Nov 5th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
David Brooks’ Cell Phone Love Nightmare Comes to Somalia
Traditional Somali values on the decline as technology shifts courtship practices:
Somali courtship was different in Hassan Aden’s day. When he was a teenager, you gave the girl’s parents 11 camels and an AK-47 assault rifle as bride price and then waited respectfully.
Now, the 55-year-old said, a mobile phone service that seems to be the only thing working in the failed Horn of Africa state is helping drive a rise in elopements, pregnancies out of marriage and a steady erosion of Somalia’s conservative values.
Ah for the good old days of arranged marriage.
39 Responses to “David Brooks’ Cell Phone Love Nightmare Comes to Somalia”
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November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Of course, the share of marriages in Europe that are arranged (often between first cousins) has increased sharply in recent decades due to immigration.
I’m waiting for Matt’s protest of that.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Please Matt, don’t give Brooksie any ideas…
November 5th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
It’s incredible how the racist Steve Sailer can somehow turn a post tweaking David Brooks into a forum for his bigotted rantings against immigrants. Do you post your random racist thoughts on other innapropriate forums, or just this one?
November 5th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
There’s nothing wrong, in principle, with an arranged marriage. Perhaps you meant “forced marriages”?
November 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Ah for the good old days of arranged marriage.
Oh please, it’s not the arranged marriages that make pining for the good old days when traditional values were upheld by upright, law-abiding regular folks from the heartland an act of ridiculousness.
If the US moved tomorrow to a system where the vast majority of marriages were arranged, the outcomes of who marries whom would not change meaningfully.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
That camel looks like a wise ass.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I’m sort of nostalgic for cultures that have dowries. Let the brides father pay I say. Besides this seems like a pretty bad system. You pay first and hope? Is that right? I’m still looking for an adequate dowry combined with the ability to make a perfect dumpling. I think MY might have this problem too.
What I wonder is. who owns these cell networks and how they hell they bill. It must be prepay I suppose, but in what currency? Hats off to anyone doing high tech business in Somalia. I sort of knew they had cell phone service but am unable to understand how they have electricity more than very unreliably.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
55? In Somalia? Wow!
November 5th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
What I wonder is. who owns these cell networks and how they hell they bill. It must be prepay I suppose, but in what currency? Hats off to anyone doing high tech business in Somalia.
My guess: a fascinating case study in industrial organization. It’s either a very high margin business with an astronomical risk premium or cut-throat competition (perhaps literally) due to no government to slice up the spectrum, or both!
November 5th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
“That camel looks like a wise ass.”
All camels are wise-asses. They are amazingly uncooperative. And they like spitting at people.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
All camels are wise-asses. They are amazingly uncooperative. And they like spitting at people.
In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels camels are the most intelligent species, and are mathematical geniuses.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
From the journal “South Asia Research,” here’s the abstract of an article on arranged marriages between British residents and Pakistani cousins:
The Medical and Social Costs of Consanguineous Marriages among British Mirpuris
Khola Hasan
London, UK [e-mail: khola_hasan@hotmail.co.uk]
Consanguineous marriage has been widespread within the Pakistani Mirpuri community in Britain today. Such marriage arrangements are now increasingly perceived to create various problems and harms, including a high degree of insularity with barriers to integration and lack of contact with the wider community. Many instances of forced marriage give rise to human rights concerns. Since such marriages are often arranged with partners from Pakistan to aid the extended family financially, large-scale immigration from Pakistan into Britain continues. Many of these new spouses cannot speak English and are unfamiliar with English culture, which continues to slow down the pace of integration of Mirpuris. The article highlights particularly that the rates of consanguineous marriage are increasing within this particular community despite awareness of the medical risks involved, including an increase in congenital defects and infant mortality. Serious and culturally sensitive thought needs to be given on all sides, therefore, to addressing such issues rather than infl ating controversies and damaging community relations.
http://sar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/3/275
November 5th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I’m guessing this story is invented by a stringer, confident that nobody from the home office will come to Mogadishu to confirm it. It just doesn’t ring true, so to speak.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Chalk one up for the cellphone. Life and love can be found and nurtured even in a failed Islamic state if one can only maintain the ability to conspiratorially, talk and text. A beautiful notion.
