Dear Mr. Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA,
Just for the record , here's the telegram:
My sincere apologies, please.
Please accept.
It's only out of respect
that I'm responding to you
and fully too.
As Teju Cole famously said, recently, over here in Stockholm, "When we talk about respecting people, it's a practical demand, not a theoretical one"
I'd just like to add that "people" includes the Palestinian People, includes respecting the humanity of the Palestinian people who are also God's people, just like you and me and
The Saro people say," Tell fren (friend) true, noh pwell (spoil) fren"
This is degree of free speech observation is not necessarily "psychological warfare",sos here goes: Even though you are sometimes humble, unnoticed by you, you may be getting too big for your so called poetic boots or may be thinking that undiluted support for the killing machine will get some influential cabal that jumped over Graham Greene because he was perceived to be too anti-American , that jumped over Philip Roth because he was perceived to be too American or as being too universally American as judged by e.g The Swedish Academy's former Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl, and you may perhaps be feeling giddy or intoxicated with a new inflated sense of accomplishment, the "light" that I suppose you may be talking about, because of the fulsome praise by an unknown entity and readership such as AI, you may think that you're first in line of succession and that the Swedish Academy is about to jump over everybody including Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and award the next Nobel Prize in Literature to a dwarf eagle poet like you.
Disabuse yourself of such a wonderful idea and please don't shuffle around thinking that, anymore
Me?
The last time I counted - and that was a few years ago, I had read the Five Books of Moses with diverse commentaries and so-called " interpretations , at least twenty five times (25) and The Holy Quran , fourteen (14) times with diverse commentaries and interpretations including the first volume of Al-Mizan by Allamah Tabatabai.
Unfortunately, I have yet to read all the letters of Paul or John's Book of Revelation
As for what Jesus meant in Matthew 5:15 and Luke 8:16, there's nothing abstruse about that and of course you Chidi the poet may chew and digest your own interpretation/s, and nota bene : even if your miracle poetry turned darkness into light it wouldn't bother me at all, not even if "She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black" or it's merely Love Minus Zero / No limit
For a change, try being as thick-skinned as Elon Musk who I'm sure doesn't have the time to pay any mind to what a nutter like David Icke has been saying about him in this diatribe
Do you know who killed Umar Ibn Khattab ( radiallahu anhu) the conqueror of Jerusalem ? He was killed by his Persian slave : In 644 ʿUmar was attacked by an enslaved Persian Christian named Abū Luʾluʾah and died from his wounds three days later.
What happened ? Abū Luʾluʾah was complaining bitterly to his master Umar the Caliph and apparently Umar was not listening to him attentively , so Abū Luʾluʾah took out his dagger and daggered him. End of story. Feel free to learn a lesson from the story; you may even interpret it anyway you like…
Me?
I have followed latest developments in the Middle East very closely, almost on a daily basis, since early January 1986, and the only organisation that I have ever been a member of and in terms of any kind of financial commitment (putting your money where your mouth is) is an organisation that was promoting the interests of Jews Of The Baltic States of the Former Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, immediately after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Tallinn which is in Estonia/ Estland, when I visited the synagogue there, the caretaker Michael Friedeman who showed me around, asked me if I knew the difference between now and when Estonia was one of the Soviet Republics. I suggested what the difference could be : "Now you are free";he smiled, and quoting Groucho Marx he said, " It was close, but no cigar" - the correct answer to the question is that back then it was Marx and Lenin, now it's Marks & Spencer."
I told you that little story previously, HERE in this thread FWD : Calling Russia's Attack 'Unprovoked' Lets U.S. Off the Hook
My purpose is not to offend you - and you should be strong enough to take, to bear, to put up with and to withstand whatever collateral damage may come your way for your unstinted support for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other crimes being committed against non-Biafran populations and other Palestinian and Arab sections of God's creation, namely the Human Family.
"Clear the air! Clean the sky! Wash the wind!
Take the stone from the stone and wash them.
The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts
and ourselves defiled with blood."
But please feel free to be offended -that's another freedom. You may even put me in stocks like the Prophet Jeremiah, if you don't like what you hear and the rest of what I am about to say .
You are no doubt familiar with the saying "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
Take note : I am the monarch of all I survey etc
When you're my age and not as stupid
when you're my age and like King David, still virile
and - relatively speaking, fragile
you are more careful with even the poetic
the colourful, the descriptive or prescriptive
ad hominem , no matter how weak, decrepit
thin-skinned or cowardly your opponent or enemy
at the literary and debating society may be
"I didn't realize just what I did hear
I didn't realize how young you were"( One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
I don't suppose that you are familiar with Pope's An Essay on Criticism
What about The Gestalt Prayer ?
