Just seeing this.
On the knowing or not knowing issue.
There is too much at stake. There is therefore no room for false dignity.
As it is, I know I am not educated.
I need education.
I am hungry.
Moving:
By the way, circumcision might not be as taken for granted as you might assume. Some people see it as a form of cruelty and denial of the right of the male child who is not in a position to give informed consent.
--
Compcros
-- "What made you mention witchcraft? Very interested in your take on that.
Thanks for the film. It was fun.
I had to go that Stockholm site and was again challenged:
I need to live in a place like that Oxford bookshop. Nothing less than such a thing will do.
Thanks for the evocation of the starry spaces within which the flame burns and the soul is luminous, pulled forth to the cosmic centre.
God bless you and yours and all the best for a great new year for you all.
Looking forward to meeting.
Toyin
On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Oluwatoyin Adepoju;
What a very nice guy you have turned out to be ! I say that because I
had thought that you were going to lambast me for asking a Cambridge
man an such an impertinent question: " What else are you not familiar
with?"
That was my own reaction when you asked " Have you read Diop?"
I wondered, " What kind of question is that? Next he'll be asking me "
Have you been circumcised?"
Well, a mortal man cannot know everything and when I go to the main
public library that's when I feel really little, small and mortal,
suffer a little anguish and panic looking at the shelves and then I
hear "Time's winged chariot hurrying near" and know that it is not
possible for a mortal to read all those books, not even if he lived as
long as Methuselah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Public_Library
For twenty three years I lived a five minute walk from there and spent
considerable spare time there.
Same feeling every time I glance at a title on one of my shelves "
1001 Books you must read before you die – Ed. Peter Boxall"
You know as well as I do that there are Mw-alim-isismus who you simply
cannot ask that kind of question and not expect some whiplash. Could
even make you a permanent enemy. That's the sort of question reserved
mostly for The Omniscient - only HE can ask that kind of question.
You hear some heavy Ogun thunder & behold the naked wonder of sky
cracking with lightning from East to West and next thing you hear the
voice of thunder: " Oluwatoyin ! Who told you that you are naked?
Have you been eating from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?"
Fact is we would all like to obtain the secret of eternal life if we
could. That would be real knowledge, wouldn't it?
I'm sure that the beginning of this video will bring a smile to Oga
Falola himself ( "One day for Africa"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvLWF0hxoow
As I heard one of the greatest contemporary Talmud scholars say here
in Stockholm
- his exact words : "We all came from Africa"
So about knowledge I guess we've got to get our priorities right.
Quoting the Igbo's Bible, " For what shall it profit a man, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
As for me, I'm a softy. I was mostly brought up by my beloved Yoruba
grandmother and she too knew many of the psalms of David by heart and
used to quote him profusely. Cleanliness was a major concern.
About Cheikh Anta and all that you take a look at the continent and
you see spiritual warfare going on - the battle for the souls of
Africans and now it's mostly a proselytizing battle between
Missionary Christianity and al-Islam. The cultural unity is under
threat and may be subsumed by one or the other, peacefully or by force
of arms.
The continent has lost its unity of spiritual identity – assuming that
there was ever such a unity.
I believe that one of your contributions could be in unearthing this
thing known as
" witchcraft" - demonised by both Islam and Christianity - just as
Judaism is also distrustful of all spirituality from the East:
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=Faith+and+Folly+-+Rabbi+Hillel&oq=Faith+and+Folly+-+Rabbi+Hillel&gs_l=hp.12..0i8i30.3424.3424.0.5015.1.1.0.0.0.0.80.80.1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.MEl0-rvM3ms&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.bGE&fp=da51af1112b196c&bpcl=40096503&biw=1024&bih=614
God willing, I look forward to meeting you in the UK this coming
year . I'm sure that things would happen then.
Sincerely,
http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/
> Diop.<http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=C...>
On Dec 31, 2:31 am, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Cornelius.
>
> 'I find it incredible that you are not familiar withCheikh Anta
> What> *
> and who else are you not familiar with? And mind you, reading his stuff is
> more important than reading some of the cockroach houses that others have
> written about him or built around him. So you had better get started.'
>
> Truth to tell, bro, there is much I am not familiar with.
>
> That is why I am keen to know what I need to know.
>
> Beautiful-'reading his stuff is more important than reading some of the
> cockroach houses that others have written about him or built around him'.
> *> *
> Thanks for addressing this-
>
> " You are puzzled by how little influence Cheikh Anta Diop seems to have
> had in the English speaking world and of course he continues to be better
> known in Francophone Africa and Diaspora.
