Background
While Black History month UK is an important day in the calendar, history is made every day of the year, so Black History Month is not just about celebrating the lives and exploits of a few key individuals or taking stock one month in the year of Black heritage. Black History or in this case Somali Seamen’s past should not exist as something separate from history itself, when parts of history are separated it distorts the nature of the very contribution it purports to celebrate.
This project seek out Somali Seamen’s hidden history to make sense of the harsh world rarely spoken about, this project will give us a chance to discuss these social struggles.
Somali Seamen.
Black communities began during the 19th Century in South Wales Cardiff, Newport and Barry as in other UK ports with colonial seamen, which created sizable Black communities. But it is likely that for most Somali Seamen life was a question of struggling to assimilate to life in the UK as unobtrusively as possible.
Most of the Somali Seamen who came to the UK and particularly the South Wales area, lived in boarding houses, which presented huge differences to their previous lives in Africa. Growing up in Africa villages with nomadic traditions, herding goats, sheep and camels, from the grazing lands for export in an area of the world characterised by poverty could undoubtedly be hard, but it had certain positive and agreeable features.
The life of nomadic farmers with their extended family formed from clans that stick together with fierce loyalty provided a safety net, which offered a high level of security and a considerable amount of social ease. Somali Seamen coming to Britain found themselves doing so against a background of cramped and tightly contained urban living conditions, (living in rooms in male only boarding house which often slept up to four individuals per room) and surrounded by dangerous streets occupied by what often appeared to be a hostile and abusive host community, which culminated in the 1919 Race riots and a scheme for repatriation, the depression of the 1930’s and many served and died during War times.
Somaliland’s tough nomads, survivors of drought, pestilence and wars, now faced a new challenge, Somali Seamen may initially have needed to band together to counter discrimination or to meet a need not met by statutory agencies. The Black community including Somali’s were isolated from the rest of the City to areas deemed for Black people in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, Newport’s Pilgwenlly (Pill) and Barry Docks.
The role of Somali Seamen
Somali seamen often spent several months away on ships travelling to different parts of the world delivering coal from the Welsh Valleys. The Somali Seamen were mainly employed as Firemen working at the bottom of a tramp steamer ship in the engine room, a very hard job, stoking the fire that propelled the ship, a very low paid job (Somali’s were paid half the wages of other workers) The high ranking position on the top deck and middle decks together with high paid jobs, like maintenance workers or piece workers, mainly belonged to the White workers.” The conditions below deck for the firemen would now be considered appalling as the heat generated from the furnaces was very hot, the working area was dirty and oppressive and the working space was cramped, with low ceilings not much higher than 6 feet high which made it particularly difficult for many Somali’s who were tall and wiry in stature (over 6 foot) these suffocating conditions meant there was a constant health threat and many suffered poor health from these working conditions. Somali seamen also worked for the merchant navy during war times
“We fought to keep this country great. We have spilt blood for this country. 1939 to 1945 the docks was like something in ancient Egypt – one of every family were killed, torpedoed. Young, Black, at 14 years of age, torpedoed three times. 16, 18 years of age, going on the first sortie over Germany, some lost. Going to Canada – trained to be pilots or whatever. This is what people like the National Front come and tell me – ‘we fought to keep this country great’. I don’t have to mention the King’s African Rifles or the Gurkhas. What I mention is the contribution made by this area to that struggle. We didn’t fight fascism on a beach called Dunkirk. We didn’t fight fascism in Berlin. What we fought it was here and throughout. I mean the number of Arab seamen, Somali seamen, West African seamen that went down, that had no families. Their names can’t be recorded. But people who had families – one in every family was lost.” Keith ‘Nino’ Abdi
Famous Somali People
There are many well-known famous Somali heritage individuals such as Rageh Omar, Mo Farah etc. Here is a collection of Welsh Somali’s
Abby Farrah MBE
The Farrah family has a long history of being involved in the community which began with Abby Farrah who came to this country from Somaliland at the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
Abby was known as ‘Father’ to countless colonial seamen who visited Cardiff, Barry and Newport as he was the first point of reference for seamen who sought his guidance and advice when they arrived here. He founded ‘Cardiff & Barry Coloured Society’ and the innovative ‘Domino Youth Club’, in Thompson Street Barry, which attracted children from around the area and ran successfully for a number of years. Abby became the president of the ‘Colonial Club’ in Thompson Street Barry and went on to manage the ‘Colonial Club’ in Bute Street Cardiff. He was awarded the MBE by King George VI for his war time services to seamen.
