Merci beaucoup, Mwalimu Mario Fenyo le Plus Honorable et Révéré.
Esprit de l'escalier! Épater le bourgeois! The latter meant in its deliberate form.
> [Original Message]
> From: Mario Fenyo <MFenyo@bowiestate.edu>
> To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> Date: 1/15/2013 6:01:39 PM
> Subject: 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/
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
>
No comments:
Post a Comment