I have to ask though: since when could someone afford eleven camels and one AK-47? Wouldn’t it be the other way around, eleven AK-47’s, and one camel? Camels aren’t cheap. Their cute, sort of, but they’re not cheap.
Sorry, but I smell camel dung on that one. Hassan Aden is romanticizing his past. He’s as bad as Brooksie. In fact, I consider him nothing less than the David Brooks of Mogadishu.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Only 11 camels? The good old days when ice cream was 10 cents and thoughts cost only a penny.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
The generation of Matthew Yglesias’s great great grandfather (around 1920) similarly complained that the automobile had destroyed the time-honored customs of courtship: young people were no longer content to sit demurely in the parlor under the watchful eye of parents. Instead, couples rammed around the community and the countryside unchaperoned.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Speaking of “the good old days of arranged marriage,” here’s an email I received in 2006 (because my 2003 article on “Cousin Marriage Conundrum” comes up near the top of Google Searches on “cousin marriage” (identifiers changed to keep the girl from being set on fire):
November 5th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Steve-o:
I don’t think anybody said you were wrong necessarily; we just wonder why you’d pipe up with something so provacative and un-germaine to the posting.
What on earth do bride payments in easter Africa have to do with cousin marriage of central asians in Europe, anyway? The only common thread between the two seems to be the fact that they both involve dark-skinned people doing stuff that makes them appear uncivilized in comparison to 1st-world Europeans, who were frankly doing a lot of the same stuff three generations ago.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Steve, when the topic is about cousin marriage, then you will be allowed to chime in. Until then, sit down and be quiet while the adults are speaking.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Three Generations ago?
Three?
Well, maybe not in Europe, but plenty of European Americans still do a lot of stuff like that in the here and now!
November 5th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Matt’s topic is “arranged marriage,” which he is, apparently, against. Arranged marriages are growing rapidly in Europe, as seen by the increase in cousin marriages between cousins on different continents, which in turn can be seen by the growth in birth defects due to inbreeding in places like Northern England.
You guys don’t really know much or want to think about much, do you?
November 5th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I thought Matt’s topic was bride prices and David Brooks’s love of social atavisms. But if you wanna make it about the Clash of Civilizations, because every social problem fits into that box for you, I will not interfere.
The “arranged marriages” line is sortof a throwaway, and admittedly, he doesn’t really take a moral position on it here; he’s just doing some McArdle-style snark, which is a particular genre of blog post whereby the poster puts some oblique non-commital statement at the end of a long quote and lets his reader yip at it.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Steve, do you happen to know whether arranged marriages are more or less common among immigrants to Europe than in their countries of origin?
November 6th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Point taken, Mr. Sailer. Help them out! Hook them up with some white women!
November 6th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Or just give them cell phones.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:18 am
yeah. frackin’ arranged marriage. produced dunderheads like myself. And geez, several hundred million in south asia. I guess Matt and Steve are in agreement here that those arranged-marriage havin’ fools are inferior! Like David Brooks-style inferior!
November 6th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Sailer, you just posted that immigrants’ first-cousin marriages promotes insularity. And you made it sound negative.
Make up your mind. Either you want to mix or you don’t want to mix.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Re: Help them out! Hook them up with some white women!
As a South Asian myself, I’ll be thrilled if Steve Sailer hooks me up with some white women.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Sailor-boy, what does the breakdwon of traditional society in Somalia have to do with the lives of Desi-Britons? Jesus, at least try to keep your bigotry on-topic.
And do you have a cite for your claim that arranged mariages are on the rise in europe? Mirpuris have lived in Britain since the mid-60s (more than 40 years), so they aren’t responsible for a “rise”. What’s more, they make up less than 1 million of Europe’s 500 million people.
OK, I shouldn’t respond to Steve, an irritating troll. Sorry.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Matt’s topic is “arranged marriage,” which he is, apparently, against.
Steve,
If it’s so obvious to you that he’s against it, why the complaint in comment #1? Does he have to specifically denounce it everywhere it happens for you to accept that he opposes it? I haven’t heard him weigh in on arranged marriage in Swaziland either!
