Ifrah Monsur: Voice of a Refugee Artist

Ifrah Mansour is a US-based Somali artist who identifies as a multimedia artist because her form of art involves the interplay of sound, movement and digital media. She uses her art to explore the lives of Somali diasporas, the Somali culture, and the need for acceptance in the world. Her work has shown much future prospects, and it is hoped that she would continue to dazzle the world with her art.

Ifrah was born in Saudi Arabia to Somali parents who later moved to Somalia. Unfortunately, a tense civil war broke out in the country (in 1991) not long after her family returned home. Ifrah was to live through the war, famine, droughts, and the refugee camp experience before she attained the age of ten. Her family would later migrate to the US and she counts this a lucky moment which brought forth a second shot at life.

Her fascination with theatre came after college when she got a job at the theatre and saw black actors breathing life into stories. Since then, she has lived her life through the stage.

Her most prominent work is How to have Fun in a Civil War which is a short play inculcating poetry, puppetry and video to capture the Somali Civil War experience through the eye of a seven year old refugee girl.

She is very passionate about the issue of accommodation and tolerance between different human races, especially between refugees and their host communities. She says her target audience are young Somali children who she wants to have access to their history in a most original and authentic manner.

Aside from being an artist, Ifrah Mansour also works as a bilingual teacher and enjoys gardening and cycling.

From her various performances which I have seen on YouTube, Ifrah Mansour seems to be the next big thing from the Somali diaspora community. Most striking is her poem in honour of the October 14 bombings in Mogadishu where 2 trucks loaded with explosives detonated and caused the loss of over 27 scores of human lives. In this poem, she interrogates the ugly and unfortunate incident which took place on that black day via the use of graphic images and rhetorical questions. She says:

Walaalo maacan (Lovely brothers)

Did we witness a single truck bombing

Claiming the lives of more than 300

Still counting…

Affecting the lives of more than 600

Still counting…?

Walaalo maacan

Under a secluded nation

Yet over a week of searching

Souls still hovering the skies of Mogadishu

The world still watching us like a million dollar action movie

Walaalo maacan

Did we think of what we’d say

To little brown Mohamed when he asks:

Abor, did you stood still?

Hoyoo, did your blood not move?

Abaayo, did you see the hand of a child

No mother present to claim?

Abowei, did you see them dig

Only to find an unrecognisable Somali?

Walaliya, is our humanity trapped in a darkening ozone?

The employment of rhetorical question in the lines of this poem deepens the perplexity of the phenomenon and makes us wonder how man could go to such extent to wreak damage upon his fellow men.

However, Ifrah goes on to send the message of hope, resilience, strength, and love in the concluding part of the poem where she affirms that even if the gruesome occurrence had ‘shook us to our gores/And our lives may be under constant fear of injustice’, the Somali are not easily beaten for they are ‘stubborn survivals’. She says:

Today, we send our strings of tears across the globe

We ache for wounds without a flesh.

Today, we buried our kin limp by limp

Bodies without body parts

And babies without faces.

…

Our bodies are present

Ready to show to our kids watching us

What love looks like in the midst of tragedy

What strength feels like in the midst of pain

And what cuds look like in the midst of fearful times.

…

Home is calling us

And it left us a message of love

Stronger than hate

Strength, stronger than fear.

Another of her poems titled ‘Dear America, dear neighbour’ addresses the issue of displacement, accommodation, understanding, and the need for a seizure of hostilities between refugees and their host community (the American society). She went on to give reassurances of peaceful coexistence and the joy that dwells in the world when one is brought in contact with different cultural perspectives. She says:

I came to you with only the clothes on my back

A heart full of hope and an open wound ready to heal

With the right home, the right education, and the right family

I found that home, that education, that family right here,

Next to you.

Your son will play at our side of the street

And you’ll feel at ease knowing that I too am as watchful guardian

Our daughters will ace the cultural exchange presentation

Because we would have shown them a real taste that is yet to be found on Wikipedia or Google

You will know why we send a small gift

With each item we borrow as is our tradition

We will hear of your Christmas carolling out through our window

As is your tradition

Your relatives visiting you at the hospital

Will be perplexed by our many presence by your side

As is our tradition

We will bear witness or real kindness as we wake up

To an already mown lawn on a long Ramadan day

As is your tradition.

Because you know, because we know

That we have to be the acceptance that we want in this world

That we have to create

The kindness that our world is in need of now

That we have to uphold the justice

That will allow our children to live in a world

Filled with many voices and cultures

As will be our legacy.

The feeling of displacement and the issues that come with it is perhaps more evident in the lives of the younger generation of refugees who have to struggle with the question of identity and their roots. Another of Ifrah’s poems addresses just this issue. The poem is presented to read like a letter written by a famous female ancestor by name Xaawotako, and which is addressed to the younger generations of Somalis who she calls her sons and daughters. In the voice of a doting mother, the poem persona shows sympathy over the feeling of displacement experienced by the younger generations of Somalis outside the shores of their country by hinting at the beautiful world of the Somalis before its fragmentation and the dissipation of its people to various part of mother earth, there is also the mention of the fight against colonialism as sacrifice for the younger generations to live freely on their land, and lastly a call for a return journey home to help establish lasting peace:

My dear, my dear daughters and sons

Our ancestors have made gabay and murambur

Hidden within the designs of deeley

Within the nuts of guntino

Gabay and murambur filled with wisdom

Just for us to thrive in our world

But we were tested

And in the end, we fled only with our precious.

So, we brought you into this new world

That has built timeless barriers and fortresses

To keep you from accessing our ancestors’ wisdom.

You’re made to feel lost, forsaken, and dispersed

Before you can even pronounce your Somali name

You’re kept apart and dehumanised

When you come together.

