On Scholarship and Clarity of Understanding
Breadth of scholarship illuminates a subject when it places it within a broader perspective that enables one better understand its context, the implications of the substantive issue, clarifies or corrects issues of fact, among other possibilities.
With respect to the scholars seeking to contradict my views views on this subject, I am yet to see these presentations as contradicting the fundamental, basic points I am making.
The reality is that the points they make do not go beyond the purview of the very Wikipedia article they criticise.
The issue is quite straightforward and does not need breadth of scholarship to demonstrate.
The kind of scholarship my critics are deploying is like trying to use a sledge hammer on a small nail, thereby missing the nail because you cant see it. Others, Harrow, specifically and perhaps Abu, substitute something else for the nail, pet theories that , with Harrow's in particular, cannot stand scrutiny.
Who is is a Revolutionary? Who is a Religious Bigot?
I suspect the glamour created the heroisation of Uthman Dabn Fodio makes it difficult for some to see that so called conquerors and reformers like Dan Fodio need to be tasked as to the price paid by others on account of their methods of 'reform'.
What is the basic point I am making:
Uthman Dan Fodio initiated a culture in what is now Northern Nigeria of imposing on others through violence political and religious rule in the name of Islam.
Boko Haram Islamic terrorists are following in this tradition by trying to impose their rule on Nigerians in the name of Islam.
Boko Haram represents the latest manifestation of this drive towards religious and cultural imperialism in Nigeria, Maitasine being an earlier manifestation.
Ironically, each would be critic of my position provides the armoury to reinforce that position.
Emeagwali, Ibrahim, Abu and are ironically most helpful on the subject of the immediate historical logic of this imperialist impulse.
What motivations are presented by the religious warriors as their rationale for this resort to violence in imposing their religion or view of that religion, or political rule in the form of that religion, on others, who might even practice the same religion?
What is the relationship between these stated motives as well as their undeclared motives and the broader scope of influences driving that historical context?
The points made by Emeagwali and Abu can be summed up in one sentence:
The Boko Haram menace and the jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio were inspired by different and complex factors.
I respond- The factors might not be identical but the central question here is-
what is the ideological thrust of the agressor, what factors motivate that ideological thrust and what is his method in pursuing that aggression?
We can wax lyrical all we want as Emeagwali does about Uthman Dan Fodio's revolutionary vision, about his devotion to learning, to uplifting the status of women etc
Are we not aware that Boko Haram is being painted by some, particularly commentators from Northern Nigeria and even by fellow Muslim, Rauf Aregbesola, the governor of Osun State, as akin to revolutionaries?
That is either explicitly stated by these commentators or can rightly be described as part of the subtext of the claim that Boko Haram is an expression of poverty and social injustice.
I quoted earlier a Northern Muslim commentator describing Boko Haram as fighting a 'corrupt secular government'.
Aregbesola has described them as fighting for true federalism.
Bamanga Tukur, ruling party PDP, chairman, has described them as fighting for justice.
Various Northern Nigerian Muslim commentators describe them as akin to the militants fighting to address environmental and social devastation in the Niger Delta.
A Northern Nigerian body gave a press conference describing Boko Haram as demonstrating their dedication to Islam even as they appeal to the group to relent in its activities.
Sheikh Gumi states that one of the reasons for the current unrest is that Muslims are being unfairly treated by the Nigerian government, as in marginalisation in admissions to the Nigerian Military Academy, even as he criticised the group for its methods and its attacks on Christians.
On Education: Dan Fodio and Boko Haram
Emeagwali invokes Dan Fodio's commitment to education in distinguishing him from Boko Haram, whose name means 'Western Education is Forbidden'.
Boko Haram is not against education. Boko Haram is against Western education.
What kind of education did Uthman Dan Fodio inspire in Northern Nigeria?
His own brand of Islamic education.
This is the social context within which Boko Haram has grown.
Struggles over Islamic Identity : Dan Fodio and Boko Haram
Ibrahim invokes the conflict lover 'Who is a Muslim?' that was part of the context of Dan Fodio's uprising.
