By Jessie Mangaliman

KNIGHT RIDDER

When Ahmed Dirie got a work visa to come to the United States in late 2001, he had high hopes of advancing his career as an agricultural scientist.

But months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Dirie, a refugee from Somalia, and unwitting victim in the U.S. war on terror, lost the university research job he had been offered.

A Muslim, a scientist, and a citizen of a country that's been labeled as a harbor for terrorists, Dirie faced a daunting and difficult personal road by the time he arrived in the United States -- via the Philippines where he was studying -- in May 2002.

He had a work visa but not a once-promised job. He also had two kids, a wife and their entire life's savings of $2,000. He and his family lived in a garage in South San Jose for three months while his young son endured two open-heart operations.

And when he sought help from a fellow Somali, he was rebuffed.

"In my culture, when you're in trouble, you go to your community for help," said Dirie, 44, a wiry and intense man. "The help was not there. My thinking was, 'There could be others like me.'"

His frustrating and circuitous search for the Somalian community -- calls to friends of friends out of state -- eventually brought Dirie to Shuaib Dualeh, the former executive director of the Bay Area Somali Community in San Jose.

Dualeh, following Somalian tradition, brought Dirie's story and case to the Somalian community, and personally collected $1,500 for Dirie.

It was fateful timing.

"At that time we were looking for somebody qualified to run our organization," Dualeh said. "I gave him the $50 in my pocket and I asked him if he wanted to start volunteering."

Today, Dirie is executive director of the organization he once sought out. But like his own difficult journey, the organization has struggled, with finances and with an internal community strife that mirrors the tribal and political differences of the civil war in Somalia. More than a year ago, the organization, unable to pay rent, lost its San Jose office space on Gish Road.

Because of the federal government's focus on terrorism and national security, Somalis everywhere have continued to be the target of unwanted attention by the FBI.

"It has been tough," Dirie said about re-establishing the community group. "We don't have a businessman to run the organization. We don't have academicians, policymakers or people who are well-connected in the larger community."

Somalis started resettling in Santa Clara County in the early 1990s. Today there are an estimated 5,000 in the Bay Area, Dirie said -- about 2,000 in San Jose.

"I think the most difficult issue for the community is credibility," Dirie said. "We have to leave behind whatever differences we had in Somalia because that's what made us refugees. We have to outgrow our tribal and ethnic differences."

Many of the differences that split Somalis are rooted in early colonial rule by France, Britain and Italy, and allegiances to the different controlling governments.

Ahmed Issa, a San Jose cab driver, and Dirie's former classmate in Mogadishu, said his friend is "the perfect person for this job."

"He's a good listener and he can deal with challenges," Issa said. "He's a good choice to bring the community together."

After the organization lost its office on Gish Road, Tommy Fulcher, president and CEO of Economic and Social Opportunities Inc., a nonprofit group that provides seed-money for struggling and start-up nonprofit groups, offered space at ESO's headquarters in San Jose.

Fulcher said every group that ESO has helped start in the past generation -- the Asian Americans for Community Involvement, the Emergency Housing Consortium, the local Food Bank -- have had to deal with negative images in their early days, just as Dirie's group is facing now.

Of Dirie, Fulcher said, "He's a sincere, intelligent and educated guy. He's courageous."

In Mogadishu, Dirie researched plant pests for the government Ministry of Agriculture during the years before the civil war in Somalia.

In 1990, he was sent by the government to complete his graduate degree in the Philippines.

There he conducted genetic research on rice and developed methods on how to protect it from diseases. While in school, he married Ofelia Dirie, and had two sons. He went on to complete a doctoral degree in agricultural sciences.

Late in 2001, he was offered a job at the University of Missouri to work on a research project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A Somalian scientist, a Muslim who has traveled to Malaysia, Dirie's career got caught up in the national security dragnet that followed Sept. 11. His job offer was withdrawn, although he already had a visa to come to the United States.

He later received political asylum in the United States.

Since he took leadership of the Bay Area Somali Community, Dirie has started a Web site, www.bayareasomali.org. He's running an after-school program, publishing a newsletter and organizing teams of volunteers.

Recently, he started two more projects: collecting the agricultural science knowledge lost to the war in Somalia, and an online magazine on redevelopment of Somalia.

As refugees from an agricultural, nomadic culture thrust into the center of an information and high-tech society, Somalis in the Bay Area have a high barrier to cross.

"We already have other hurdles to get through," Dirie said. "If we don't get united, we'll not go anywhere."

Source: KNIGHT RIDDER, Oct. 09, 2005