Skickat: den 2 maj 2020 21:40
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mubarak Bala arrested for blasphemy!
What's the plural of piece? Of peace?
When Islam and Christianity set up house in Africa, the medicine man/ witchdoctor/ herbalist/ Sangoma/ seer/psychologist/psychotherapist is re-born and feels completely at home, when not in Rome. In the case of Islam, it's the Marabout, in the case of Christianity there are so many following in the footsteps of Jesus, such as T.B. Joshua, whose reputation as a healer is growing. His fame is spreading, my revolutionary friend from Mozambique, a fully rational being swears by him
Whereas we have so much trouble with people vilifying the Prophet of Islam salallahu alaihi wa salaam, we seldom hear of Muslims saying anything bad about their Prophet Jesus/ Isa (alaihi salaam). if provocations from people like Bala Mubarak should cease that would definitely lessen tensions. If such provocations - what Nigerian Muslims countenance as provocations - should lead to bloodshed that would definitely worsen an already bad situation. The optimists pray that the bad will become good and that the good will become better.
The liberation struggles in North Africa
Perhaps, it's an excess of the macabre imagination at work here: In comparison, Boko Haram wanting to erect their caliphate on the carcass of the Federal Republic, so far should be regarded as just child's play. If we take a good look at the demographics of Islam in Africa , that much should be clear, that in a battle between the North and the South, below the Middlebelt of Nigeria is the line of demarcation. Christians would win the propaganda War in the West.
Let us pray that the Coronavirus pandemic does not make peaceful coexistence more difficult today it's 300 Naira to the $1. Tomorrow it will be 500: $1 and the latest we heard was that the stockpile of Nigerian oil is going nowhere., eventually, they will be blaming the coming hardship, not on the Coronavirus but on the Government.
In an all-out religious war between Christian and Muslims in Africa, I suppose that Jihad not being one of the pillars of the Christian Faith, the Hymn " Onward Christian Soldiers" notwithstanding, in such a war today, the better informed Muslims could kindly remind the Christian Brethren about Jesus' instructions to them, not to fight :
"Those who use the sword will die by the sword."
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." ( Matthew 5)
Whereas, representing "The Religion of Peace" , Boko Haram & allies will be ready – in fact in such a war on which side would the Nigerian Army be? IT would also be an army divided between Nigerian Christians and Muslims who have relatives and friends and business interest on the opposing sides. Some of Trump's current critics would be desperately sending him cables either asking for reinforcements or an invasion – as happened in Afghanistan, or that Trump " take out" the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic army – as happened in Iraq ( Saddam) and Libya ( Gaddafi), whilst on the Muslim side, those who are currently vilifying President Trump would be desperately sending him very comprehensive cables either asking for reinforcements of petitioning him to not assist the Christians and to please impose a no-fly zone and a ceasefire.
They say that China has already taken over Africa (more pork). However, there are about 35 AFRICOM military bases in Africa. Question is, what role would China play if such a conflict were to escalate suddenly and dramatically?
--a brief reflection. cornelius says, the conflict between islam and christianity might come to war. well, it already has in the c.a.r., and in fact in much of the region. when boko haram slaughters people in their churches, what's that? i am sure many people on this list could cite many many examples of armed christians attacking muslims and vice versa.a second quick reflection: whatever form the european proselytizers might have originally brought to their practices, when africans took over the services--as with the famous "dancing" services that developed in cameroon when we were there--they became rooted in home, so to speak. they did not remain european or foreign, but as anyone can see clearly with the evangelical services today are now nigerian or ghanaian etc. that's always what happens with all religions, they become "reterritorialized."that's my point when i want to claim all religions become local; in this case, become african, regardless of their origins. not only that, in becoming local, they acquire really the beauty and wonder of people's local ways of being in the world and expressing themselves, the beauties of singing and praying in their own ways. after all, who really "owns" religion, if not us, in our own ways.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2020 10:33 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mubarak Bala arrested for blasphemy!Re – "I think God can fight for himself. He doesn't need humans to fight for him.
He can wait for those who disrespect him on earth on the day of judgement.
May we learn not to take law into our hands for the sake of All-Powerful God.
(Professor Segun Ogungbemi)
This is only a short aside or broadside if you will.
There's a grim ideological battle going on between Christianity and Islam for the souls of Africa/ Africans. It could even break out into an all our war, between the Crusader Christian soldiers and the combined forces of the Jihadists. On which side would you be?
It's essentially a battle between the West and the rest (Dar al-Islam). Just like the Harmattan winds, North Africa is rapidly expanding South and we already have Swahili in the East, and Buhari in Nigeria ( smile). There's a lot of petro-dollars lubricating the dawah. Christianism also have their Pastor Adebayo, T.B. Joshua and Bishop Kukah. In the long run, I think that Islam is going to win, and will eventually take over the whole of Africa, the only thing that is slowing down Islam's more rapid expansion is the Islamic prohibition against pork and alcohol – but it is alcohol that is the main agent of resistance and that's why Zambia and Congo Kinshasa in particular is one of most Christianised nations in Africa and is the least Islamized ( too much alcohol).
