HBO drama thrusts Minneapolis Somalis
into unwanted spotlight
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[October 31, 2016]
By Timothy Mclaughlin
(Reuters) - An HBO television drama created
by an Oscar-winning director and a Canadian-Somali rapper has infuriated
many in Minnesota's Somali community who say the show will perpetuate
unfair stereotypes of Muslims.
Touted as a window into the lives of Somalis in Minneapolis adjusting to
life in the U.S. Midwestern city, many community members instead fear
"Mogadishu, Minnesota" will stoke Islamophobia if it airs. Filming on
the pilot episode was scheduled to end last week.
At a time when opposition to immigrants and anti-Muslim sentiment have
featured heavily in rhetoric by Republican presidential candidate Donald
Trump, Minnesota's Somali community members, especially men, are worried
the possible TV drama will brand them as potential terrorists.
"I'm completely against it," Mahmoud Mire, 20, a first-generation
Somali-American, said of the show. "As Muslims, as blacks and as
refugees, people have their misconceptions about us already."
Those feelings have been echoed by others in protests against the show.
Somali residents in one Minneapolis housing complex voted earlier this
month to block crews from filming in their building.
Even the involvement of Somalia's best-known celebrity, Canadian-Somali
rapper K'naan Warsame, as writer, director and executive director has
not quelled mistrust. He is working with executive producer Kathryn
Bigelow, who won an Oscar as best director in 2010 for "The Hurt
Locker."
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HBO officials declined to discuss the issues around the pilot other than
to confirm the cast and provide a short synopsis, describing it as "a
family drama that grapples with what it means to be American – among the
Somalis of Minneapolis."
The filming of a pilot does not ensure it will air or be made into a
full series.
Somalis began to arrive in Minnesota's Twin Cities in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, fleeing a civil war in their Horn of Africa nation. There
are around 39,000 living in the state of 5.5 million people, according
to U.S. census data from 2014. That is up from around 32,000 in 2010.
Somali-Americans are particularly sensitive about how they are perceived
after a trial earlier this year at which three young men from the
community were convicted of trying to join Islamic State. Six others
pleaded guilty to supporting the militant group in a case that some in
the community denounced as an example of government entrapment.
Then last month a 20-year-old Somali-American stabbed 10 people at a
shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, before being fatally shot by an
off-duty police officer. An Islamic State-linked media outlet described
the attacker as a "soldier" of the group.
"Anything that happens with Somalis, our community is thrown under the
bus," said Mubashir Jeilani, 21, a Somali-American from Minneapolis. He
is executive director at the West Bank Community Coalition (WBCC) in the
city's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, the hub for the area's Somali
community.
'GREAT DISTRUST'
In the current environment, many Somali-Americans in Minnesota are leery
of Hollywood storytellers.
"There is a great distrust between this community and the directors and
producers in Hollywood," said Jaylani Hussein, 34, who immigrated to
Minneapolis from Somalia in the early 1990s when he was around 10 years
old. He is now executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group.
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![](../images/103116pics/news_J18.jpg)
Somali-born Canadian rapper K'naan poses in New York March 29, 2012.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
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Hussein decries movies such as "Captain Phillips" in 2013, which
dramatizes an attack by Somali pirates on a U.S.-flagged cargo ship,
and Ridley Scott's 2001 film "Black Hawk Down" about a failed U.S.
military mission in Mogadishu, for their portrayals of Somalis as
pirates or terrorists.
"There are real consequences in the stories we tell," he said.
EARLY CONCERNS
The backlash to "Mogadishu, Minnesota" started last year after early
reports on the show, which the Hollywood Reporter said in December
2015 was titled "the Recruiters."
The trade publication, quoting an unnamed source, described how the
drama would "draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see
the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment."
The filming of the pilot is expected to have employed some 350
people and to have generated roughly $4 million in spending for the
local economy, Minnesota officials said. But that failed to impress
many in the local community.
In September, protesters objecting to the show interrupted a K'naan
concert in Minneapolis and clashed with police.
K'naan has met several times with community members and local
organizations to address their concerns. The WBCC's Jeilani said
K'naan assured him the show would portray the community as more than
just a "hub for recruitment."
K'naan could not be reached for comment. Last month he told a Somali
journalist that the project was "pretty historic," and that he had
hired Somalis to work on the production in an effort to train a new
generation of filmmakers.
While a local Somali city councilman has publicly backed the TV
show, others say they remain skeptical due in part to Bigelow's
involvement, which brought considerable buzz in Hollywood.
"Kathryn Bigelow is notoriously known for being successful by
projecting a very negative view of Muslims," said CAIR's Hussein.
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Bigelow's most successful films have centered on U.S. military
operations in Muslim countries. "Zero Dark Thirty" in 2012 was about
the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, while "The Hurt Locker" depicted a
bomb disposal team in Iraq.
Bigelow's agent could not be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Ben Klayman
and Matthew Lewis)
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