This is simply an elaboration of the point made by Wikipedia that Dan Fodio was fighting against perceived adulterations of Islam in Northern Nigeria, possibly integration of pre-Islamic and Islamic practices.
That cuts to the heart of the question 'Who is a Muslim'?
The socialisation into Islam in Western Nigeria, partly Islamised through the continuation of Dan Fodio's jihad by his successors, is different from that of Northern Nigeria as evident from the virulence that often attends perceived slights to Islam in the North. This is expressed in recurrent mass and individual murders of Christians and Southerners by Muslims on one claim or another of what apologists call 'provocation' while these Islam inspired death orgies dont take place in the West. Clearly the Islamic influence in Islamic sociation in Western Nigeria is mediated by factors that blunt or eliminate the possibility of violent interpretation of one's duties to one's religion.
So, there are different ways of being a Muslim.
The central question is
how do various Muslims respond to these differences in approaching the religion by fellow Muslims?
Do they focus on dialogue and mutual understanding and accommodation or do they insist on dominating, suppressing or harming those who disagree with them?
What did Dan Fodio do with the Hausa Muslims who did not share his view of Islam?
He attacked them and imposed his rule on them.
What is Boko Haram doing to those Muslims who do not share their views on Islam. They kill them.
What goal did the successors of Dan Fodio's jihad pursuse?
Conquest and colonisation of other peoples even beyond what is now Northern Nigeria in the name of Islam.
What is Boko Harams self stated vision?
To make Nigeria an Islamic state through terror.
What fundamental difference can be seen between the Boko Haram vision and that of Dan Fodio and his successors?
No one here has pointed out any such difference.
The bottom line in both ideologies is- 'agree with us and we wil not attack you. If you dont agree with us, we will wage war against you'. 'Education and peace can occur only on our terms, not yours.'
All the arguments from Abu about the history of Boko Haram simply confirms the question of human agency in the face of various factors-what motivated Boko Haram to become terrorists instead of peaceful agitators? What motivates their quest for regional domination and national subjugation instead of adopting a more nuanced and humane philosophy?
Are people's responses to situations not influenced by the ideological and social contexts they identify with and within which they carry out most of their activities?
Who is the most decisive shaper of the ideological and social context of the domination of Northern Nigeria by a particular kind of Islam, an Islam established through conquest and the wiping out of dissident views through violence, violence claiming many lives?
Is it not Uthman Dan Fiodio?
So, whatever the specificities of context, the motivating factors and ideological identities are close in the histories of Dan Fodio and Boko Haram -Islamic extremists and bigots, using force to compel others in the name of their conception of society, a conception based on Islam.
On Philosophical Chauvinism and Cultural and Political Imperialism in Abrahamic religions
Harrow's effort to divorce ideology from psychology actually backfires beceause it suggests that such an atomistic depiction cannot reflect reality.
These religions are actually mirror images of each other. Their differences, to me, reinforce their differences.
What is their central similarity, as different from other religions?
Founding Ethos and Conception of Ultimate Reality
1. They are based on the vision of Abraham, further developed by his Israelite descendants. Adapted by Christians and later by Muslims, all of whom look to the Abrahamic tradition in their sacred texts and traditions.
2. This vision has been developed in terms of a monolithic and exclusivist conception of ultimate reality. 'We alone have the truth' is their foundational insight.
This insight derives from the race centred monotheism of Judaism, the Jews as the Chosen People, a vision harnessed to a fundamentally culturally and politically imperialistic ethic- everything belongs to God, the only God, all the rest are idols, therefore, we as God's children, chosen by God, can take anything for ourselves, including human life and property'.
This vision is grounded in the Bible, is rejected by Jesus, but is developed further by Christian cultural and political imperialism and adopted by Islamic cultural and political imperialism.
Comparing the sacred texts, histories and even contemporary ethos of these religions with the largely pluralistic vision of the two other relogions of equal global visibility, Buddhism and Hinduism, makes this characteristic clear.
