Somalis are Terrorists, I Have the Data to Prove It

It  begins small, like a germ. An observation is made, and then it is made again, and again, and soon a pattern emerges. John is a professor and he wears glasses. Mary is a doctor and she wears glasses. Michael works at the construction site as a casual laborer and he doesn't wear glasses. Neither does Cindy, who is a waitress.

The connection seems innocent enough: There is a correlation between wearing glasses and professions that require high levels of academic intelligence. The conclusion? Smart people wear glasses. The next day, you see a young boy at the supermarket. He is wearing glasses. "He must be smart", you think to yourself. The TV does not make it any easier. It is always the geeks and the nerds who wear reading glasses.

Human beings are prone to make habits out of recurrent patterns. That's how we learn. We make laws out of consistent observations, that's basic science. When an apple is detached from the branch of a tree, it falls to the ground - every time. The conclusion? The law of gravity. Is it any wonder, then, that all illegal immigrants, especially those of Somali origin, are considered terrorists until proven innocent?

It also began small, like a germ. An observation was made, and then it was made again, and again, and soon a pattern emerged. Abdul is of Somali origin, and several bomb-making materials were found in his apartment. The guys who besieged Westage Mall, they looked Somali. You could tell from their faces and hair. The people who claimed responsibility for various grenade attacks, they were Muslims and invoked Islamic teachings in their cause. 

The pattern is clear. There is something Somali and something Islamic about the terrorist attacks in Kenya. The conclusion? All Somalis are either potential terrorists or hiding terrorists. It is only reasonable. It is not blind stereotyping. The data supports it.

So let's act on this conclusion. Let us profile every Probox driver by the color of their skin and the curling of their hair. Let us demand the identification documents of those who do not speak our language. Let us alight the matatu when they get on, even while carrying no luggage. Let us double-check the people in Kanzus. It is for the sake of national security. We only want a safer country. It is for the sake of the women and the children. It is for the innocent. It is for our country, Kenya.

You see, doing this will not be blind stereotyping, just like the glasses hypothesis is not blind stereotyping. There is a science that supports it, most of the time. For instance, people who read too much tend to strain their eyes, especially when they do it in poor or wrong lighting. On the other hand, most people who don't read much, even if they have naturally bad eyesight, seldom need glasses.

Those who are born with "bad" eyes for reading will acquire glasses from a very young age. Those who seldom read will most likely not need the glasses, even with their poor eyesight. The combination of these and more factors makes for a very convincing case. There seems to be a valid correlation between wearing glasses and academic excellence.

That's why the ethnic profiling in the name of counter-terrorism is not entirely insane. The history of arrests has shown that most of the Al-shabaab links tend to be people of Somali origin. I hope you noticed the word "tend" in that previous sentence. It is a very important word. It indicates probability. Chances. Odds if you like.

The odds are that the terrorists are people of Somali origin. That's a conclusion based purely on statistics, not on any evidence of a correlation between DNA and susceptibility to radicalisation. The conclusion is not based on any sociological studies showing that people bred in Somalia are socialised to be more violent than those born in their neighboring countries.

There is a bit of religious analysis included though, but even this is purely statistical and not theological or ideological. The numbers show that most global terrorists claimed to be Muslims, or were at least based in Islamic countries. The numbers speak for themselves. Unfortunately, the numbers only speak for themselves, they don't speak for the exceptions, the innocent. The numbers don't speak for the bespectacled academic dwarf and they certainly don't speak for the peace-loving Somali father of three.

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My friend Jeremy wears thick framed, really nerdy, glasses. I've known him not to be the brightest cookie in many an academic jar -- definitely not by 8-4-4 standards. But what does it matter? He wears glasses, and we all know that is all people need to see to believe he is a genius. The data support our stereotypes, and that's all we need. Or is it?