A Pioneering Work on Somali Drama: Maxamed Daahir Afrax's Fan-Masraxeedka Soomaalida

Review Artide A Pioneering Work on Somali Drama: Maxamed Daahir Afrax's Fan-Masraxeedka Soomaalida1 Lidwien Kapteijns Wellesley College What a difference there is between someone who wants to write about Shakespeare and someone who writes about Maxamed Cumar 'Huryo.' The former can sit down with hundreds of books, while the latter, working in a void, raises his eyes to heaven in the hope that at least something may fall from it. This is how Maxamed Daahir Afrax, novelist, short-story writer, and literary critic from Somalia describes the first stage of his research about Somali drama. Afrax based his study almost completely on oral sources. Somali drama, which emerged in the late 1930s, was, and largely remains, an oral art. Afrax's Somali Drama: Historical Background and Critical Analysis of Prominent Plays (1987) consists of an introduction and three parts. In the Introduction Afrax analyzes the specific challenges that face an author writing in Somali about Somali drama. Among these are the absence of publishing houses interested in publishing in Somali, the almost complete void in the Somali context of reference works about historical and critical literary analysis,2 and the lack of a proper Somali national archive or similar institution. Writing on an innovative topic in a language whose orthography was not established until 1972, Afrax also faced the challenge of finding a new vocabulary and idiom. To this reviewer's mind, this book deals with the need for neologisms creatively and responsibly; it speaks as well to the author's principled commitment to his mother tongue and its speakers' linguistic and cultural com-® Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 1 (New Series) 1995, pp. 175-180 175 1 76 Lidwien Kapteijns munity (p. x). In this he continues a proud tradition of Somali intellectuals , writers, poets, and news broadcasters, some of whom are the subject of this book. Part One, which makes up about half of the book and is bound to be most interesting to non-Somalists, deals in two sections with the historical background of Somali drama and its most salient characteristics. After a brief theoretical introduction to drama in general, the author traces the emergence and development of Somali drama in the three decades following 1930. In Mogadishu (then part of Italian Somaliland), the first plays were performed by young amateurs. Excluded from the Italian cultural clubs by colonial racist conventions and from local cinemas as a result of penury, they began re-enacting Indian films and Arabic tales. In northern Somalia (then British Somaliland), drama came alive in the schools, probably at least partly influenced by the theatrical performances occasionally performed for the British soldiers. Somali school teachers, in an attempt to break down the older generation's distrust of modern non-Islamic schools, began to re-enact in Arabic important episodes from the history of Islam. Plays soon came to be performed in Somali and to address contemporary social and political issues. Thus they gradually became a popular and well established form. Later, in Italian, British, and French Somalilands (the Republic of Djibouti), Somali drama received an enormous impetus from the movements for independence and the climate of hope, determination and enthusiasm that accompanied them. In its turn Somali drama played a major role in promoting national support for the cause of freedom. Poets and playwrights were instrumental in mobilizing the Somali nation with lines such as these by Yuusuf Xaaji Aadan: "I am like a man who, carrying a pail, is told not to milk his own milch camel" ("Hadhuub nin sitoo hashiisa irmaan 'Ha maalin,' la leeyahaan ahay." p. 37). The heyday or golden age of Somali theater was the period 19621972 . In this jubilant period, following the gaining of political independence and the unification of the Italian and British territories, some very sophisticated plays were produced. Playwrights analyzed and denounced the social evils of both urban modernization and rural backwardness and freely criticized politicians and their policies. Criticism was—to quote from the many examples given in the book—the theme A Pioneering Work on Somali Drama 1 77 of Maxamed Cali Kaariye's Ama waa la i dooran ama daadku i qaad (Either elect me...