Kipling's The Ballad of East and West ?
Huntington's Clash of Civilisations
Me attack you?
Not even if you were officially the Sleepy Joe Biden
Or the commander-in-chief of The Israel Defense Forces
Or Nigeria's Poet Laureate chilling in Warri or Tel Aviv
Because I am infinitely less likely than you, to join
Islamic Jihad or Hamas or Hezbollah or some future Biafra
Or Biko Haram or Nigerian Armed Forces & Mobile Police
Me attack you?
Break your bones
As if my words are
Made out of stones?
One of the nursery rhymes I learned as a child, began, Sticks and stones may break my bones
To tell you the truth,
if I told you what was on my mind
Ojogbon wouldn't print it
not even to have it floating around
idly, unattended, unread and uncomprehended
by you hanging like Saddam Hussein in cyberspace
I almost wrote " outer space"
and not the Owerri Motor Park
or the other place
There's the expression
You add to those two Jews
An unalloyed goy like you
And we probably have more than three
The same number as the holy trinity
About the difference or differences of opinion business
Consider : There was a time when nothing existed
Consider: There I was sitting at the Owerri Motor Park
With Say Tokyo Kid out of rizla and wanting to put
The finishing touches to his joint, a real rocket , so
What did he do? Come on baby light my fire, so
He tore off a page of the New Testament
And used that instead ( to wrap his spliff
Now, if the kindly Cardinal Arinze had been there preaching at your Owerri Motor Park, trying to save some souls, I suppose that he would have reprimanded Say Tokyo, and what would he or you say about a lesser crime than that, poetically speaking somebody ripping a leaf off your yet to be published poetry anthology and wiping his entire black arse with it ?
Finally, something most nice for Chidi of Owerri:
Salif Keita : Dery
Mr. Cornelius Hamelberg,This is your interpretation of the quote, it is your opinion, though divergent from mine, but I respect your right to hold that opinion. I will even fight to defend that fundamental right of yours to hold even a different opinion from mine. I will never see you or any other with a divergent opinion as an enemy.What I am however not sure of is if myself and/or any other would enjoy that same right of holding a divergent opinion from yours without being attacked, especially, psychologically, by you (it really doesn't bother me personally, but it is a problem in a civilized setting like here).-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)By " the holy bible" Chidi is here referring to the so-called "New Testament" and quoting Jesus of Nazareth, that " No one lights a lamp and then hides it under somewhere ..etc
Somewhere else Jesus says, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
That's what Israel is supposed to be : A light unto the nations
But instead of shining a light, what the whole world is witnessing is genocidal barbarity trying to extinguish the light , and about the barbarity, we will never agree:
Analysis | Netanyahu's Nine-minute Video Shows He Is Terrified and Will Stop at Nothing
"Netanyahu's statement carried all the unmistakable trademarks of his playbook: serial manipulation, lies, criminal messaging, and attempts to inflame his violent base. This performance marks a new and even more dangerous iteration of the threat he poses to Israeli democracy"
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1092253151898658
Bob Dylan : When something isn't right, it's wrong
If Jesus were to speak this same truth to power today, they would say that he was being " antisemitic"
https://www.google.com/search?q=Dispute+Over+Whose+Children+Jesus%E2%80%99+Opponents+Are
Jesus " You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
On Saturday, 30 November 2024 at 20:21:31 UTC+1 Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA wrote:"Nobody lights a lamp and then puts it under a pot. He will put the lamp in a high place. Everybody who is in the house can then see the light from the lamp"-The holy bible.
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Institute Of Information Management Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates(https://updatesonnews.substack.com)He is a recipient of International Award/Recognition For Excellence In Data And Information Management, with 253 mentions on Academia(academia.edu)as at July 22nd, 2024.
More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara
--Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at AustinTo post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.comCurrent archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/d1c0f276-47ab-410c-87d9-525f15b1f57bn%40googlegroups.com.
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Institute Of Information Management Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates(https://updatesonnews.substack.com)He is a recipient of International Award/Recognition For Excellence In Data And Information Management, with 253 mentions on Academia(academia.edu)as at July 22nd, 2024.
More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/9355161a-0dc6-4d33-9f96-b251e1edfd73n%40googlegroups.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment