BY ED FELIEN
K’naan came to town and caused quite a stir.
Keinan Abdi Warsame, better known by his stage name K’naan, is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, musician and, now, screenwriter and director. He is in Minneapolis to begin filming his HBO pilot next month, produced by Kathryn Bigelow, the director of “Zero Dark Thirty” (the film about the killing of Osama Bin Laden). “Mogadishu, Minnesota” will show how Somali Minnesotans can get recruited into ISIS and become jihadists in Syria and Somalia.
He was performing at the Cedar Avenue Block Party on Saturday, Sept. 10, when he got interrupted by young Somalis who were upset that K’naan would be portraying Somali Minnesotans in an unfavorable light. Some began fighting with the police. Pepper spray was used. A 17-year-old boy and a 27-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of riot (whatever that means).
He held a community meeting to explain his film. Many in the Somali community were concerned that the film would only feed Islamaphobia and anti-Muslim sentiments by portraying Somalis as terrorists. “We met and talked to K’naan in one Hollywood, fake the funk ass community meeting, where he said out of his own mouth that this radicalization story was part of the show and that it is part of the ‘Somali story and we should be able to tell it,’ ” said Burhan Israfael Isaaq on Facebook. He continued, “Half of that room were people, who once again wanted and needed the funding/jobs that This K’naan project would bring, not a slight care about the Islamophobic propaganda.”
Any art or creative project is a gamble. Many in the Somali community are wondering if K’naan has the right to gamble with their lives when a leading candidate for President wants Muslims deported for being terrorists.
But good art also shows us something about our world that we never noticed or understood before. “Mogadishu, Minnesota” has the potential to show us how young Somali Minnesotans could find some measure of redemption in jihad when they couldn’t find jobs or an education or hope at home.