Aime Césaire's play "A Season in the Congo" starts with the sound advice given to the big man : You want the people to cool down, you don't want trouble in the land, build a beer brewery! And indeed, we should not forget that Patrice Lumumba progressed from beer seller to Prime Minister. As for the fear of Eurabia, some of the paranoid Europeans and Islamophobes don't want Muslims re-appearing at The Gates of Vienna
I am green with envy. Sheikh Harrow has first-hand experience of Islamic cultures in Africa having lived and worked in both Senegal and Cameroon and is an expert on certain aspects of Algeria and Camus //Harrow & Camus and of course the literary output of Islamised Africa South of the Sahara ,, ditto African Cinema, so he is well situated to give some contemporary opinions about what he knows and has seen with his own eyes : the accommodations and adaptations of Islam in the various contexts in which Islam has taken roots/ grown roots.
When Christianity and Christian theology take root in Africa there is similar talk about "contextualisation". In the case of Islam in Mauritania, the Senegambia and Mali there's the very strong presence of the Marabouts - and the Walis in Timbuctoo, Mali , for example…
I should not want to place my bets too strongly on Christianity as a bedrock of Negritude impulses and when it comes to "the resistance" to colonialism and the Christian mission that they say made an alliance with " the devil" we could agree about Gorée as the symbolic headquarters or symbolic monument of that resistance/reality
The complaints that I have heard in Nigeria, and mostly at Nigeria's southernmost tip. the Ijaw Niger Delta, but not further up in Igboland, is the thunderous "They (the Christian Missionaries) should not interfere with our culture! "– Bro Akonte Braide's neighbour, the headmaster of a primary school in Bakana, told me this many times – and by "our culture) he mostly meant that he somewhat resented the Missionary imposition of monogamy as a new Institution, the new gold standard in the Kalabari culture.
(An aside to Baba Kadiri about the Almighty talking to him and he talking to the Almighty (just imagine if our good friend felt called upon to "correct" the Almighty's English – but that would be an entirely new ball game in which the sinner could be struck down by lightning)
I have attendee a few Igbo baptisms and inaugurations in Stockholm in which the Catholic mass was conducted in the Igbo language)
Re- the cultural resistance, we could start with an already fully Islamised Senegal that produced the likes of the pivotal Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba and Cheikh Anta Diop and those now-famous opening lines from David Diop's The Vultures :
"In those days
When civilization kicked us in the face
When holy water slapped our cringing brows
The vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The bloodstained monument of tutelage."
Regarding Lord Agbetuyi 's assertion that "Christianity is more African than Islam" , it could be argued that Christianism is from Africa, did not come from Nazareth which is in the Galilee, and there's a well-documented history of roots from Africa, long before St. Augustine who was from Algeria or indeed long before Constantine made it the unifying ideology of his Empire.
The converse of Lord Agbetuyi's assertion, if I should suggest one (of many) would be, "Islam is more African than Christianity" - and by "Africa" which is a great Continent that only recently acquired such a name, and by "African" , we would be talking about culture and lifestyle and pre-colonial beliefs and lifestyle, starting with my headmaster friend in Bakana and his lamentation about the good old days of polygamy, before the Missionary clowns came and spoiled everything…
For the time being Edward Wilmot Blyden has the last word: Islam
--On Sat, 2 May 2020 at 14:21, segun ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:
I think God can fight for himself. He doesn't need humans to fight for him.He can wait for those who disrespect him on earth on the day of judgement.May we learn not to take law into our hands for the sake of All Powerful God.
--On Fri, May 1, 2020, 7:33 AM Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com> wrote:
I had thought that I was done with this subject, but I was mistaken. It is necessary that I reply token.
I also like The First Amendment. The Last time that I read an Islamic commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by none other than Hazrat Sulṭan Ḥusayn Tabandah Reza Ali Shah certain reservations were expressed about Articles 18 and 19
I am sad because Ken says that he knows that he is heading for the fire. Not so fast, buddy, I wouldn't like to see you join Muhammad's Dead Poets Society which is a direct entry to the fire and which was always preceded by a freedom of speech manifesto which says, " we should be free to express our dislike or hatred or scorn of anyone, person or group. we all suffer when freedom of speech is unduly limited, and i don't see why religious figures should be exempt."
What else would Ken like to see? Does he have any other wishes?
Before he was executed, the brave Nathan Hale said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
For now, It would seem that we are all subject to the immutable laws of nature even if some of us are more afraid of the coronavirus than we are afraid of the fire "whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers", guaranteed to consume those deserving that kind of punishment after the final event that we see is being caused by the coronavirus – in fear of which there is voluntary self-confinement and lockdowns which not so many people are defying ( because they know). For those who are still in the flesh, this applies to all categories of belief/disbelief and thinking whether it be Buddhism, Catholicism, or Judaism with a few brave exceptions such as the large crowd that attended the Rabbi's funeral at Williamsburg – and of course some of my friends who boast, " I'm not afraid of the virus !" and some of the Pentecostal and Evangelicals who say "I'm protected by the blood of Jesus!". The fact is that the virus does not discriminate and is not afraid of anyone, not even the miracle workers in the Vatican and that's why these days St. Peter's Square is bare because the fear of death is very real.