Historial Dilution and Resistance
Over the centuries, the relationship between chauvinistic religious supremacy and efforts to impose this vision on others has waned in Judaism and Christianity but has been contained but not diluted in Islam. This is because Islam has not experienced the geographical dispersion and consequent disempowering suffered by Judaism or what Christianity has suffered from the relentless disruptions created by the march of European modernity, a cultural movement that transformed Europe's way of thinking and living, a modernity that has become global but which is adapted to in different ways by different countries and peoples.
Saudi Arabia, the geographical and historical centre of Islam, adapts to this modernity by using the products enabled by this modernity, cultivates parts of the education it has created, but subsumes these within a repressive culture marked by book censorship, rule by monarchy, and such stifling management of female identity as preventing women from driving and sending their female representative to the last Olympics accompanied by her father.
All this is justified in the name of a cultural purity rooted in the alliance between Islamic clerics and the monarchy.
Ideology and Psychology
Any system dominated by an ideology is open to abuses in the name of that ideology, abuses inspired by the ideology and excused and justified in its name.
It is not correct, therefore, to state, as Harrow, does, that abuses in the name of religion are more to be blamed on the nature of the abusers than on their religion.
Where does religious inspiration end and where does human motivation begin?
After a point, religious texts become reified, even divinised and inspire as well as are amplified by human nature.
Jesus was a pacifist. Muhammed was a warrior. Jesus was a man who denied the world. Muhammed a man who embraced the world.
Jesus, however, came from a religiously imperialist tradition, and some of his followers have been inspired by that to demonises and dominate those who dont agree with them.
A debate has been raging on Nigerian centred online groups about the violent and primitive character of a significant number of Koranic and Hadith verses. Those verses exist and no amount of whitewashing their character by ingenous exegesis will conceal the fact that the Koran and the Hadiths are not a pacifist texts, are rooted in a social vision that is some ways primitive and can be understood as essentially not helpful to inter-religious harmony, as a good part of the Old Testament is not.
The roots of much of the chauvinistic character of these religions is inspired by these texts its believers read on a regular basis and which they take to be the word of God.
The virulence of this chauvinism is much diluted in Christianity because, developing centrally in Europe, its claims of exclusive truth have suffered grievously at the hands of the modernity that shaped the modern West. This modernity is marked by a rationalistic relationship with religion and a movement of faith away from the public sphere.
One of the most direct impacts of this modernity on religion has been the consistent deconstruction of the Bible. Within this context, much of the Bible is generally understood as myth, a perspective reinforced by myth criticism of the Bible.
Islam, Christianity and the Questions of Religious Accommodation and Reflexivity
Along with this has also come a detachment from religious absolutism. Hans Kung, the Catholic theologian, was punished by the papacy but he kept his life. Jesus and his disciples have been portrayed in art as a group of rats in an ad advertising rat poison, , as a gathering of sleek, sexy, mostly female models, with the only male half naked, in the Girbaud jeans ad, among other expressions of the impact of the canonical image of the Last Supper on the artistic imagination.
Nobody has died because of these irreverences. Nobody is really bothered. The worst that may happen is that the ads and posters showing such liberties may be removed or banned.
On the contrary, liberties with Islam on a much milder scale can cost you your life, even in a non-Islamic country. The film director Theo Van Gogh paid with his life for his film Submission criticising the treatment of of women in Islam at the hands of a Muslim who was ready to sacrifice his freedom to avenge his faith. The Danish anti-Muhammed cartoons have taken their toll in human lives at the hands of Muslims responding to what they see as an outrage , even killing people in that outrage as far away as Nigeria, where Islam inspired orgies of killing are a recurrent feature of Northern Nigeria.
