Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - President Museveni Discusses Libya &Gaddafi: A Must Read

hi franklyne
it can be popular opinion, or other factors that distort the debate. can't help but think of this old title: "La Trahison des clercs," 1920s title. here's the wiki blurb on it:
Benda is now mostly remembered for his short 1927 book La Trahison des Clercs, a work of some notoriety in its day. The title of the English translation was The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, although "The Treason of the Learned" would have been more accurate. This polemical essay argued that French and German intellectuals in the 19th and 20th century had often lost the ability to reason dispassionately about political and military matters, instead becoming apologists for crass nationalism, warmongering and racism. Benda reserved his harshest criticisms for his fellow Frenchmen Charles Maurras and Maurice Barrès.

ahidjo's speech writer, sengat-kuo, was regarded by cameroon watchers as one; another was the inexplicable support and participation in the regime which oyono lent to both rulers. power attracts intellectuals as well as anyone else, and i don't even want to think about those in zimbabwe who now find excuses for supporting what our former hero mugabe has become.
i know people disagree in honest debate, and that is the case here. but the disregard for so many lives on grounds that seem to me to be ideological spouting reminds me so much of walcott's poem "The SPoiler's Return," one of my favorites.
here are some lines:
"All those who promise free and just debate,
then blow up radicals to save the state,
who allow, in democracy's defense,
a parliament of spiked heads on a fence,
all you go bawl out, 'Spoils, things ain't so bad,'
This ain't the Dark Age, is just Trinidad,
is human nature, SPoiler, after all,
it ain't big genocide, is just bohbohl,
safe and conservative, 'fraid to take side,
they say that ROdney commit suicide,
is the same voices that, in the slave ship,
smile at their brothers, 'Boy is just the whip,'
I free and easy, you see me have chain?
A little censorship can't cause no pain
a little graft can't rot the human mind,
what sweet in goat-mouth sour in his behind
So i sing with Atilla, I sing with Commander,
what right in Guyana, right in Uganda."

ken
On 3/27/11 3:26 AM, Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh wrote:

Ken,  Good Morning. What Most of the arguments here lack is exactly that: Moral compass! You get this when academics betray their vocationa and allows themselves to become Thermometers that rise and fall according to the temperatures of popular opinion.    Dr. Franklyne Emmanuel Ogbunwezeh   Am 27.03.2011 um 00:31 schrieb kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>:  

i am so disappointed that after all the millions dead in rwanda and the drc that this opposition to outside intervention is made. it is an argument that dismisses any need to oppose genocide or its equivalent. where is the moral compass here? ken  On 3/26/11 12:20 PM, Okafor, Chinyere wrote: 

Rosemary makes very good points in her piece. I think that people have digressed from its main import about outside intrusion in internal national matters and the moral authority of the intruders. As for her reference to Western and African thinking, who can really claim not to have some of the western when we all use the language of western thought? The main issue is about the suffering of people in Libya in the hands of internal gunfire and external bombardment.  Professor Chinyere G. Okafor, Ph.D Department of Women's Studies&  Religion Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA Phone: (316) 978-6264, fax (316) 978-3186 E-mail: chinyere.okafor@wichita.edu URL<http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/handle/10057/1222> <http://webs.wichita.edu/wmstudy/faculty.html><http://www.chiwrite.com/> ________________________________________ From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu] Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 12:49 PM To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - President Museveni Discusses Libya&Gaddafi: A Must Read  this is called determinism. marxism 101  teaches us that the revolution comes because people refuse to accept determinist thinking, both the oppressors, from which the vanguard is to come, and the oppressed whose consciousness is not immutably determined by the ruling class. who today would accept determinism like this? you would have people thinking like objects,as though they had no agency to determine how to think. ken  On 3/25/11 1:19 PM, ROSEMARY MWENJA wrote: 

We are a product of our experiences and that has a big influence in how we think. If you have been part of the oppressor you think in a particular way. If you are the oppressed you think in a particular way. 

-- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu  -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.    For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue    For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html    To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-    unsubscribe@googlegroups.com  

 --  kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu  --  You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.  For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue  For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html  To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com  To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-       unsubscribe@googlegroups.com 

--  kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu