Somalia’s defence minister breaks silence to defend Ilhan Omar — and signals a new kind of transnational politics
When Somalia’s Defence Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi took to Facebook this weekend to defend U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, it read less like a routine diplomatic note and more like an embrace. “If our daughter is being targeted for her identity, I will stand firmly with her,” Fiqi wrote, adding that as defence minister “I am making it clear that I stand with Ilhan.”
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The statement came after former U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his long-running attacks on Omar on his social platform, calling for her impeachment and deriding her Somali origins with a post that questioned the legitimacy of advice from “Somalia — consistently ranked among the World’s Most Corrupt Countries.” For many observers, the exchange between an American presidential favorite and a Somali cabinet minister underlines how domestic politics, identity and diaspora ties now ripple easily across borders.
More than symbolism: why a homeland leader’s words matter
There is something striking about a defence minister publicly intervening in another country’s partisan dispute. It suggests that the boundaries between home and exile, between national and diasporic politics, are porous. Omar was born in Mogadishu and came to the United States as a child after her family fled Somalia’s civil war. Today she represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which is home to tens of thousands of Somali-Americans whose lives are woven between two countries.
For many Somalis, Omar’s prominence has been a source of pride and, at times, unease. Her critics inside and outside the U.S. have accused her of being too critical of American foreign policy; her supporters see her as a rare voice with direct lived experience of displacement and conflict. Fiqi’s public backing reframes those debates. It is an assertion of kinship across oceans: a recognition that Somali identity doesn’t evaporate at a passport control line and that attacks on a public figure from the diaspora can be felt as an affront to the nation itself.
Fiqi’s move is also a strategic signal. Somalia remains a fragile state dealing with an insurgency, political fragmentation and chronic governance challenges. The Somali government and broader political class are attuned to diaspora sentiment; remittances and transnational advocacy are central to the country’s economy and international profile. When a senior official takes a stand, it resonates with those who send money home, campaign abroad, or carry dual identities into the halls of power in places like Minneapolis and London.
Identity politics, transnational networks, and the politics of insult
Trump’s renewed attack is part of a longer pattern that has targeted Omar and other women of colour in Congress. In 2019 he told her and other congresswomen of colour to “go back” to the countries they came from — a remark widely condemned as racist. The repetition of that theme — questioning a person’s loyalty or fitness based on birthplace or heritage — is a current that runs through nationalist movements in democracies around the world.
But the response from Mogadishu shows how such rhetoric pushes back against global elites in unexpected ways. If the purpose of nativist politics is to delegitimize members of a polity who are “not really” from there, the intervention from a Somali minister complicates the script: a homeland authority transforms such attacks into matters of national dignity.
There are practical stakes as well. The Somali-American community is influential in shaping U.S. policy toward Somalia, whether on aid, security cooperation, or counterterrorism. Lawmakers mindful of votes and activism in diaspora communities may find the domestic cost of anti-immigrant rhetoric higher when a foreign government publicly rebukes the critic.
What this says about the era we live in
We should read this moment as part of three overlapping trends.
- First, the intensified personalization of politics, where political enemies are routinely reduced to their identities — birthplace, religion, ethnicity — and attacked in ways that mobilize tribal loyalties.
- Second, the strengthening of transnational political networks. Diasporas no longer simply send money and remittances; they send influence. Political leaders, in turn, cultivate ties with expatriate communities to advance national narratives and protect reputations abroad.
- Third, the erosion of clear diplomatic etiquette in the age of social media. A U.S. presidential insult lands on a platform; a Somali minister replies on Facebook. The result is a globalized dispute conducted in real time for a worldwide audience.
These trends raise questions that go beyond the bilateral spat: What does it mean for domestic cohesion when national leaders in fragile states publicly take sides in foreign partisan fights? How should democracies balance free speech, particularly in the rough-and-tumble of politics, against the real harms of racially coded attacks? And what responsibility do public figures have to temper rhetoric that may embolden xenophobia at home and abroad?
Looking ahead
It is unlikely that Fiqi’s statement will change the course of U.S. politics, or silence critics of Omar. But it does illustrate how identities and loyalties now play out across the globe — a Somali minister speaking as much to his domestic audience as to the Somali diaspora and the wider world. For Omar’s supporters, it will be read as solidarity; for detractors, perhaps as interference. For the rest of us, it is a reminder that in a connected era, politics rarely stays in one place.
As nations wrestle with migration, identity and the politics of belonging, are we prepared for more moments in which a homeland calls out a foreign leader on behalf of an expatriate politician? And if so, how will international diplomacy adapt to these new dynamics?
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