The shockwaves of the Islamic death sentence, the fatwa, decreed on Rushdie by Khomeini imply that the Islamic world is one where its Prophet is not criticised, is not scrutinised. That stance shows that the serious issues Rushdie raised by building on the the historical Satanic Verses incident in which Muhammed is described as quoting some Koranic verses that praise the non-Islamic Meccan divinities, thereby provoking questions about relationships between inspiration and political calculation in his prophetic role, is not likely to be addressed as a central issue of self reflexivity in the Musklim world.
What is the scope of Koranic criticism? To what degree are Muslims allowed to challenge the Koran or its creator, Muhammad?
Where is this comparison of Islam with other religions leading?
My argument is that Islam to a large extent is stuck in a pre-modern era and the continuous imperialistic impulse represents some of its adherents trying to roll back modernity. Boko Haram, for example, denounces Western education but fights with the technological products created by that civilisation.
On Islamic Empires and the Conditions of Subjugation
Harrow expresses a standard understanding of Islam in Spain:
'... it is wrong to conflate all the forms of rule within the muslim world over the length of its history. just in spain we pass from a relatively tolerant and cosmopolitan rule before almoravid rule, before the 11th c, and worse after, esp as the reconquista got going.'
What were the terms of this rule? Was it not based on the successful subjugation of the native populace and perhaps the establishment of a Muslim political hegemony, regardless of its relationship with non-Muslims?
I admire the achievements of this civilisation but am not comfortable with a civilisation created on subjugation.
On the Nature of Colonialism and Imperialism
Colonisation involves the subjugation and rulership of a people by an external power. Uthman Dan Fodio can be described as a colonialist in that he was Fulani and subjugated the Hausa. His uprising is also described as part of a wave of establishment of Fulani hegemonies in Africa.
Imperialism refers to the act of amassing territory through conquest. This may be either military or political, as in the subjugation of physical territory and social and economic systems or in a derivative sense, it could be cultural, in terms of an effort to impose a particular world view of large populations of people. Political, social and cultural imperialism often go together.
The essence of imperialism is demonstrated in the example of Dan Fodio on account of his the scope of territory he subjugated and which his successors further subjugated or tried to subjugate.
The Wikipedia essay on imperialism seems quite extensive on the subject.
On Validity of Research Sources
Wikipedia is actually a priceless research tool on account of its scope, dynamism in its consistent and rapid updating with recent historical events as they occur as well as the rigour of its editorial strategy. Its a different world entirely from previous cognitive platforms in the development of knowledge. In a world in which knowledge explodes in an exponential fashion on a daily basis, one needs a central aggregation point and Wikipedia iso the best so far. The ideal use of Wikipedia is to supplement it with older model cognitive sources.
This discussion, however, does not seem to have advanced to the point where I need to do so.
As it is, avoiding a dynamic platform with the scope of Wikipedia, linked to the expanding global plurality of knowledge sources,. means one is likely to lag behind in the contemporay information universe.
Books alone are no longer enough.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:
The level of ignorance here is simply amazing: from conflicting sans
culottes violence from the bottom-up in the name of islam to reading
the present political geography into a past that was as truncated as
it was complex.
The Jihad of 1804 in Kasar Hausa did not go uncontested; it was
neither an Hausa project nor a Fulani Jihad as the Ibadan school has
consistently labeled it. Usumanu simply took the Habe aristocracy to
task for not praticing Islam in the way it should: his quintessential
claim. And when the Habe aristocracy resisted they did so on the same
grounds: questioning Usumanu's claim to speak for muslims.
The most dramatic confrontation on this issue took place between the
Jihadists and the ancient Kingdom of Kanem-Borno now under the Islamic
scholar: El Kanemi. The debate between the Jihadist and El-Kanami
centred on: Who is a Muslim!!!! This is important because the exchange
here seems to miss the point about Islam/the nature of Islam in the
then Kasar Hausa.
The second point is that there was NO Northern Nigeria in
1804/pre-1804; Nigeria did not even exist; and not yet the
geographical expression that Awo claim it was. Northern/Southern
Nigeria is a colonial invention of the post-world war one era when
Nigeria was imagined from above.
Hope this helps.
