ALEX BERENSON: Somalia’s clan culture helps explain Minnesota’s shocking fraud scandal

Nairobi, Kenya, December 2011:

I am in Kenya researching my seventh John Wells novel, ‘The Night time Ranger’. Wells pursues American missionaries introduced into the bush by Somali mercenaries. It is a change of tempo for him, the place the stakes are decrease than in his regular work. It would turn into one among my favourite novels.

I visited a big Somali refugee camp in northern Kenya and on the Indian Ocean coast, the place Somali kidnappers not too long ago captured and murdered a number of Europeans.

Now I am again in Nairobi speaking about the issue of Somalia, which Kenyans face first hand. Kenya is predominantly Christian. Somalis are Muslim – and poor, even by African requirements. Kenya wants western safari tourism for jobs and cash. The kidnappings did not assist. Kenyans desire to maintain their neighbors outdoors. However the United Nations and worldwide support companies have given them little alternative (oh, the irony: poor nations hate open borders much more than wealthy ones).

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Anyway, I’ve a drink in a lodge and speak about Somalia with (white) non-governmental support staff – they stay nicely, these NGO sorts. And somebody says:

‘This is what it’s worthwhile to find out about Somalia. It is on the ocean, proper? [Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa, almost 2,000 miles.] However most Somalis can’t swim, can’t fish and have little interest in the water. That is how inward-looking they’re, how tribal.”

The phrases caught with me. And fourteen years later, they assist clarify Minnesota’s multibillion-dollar Somali corruption scandal, which grew to become one of many greatest tales of 2025.

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The Somalis are tribes, however they aren’t alone.

It’s unattainable to know the huge swath of the world that stretches from Morocco, 6,000 kilometers east to Pakistan and south by way of Africa, with out realizing the significance of tribes. This space contains virtually two billion folks, primarily Muslims, but in addition contains a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of Christians. It’s largely poor, however there are additionally wealthy Arab Gulf states.

What it shares greater than the rest is the dedication to the tribe as the middle of identification. In Arab and Muslim nations, marriage between cousins ​​helps preserve tribal identification; Marriages between cousins ​​account for about two-thirds of all marriages in Pakistan and virtually as many in some Arab nations.

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In Somalia, the figures are barely decrease, as a result of marriages assist to bind ‘clans’ – and never simply carefully associated households – collectively.

But a ebook on marriage in Arab and African nations explains:

“Usually talking, through the marriage course of in Somalia and Djibouti, collective pursuits are thought-about extra vital than the pursuits of the 2 people getting married.”

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I do not assume most People can simply perceive how alien these cultures actually are to our mind-set.

A society that doesn’t even enable its members to decide on their husband or spouse has a really completely different construction than Western societies that concentrate on particular person rights – and the rule of regulation.

Sure, in each the West and tribal societies, the household is the core unit, which can be why Westerners haven’t seen this distinction as clearly as they need to.

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However within the West each household is successfully unbiased. Extra highly effective teams are political, not familial, organized by inhabitants measurement and geography – cities, provinces, states, nations.

In tribal societies, households stack as much as acquire energy, which is why cousin marriage is so vital. Me to my cousin; me and my cousin in opposition to our second cousin neighbors; our prolonged household in opposition to yours – all led by a clan chief. The clans can share territory, however not political management.

Within the West, nation states acquire legitimacy by – at the very least in principle – offering all residents with equal justice below the regulation.

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Tribal societies should not have an identical overarching philosophical basis. In observe, they function as tribes compete and cooperate, generally in comparatively calm equilibrium, generally below the autocratic management of the strongest tribe and its leaders.

And generally in open battle, as much as and together with civil battle – akin to within the wars which have ravaged Somalia for many years.

When particular person households from tribal societies come to Western nations, they’ve little alternative however to undertake Western accumulation mechanisms – to simply accept the rule of regulation and the authority of unbiased political jurisdictions. That’s precisely what many particular person Somalis have performed.

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But when they arrive en masse, just like the Somali immigrants from Minnesota, they could attempt to maintain their tribal buildings at the very least partially intact.

In November, the unbiased newspaper County Freeway printed a rare piece on the Somali fraud in Minnesota, explaining how simply the group had rebuilt itself alongside clan strains:

“The group just isn’t the results of a voluntary motion of formidable folks searching for a brand new life in America, however of the mass resettlement of complete households by the US authorities…

“The Somalis introduced the language, tradition and sophisticated clan system of their shattered homeland to Minnesota… the cultural forces that allowed Somalis to renew a model of their earlier lives additionally had the impact of protecting themselves from different Minnesotans.”

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“The historic Somali society is a form of Janus society,” explains Ahmed Samatar, a political scientist at Macalester Faculty in Saint Paul and founder and editor-in-chief of Bildhaan: An Worldwide Journal of Somali Research, talking from his skylight workplace on campus.

“On the one hand, there may be the intimacy of the local people, the household subgroup and kin group. Right here there may be reciprocity, accountability and respect… However civic tradition was not a part of that custom.”

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In different phrases, many Somalis consider they owe their tribes exhausting work, integrity and honesty.

Their tribes – and nobody else.

So when Democrats in Minnesota determined to drop all boundaries and successfully open federally funded applications to mass looting — a choice that was each overtly cynical and surprisingly naive — a staggering variety of Somalis benefited.

Stress is mounting within the Senate because the Minnesota fraud scandal continues to unfold

As County Freeway defined:

“The fraud unfold so extensively and rapidly that it appeared as if there was no actual architect… galloping[ing] by way of the Somali group, which hid the key from non-Somali Minnesota with ironclad self-discipline. The clan system served as each a path and safety for the fraud…”

In every fraud case, the Somali group demonstrated what Professor Samatar described as ‘the solidarity of thieves’. Dangerous actors throughout the group would method potential co-conspirators with none worry of betrayal.

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Honor amongst thieves!

No, not each Somali in Minnesota can or ought to be blamed for this fraud.

However that doesn’t imply that the choice to simply accept massive numbers of immigrants en masse from a tribal society has not paved the way in which for this.

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Europe has seen an identical disaster with Syrian and Afghan refugees over the previous decade, though Europe has seen extra violence because it has taken in so many younger, single males.

In 2025, it grew to become clear that the post-1965 wave of immigration to the US is now over.

President Donald Trump has confirmed that the Democratic argument that the US couldn’t preserve its borders was a lie. He has confirmed that with cheap and politically acceptable steps, new unlawful immigration could be nearly lowered to zero.

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I doubt that any severe Democratic Celebration candidate for at the very least a number of presidential cycles will name for permitting mass waves of unskilled migrants (both illegally or by way of doubtful applications like those the Biden administration has devised).

However sooner or later – maybe a decade from now, maybe a technology from now – the pendulum will swing once more and the US can be keen to simply accept massive numbers of recent developments. immigrants once more.

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If that occurs, I hope it should keep in mind the teachings of the previous decade — and never let in massive teams from tribal societies, encouraging them to recreate their clans en masse on American soil.

We can’t make certain that all our new immigrants will settle for the perfect of America.

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However we will do our greatest to ensure they do not arrive with fragmented loyalties.

Editor’s word: This column first appeared on Writer’s Substack, “Unreported truths.”

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