> *
> Of course it's because he wrote in French and about an area that has little> *
> to do with British history and as to his methods which are still in dispute
> I intuit that once again it is the rigidity or simplicity of the logical
> positive approach, in contrast with the flowery kinds of French /
> continental philosophy we are treated to by the French speaking world –
> which does not mean to say that Cheikh Anta Diop did not have an extremely
> tough time in getting his thesis approved as PH.D. material – it is now
> popularly believed that the reluctance in acknowledging his contribution to
> original knowledge was due to Euro-centric racism"
> *
> When I first entered the Blackwell bookshop in> Oxford<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwell_UK>,the sight hit
> me hard, like a blow in the solar plexus. "Has my youth been wasted?!" was> <http://www.princeton.edu/admission/whatsdistinctive/facultyprofiles/a...>from
> the question that flashed through my mind.
>
> This kind of sight, for example, of that bookshop, convinces me I really
> need an education and need to find one that will maximise me:
>
> [image: Inline image 1]
>
> It is vital to be exposed to the universe of knowledge in which what
> one knows is an island.
>
> So, thanks, Cornelius, and thank you very much for the links on your blog.
> I clicked on those links and had to gape in wonder at luminaries like
> Falola, Appiah, Harrow, like a child finding himself in a
> vast cathedral and wondering how he could ever belong within such
> a magnificent wonder.
>
> Particularly memorable
> the Google Appiah search you led me on .> particle<http://www.google.com/search?tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=Higgs'+particle&o...>
>
> Unforgettable-
>
> "There's the poetry of several spiritual traditions about God being a
> treasure that the seeker must find or a mystery that the seeker must solve.
> Some traditions say that He is to be found in the heart of the seeker, some
> others say that He is closer than the jugular vein of the believer and then
> there's the whole cosmos out there, the starry dynamo of the cosmos &
> galaxies also to be found inside – and to be found more plentifully in
> material time out there."
> ....
> Thought about these things some more as I skimmed this morning's Dagens
> Nyheter which reports that Higgs'
> is
> the greatest find out there, this year.
>
> ...
>
> Finding Higgs' particle is slightly different from digging in the bowels of
> history, although the motivation is the same: " Seek and ye shall find" I
> guess that that's what Cheikh Anta Diop did, with the tools available to
> him – and one of those tools is the imagination's capacity for the
> interpretation of the material evidence and the more mystical elements –
> including language communications.
>
> ...
> How far can we test the limits of rationality without talking about
> miracles?
>
> Fantastic:
>
> 'If we examine the matter even more deeply and discover that the very core
> of the human project as understood by our civilisation and its history, the
> philosophical discourse has itself been severed, and in its place a
> deliberate set of pseudo-sciences which stand in for critical thought ,
> assuring that those who desire to think will not challenge the moral
> foundations of the society but simply while away their time in meaningless
> debates, about linguistics, literary textual post-mortems,, and
> hermeneutics....;
> from the introduction of Shaykh Abdalqdir al-Murabit's " For the Coming
> Man"
>
> Do you have any idea where this happened:
>
> '...one occasion a student of a distinguished French University submitted
> a doctoral thesis which contradicted the new world view and found that his
> examiners accepted the validity of his thesis, and thus, by implication ,
> his scientific methodology had demonstrated his case, only to be stunned by
> the decision of the French government to revoke his degree, something
> unheard of in a thousand years of French intellectual history.'
> from the introduction of Shaykh Abdalqdir al-Murabit's " For the Coming
> Man"
>
> thank you very much for taking this trouble, Cornelius.
>
> toyin
> On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> corneliushamelb...@gmail.com> wrote:> >http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/2012/12/30/re-cheikh-...
> > Toyin,
>
> > My half a kobo's worth ( if that currency is till in existence):
>
> image.jpeg>
> > On Dec 29, 7:42 pm, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Cornelius,
>
> > > Have you read Diop?
>
> > > What do you think of him?
>
> > > I have not read him yet.
>
> > > He is much lionised by Africa centred thinkers but he does not seem to
> > > feature much in the little exposure I have had to readings in African
> > > history.
>
> > > I was struck to see a description in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
> > of
> > > the ancient Egyptians as Black. I did not know that idea had gained the
> > > level of acceptance reflected in such a museum.
>
> > > In all, though, I get the impression that Egypt has little significance
> > > for many Africans and that its significance is much stronger for
> > Diaspora
> > > Africans.
>
> > > What do you think?
>
> > > toyin
>
> > > On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <
>
> > > corneliushamelb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Today is Cheikh Anta Diop's birthday - some of the Diopists have been
> > > > celebrating that in Stockholm!
>
> > > >https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&tok=IL.
> > ..
>
> > > > --
> > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
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> > Austin.
> > > > For current archives, visit
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> > > --
> > > Compcros <http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
> > > Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
> > > "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
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> --
> Compcros <http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
> Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
> "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
>
> 7112KViewDownload
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Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
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