‘If there was no jaad’: poetics of khat and remembering the future in a London Somali community

Abstract

The Somali people have suffered from a devastating civil war and large-scale forced displacement since the late 1980s. This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork with Northwest London Somalis during the khat (Catha edulis) control debates that led to the prohibition of the substance in June 2014. It argues that diaspora poetics can become an expression of a deeply divisive past offering ways to rearticulate ruptured interpersonal and community relationships in terms of their restorative potential. When Somali diaspora people in the United Kingdom used poetry to engage in the khat prohibition debates, the anti-khat poems entangled this mild stimulant with the Somali history of state collapse and displacement. This revealed that, for Somalis, the stakes of the prohibition vastly exceeded concerns about potential social and health harms of khat in the United Kingdom. The poetics of khat situate acts of remembering within a distinctive conception of ideas about Somali nationhood, the need for conciliation, and visions of a common future. Yet remembering proved to be less about nostalgic longing for the past and more about enacting new moral and political relations enabled by the momentum of the khat prohibition.[I]f there was no khat? 1 The sun will shine, And our nation will stand properly on its feet. Chewing khat, listening to qaraami 2 music, having false laughter, Daydreaming in mafrishes 3 full of smoke, pretending like being in heaven. And waking up with hangovers the next day, This is a disaster we are facing every day If there was no khat? We will correct our own mistakes. Khat chewers fail to accept their mistakes and cannot be a panel of judges. They live in illusion, as long as they are chewing They can't make their own decisions. Oh God, please show them the correct path. 4 The long poem 'If there was no khat' (Hadii jaadka la waayo) was composed by a young Somali poet, Khaliif Faarax Xayir, shortly after the UK government announced in 2013 that khat (Catha edulis) would be controlled as a Class C drug. The plant