As a Somali working since high school in the United Arab Emirates,
Osman considers himself "blessed" to be in a Muslim country, though
citizenship, with the security it offers, remains elusive. For
Ardo, smuggled out of Somalia to join her husband in South Africa,
insecurities are of a more immediate, physical kind, and her
economic prospects and legal status are more uncertain. Adam, in
the United States-a destination often imagined as an earthly Eden,
or jannah, by so many of his compatriots-now sees heaven in a
return to Somalia. The stories of these three people are among the
many that emerge from mass migration triggered by the political
turmoil and civil war plaguing Somalia since 1988. And they are
among the diverse collection presented in eloquent detail in
Elusive Jannah, a remarkable portrait of the very different
experiences of Somali migrants in the UAE, South Africa, and the
United States. Somalis in the UAE, a relatively closed Muslim
nation, are a minority within a large South Asian population of
labor migrants. In South Africa, they are part of a highly
racialized and segregated postapartheid society. In the United
States they find themselves in a welfare state with its own racial,
socioeconomic, and political tensions. A comparison of Somali
settlements in these three locations clearly reveals the importance
of immigration policies in the migrant experience. Cawo M. Abdi's
nuanced analysis demonstrates that a full understanding of
successful migration and integration must go beyond legal,
economic, and physical security to encompass a sense of religious,
cultural, and social belonging. Her timely book underscores the
sociopolitical forces shaping the Somali diaspora, as well as the
roles of the nation-state, the war on terror, and globalization in
both constraining and enabling their search for citizenship and
security.
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