In a store in Etobicoke specializing in Somali fashion and music hangs a painting of a nomadic woman holding the reins of a wild-eyed, grimacing camel. Typical semi-desert brush — short hardy shrubs — sprouts around them.

Anyone who has been to Somalia and knows the country well is struck by the artist's eye for detail. Only someone who is schooled well on nomadic life in the Somali semi-desert could capture the atmosphere and mood so well. And such paintings of the old country have become scarce since the breakup of the Somali Republic in 1991.

With a price tag of $500, the painting is beyond the means of many from Etobicoke's Little Somalia. But it has drawn hundreds of gawkers eager to relive life in the old homeland through the artist's brush.

On most days, when it's not too cold, Amin Amir, the artist responsible, can be found sitting with an easel in front of the store, analyzing the faces of his admirers. Sometimes, when he feels inspired, he turns away from the enthusiastic art-lovers to paint something.

"I knew this was Amin's work the moment I set eyes on it," says Ahmed Koshin, a regular visitor to the store who has become one of Amin's boosters. "I would recognize it anywhere."

Indeed, a majority of people in Toronto's Somali community recognize Amir's art. In the old country, they were confronted by it daily.

In fact, the Somali nation, especially the inhabitants of Mogadishu, couldn't avoid being influenced by Amir's art. That's because Amir was the personal artist of Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, the military strongman who ruled the Somalia for two decades until the country dissolved into anarchy in 1991.

When Barre was ousted by General Mohamed Farah Aideed, Amir changed masters and became Aideed's personal painter, until the notorious warlord died in a hail of gunfire several years ago.

Both the dictator and the warlord used Amir's talent purely for propaganda.

For Barre, it meant having Amir create murals on walls and billboards in Mogadishu in an effort to popularize his Soviet-style rule. Somalia then had the largest army in Africa, with weapons supplied by the Soviet Union, and Barre was feeling especially powerful.

Amin's murals depicted Barre's face and the "Heroes of the Revolution," as workers were described by the regime.

"Barre liked my work because I had developed a trick to make his face look younger on my paintings than he actually was," Amir says. "When he saw how I made him look younger, he insisted that I become his personal painter."

In the ruins of Mogadishu, the image of the former dictator still stares down from bullet-pocked walls. Many of the murals bear the unmistakable mark of Amir. From the late 1970s to the 1990s, virtually the entire city of Mogadishu, the seaside capital of Somalia, was Amir's canvas.

For Aideed, it meant forcing Amir to depict the warlord as "the saviour of the Somali nation," even though Aideed helped destroy the country.

"I had to work for Aideed or I faced violent death," Amir recalls. "I was working for him at gunpoint."

But working for Barre could also be scary, like the time Amir fell asleep in a vehicle used in a parade to mark the "Somali Revolution," a celebration held each year in October.

Amir was assigned to design banners for some of the flat-bed trucks that carried the names of the government ministries in the parade. It was a long, arduous task, and Amir fell asleep. The covered truck carried the sleeping Amir past Barre and his entire junta, and no one knew a security breach had occurred.

Soldiers discovered Amir in the truck that evening. Barre got word of it soon after. Amir was summoned to the strongman's office and forced to listen as Barre berated some of his senior security officers.

"It was a really scary moment and I was prepared for anything to happen," says Amir. "He sounded really angry after the breach and wanted to know how such a thing could happen, making me very nervous.''

Barre had taken power in 1969 after an assassin gunned down the democratically-elected president. His rule started out as a benign dictatorship and Somalia grew stronger in the early years. The economy was growing and there was no unrest.

Mohamed Gas, an environmental technician in Toronto, says Amir was famous in Somalia for projecting the positive aspects of Barre's socialist revolution.

"He promoted the government's message on labour relations, and the government used his talent to promote farming among Somalia's rural, agrarian community in the south, where much farming occurs,'' Gas recalls.

"Amir wasn't involved in the later years of the Barre regime when the government turned against its people and Barre started to manipulate the clan system in Somalia, leading the country down the path of ruin."

Even as the favoured artist of the country's rulers, Amir says he had a frugal lifestyle, living in a modest apartment paid for by the government. However, he had special access to government ministers and doors were opened for him everywhere he went.

"I was given some respect and later I even taught art in schools," he remembers. "But I didn't live an extravagant lifestyle and I didn't use my privileges with government ministers to do bad things. I don't believe in violence and I like to lead a normal life free of fear and hatred."

Amir arrived in Quebec City as a refugee in July, 2000. While making his way to Canada, he pursued his art in a number of countries.

In 1998, he won first prize in an international art competition sponsored by the UNESCO to promote the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

In the Red Sea city of Aden in Yemen, Amir designed the artwork for a popular Middle East cologne, and in Djibouti, he designed stamps.

Today, Amir has no job, no money and no home. In the three months since he came to Toronto, he has lived with his family in a downtown shelter.

Amir's most valuable contribution to the Somali community is through his volunteer political cartoons in the Somali Press, a Somali-language weekly newspaper in Etobicoke.

"Most people who knew his work thought he was dead, killed in the war, or he fled to another country," says Mohamed Osman, editor of the Somali Press. "But when his political cartoons started appearing in our paper, a lot of people wrote in to express their pleasure at seeing Amin's signature and his work again."

His cartoons provide commentary on how Somalia self-destructed.

"It's important for people to remember that it wasn't colonialism or any external forces that destroyed our homeland," Amir says. "We destroyed Somalia with our own hands and no Somali can escape the blame."

Amir now wants to find a home for his art in the Somali community. Some believe he can be a positive force.

"I think he can contribute to a vibrant Somali Canadian culture and art," says Faisal Hassan, an author and activist. "The Somali community in Toronto can benefit from his biting commentary in our ethnic press. He will also benefit and enrich Canadian culture through his paintings of Somalia."

 

Source: www.thestar.com

 

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A listing, with photographs, of Indiana University's (Bloomington) very fine Somali Poster collection is at: http://www.indiana.edu/~libpres/Reformatting/posters.html