What Ken is saying could be negatively interpreted to mean he would like to see the law of blasphemy in Islam changed or abrogated so that the blasphemers should not have to live in fear, that they should be free to blaspheme, just as they are free to not practise any social distancing these critical times, but can go on shaking hands like politicians and continue giving hugs to the near and dear, in short, that blasphemy should be decriminalised.
However, there's no mortal that can change the wording in the Holy Quran, Surat Al-Ma'idah verse 33-34 which states the following
"The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter, theirs will be an awful doom; save those who repent before ye overpower them. For know that Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."
The question is, to what extent does "those who make war upon Allah and His messenger" include the verbal war/ attacks of those who vilify or criticize Islam or "the Seal of the Prophets"?
--On Fri, 1 May 2020 at 03:55, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--i know i am heading for the fire, but, really compadre cornelius, respect is one thing, compulsion is another. it makes no sense to me to punish people for mocking others--no matter who they are. there are two caveats i have here:--if you cause real damage, it passes over to loss. for instance, i don't accept freedom of speech when the speech not only vilifies others, but results directly in damage, especially in loss of life. as for instance in the hutu nationalist attacks on tutsis in 1990-1994 that were part of the propaganda around genocide. short of that, we should be free to express our dislike or hatred or scorn of anyone, person or group. we all suffer when freedom of speech is unduly limited, and i don't see why religious figures should be exempt.--the second caveat, similar. the infamous danish cartoons of mohammed led to riots in parts of the world. again indirectly the cartoon, like the charlie hebdo ones, would have been perfectly acceptable to me, but for the inevitable cost of people's lives.
this is the heart of the matter: what you or i believe is not sacred; people have every right to laugh at or scorn or hate it. we have every right to respond in kind.but when threats of violence to shut people up, like the fatwas issued against rushdie, and consequently, soyinka, were made, those issuing the threats should have been punished.
i wish you could love and respect islam, as i also do, without having to accept the extremist legalistic position of people like the fundamentalists who can't defend themselves without threatening others. it is much much better to defend through expressing the loving side of the religion and not its ugly human violence.
and i'll add, that there is no real belief, in god or in god's prophets, that is "real" when its only defense is violence. the violence actually destroys whatever is good in the religion, and i am totally sure you can cite bell book and candle to support that point. i don't understand why you wouldn't do so.salaam aleikum;
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 5:29 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mubarak Bala arrested for blasphemy!Corrected:
Gloria in Excelsis Omega-Wali,
Is it too much to ask that you respect what other people or faiths hold as sacred? Holy? That you respect Muhammad, salalllahu alaihi wa salaam the personal Beloved of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that you respect the people of Islam who say, " We are Muslims"? Of course, individually, we probably have different degrees of respect for others that God has created.
The Prophet of Islam also has a right to rest in peace.
Mallam Abba Kyari has the same right.
If you vilified the Prophet of Islam, salallahu alaihi wa salaam, if (God forbid) you said that he was suffering from "dementia" or he was "demented" or "geriatric" or "vermin", I would not only burn you at the stake. So please, NEVER do such a despicable thing, not even in the name of ignorance, or in the name of freedom of speech or freedom of theology or freedom of philosophy
Brother Chielozona Eze and Sister Gloria Emeagwali,
I notice that you are in the same choir, birds of the same feather, singing the same melody.
Well, let me tell you this, I'm not only happy, I'm overjoyed that Mubarak Bala has been arrested for repeatedly, wilfully vilifying the Prophet of Islam , salalllahu alaihi wa salaam, in this holy month of Ramadan. And he knew full well what he was doing.
I hope that they make a statutory example of him, so that other miscreants of his ilk do not follow in his footsteps on the road to perdition…
Over here in Sweden, we had one Lars Vilks who is still in hiding and under police protection.
Mind you, I do not consider Spinoza or something like this to be blasphemous - in Judaism, you may vilify Jesus, etc and blasphemy extends only to the Almighty. For example, I consider what the Encyclopaedia Judaica says about Rasulullah, salallahu alaihi wa salaam to be not only offensive but blasphemous and the contents of what's said provides more than enough proof of the offence according to the Laws of blasphemy in Islam and according to all the known schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
Even if you are in doubt about this matter, I would lovingly advise you not to go and commit the same kind of offence in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan. I doubt that Amnesty International would be able to help you.
--On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 21:07, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:
Cornelius,--
One person's blasphemy is another's eulogy.
Freedom of expression is vital for all and that is why we love your commentary on such a wide range of ideas, from Judaism to Islam and beyond.
So if I say that I don't believe in Judaism, Christianity or Islam,will you, Cornelius the Wise, burn me at the stakes? Wherein lie the wisdomand humanism?
Today it is Bala, but tomorrow it may be you - burnt by The Taliban, for expressing affiliation to Judaism.
gloriaemeagwali.com
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 30, 2020, at 12:39 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelbergcornelius4@gmail.com> wrote:
--I am so happy:
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