By Amanda Sperber in Minneapolis, The Guardian

Hibaaq Osman has a glow that changes the energy in a room, or in her case, the energy of the restaurant her family owns in Karmel mall, the oldest Somali mall in Minneapolis. The cafe is right near the mosque on the top floor of the building, past rows of entrepreneurs selling wares in individual stalls, sipping hot drinks in small cups and chatting in Somali.

Osman retains her glow, even in anger. And after a press conference held outside the mosque, she is upset.

“I feel like we as a community need to wake up,” she said. “We need to wake up and say, ‘You know what? Enough is enough.’ We are citizens, we are taxpayers, we own businesses, we need people to understand that we also are part of this country just the way anybody else is.”

With a population of at least 30,000, the Somali people are a significant presence in the Twin Cities, home to more 3.5 million people. Because they have been coming to Minnesota since the 1980s, the people who come now have family and friends who have already established a life in the midwest. They love it – besides the cold winters.

Rooted as they are in Minnesota, many in the Somali Muslim community are alarmed at a US attorney-led program that they believe singles them out as more blood thirsty than other ethnic or religious groups, and makes them vulnerable to surveillance.

Led by a taskforce of 15 Somali Americans and a traditional community grant-making organization, the Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) program is the brainchild of the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota, Andrew Luger. Later this month, it will launch a number of yet-to-be-announced grants to programs aimed at creating educational and professional opportunities among the Somali Muslim community in Minnesota. The goal is to prevent youth recruitment by overseas extremist groups such as Isis or al-Shabaab.

But even before any specifics of the program have been announced, the program has engendered dramatic hostility and division within the Muslim Somali community. Those opposed to the premise of the program point out that 96% of domestic terrorism is committed by white men. The exact figure is disputed, but all statistics have it at more than 90%.

“The idea that this Muslim community needs help, itself for this issue is problematic,” says Jaylani Hussein the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN). “Because now you’re saying that countering violent extremism is only from one community. The threat comes from one community, the threat is only identified within one community, that community needs a program. The whole premise is wrong. This program, no matter how good it is, is flawed from its principle.”

Those who support the program are welcoming of new resources to their community, particularly if they will keep any brewing problem contained.

The conflict derives from the perceived radicalization of several individuals from Minnesota. Between 2008 and 2013, about 40 young men left Minneapolis to join al-Shabaab, the militant, radical Islamist insurgent group at war in Somalia, between approximately 2008 and 2013. Since then, 11 people from the Twin Cities have been charged with planning to leave for Syria to join Isis. Authorities believe Isis is focusing its US recruitment efforts on Somali Muslims in Minnesota because of the state’s history, and a potential pre-existing recruitment infrastructure.

Read more: Somalis in Minnesota question counter-extremism program targeted at Muslims

Source: The Guardian