Omar Rails Against “Western Imperialism”

Yesterday Bernie Sanders held a rally on the campus of the University of Minnesota, at which he was introduced by Ilhan Omar. Attorney General Keith Ellison also appeared in support of Sanders’ presidential campaign. The rally was successful, with thousand of adoring far-leftists attending. Omar sounded like an unreconstructed Marxist, calling for “a mass movement of the working class” and assuring her listeners that Sanders will “fight against Western imperialism.” It’s 1969 all over again! This Fox News video has a couple of clips from Omar’s introduction of Sanders, along with commentary by Byron York:

The Star Tribune covered the rally in anodyne fashion, focusing mostly on the horse race between Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It reported none of Omar’s incendiary remarks–her views, like her various frauds and possible crimes, apparently being in the category of things voters are better off not knowing.

I don’t know Omar personally, but if I did, I would like to sound her out further on the subject of “Western imperialism.” How, exactly, do her own experiences coincide with her Marxist world-view? Omar comes from Somalia, which is one of the worst places on Earth, in part because Western powers have left it alone. Its disintegration into tribal warfare is entirely self-induced. Her family fled Somalia for fear of being killed by members of rival clans, and lived for years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Who supported them in Kenya? The Western democracies, in large part. U.N. aid to refugees in Kenya runs to more than $200 million annually. In 1992, Omar came to the United States as a refugee and became a U.S. citizen at age 17.

Where, exactly, is the “Western imperialism” in Omar’s story? The disasters she experienced as a child were entirely indigenous and had nothing to do with “imperialism.” Since then, she has experienced first-hand the unprecedented generosity and openness of the Western democracies, in particular the United States. In Omar’s railing against the country that rescued her from an African refugee camp and elevated her to Congress, there is a breathtaking level of shamelessness and ingratitude.

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