Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION

Prof. Emeagwali,
I am fast realising that this forum is a space people also use to REVEAL their ignorance about many things, without knowing.
How can Wikipedia be a source of scientific information to make such wild claim about Uthman Dan Fodiyo when there is a very rich corpus of literature on the Jihad, on Islam in West Africa and Empires of West Africa?
Abu
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 00:16:49
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>; Mwananchi<Mwananchi@yahoogroups.com>; wolesoyinkasociety<wolesoyinkasociety@yahoogroups.com>; Jos ANA Discussion List<josana@yahoogroups.co.uk>; nigerianauthors<nigerianauthors@yahoogroups.com>; mbariliterarysociety<mbariliterarysociety@yahoogroups.com>; writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com<writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com>
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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL
IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION

To conflate Boko Haram with Uthman dan Fodio is counter-productive
and misleading. To link the group with Maitatsine may be closer to reality .

Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali<http://www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali>
www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>

________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU [toyinvincentadepoju@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 4:22 PM
To: usaafricadialogue; Mwananchi; wolesoyinkasociety; Jos ANA Discussion List; nigerianauthors; mbariliterarysociety; writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION

The Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has initiated a war and waged it for years against the Nigerian government, Christians and Muslims it considers its enemies in the Muslim dominated Northern Nigeria.

The group describes the goal of this war as that of compelling the government to make the country an Islamic state and to drive Christians out of Northern Nigeria.

The group has carried out spectacular large scale murders, possibly in the thousands, of Christians and government agents, and targeted or killed individual Muslims, in pursuit of its goal.

The group, whose popular name name Boko Haram, means Western education is forbidden, also bombs schools.

The current situation can be described as one of confusion within Northern Nigeria and the rest of Nigeria since there seems to be no harmony of perspectives on how to manage this crisis.

The ideological vision of Boko Haram, its similarity to the less virulent but also violent Maitasine uprising in the North some years ago, and the relationship between ideology and violence as a means of enforcing a perspective of Islam on a populace demonstrated by Uthman Dan Fodio<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usman_dan_Fodio>, the father of contemporary Islamic civilisation in Northern Nigeria, implies that the central issues at stake in this struggle against Western civilisation need to be addressed at the level of ideology and practice.

Failure to do this implies that such uprising could recur as they have in the past, in various forms, from Dan Fodio to the present.


Uthman Dan Fodio initiated a jihad - in this case, an effort at Islamisation through violence- as a means of imposing his preferred form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa population.

Boko Haram, like Maitasine in the past, is also engaged in a violent jihad to impose its form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian population, Muslim and non-Muslim.

The jihad initiated by Uthman Dan Fodio eventually tried to push into the rest of what is now Nigeria until it was stopped in the South-West.

Boko Haram has also initiated a similar jihad, but so far, has been unable to penetrate significantly beyond the North.

This recurrence of efforts to impose an ideological orientation through violence, as in the jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio and his successors and the later examples of Boko Haram and Maitsine suggest that such developments may be expected to continue as a continuity can be traced from from the time of Dan Fodio to the present.

What is the challenge here?

How best may Islam in Northern Nigeria be accommodated to the overwhelming presence of Western civilisation, the civilisation Boko Haram is fighting against?

The sheer paradox and possibly even frustration experienced by these Islamic terrorists in their fight against Western civilisation is that the central tools of that fight are derived from the secular culture of the West, the guns, bombs and communications technologies developed after the West had defeated the suffocating hold of the Christian church, a hold that was a deterrent to bold scientific and technological development.

While recognising this paradox, the delusions of fanatics like Boko Haram should not blind us to the real issues that such fanatical behaviour might led one to dismiss as backward and deluded.

People of religious faith might want something more not evident for them in the overwhelmimg dominance of Western civilisation.

It is stated that some Muslims in Northern Nigeria are uneasy with Western education although that does imply support of the violence of Boko Haram or Maitasine.

How should such uneasiness be addressed?

Can Islamic civilisation and education replace Western education successfully in today's world?

Is it possible to harmonise both?

If so, what are the essential qualities of both forms of civilisation and education that need to be harmonised for best results?

Addressing these issues implies that a central question is addressed without resorting to extreme solutions that support completely one position or another, for or against Western or Islamic education.


Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros<http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"



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