The European Council on Foreign Relations

Hyphenated identities and foreign policy

Date: 29th November 2010  |  Author: Hans Kundnani,

Categories: Europe and the world,
Tags: somalia, immigration, kidnapping, piracy, pirates

The extraordinary story of Dahir Abdullahi Kadiye, the British-Somali man who helped release two hostages held by Somali pirates, raises some interesting questions about the role of immigrant communities in Europe in foreign policy.

Kadiye, a 56 year-old former taxi driver, divides his time between Leytonstone in east London and his native Somalia – the kind of person that former British Europe minister Denis MacShane calls “semigrants”. After hearing about the kidnapping of British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler by pirates off the coast of Somalia last year, he travelled back to the country and became a freelance hostage negotiator. Earlier this month, after a ransom had been transferred to the Somali pirates and their financial backers, Kadiye – who belongs to the same clan as a the pirates - brought the couple to safety after more than a year in captivity.

A few days ago Kadiye told the story in an interview with the UK’s Channel 4 News:

http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/241110/clipid/241110_CHANDLERS_24

There are countless millions of residents of the 27 EU member states, who, like Kadiye, have hyphenated identities – Pakistanis in Britain, Algerians in France, Turks in Germany and so on. Often, this phenomenon is thought of either as irrevelant to foreign policy or as a foreign policy problem – for example, in terms of the split loyalties such hyphenated identities can create. These groups can certainly influence policies and foreign affairs - look at California's Armenians and Kurdish and Tamil groups in Europe. But as the story of Kadiye’s role in freeing the Chandlers strikingly illustrates, governments perhaps have to start thinking of Europe's immigrant communities as a potential foreign policy resource.