Identity Issue

Here we are most of us are second Generation East Africans living in the UK. However as we become more submersed in British culture and Britishness. All we have to identify ourselves with is the reminisce of our East African identity. Where are you from? They ask. ‘Let me guess I know could you be from Somalia? No Djibouti or Eritrea? Close I say oh ok you’re Ethiopian. The person then usually replies Oh I once had an Ethiopian friend. I m like great considering there are more Ethiopians abroad than Ethiopia.

As I have grown older I have come to question what it actually means to be an East African in the UK. I find the Asian community fascinating because they relate to each other even though they have different religions and cultures. Then there are the African community and when I mean African I mean predominately West Africans, they have no
Problem gelling and have more things in common ranging from gelof rice to the sounds
of their music.
Then there are the people of the horn such as myself who only have contact with one another during warfare back home, how do these people live together in the UK?

Most Ethiopians stick to one another and so do Eritrean and the Somalians. However what is interesting is that they live side to side with one another but do not combine and mix with each other due to mistrust, although the younger generations are more sociable.
The communities in London live near each other and there is a trend that the young east Africans due to being educated and reared in London, have started to form clubs and
hang out places. This is a long cry from the war mongering 1970’s era, when the horn was a place to fight and camouflage was the colour to be seen?
In London there are various gangs around as most young people form, to feel part of a social network, but what is interesting is those countries around the horn have toned down there political agendas and formed what is an East African identity.

This does however leave me this significant question without war and poverty and hunger were does that leave the horn? Could peace and stability be the new horn of Africa? How will the west react, how can they show fat east African babies? That doesn’t fit with our image of being a starving nation? So how do glamorous super models like Liya Kebede and Iman and stylish glossy magazines like Sheeko fit with East Africans?
I suppose this could be the new way forward for a peaceful and rich East Africa.