Anyway, on Europe: I honestly don’t see why you’d care if some immigrants to Europe practice arranged marriages. People of *European* descent are not adopting this practice. And those immigrants to Europe who enter arranged marriages would likely also enter arranged marriages if they’d stayed in their country of origin. So it’s not as if the overall incidence is going up. And indeed it’s likely going down, because the act of immigration to Europe leads some who would otherwise continue to practice the ‘old ways’ to abandon them.
So integration/assimilation is slower than it might otherwise be. Big fucking deal. And you think these people are subhumans anyway, so what do you care if their babies have birth defects? I’d think you would favor that.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Anyway, on Europe: I honestly don’t see why you’d care if some immigrants to Europe practice arranged marriages. People of *European* descent are not adopting this practice.
I am pretty sure that if your asked some Americans of European descent whose parents and grandparents immigrated here in the 20th century that you could find a fair number whose parents or grandparents were married via some sort of arrangement. MattY was not condemning the practice as much as making light of it as a quaint old fashioned method of matchmaking.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Tyro,
I’m sure that’s true; I don’t think we disagree, unless I’m missing something. The marriage of one set of my grandparents from England was basically arranged by their parents, who brought them to Canada, got them hitched and set up, and then the old folks went back to the old country.
So I agree it existed in the recent past in Europe; my point in response to Steve is simply that I strongly doubt its prevalence is on the upswing today (again, among the European-descended). In which case, why does Steve care? Some Asian (or whatever) immigrants are keeping up the practice, maybe for the first generation, but others are abandoning it. Overall it’s a net win for the progress of non-arranged marriages.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:33 am
MattY was not condemning the practice as much as making light of it as a quaint old fashioned method of matchmaking.
Actually I agree Matt wasn’t condemning it, but Steve seems to think he is; in which case I just pointed out it’s silly to criticize Matt for failing to condemn it in a specific case if (as Steve says he believes) he condemns it in the general case.
But you know what, this is Steve we’re talking about here, so I think I’m holding him to impossibly high standards of reasoning ability and good faith.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:05 am
who owns these cell networks and how they hell they bill. It must be prepay I suppose, but in what currency?
Undeveloped countries typically have dollar economies in which anything of value can only be obtained with US Dollars. That has probably changed recently to Euros or both. Cuba has always had a dollar economy that was de-criminalized in the 90’s. Venezuela is trying to stop their dollar economy by limiting the amount of dollars anyone can have. Last time I entered Indonesia, the visa fee could only be paid in USD. Funny watching a long line of Japanese tourist with their $25 USD in hand to pay for the ‘visa on arrival’ fee — the Indonesia Rupiah not accepted.
I imagine there are no ‘plans’ per se, but simply pre-paid minutes.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Arranged marriages are growing rapidly in Europe, as seen by the increase in cousin marriages between cousins on different continents, which in turn can be seen by the growth in birth defects due to inbreeding in places like Northern England.
That is among a very particular community from a particular place. Arranged marriages in the northern plains of India typically must follow a rule with an effect like the following – imagine each of the prospective bride’s and bridegroom’s parents have inherited a tag from their father; then for a marriage to be permissible as per traditional values, none of the four tags can match.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Re: previous comment, I could have been clearer – imagine each person carries a tag (gotra) from his/her father. Then in the traditional arranged match, the tags of the prospective groom’s and bride’s paternal grandparents must all be different.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Oh, for an edit function on the comments! Imagine each person carries a tag (gotra) from his/her father. Then in the traditional arranged match, the tags of the prospective groom’s and bride’s grandfathers must all be different.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I might tattoo both my nakshatra and my gotra on my hand so that I don’t look like an idiot when the priest asks me.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Re: Three? Well, maybe not in Europe, but plenty of European Americans still do a lot of stuff like that in the here and now!
Let the record show that cousin marriages, down to several degrees of consanguineity, were prohibited by the Catholic, Orthodox, and other apostolic Christian churches, and such marriages concidered invalid.
Of course, this was probably one of those out-of-date, old-fashioned prohibition that Calvin and Zwingli (he of the infamous Lenten sausage-fest) threw out in the seventeenth century, which could account for the proverbilally high rates of cousin marriage in the Calvinist-influenced American South. Scr*w Zwingli with a rusty nail, and I hope his sausages gave him a particularly bad case of amoebic dysentery.