On 9/8/12, shina73_1999@yahoo.com <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Abu,
> Adepoju has said what he thinks he knows about jihad and Boko Haram. And he
> has been consistent in pushing his claims towards what he thinks is the best
> way to resolve the issue. Why don't you also benefit us with your own
> knowledge? At least you know enough to claim that not every military
> conquest amounts to colonialisn, and I agree. It is not enough to simply
> refute. We are all Nigerians and need to brainstorm as much as we can on
> this matter. On the issue of jihad, Dan Fodio and Boko Haram, we all can
> learn a lot. And I suspect that is the essence of being part of this forum.
>
> Adeshina Afolayan
> Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: amomoh2002@yahoo.com
> Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 18:06:46
> To: Toyin Falola<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL
> IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION
>
> Adepoju,
> Your long response open you up to further problems. I will pose just two of
> them as questions. What is colonialism? What is "Muslim imperialism"? I
> guess you can find more appropriate phrases for the point you are trying to
> make. Let me assure you that it is not all forms of military conquest and
> domination that amount to colonialism. Also, to attain imperialism requires
> a specific form of capitalist development.
> Here is the core point Prof. Emeagwali makes and l agree, "To conflate Boko
> Haram with Uthman dan Fodio is counter-productive
> and misleading".
> I am not urging you to become a specialist on Jihad. But Wikipedia and
> merely reading a book by David Cook do not necessitate such a conflation.
> You misled yourself. That's why l urged for deeper and better reading of
> the literature.
> As a rule, l do not venture into terrain l do not know enough to make
> informed comment on.
> Your comment is not informed and it is misleading. That is the core point.
> And reading your long piece below further convinces me that you know very
> little about the subject.
> Abu
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvincentadepoju@gmail.com>
> Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 18:29:47
> "In his book *Tanbih al-ikhwan 'ala ahwal al-Sudan* ("*Concerning the> To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL
> IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION
>
> I referenced the Wikipedia essay because it gives ready access to
> relevant information and is also rich in specialised
> scholarly references.
>
> The essay is a serious scholarly work, as befitting a study of such a
> pivotal figure in history.
>
> The fundamental point I am making about Dan Fodio does
> not require any specialised knowledge, though.
>
> The point is this-
>
> Dan Fodio imposed his perception of Islam on Northern Nigeria through
> a violent jihad and his successors took that jihad into the rest of what is
> now Nigeria until they were stopped in South West Nigeria.
>
> Are those points in doubt?
>
> Secondly, I have difficulty seeing the fundamental difference between
> Boko Haram and Maitasine except in terms of scope of ambition.
>
> The core similarity is trying to force others to identify with one's brand
> of extremist Islam.
>
> Dan Fodio is venerated because he succeeded in his jihad.
>
> He succeeded through military victory, not
> through force of ideological persuasion.
>
> He was therefore a colonialist, a Muslim imperialist using
> an interpretation of Islam as a means of political domination.
>
> Dan Fodio is described as pursuing a purer form of Islam which
> he imposed on the already Islamised Hausa.
>
> His successors went further to propagate the doctrine of the imposition of
> religio-political ideology by military force beyond what is now Northern
> Nigeria.
>
> A number of Nigeria's Northern states already practice Sharia.
>
> So, why is Boko Haram agitating for the entire nation to become an Islamic
> nation?
>
> May such demands not be related to Dan Fodio's alleged demarcation between
> a country ruled by unbelievers and that ruled by believers, urging
> believers to desert such countries?
>
> The Wikipedia essay makes the following claim:
>
> Government of Our Country and Neighboring Countries in the Sudan*") Usman
> <http://bakerinstitute.org/publications/REL-pub-CookBokoHaram-121611.pdf>> wrote: "The government of a country is the government of its king without
> question. If the king is a Muslim, his land is Muslim; if he is an
> Unbeliever, his land is a land of Unbelievers. In these circumstances it is
> obligatory for anyone to leave it for another country".