Abdulrahim Abby Farrah
(Under Secretary General United Nations)
Abdulrahim Abby Farrah schooled in Gladstone Road Junior school and Barry Grammar school before joining Clarks College Cardiff and on to Exeter and Oxford university. He worked as a Somali Government Official and became director of the Somali Information Service and also served as Somali Ambassador to Ethiopia, before moving to the United Nations as permanent representative of Somaliland. He was also Minister of Agriculture, as well as being Somaliland’s representative on OAU Organisation of African Unity. In 2006 ‘SOPRI’ sent Abdulrahim and 6 other distinguished delegates to Somaliland on a ‘Goodwill Mission’ to help resolve some challenges facing the country. Abdulrahim also became the Under Secretary General of the UN second only to Kofi Annan one of the most important people in the world. As we can see their rich contributions covered wide-ranging areas from youth, community, race relations, diplomatic initiatives, to UN peacekeeping.
Dr Ahmed Ali
Welsh Scientist – Discovered the first commercial medicine based on Somali Plants.
Dr Ahmed Ali is an award winning Research Chemist based at Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences. His specialised area of research is investigating the chemistry of plants indigenous to the “Horn of Africa”. Together with scientists based in Wales, he has co-authored five International patents mostly based on Somali and Ethiopian plants. His scientific discoveries range from novel garden pest repellents to novel anticancer agents both based on Somali myrrh extracts. The photograph above shows Dr Ali receiving an innovative Smart Award, worth £70K, from the Welsh Government for his myrrh inventions whilst a Research Director for the Compton Group based at Cardiff University. Dr Ali’s other inventions based on plant extracts include novel antifouling agents, antibacterial agents and animal feed additives which reduce climate gas emissions from ruminants.
Dr Ali’s most commercially successful invention, to date, is a potent anti-inflammatory agent based on Somali frankincense. This discovery has been patented worldwide (USA, Europe and Asia) and was recently licensed to a multi-national company in the USA. A medicinal anti-inflammatory product based on Dr Ali’s invention is undergoing clinical trials with arthritis patients and is expected to be launched in 2016. Dr Ali has recently set up a herbal biotech company in Cardiff to continue creating new innovations and aims to create a manufacturing base for his novel innovative botanical extracts in Wales.
Dr Ahmed Ali and his siblings (Asha, Abdi and Ibrahim) were born and raised in Newport (Gwent, Wales). His father (Ali Aw Noor) and mother (Ebdo Hashi) came to Newport from Somaliland in 1959. At that time Newport had many single Yemeni and Somali seamen. There were also two Somali Cafes (Mafesh in Somali) where they could meet and socialise. Ali Aw Noor and his brother Hassan Aw Noor were the first Somali men to bring over their wives from Somaliland and raise a young family in Newport.
Omar ALI
Wales First Black British Somali Councillor
Labour candidate Omar Ali made history as the first black Somali to be voted onto Newport Council.
Omar Ali’s election to represent Labour at the Pilgwenlly ward, Newport Gwent made him the first Black Somali Councillor in Wales. Omar was born in Manchester. But his father, Ahmed Ali, came to Pill’s Ruperra Street in the 1960s from Somaliland, which had been part of the British Empire.
A youth and community worker by profession he worked for a number of years at the Welsh Government-backed Communities First organisation in Pill and served on its board.
Previously he has also worked for Displaced People in Action, a voluntary sector group that helps refugees and minority communities.
Omar was active in the Welsh Labour Party movement and in community politics, including volunteering with organisations such as Somali Integration Society
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