City College News

Abdullahi Aden, or 'Al Gore' to friends and acquaintances, was elected to become the new president of the Somali Student Association.

On May 2, Aden won in a landslide, receiving 102 votes on the 118 ballots cast. The new president is looking forward to his new leadership role and said, "I have the ambition to make change and will share that with my fellow students."

Some of the goals that Aden has set out for himself include creating a forum once a week for scholars and others from around the community to speak to students, better communications between members of the SSA, and a committee to aid Somali student in need.

Another goal of his is to help build communications between Somali and Muslim students with other people on campus. He knows that relations can be difficult but said of people at MCTC, "Ask questions before you make assumptions…I strongly recommend people ask questions about Muslim and Somali culture."

Aden began attending school at MCTC in 2003, where he is majoring in business, and expects to graduate in the spring of 2008. Since starting, he has worked closely with President Phil Davis on issues that are important to himself and other members of the Somali and Muslim community. He has also helped bridge MCTC with it's sister school, Puntland State University in northern Somalia.

Aden's path to his presidency though has been a long and rocky one that began in Somalia in 1977, the year he was born.

For much of his early life, Aden lived in a town near Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, where his parents owned a restaurant. Then in 1986, political turmoil began to invade Somalia that would one day change the lives of Aden and his family forever.

Aden said, "I remember my mom telling me there is a war going on," but that he had personally never witnessed the civil war erupting throughout his country. Then one day, his father, a successful businessman, was captured by the militia, blindfolded, and held hostage for a period of time. Aden said that his father's captures soon realized that he was of no danger to them and released him unharmed.

"There's no ideology that they [the militias] are fighting for over in Somalia," said Aden.

He explained that most of the social upheaval in his home country has been created by the warlords that run the militias and their propaganda against other groups in the country. The warlords that control large parts of Somalia do so for their own self-interest and that they use their power, money, lies and deceit to control their territories, he said.

Then in 1991, the internal strife in Somalia became too much for Aden and his family and they soon became refugees taking sanctuary in the neighboring country of Kenya. Living in a hut with no sanitation became the way of life for Aden but said, "The people of Kenya were very nice."

If Aden had not been able to leave Somalia and the civil war the country was engulfed in, he feels that his life would be much different. "I would probably be killed or diseased," Aden said.

While living in Mombassa, Aden worked as a radio operator for three years before moving to the United States in 2001. He lived in San Diego with family members the first month before moving to Minnesota. Besides a brief stay in North Dakota, Aden has lived most of his life since moving to the U.S. here in the Twin Cities.

"The people of Minnesota have welcomed us and have really made it feel like a second home," said Aden.

Since arriving, Aden has worked diligently in trying to bring his parents, who are still in Kenya, over to live in the U.S. as well. That has been one of the hardest transitions that Aden has had to make, living so far from his parents.

"At first I felt very alone," he said.

Aden explained that he would write letters to immigration officials on a regular basis, urging them to allow his parents to come over.

Soon, when no resolution was being accomplished, he focused his efforts on writing letters to State Senators Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman as well as stopping by their offices regularly. His persistence paid off finally as both Senators Dayton and Coleman wrote letters to the immigration officials recommending that Aden's parents be allowed to come to the U.S.

The letters from the Senators worked as his parents were granted permission to immigrate to the United States and are expected to be arriving sometime in late summer 2007.

Overall, Aden said he has enjoyed his time at this college and said, "MCTC is a place I like, it's diversity, and there are great people on campus." He compared it to being able to visit the people of the world without having to pay the cost to travel.

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