The essay emerged in response to challenges directed at my earlier essay "The Undeniable Allure of the Beautiful: Gbemi Saraki", where I responded to the shock of discovering the dissonance between the repulsion I share with some people for the feudal domination of Kwara State politics by the Saraki family through the state and nation wide tenterhooks of their patriarch Olosuola Saraki, and the beauty of his daughter Gbemi Saraki, a beauty that is undeniable, whatever one might think about the ugliness or otherwise of the domination of the politics of the state by her family.
Your interest in this woman is purely personal and should be kept off cyberspace, a critic challenged. Your judgment of her beauty is strictly subjective and is therefore not a subject for public celebration, the same critic added. You valorise political inadequacy by celebrating such peripheral attributes in a politician, the critic summed up.Why focus on her physical attributes when she is presenting herself in terms that transcend physicality, since she is a politician, queried another critic. On another note, another respondent expressed hope that her physical beauty would also be manifest in terms of beauty of character demonstrated in her compassionate discharge of duties towards Kwara State where she was serving as Senator and where she was campaigning for the gubernatorial seat in the forthcoming elections, since the essay was written before the last electoral round, where Gbemi eventually lost to a candidate supported by her brother, Bukola Saraki.
In responding to these issues, I found the essay expanding into a survey of a broad range of ideas from various civilisations across time and space. I will post successive sections of the essay on these fora at intervals. I have also made a film of about 3mins, Beauty: Human and Cosmic, which, using music, pictures and poetry, encapsulates some of the perspectives I am developing. I will post the film later.
On Politics and Physical Beauty in Relation to Gbemi Saraki
I posted on these fora (Blogger, Facebook, Scribd, Listerverves) on 28 April 2011, a very short essay on on the physical beauty of Gbemi Saraki, a governorship aspirant for Nigeria's Kwara State in the 2011 electoral round. The essay focused on the irony of my being compelled to testify to the radiance of her physical presence even as I understand myself as a critic of the feudal hold her family has had on the politics of Kwara State principally through the influence of her father, Olusola Saraki.That influence is ostensibly weakened by the fact of his son, Bukola Saraki, the last governor of Kwara state, having supported a different candidate than his father for the just concluded gubernatorial elections. Bukola Saraki's candidate won the gubernatorial seat in opposition to his sister, Gbemi,whose candidacy was supported by their father. Does this development, however, not suggest the extension of the feudal influence of Olusula Saraki as kingmaker in Kwara, in which he was rountinely described by himself and others as deciding who would be governor of the state? He was once quoted as stating in public that he was looking for someone to hand over care of the state to, as if the state were personal property. Does his son replace him in that capacity?
It was this image that finished me off as far as this woman is concerned! When something unique walks the earth, we must acknowledge it. How did the adept crowned with the white efflorescence of time put it, drawing on the ancient memory of "Àjànàkú kojáa "mo rí nnkan fìrí". Bí a bá rí Erin kí á so pé a rí Erin" : An elephant is greater than a flashing glimpse. When one sees an elephant, you do not say "I saw something pass in a flash". You must declare "I have glimpsed the tamer of the forest!".
When, billions of years to come, races far distant from terra firma seek to characterise what is meant by the human race, they will have to resort to images like this to ascertain the acme of human physicality, the fully bodied beauty that makes life worth living. Just look at those eyes! What does it mean to be alive, if not to show such a blaze in the faculties of sight, the windows of the soul? The skin, a rich sheen, carefully defined bones drawing taut the fibres of flesh that shield the human being from the elements.
One is almost dumb with wonder.
What more is there to comment on? Is it those lips that by themselves can make a new day look promising? The dome of space between eyes and headtie that recalls Greek myths about the brow of Zeus, from which the goddess Athena was born? Do we need to comment on the exquisite dress sense in which a disciplined flow of blue and white enriches the dance of colours that brings her to our eyes?
Let me stop here lest I start to babble. If not, I would be lost in speculations of the symbolism of textiles, the gele as representing the immortal radiance that defines the soul that sits in the head directing the self, the clothing as evoking the movement of humanity into civilisation, the stars that adorn ear and chest luminiscent as the star that every human is as one moves into and out of the space between the great darknesses before and after life on earth. But let us not burden ourselves with these ideas from Yoruba and Thelemic metaphysics, though beauty and philosophy walk hand in hand as we show in the succeeding installments in this series.
To Be Continued
THE CONCEPTUAL WORKSHOP
Concept cloud
Politics; beauty; aesthetics
Gubernatorial; feudal hold; 2011 electoral round
Kwara State; Gbemi Saraki; Olusola Saraki; Gbemi Saraki
Ajánákù; earth; adept; efflorescence of time; forest
Bones; fibres of flesh; elements; dome of space; eyes ; headtie
Terra firma; sight; Greek myths; Zeus; Athena; textiles; gele; immortal radiance
Soul; clothing ; humanity; civilisation; stars; ear; chest
Luminiscent; star; human; space; earth; darknesses
Yorùbá; Thelemic; Metaphysics; philosophy
Concept patterns
White efflorescence of time; a flashing glimpse; the tamer of the forest
The fully bodied beauty that makes life worth living; a blaze in the faculties of sight; the windows of the soul
The skin; a rich sheen; carefully defined bones drawing taut the fibres of flesh
Human physicality; windows of the soul; skin; a rich sheen; acme of human physicality
The dome of space between eyes and headtie; the dance of colours; symbolism of textiles
The immortal radiance that defines the soul that sits in the head directing the self
The movement of humanity into civilisation; the star that every human is
The space between the great darknesses before and after life on earth; Yorùbá and Thelemic metaphysics; Beauty and philosophy walk hand in hand
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Gbemi Saraki for being herself and to all who have helped her actualise that beauty that is so striking .
Thanks to those who responded in disagreement and agreement with my first essay on Gbemi Saraki. The challenge they provided motivated me to dig deeper in order to respond to them.
The proverb on the elephant is adapted from Wole Soyinka's Death and the Kings Horseman.
Thanks to Temi Esan, Gbenga Oduntan and Dr. Akin Oyètádé for selflessly making possible the rendition of the proverb from Soyinka's English back into the original Yorùbá and doing it at such short notice.
Thanks to Temi Esan for taking the time to present the first rendering and translation of the Yorùbá original of the proverb.
Thanks to Gbenga Oduntan for presenting the second translation of the proverb and suggesting how to apply the diacritic marks to the Yorùbá writing.
Thanks to Dr. Akin Oyètádé, professional scholar in Yorùbá, for giving the full Yorùbá rendering, with precise diacritic marks, along with a translation, of the proverb earlier provided by Temi Esan and translated by herself and Gbenga Oduntan.
Dr. Oyètádé graciously provided the following source for his expanded rendering of the proverb:
Bello-Olówóòkéré. 2004. Egbèrún Ìjìnlè Owe Yorùbá àti Ìtumò Won ní Èdè Gèésì: 1000 Yorùbá Proverbs and their Translations in English. Lagos: Concept Publications Limited. p.26.
Image credit
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