My dear daughters and sons

I know there’ll be many days where you’d not understand

What I came from

Or what I gave up to see you live another day, another year

And there will be many moments

Where I would not understand the languages you speak

The ways you feel and the things you care for.

My dear daughters and sons

I am sorry for we have failed to show you

How precious you just are.

My dear daughters and sons

You are not lost

But in search of a new connection to our ancestors

Wisdom that works for you

And you are not forsaken

For many years ago

I have picked up rocks to chase away the enemy

Because I know a precious being like you was coming.

But I know you dream in a different language

Love in a different world

And wear colours that I cannot name

But that does not make you less of my kin

It makes you a survivor

A fierce being that I am proud to have in my lineage.

…

And for the days you can’t find the Somali word

To speak your truth

I am here still listening, still rooting for you

Because you’ve always been my precious

And you’ll be my pride the day you learn to pronounce your Somali name

And you’ll be my joy

The day you extend a hand to another Somali

That is very different from you.

And you’ll be my beating heart

The day you bring peace in all places

That our ancestors have called home once.

My precious, I still hear you

Listen for you, and call for you.

Love

Xaawotako

Speaking of the refugee experience, the poem ‘I am a refugee’ also bemoans the fate of a refugee as he or she attempts to integrate into the society he seeks refuge in. This poem also labels the refugee a stubborn survivor, and it is aimed at dousing the fears of host community over their perceptions of black Muslim refugees, seek understanding, and appeal for acceptance; more so since America is a melting pot.

I am a refugee,

a global citizen,

aching for 2 continents,

2 countries, 2 histories, 2 nations,

yet abandoned by all.

I am a refugee

and I shelter humanity.

I walked, and ran, and screamed,

miles on end,

to find peace,

before I could pronounce my own name.

I come with too many invisible treasures,

often misunderstood,

feared by all,

banned by politics,

never belonging,

and always longing.

…

You see cruelty tried to break me,

wars tried to erase me,

bigotry tried to silence me,

and politics tried to ban me,

but still like time, I stand,

still like dust I rise,

and still like hope I move,

and still like love I flourish.

I am a refugee

and I heal humanity.

I am a refugee,

a wandering, colorful, restless, foreign, alien soul.

Won’t you just let me find my humanity,

right here next to you?

Amongst the Somalis, tea making and its drinking goes beyond refreshment or for the mere purpose of quenching thirst; it is a revered art which can aptly be described as a ritual process that has persisted over several decades now, and which is still very much in vogue. In fact, there is a special blend of tea known as the Somali tea (Shaah) offered as a gesture of love, brotherliness and friendship. Ifrah Mansour captures the significance of the Somali Shaah in her poem titled ‘The Perfect Shaah’. Calling upon the magic of poetry, she describes the tea making process, and how it is savoured with ‘sheeko’ (stories) from those sipping it:

…

Skip across the Indian Ocean

And beg a handful of Malabar shaah

Just for two and enjoy the lustre

Knead it like precious moments

And let it be for a bit while.

Now might we have a good time

To look through your window

And see if the world

Isn’t just the little bit spicer deep within your soul

Affirm that it is a good moment

And count your blessings, and your blessing blessings.

Now, your shaah is ready

Soon, you will know why a good shaah

Is solved with a sheeko

From a being in flesh with their own stories.

Ifrah Mansour’s form of art springs from her experiences as a refugee who absconded from the violence of a civil war and long period of droughts. For her, art is therapeutic as she uses her art to express pent up emotions and gives voices to the many who have long bottled up memories of their tragic experiences within them. Her voice is sonorous and her words reach down her listeners’ souls to strike chords in them. Her poetry always points us the way back to where she came from due infusion of local colours which ornaments her presentations, especially her diction. While using her art to send the message of love, brotherhood, peace, and hope for better days to come back in her home country, she also calls for mutual understanding and accommodation on the part of the host community of African refugees.

References

‘Artist Ifrah Mansour Headlines Fall Somali Programs at Minnesota History Center.’ http://www.mnhs.org/media/news/10436. Ret. Oct. 25, 2019.

Dear America, dear neighbour poem by Ifrah Mansour. https://youtu.be/xNG48IrgbWg. Ret. October 24, 2019.

Felicia Philibert. ‘Multimedia Artist, Educator, and Somali Refugee.’ https://www.dreamrefugee.org/stories/2018/8/18/ifrah-mansour-multimedia-artist-educator-and-somali-refugee. Ret. Oct. 28, 2019

I am a Refugee Poem by Ifrah Mansour. https://youtu.be/Y5sIAY8jPB0. Ret. October 24, 2019.

‘Ifrah Mansour’s How to Have Fun in a Civil War’. https://www.childrenstheatre.org/about-us/newsfeed/1009-ifrah-mansour-s-how-to-have-fun-in-a-civil-war.

Ifrah Mansour Somali Poet, international women’s day 2018. https://youtu.be/bIG2b5e0gwE. Ret. October 24, 2019.

‘Nov. 21 Ifrah Mansour’. https://pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org/ifrah-mansour/. Ret. Oct. 28, 2019

Ifrah Monsur and Ahmed Knowmadic English Poets Somali Museum Night 2016: https://youtu.be/DgaDc0-4omQ. Ret. October 24, 2019.

Somali Museum Night 2018 Poem, by Ifrah Mansour. https://youtu.be/E7yABkGvVX8. Ret. October 24, 2019.

© Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy 2019

Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy is a poet, short story writer, editor, book reviewer, and essayist. He holds a degree in English Language and Literary Studies and has written myriad critical essays on literature, with most published online. He currently teaches ESL/EFL at Qalam Educational and Technical Centre, Hargeisa, Somaliland. He also contributes to Somaliland.com.