Tacsi for Maryan (Aryette) Omar Ali
Lidwien Kapteijns
Inna lillah wa inna ilayhi raji’un
Maryan Omar Ali
(Aryette)
—a life dedicated to Somali popular song
young. They lived and worked in, among other places, Hargeisa, Jow-
On December 7, 2011, Maryan Omar Ali, also known to people as Ary-
ette, passed away in the McCall Medical Center in Etobicoke, Canada.
She had struggled with breast cancer for many years.
Born in Djibouti before its independence in 1977, Maryan and her
mother, Sahra Omer Goud, moved to Somalia when Maryan was very
har, and Mogadishu. Maryan attended school in Hargeisa and Jowhar
(the Mennonite school). However, while she was still a teenager, she
managed to join Somali Airlines, first as a stewardess and later as a
cashier and office manager. For a time she also returned to Djibouti,
where she worked for Air Djibouti. In 1991 Maryan came to Canada.
She lived in Ottawa for four years and then moved to Toronto.
Somali popular songs were Maryan’s life-long love. She had been
introduced to the Somali theater and songs in Hargeisa in the early
1960s by her uncle, Hassan Sheikh Muumin. She grew up around
the singers, spending much of her time with them in their work and
living space. Maryan was among the first Somalis to see the social as
well as intellectual and artistic value of the songs and plays, the social
commentary and critique they embodied, and the ways in which they
helped bring about political and social change. From the time she was
a young girl until her death, Maryan cherished the songs; was a friend
and support for many singers; and organized, documented, and stud-
ied the music cassettes she accumulated. She often told us that, had she
had a voice, she would have been a singer herself and thanked God for
having protected her from the hard life singers in Somalia have so often
faced. The singers are loved for their songs by every Somali, Maryan
used to say, but they do not get the proper respect they deserve as our
society’s truest and most eloquent spokespeople, teachers, and critics;
and they rarely get adequately compensated financially. Maryan also
regretted that the intellectual property of artists has not been respected
more in the Somali context and this contributed to her desire to docu-
ment who created the words and melody of a particular song and
which singers and musicians performed it. She felt strongly that artists
deserve credit and compensation for their artistic achievements and
hoped to see progress in this area.
Maryan never developed a taste for (post-) civil war songs, largely
because the songs of the 1960s–1980s reflected her own deep com-
mitment to Somali nationalism—a modern, authentically Somali and
organically Muslim national identity—one that, moreover, allowed
women the space to pursue their dreams. As a young girl who was
free-spirited and very active (some people jokingly called her Maryan
wiilo), she did not easily fit all the conventions of her environment.
Though the nation was proud of its first generation of beautiful and
highly professional stewardesses, pioneers such as Maryan did not
always get equal opportunity or equal pay for equal work. Hassan
Sheikh Muumin’s lines from Shabeelnaagood captured its time elo-
quently: Nagaadiga adduunyada qayb ku maleh naaguhu; xeerkii sidaa
naqaa nimankaa samaystee. However, in all the positions Maryan held,
in Somalia, in Djibouti, and eventually (before her illness) in Canada,
she won the full respect and friendship of her supervisors and fellow
workers. She was known to all for her hard work, total honesty, loy-
alty, supportiveness to others, kindness, and generosity. To colleagues,
friends, and family, Maryan gave even more freely of herself, even if
this was at times at her own expense.
I owe my love and knowledge of Somali popular songs to Maryan,
just as she developed a further interest in transcribing and document-
ing the songs, I believe, through her collaboration with me. I still
remember seeing her in North America for the first time. She came
with a huge blue aluminum trunk that was full of Somali music cas-
settes. We called it doonida jacaylka and it never ran out of new songs for
us to listen to. “Ladan, come and sit with me.” “Maryan, I am busy.”
“Let’s listen to some songs.” “But I don’t understand them.” “Then I
will tell you what they mean. Now bring your tea and sit down!” The
rest is history, as they say. I too fell in love with the songs and—over
the years, in Ottawa, Toronto, and Wellesley—we spent months and
months listening to them, transcribing them, making rough trans-
Lidwien Kapteijns
lations of them, and always also simply enjoying them. Eventually
this also led to an academic publication, Women’s Voices in a Man’s
World (Heinemann, 1999), whose second part deals with the love songs
of the 1960s–1980s. However, Maryan cared most about the artistic
beauty, linguistic brilliance, creative impulse, emotional power, and
social message of the songs. The popular songs to which Maryan dedi-
cated so much of her life have indeed inspired a whole generation of
Somalis.
Maryan loved all genres of songs, from love songs to nabi ammaan.
However, the waddani songs of the 1960s and 1970s were and remained
among Maryan’s favorites. Like her mother, who first actively par-
ticipated in the struggle for independence and later represented the
new Somali state as a member of many foreign delegations, Maryan
believed in soomaalinimo, which she saw as a cultural, linguistic, and
historical umbrella that could provide shade and protection for Soma-
lis in all their diversity.
Having come of age together with the new nation and at the height
of Somali nationalism, Maryan (as well as her mother) held fast to
some of the central values of the 1960s. Their ilbaxnimo, or cosmopoli-
tanism, was not only the simple elegance of living that was associated
with Mogadishu in that period but also the ilbaxnimo of tolerance and
mutual respect—the philosophical principle that gives others the space
to be themselves, that respects and accepts all kinds of people and that,
eventually, measures them only by the quality of their dadnimo and
soomaalinimo and never by some aspect of the identity or background
into which they were born and over which they had no control. The
clan chauvinism and divisiveness that came later were always alien to
them.
Maryan did not like Somali clan politics and stayed away from it in
word and deed. She despised any form of clan chauvinism and clan-
based divisiveness. When, at the height of the civil war, Somali fannaan
made that mistake and lent his or her artistic voice to a program of
clan hatred, she too was disappointed, because, before the civil war,
Somali artists had been the voice of the nation par excellence. However,
if anyone dared to criticize a singer for having shown such clan bias,
Maryan would defend that fannaan fiercely. She found such accusers
hypocritical; how could Somali artists alone be held to a standard that
the large majority of political leaders and many intellectuals and com-
mon people had failed to meet? Maryan felt strongly that the work of
an artist’s lifetime should not be denied just because he or she, like too
many other Somalis, was temporarily swept up in the hate-speech of
the civil war. Thus she always was a passionate advocate for the Somali
fannaaniin, these national figures who as ordinary human beings with
extraordinary gifts always were both powerful and vulnerable at the
same time.
Until the very end, Maryan had not only her mother by her side but
also a group of Somali women (and men) who lived in or near their
apartment building and made helping Maryan and her mother part of
their daily routine. Many of them were close and distant relatives with
roots in the Borama area (such as Safia Jama) but there were many oth-
ers as well, including Hooyo Sahra’s life-long friend Khadiija Islaw. In
them Maryan and her mother are truly blessed.
Maryan never complained about the illness with which she strug-
gled for so long. Both she and her mother found strength and forbear-
ance in their faith. They answered all expressions of sympathy and
sadness with the words: Ilaahay mahaddii—waa wixii Rabbi qoray.
We will miss Maryan. Allah ha u naxariisto. We will keep her in our
minds and hearts and try to live up to the standards of dadnimo and
ilbaxnimo she held up for us.
Notes
1. Samatar, Ahmed I. (2011) “Battling on Two Fronts: Introducing Maryan Omar Ali,”
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies: Vol. 9, Article 8. Available at: http://
digitalcommons.macalester.edu/bildhaan/vol9/iss1/8.
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