K’naan and Bono used what the Irish U2 superstar calls the "currency of celebrity" to draw a crowd of Toronto's business elite on Saturday night and bring attention to the complex truths and unprecedented opportunities that exist in Somalia today.
The country on the Horn of Africa has not had a stable government for 20 years. But the current famine, the worst in 60 years as nearly 750,000 Somalis are at risk of dying from starvation in the coming months, has made warring factions step back, creating a moment for international aid operations that shouldn't be missed, the singers explained.
"Famine has started a new conversation in Somalia," said K'naan, a Somali-Canadian whose family came to Toronto when he was 13.
In the past, warlords and Islamic extremists have regularly looted or prevented relief shipments from reaching the famine stricken. But with 30,000 children dead in the last 3 months, disparate militia groups have "put a faith-based idea in motion, to say, 'We are going to take a pause from our usual destruction; we're going to let people be fed; we're going to let people live and for this time we will see if the world is a friend of Somalia or if weapons are the friend of Somalia,' " K'naan explained.
" ...There is a sense in the country that there's a chance for a new way of doing things ... but I don't believe it can be done without the world's acknowledgment, without the world's heart and assistance."
As Bono, whose experience in African relief stretches back to the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, put it: "Famine slaps the warring parties around the head."
The two celebrities were talking about the Somali famine with John Stackhouse, editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail at a roundtable discussion.
Bono is well-known for his humanitarian efforts in Africa; K'naan, who also has a history as an activist, had just returned from a recent trip to his homeland.
Over 4 million in Somalia are now living in famine zones. Ten of thousands - at least half of them children - have already died this year.
Bono, co-founder of ONE, the grassroots advocacy organization against extreme poverty and preventable disease, often gave up the floor to K'naan.
With a wistful expression, the 32-year-old rapper spoke of the destruction he witnessed. But there's hope, a paradox that's not uncommon for a place "always in contrast with itself," he explained.
Westerners have a hard time understanding Somalia, because of the prevailing images that emerge - of dying children, gun-toting militia members, pirates highjacking private yachts on the high seas.
K'naan said he grew up "under the governance of poetry" in a country "overwhelmed by beauty." At one point, he explained that his people make a "blanket and pillow of war." He recounted the story of how he once fell asleep on a mattress in a tin hut with the sound of bullets hitting the sand outside the thin walls. Like many, he had become accustomed to violence.
It was clearly important to K'naan to explain the complexity of his country's national psyche. "Somalia for a long time has not seen a friend in the world," he said, adding that they are "people without a context."
A more complete portrait of Somalis - warts, beauty and all - is what's needed for Westerners to take action. "The more we think of them as sentient souls, the more we have to take on board their actual existence," Bono said, adding that if people did think of Somali children as their equals (or "being like us") they would not ignore their plight.
