.&#8221;
> 
> Roger D. McGrath is an historian in California and the author of
> Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes (Univ. of California Press)
> among other books.