Retrospective: Interview with FADUMO DAYIB who defied all odds to stand for President of Somalia.
As we commemorate the annual Women’s Month (March) as well as International Women’s Day on the 8th, we are taking time to reflect on, and celebrate some of the amazing women we have featured in our pages over the years. Fadumo Dayib truly inspired us. We revisit this Cover Story published in our Issue 40.
Africa and its Diaspora has been gripped by the news of the mother of four Fadumo Dayib’s declaration to stand as the first-ever female candidate in Somalia’s Presidential Elections. Not since Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s race in Liberia, has news of a woman seeking high office been so exciting. And in Fadumo’s case even raising worry. Speaking from Mogadishu, she tells our Editor reGina Jane Jere, why even death threats and leaving her children without their mother won’t defy her. Here is her story.
New African Woman: You have been one of the most exciting names of 2016, your name is literally everywhere because you are the first woman to dare stand as a President in Somalia, and as such vehemently challenging the status quo. Just give us a bit of a backgrounder – who is Fadumo?
Fadumo : Oh my God! I wish I knew why people are getting excited about Fadumo. In a nutshell, I was born into displacement to two illegal Somali immigrants in Kenya. My father was a truck driver who spoke several different languages fluently, although he was illiterate and he couldn’t read and write. My mother was a nomad who had a head for numbers and she was a brilliant mathematician. She could just calculate figures off the top of her head while others struggled with the calculator, even though she was also not formally educated. She only started reading and writing at a very late stage of her life, just before she died in Finland. These are the two wonderful human beings who brought me into this world.
My mother had been married off at a young age as a child bride and she had lost 11 children as a young mother to treatable diseases. Eventually, she was told (by who) “Go to Kenya maybe you might have children who stay alive.” And so she did and she set off with her brother. They were given a lift in a truck by a man who fell in love with her. Although they were both in the country illegally, he proposed and got married and they soon gave birth to me in a place called Thika. I was also a sickly child, and having lost 11 children already my mother was always worried, but I managed to survive. My second name is Deeqo, which means “sufficient”. My mother said if this child stays alive and she’s the only child I will have, she is sufficient. Thankfully she came to have two more. I have a young brother and sister.
How was life growing up as an illegal immigrant in Kenya?
Well, when I was just beginning to perfect my reading and writing at the age of 14, the Kenyan administration deported us in 1989, along with many other first, second, and third generation Kenyan –Somalis.
Given your background and at such a tender age, did this lifestyle make you who you are today? And given the history of Somalia, you are taking on quiet a daring challenge. Why?
Because I believe that saving Somalia is a civic duty, it’s a moral obligation that is incumbent on all Somalis. It is immoral for any one of us to watch people dying and not do anything about it because silence means you are part of the problem, you are an accomplice to the crimes that are being committed in this country.
I am, therefore, running for the Presidency because I strongly believe that I can make a difference.
The reason why I gave you all that background about my upbringing, is for everyone out there, to get an understanding of where I come from. I was born into poverty, into disadvantage, into violence and depravation. You cannot imagine the kind of violent life I was exposed to as a child. But I am able to do what I am doing because of the opportunities that were given to me later in life such education, good healthcare, security, and stability,
I believe if every African child is given those same opportunities they can do wonders, even more than what I am doing. This is my passion and what I want to give to the young Somalians.
But Fadumo Somalia is a country that has gone through a lot and lasting security and stability you mention, has remained largely elusive. As a woman in a country viewed as strongly patriarchal and where women’s rights are largely questioned, you are going in with your hands tied at the back. How do you react to and how will you overcome that?
I don’t react negatively and I don’t take offence because such views I believe reflect the current world order, not just Somalia as to how women are treated. Just look at what has happened in America and to Hilary Clinton, where 40% of the white women, educated, emancipated white women decided to vote for a man who believes women should be grabbed by their pussies. This is really not just an African issue, it is a global problem.
As women, particularly women who are empowered, and who want to make a difference in the world, we are facing a huge problem and its more evident now – if anyone is in doubt, just look at what has happened in America.
Do you think this will discourage women from becoming as daring as you Fadumo and challenge the status quo because the message out there now is “women stand little or no chance”?
No, I don’t look at it that way, what I see is that we in the women’s movement are focusing on the wrong group. We always tend to focus on seeing men as our enemies. We need instead to convince them, empower them, and convince them to understand why they should be on a woman’s side.
Sometimes it is not even the men who let us down. It is fellow women. It is the women who internalised misogyny or sexism and believe their place is supposed to be at home and like Nigerian President [Buhari] said recently in the “other room”. And sometimes if you say or do things to the contrary, some women really believe you are deviating from the norm.
To be honest, sometimes, fellow women are the most difficult to convince and they are the ones who will attack you the most. They are the ones who will tell you that you will not succeed, and will not support you morally or financially or in any other way.
Surprisingly, the biggest supporters and those pushing me in this campaign for my candidacy are actually men and the highly educated women who understand the importance of what I stand for. But the biggest target, the one that I really need to convince are the grassroots women. Women who feel that it is not my place to be in leadership, I should be at home.
