RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mwalimu

Dr. Hamellberg:

Mwalimu is a title Dr. Bangura awards to those he deems worthy. I may not deserve it, but he is certainly worthy of the title himself. On the other hand, proper English usage frowns on the use of titles in the case of great persons from the past.

Of course, there are no "proffeseur" in France.

Dr. Mario D. Fenyo
University Professor of American History
Department of History and Government
Bowie State University
Bowie, MD 20715
USA

________________________________

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Tue 1/15/2013 10:21 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mwalimu



Mwalimu

This is not written in jest only.

I don't know why I find it so irksome to have to encounter the title
"Mwalimu" appended or conferred as a prefix to each and everybody on
whom praise is lavished: the great, the little, the big, the small,the
less than know-all, the more than senseless things, sometimes by
quantity, not necessarily by quality. Rabbi, why is it so tiresome?

In Italy every teacher is more or less "professore" and in France
every teacher is a proffeseur
The title Mwalimu accorded to all and every begins to lose its special
quality, doesn't it? Like beatifications by the reigning Pope. I have
hope. I hope that this is a valid question : If it's the Pope amongst
us that confers these titles, who appointed him - and where are the
Bishops? The Cardinals? Where is the Mother Superior ?

And who could the Pope be? Oga Falola? Bangura? Gloria Emeagwali ?
Philip Emeagwali - the godfather of the computer?

If him be pope then who be da Messiah? Altar boi?

Mwalimu Nyerere 's OK, but Mwalimu Gaddafi? What for? His third
theory?

Mwalimu Shakespeare? Mwalimu Seamus Heaney? Mwalimu Albert Einstein?
Mwalimu James Joyce? Mwalimu Michelangelo? Mwalimu Plato? Mwalimu
Derek Walcott ? ( I'm sure that he would protest) :

"I'm just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation."

And if it's mathematics that you want to adorn - in the realm of
real, I suppose that one of many would be Grigori Perelman?

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&cp=16&gs_id=7&xhr=t&q=Grigori+Perelman&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Grigori+Perelman&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41018144,d.bGE&fp=41cdf7fd0da68100&biw=1024&bih=614

For some of us the true admirers, sensitive readers - and perhaps by
virtue of the value (and strength) of what's known to English diction
as understatement, we are not after added honorifics; so Wole Soyinka
who some thirty years ago advocated - or at least suggested Swahili as
the possible and most likely future single language of the continent
- if there was ever going to be a single language of continental unity
- and from that language comes the title Mwalimu, but for an ardent
admirer and friend of Mr. Soyinka, just the name Wole Soyinka is more
powerful and evocative than any meritorious prefixes - although I
don't mind him being described as Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. His
professorship is a tiny element of his total appeal. Needless to point
out he does stand on a Human Rights platform and him not being
omniscient either or a besserwisser type, I tend to agree with him 88%
of the time.

Similarly, let the name Chinua Achebe suffice, just like Ngugi Wa
Thiong'o or Noam Chomsky who of course doesn't forever keep going on
about his degree in Linguistics.

I've looked at the first few pages that are available on the net, got
the general drift (which is enough for me) and concluded if I were
particularly interested in the subject of that kind of precision, I
guess that it would still have taken me more than one or two straight
sittings to zap through something as carefully argued and demonstrated
as Mwalimu Osagyefo Kofi Kissi Dompere's "Fuzziness and Foundations of
Exact and Inexact Sciences. New York, NY: Springer."

A careful reading would of course take a little longer.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Fuzziness+and+Foundations+of+Exact+and+Inexact+Sciences.+New+York%2C+NY%3A+Springer.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs

I'm presently going through the complete works of the late anti-Semite
Israel Shahak - have just read his magnum opus. Much earlier ( years
ago) I read all his anti-Semitic diatribes and so called articles in
the Times of Palestine which happily shut down sometime ago. I guess
some people would want to confer some title such as King Mwalimu or
arch-Mwalimu or super-Mwalimu or even Mwalimu of Mwalimu, posthumously
on him, I hope that he's in heaven, because he's a Jew and is
guaranteed a place in the Hereafter, but he was no Mwalimu for me -
although he was a holocaust survivor and a Professor of Chemistry at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

Of course in the world of music we have titles galore : real funky
titles:, exalted titles, to name sich a few

King Sunny Ade
King Pleasure
Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey
Admiral Dele Abiodun
Duke Ellington
Cardinal Rex Lawson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific_nicknames_in_popular_music

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nigerian_musicians

No harm or haram meant..

Another great one :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9OL0LtIbfc

Love to y'all

Sincerely:

http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/

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