>
> Does anyone deny the correct attribution or this translation of this quote
> from Dan Fodio ?
>
> If it is disputed, it should not be difficult to get translations of the
> work and see for oneself.
>
> The bottom line here is-
>
> ideologies,
> and particularly religions, particularly the Abrahamic religions
> of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been renowned for zealotry
> and extremism, on account of a monolithic and exclusivist conception of
> truth that excludes all other claims as practised in the unrefined forms of
> the Abrahamic tradition, creating an enabling space for
> political adventurers, from Israelite nomads to the medieval Church to
> jihadists to pursue efforts at subjugating others in the name of religion.
>
> Usman Dan Fdio used the tools of military violence available to him. Boko
> Haram uses terorism.
>
> Unlike Boko Haram Dan Fodio is not described as attacking Christians.
>
> Can we really distinguish his vision from that argued by and for Boko
> Haram?
>
> A Northern Nigerian Muslim explaining the logic of Boko Haram described the
> group as attacking the 'corrupt secular authority' represented by the
> Nigerian government.
>
> How is that to be distinguished from Dan Fodio's claim to pursuing
> the imposition of strict Islam, among other reasons because he wanted
> to eradicate social vices from the rulers of the Hausa states?
>
> How is this logic different from efforts to link Boko Haram with social
> injustice, particularly injustice claimed to be directed against
> Northern Nigeria, an argument that is the central chorus of vocal voices
> from the North, an argument that neatly sidestepping the recurrence
> of extremist and imperialist Islam in history and its resurgence in
> Africa and Afghanistan, tries to place the enture burden for this terrorist
> menace on the Nigerian government, with the underlying subtext evoked by
> another wing of opinion from Northern Nigeria that Northern Nigeria must
> have the Presidency for its inadequacies to be adressed?
>
> I increasingly think Northern and Southern Nigeria should be divided.
>
> If such a division had existed, we might not have Boko Haram. If it
> emerged, it might have been dealt with in a more forthright manner.
>
> The fight against the group is complicated by the fact that its members
> are concealed among a high density population of fellow Muslims and
> ethnic affiliates whose loyalty is divided by terror, ties
> of religion, ethnicity and alienation from the leadership of a
> non-Muslim and non-Nothern President, whom vocal Northern figures tacitly
> encourage to place all their inadequacies on, after decades of rulership at
> the national centre by their own brethren, rulers who seemed to have
> impoverished their own people more than they have done the rest of the
> country.
>
> For scholarly correlations of violent Islam, from Dan Fodio, through
> Maitasine and Boko Haram, one could see
>
> David Cook, "Boko Haram: A Prognosis
> "> Nigeria<http://129.132.57.230/serviceengine/Files/ISN/125780/.../5.pdf>",
>
> and
>
> Adesoji Abimbola "The Boko Haram Uprising and Islamic Revivalism in
> who argues on this background to the crisis:
>
> 'The [Nigerian Muslim ] conservatives insist on a unitary view of society
> that recognizes no difference between state and religion, and they advocate
> making Nigeria an Islamic state administered according to the principles of
> Sharia law. For them, all Muslims belong to the umma (community), and the
> idea of a secular state is atheistic or syncretistic. Apart from
> challenging the Muslim affirmation of religious principles – especially the
> Sharia – the imposition of secularity, according to them, amounts to a
> cultural affront to a significant portion of the population and reduces
> them to the status of second-class citizens. Although this view is claimed
> to be a Quranic injunction, it does not enjoy popular acceptance among
> liberal Muslims who maintain that such a view does not imply the need for
> the Islamization of Nigeria nor does it endorse non-acceptance of the
> constitu- tional provision of the secularity of the state (Imo 1995: 58-59;
> Ibrahim 1998: 39-66; Ilesanmi 2001: 529-554)"
>
> Is this presentation, which certainly depicts Boko Haram,, not a
> restatement of the Dan Fodio script ?
>
> thanks
>
> toyin
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 3:55 PM, <amomoh2002@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> 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>
>> Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> 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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