And is that because of the long-held subjugation that Somali women go through? And you talked about the financial support or lack of it, and I think women in Somalia or most parts of Africa, or any other part of the world, not being financially independent holds them back. Don’t you agree?
On the contrary, Somali women are actually really empowered, they are the ones who fundraise for male presidential candidates. If a hospital needs to be built it will be built by women because they know how to fundraise. If a school has to be set up or school books or something has to be paid for, it is women who will come together and fundraise.
Somalia women played a crucial role to broker the little peace we have today. They fundraised for it. Therefore, Somali women are not powerless, on the contrary. But when it comes to coalescing around women’s issues or supporting women to get into positions of power, the attitude is different.
How are you going around that because it’s quite a predicament, isn’t it? In most parts of the world, the female vote counts and is always bigger. You will need the female vote.
Yes, this is unfortunately the way that the situation is. But, if given a chance to read and understand what my manifesto is, or once they have understood what I really represent, and we have one person/one vote elections in Somalia, many mothers out there in the rural villages will walk to the nearest voting station and vote for me.
But you know one thing that we need to do as women? It is the question of funding. To bypass that, we have to find ways that we can fundraise so that women, politicians, wherever they are in the world, can benefit from this funding. We don’t have that now. The Somalian male presidential candidates, have their business acquaintances, they have their religious affiliations and so they get funding from all these sources and of course, from the women in their plans.
A female candidate doesn’t have any of that and the fact that she even has the guts and the stubbornness to even contest for such a position leads her to be isolated from her community, from her society and at times, even some of them end up losing people who are very close them.
So how are you working on your campaign? Am I correct, you are actually in Europe right now?
No, no, no I have moved to Somalia, I am actually based in Somalia. I have set up a base in Somalia, I live in Somalia. I have resigned from my job and I left my family in Finland. I am here not just without proper funding, but without even proper security.
That’s quite a commitment Fadumo? And the lack of security is a huge sacrifice. It should surely be of a big concern to you as a mum. Why? – many will ask – are you risking your life for this? Is that the case?
I am risking my life?
Yes, and we understand you have been receiving death threats, if you can confirm that too.
Yes I have received death threats and even now that I am in Mogadishu, I am constantly very much aware of the fact, that every time I leave my house, that could be the last time I am leaving that compound and that I might not return there.
I am constantly aware, even when I am sleeping at night, that I might not make it to the following morning. Anyone can throw a bomb here, anyone can come in with a suicide vest. But you know what? I believe twelve million Somalis are worth that. Somalia is worth that. It is worth my life. I love my country and I love my people.
And surely you also love your children?
I love my children but I am doing this precisely for them. I have been away from the country for 26 years. I have in those years, also led a life of a beggar in countries that are not mine. I have always wanted to go back home. I want to leave a good legacy for my children.
I strongly believe that as their mother, it is my responsibility to make sure that my children have a place to come back to a country that accepts them and gives them a dignified existence. So, I am not doing this just for myself, but for my children and the countless other millions of Somali children inside and outside the country. I am doing it for the 1.7 million Somali children who are out of school, for the 67% of the youth who are unemployed and those who are getting on boats only to perish trying to get to European countries. I’m doing it for the young Somali girls being married off at the age of 12 and developing health complications such as fistula. I am doing it for the Somali mothers who die preventable deaths while giving birth. I’m doing it for that Somali child who may die before reaching his or her first year or very young of diseases that my eleven siblings died of – preventable illnesses.
So, is my life more important than all this and the lives of 12 million Somalis? I don’t believe so.
If you became the next President of Somalia what would you prioritise? What is the most pressing issue that is holding such a great country back?
Security is the main thing that I would focus on and prioritise. Without security, you cannot have peace and as such, you cannot have economic prosperity.
And how would you do that?
I would prioritise negotiating, and having dialogue with Al-Shabaab, because we must be able to have a dialogue with even the most repulsive segments of society, instead of resorting to counter-violence every time.
If violence were to ever bring any solution to our country, Somalia would be the most peaceful country in the world today, considering the amount of violence that has gone on. And so dialogue is very important. However, it must be done under key conditions which Al-Shabaab must meet including: it must disarm, it must stop killing Somalians and it must renounce its affiliation with international terrorism.
Do your children understand what their mum is doing and risking?
I have four, children ( aged 20, 18, 11, and 9) and yes they understand what I am doing, but they also understand that they are servants and that if anything should happen to their mother, they will have to pick up where I have left, and continue to fight, unless change happens.
Most of all, my children understand why it is important to fight for democracy, and why they should fight for people who are in a bad situation compared to them.
So I am very blessed to have children who support me. And every time before I leave to go on a campaign trail, I sit down with them and I explain honestly that, that maybe the last s time see me, and I tell them that their mother loves them as much as she loves the 12 million Somalis out there, and therefore, if anything should happen to me, that they pick up from where I’ve left off. They hug me and they tell me: “Mum, you are the best mum, we are blessed to have you.”
