The Bantu are a non-Somali ethnic minority that has historically been marginalized within Somalia. Some trace their lineage to pre-Somali local tribes, while others are the descendants of slaves brought to Somalia by Arab slave traders to work in Somali homes. As ethnic outsiders, only some Bantu are affiliated with Somali clan lineages, typically as clan clients. While most Bantu are Muslim, a small percentage follow traditional African religion or Christianity.
The name “Bantu” was given by foreign aid workers at the inception of the 1991 civil war; locally, Bantu peoples are given derogatory names referring to their dark skin and thick curls (jereer, “hard/kinky hair,” and adoon, “slave”). The notion that they comprise a uniform ethnic minority—despite considerable geographic, historical, linguistic, and other differences—is a result of foreign intervention and a need to classify and understand the people of Somalia.
During the colonial period, some Bantu saw greater rights as laws changed to accommodate new concepts of citizenship, and missionary schools brought education to rural Bantu communities. However, under the Italians Bantu land was expropriated to supply a growing network of southern plantations, upon which Bantus were forced to labor. Despite these hardships, Bantus feared their further marginalization in an independent Somalia and did not support the Somali Youth League (which itself barred membership from non-Somali minorities). State-led farmland expropriation continued under the Siad Barre regime during the 1970s and 1980s. Bantu villages were badly looted by government forces during the civil war, and refugees received little locally distributed aid on account of their lower social status. They continue to face institutionalized, systematic discrimination in contemporary Somalia.
Sources:
Omar A. Eno and Mohamed A. Eno, “The Making of a Modern Diaspora: The Resettlement Process of the Somali Bantu Refugees in the United States,” African Minorities in the New World, eds. Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 197-220.
Martin Hill, “No Redress: Somalia’s Forgotten Minorities,” Minority Rights Group International (2010), accessed February 18, 2014.
Ken Menkhaus, “Bantu ethnic identities in Somalia,” Annales d’Ethiopie, Vol. 19, No. 19 (2003), pp. 323-339.