USA Africa Dialogue Series - A short take on the destruction of those precious manuscripts housed in Timbuktu

Culturally, I also love and admire the Tuareg, those hardy, desert
people.
This is one of my favourite albums, listening to which imagination is
transported to another world far from Stockholm. As I write this I am
listening to them right now:

http://www.google.co.uk/#q=Tinariwen%2F+The+radio+Tisdas&hl=en&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ei=pTkJUZbrDO7E4gTCtoG4Bg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41642243,d.bGE&fp=db1b781f91500f20&biw=1024&bih=608

Since I respect the sanctity of Torah scrolls, I extend that respect
to the scriptures that others hold dear, even if I do not believe in
them. This is the basis of the Golden Rule in action.

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&cp=30&gs_id=7&xhr=t&q=The+Sanctity+of+a+Torah+Scroll&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=The+Sanctity+of+a+Torah+Scroll&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41642243,d.bGE&fp=a1a5b62193baa0da&biw=1024&bih=608

However, there is the Islamic attitude to pre-Islamic history as
jahiliyyah – and that could be the root of the problem, not only in
the area between Africa North of the South Sahara (like North and
South Sudan), that area in which Judaized Berbers along with the
currents of Islamic civilisation and trade (including trade in salt)
also contributed immensely to the development of that civilisation
- and Mali has been at the heart of Islamic Civilisation and
learning going back to the times of the great King of Mali, Mansa
Musa.

Sankore is legendary. Less legendary was Ted Joans poetry workshop in
Timbuktu

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=Mansa+Musa.&oq=Mansa+Musa.&gs_l=hp.12..0i10j0i30l3.1660497.1660497.1.1662789.1.1.0.0.0.0.102.102.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.eVVEMKT6WeU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41642243,d.bGE&fp=a1a5b62193baa0da&biw=1024&bih=608

Understanding both sides (the North and South) - the solution can
only be found in UNITY (through the Islam which they have in common )
- and the equal distribution of social and economic justice – without
South marginalizing North on racial grounds or vice-versa. listened to
a Timbuktu citizen saying on Sky News last night that the Tuareg had
probably destroyed their precious books in the belief that there was
some non-Islamic / un-Islamic contents – the kind of fate that would
be imminent on most of the great output of e.g. Professor Toyin
Falola – should his original manuscripts have been lodged in the
library complex of Timbuktu – not only now but at a much later date -
by the anti-bibliophiles. Sheikh Bangura who boasts that he has
"written over a dozen books on Islam" would be likely to survive the
bonfire - but who knows, as the saying goes, one bad apple could
spoil a whole library...

There is surely a racial component to the inhabitants of Northern Mali
declaring their separation from the darker Brothers to the South of a
country welded together by what's often complained about as "colonial
borders" perhaps, until the realisation of the Pan-Arab and pan-
Islamic dream of the restoration of what was once the Caliphate. Of
course,should such a dream be achieved in the near or distant future
the now embattled Syria will most probably continue to see not only
the Golan Heights but the rest of that area as but a province of
Syria....

https://www.google.com/search?q=Destruction+of+precious+manuscripts+in+Timbuktu&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

In the meanwhile, Alhaji Sheikh Abdul Karim Bangura may not believe
that his Tuareg Brothers-in-Islam could perform such dastardly acts as
insubordination to the central government of Mali or the killing of
his own Black, Negroid brethren (that which he accused anti-Gaddafi
elements of doing) or the destruction of Malian Civilisation in the
terms in which Chancellor Williams described it in his "The
Destruction of Black Civilisation". I'm not surprised that Sheikh
Bangura totally denies the Aswadians destruction of precious
manuscripts (of knowledge) collected over the past seven centuries as
mere Western propaganda against his more Northern African brethren-in-
Islam. I'm not surprised, because there are many other matters that
Sheikh Bangura denies or is against or does not understand the way
that others do.

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=Chancellor+Williams+-+the+Destruction+of+Black+Civilisation&oq=Chancellor+Williams+-+the+Destruction+of+Black+Civilisation&gs_l=hp.12..0i22l2.3631.33835.0.36794.61.49.11.0.0.1.349.6682.21j17j10j1.49.0.les%3B..1.0...1c.1.Vh-kyDSIQtU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41642243,d.bGE&fp=a1a5b62193baa0da&biw=1024&bih=608



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