Meet the Somali refugees breaking through in the Nordics

To mark World Refugee Day, Euronews profiles two Somalis and traces their journeys from arrival within the Nordics to their breakthroughs as politicians.

_In the Nordic area, the primary Somalis arrived within the late Eighties and early Nineties. Later, as Somalia’s civil conflict turned extra intense, new arrivals got here.
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Now, the primary era of Somali refugees is making their mark in politics, from native council stage to the nationwide stage.

‘Many challenges in small cities for immigrants’

Suldaan Said Ahmed is Finland’s first member of parliament with a Somali background. His household got here to the Nordic nation as refugees on household unification visas when he was an adolescent, to hitch his brother who was already dwelling there.

At the moment Finnish authorities had a coverage to put refugees in numerous components of the nation, slightly than concentrating all of them in larger cities, so Suldaan and his household went to stay in North Karelia, a area within the northeast of Finland alongside the Russian border.  

“It was a great time to stay in North Karelia, to study the language, begin faculty and adapt to Finnish tradition. However there are additionally many challenges in small cities particularly when you have got an immigrant background,” mentioned 29-year-old Suldaan.

“Massive cities at all times have extra job alternatives, they’re extra tolerant. These smaller cities, since they do not have an enormous variety of immigrants, there may be quite a lot of challenges,” he tells Euronews. 

North Karelia’s foremost metropolis, Joensuu, had earned itself a fame as a harmful place for immigrants within the early Nineties with violent assaults by skinheads a very nasty downside, prompting an excessive amount of concern for Suldaan’s mom who wished to maneuver the household to London. 

“We bought collectively and mentioned ‘mum, since childhood we’ve been shifting from place to put, and each time we’ve to begin to adapt to a brand new language and new tradition. However we perceive that you just really feel loneliness as a single mom with no different Somali folks and no different African folks. So possibly we make a compromise and transfer to Helsinki the place there’s a larger diaspora?’”

Suldaan’s political activism began solely after the household moved to Helsinki, and he noticed the breakthrough of the right-wing True Finns Celebration within the 2011 election. 

This, he determined, was a wake-up name to face up towards racism and xenophobia, and he reached out to the Left Alliance political celebration asking to grow to be a candidate earlier than the following native council elections. 

The primary election did not go his approach, and he did not get sufficient votes for a seat on the Helsinki Metropolis Council, however he persevered. 

“After I noticed that I’m not getting elected I used to be disenchanted. However I additionally determined I’m a younger man, I simply moved right here to Helsinki from North Karelia and 91 folks determined I’m the very best particular person to handle their pursuits. I mentioned ‘Suldaan, it is a good begin!’” 

Quick ahead to the following native elections in 2017 and by this time Suldaan had joined the Left Alliance, and already had a management place inside the celebration’s administration. When the votes have been counted, he was elected to the town council with extra votes than veteran campaigner Paavo Väyrynen – certainly one of Finland’s most well-known politicians. 

On the 2021 Finnish basic election, Suldaan wasn’t voted on to parliament, however inside the celebration record system he changed one other Left Alliance politician to grow to be the primary Somali to sit down in Finland’s parliament, representing Helsinki. 

“Any time I get hate speech or a hateful message, and if I stop, these folks win. All the time somebody who comes first makes a sacrifice and now younger folks from an immigrant background or completely different minority background at the least they’ve some folks they’ll name a task mannequin.”

From social employee to politician

In Norway, Marian Hussein wasn’t solely the primary elected MP with a Somali background, she was the very first particular person of African descent to take up a seat in parliament in Oslo.

Her household moved from Saudi Arabia, the place her father had been a migrant employee, when Marian was 10-years- outdated, and at first the brand new residence shocked her. 

“You come from one of many hottest areas of the world to one of many coldest. We got here throughout winter time with snow, and we weren’t within the metropolis however in a district near Lillehammer, the place they’d the Winter Olympics,” Hussein,36, advised Euronews. 

One of the eye-opening issues for younger Marian was the Norwegian schooling system, the place girls and boys have been allowed to attend public faculty – of their earlier residence solely Saudi nationals had any rights to go to public faculties whereas migrant employee households have been banned. 

Marian got here into politics fairly late, after she had already accomplished her schooling and been working as a social employee. 

“I used to be engaged in numerous actions, however I by no means noticed myself being within the political area,” she mentioned.  

And like Suldaan, it was the election of right-wing politicians into authorities that made her take into account getting extra concerned in politics at a nationwide stage. 

“In 2013 in Norway, the Conservative Celebration took over and so they began ruling with the (right-wing) Progress Celebration, and in that evening I joined the Socialist Left Celebration,” she mentioned. 

There was nonetheless an excessive amount of uncertainty for Marian about how concerned she ought to get, particularly coping with the concept she did not know sufficient about politics, or lacked expertise to hitch a TV debate. 

However she had some position fashions she appeared as much as, like Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi.

“So I knew about ladies in politics, however I by no means thought I might be one!” 

“It took me time to grasp how a lot affect that I’ve, however it’s so vital that within the final 20 years there was a debate on how little built-in refugees are in Norwegian society to collaborating in debates the place persons are debating our historical past and our lives”

“It’s so vital to be in these discussions and inform them what’s working and what’s not working and the way folks stay their lives and do not let individuals who use concern as a political agenda.”