Dear Professor Segun Ogungbemi,
"Why can't Israelis and Palestinians live in peace since they belong to the same Semitic tribes? Why must they be killing themselves over the land they did not create? What joy and happiness do they derive in hostility over the land they met, which eventually will outlive them?"
Unfortunately, you don't provide any magic answers. Nor does Pat Condell...
Israel faces many challenges: It's not just a matter of "The Semitic tribes probably have a genetic trait which makes them to be prone to violence or war."
Well, I'm not quoting the Almighty here – or any rabbinical authorities, but what Israel's democratically elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once said, still holds true about the future of Israel. He said, "If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."
Pro-Israel advocate Dore Gold and Alan Dershowitz in his The Case For Israel makes the kind of arguments that should appeal to all "rational human beings with moral sense and values for life and existence"
Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" address....
In our various African countries we need men of stature, leaders who can also pronounce on peaceful coexistence, respect and cooperation among the various ethnic groupings as part of the human development project...
A few days ago, I watched this programme about genocide ("the ultimate crime") and the law:
BBC HARDtalk - Payam Akhavan - International Human Rights Lawyer (12/8/13
About the Nigeria and the Biafra Genocide issue, are there any national days set aside to commemorating what happened - with a collective will that says, "Never again"?
Without hearing something from you, I do not intend to return to these matters. So it's Best wishes for peace on earth and goodwill to all men (and women)
On Sunday, 25 August 2013 13:43:06 UTC+2, seguno2013 wrote:
Dear Cornelius,Thanks for the painting. I am a lover of art.You are right that the Yoruba count the cost in a dramatic form before engaging in local fights. I remember in those days in Lagos, a small boy could make sakara even though he knew he could not beat you in a fight. But if you are stupid to engage him in a fight, there are other big boys around who are his relation(s) or friends who pretend not to know the boy, who are prepared to beat you to stupendous, after they plead with you to leave the small boy alone and go away in peace and you refuse.You can remember General Benjamin Adekunle, The Black Scorpion, a Yoruba warrior during the civil war, I learnt the Ibo warlords took an exceptional fear of him during the war. And when General Obasanjo took over from him the Ibo warlords surrendered. After their defeat, the only person they could blame for it was the Yoruba Sage Pa Awolowo.As if that was not enough, they now claim that Nigeria government be held responsible for the genocide against the Ibos during the civil war. They have never blamed themselves for committing voluntary suicide when they were ill-prepared for the war. Nobody goes to war without adequate preparation and if anyone does it, he will have himself to blame.With due respect, the Ibo leaders who led their people who were ill-prepared for the war should be held responsible alone.What the Yoruba have not done, if care is not taken, is to ask the Ibos to pay compensation for the killing of their sons and daughters on January 15, 1966 and during the war.On the case of the Israelis, God or Yaweh at no time asked them to take the land of the Canaanites because both of them were/are Semitics. Nobody has the monopoly of God, if there is one. A just and moral being will not give an occupied land to someone other than the occupants of the land. On what moral ground can that be justified? If Nigerians descend on Sweden and say God has asked them to take their land, what do you think the reaction of the people or the United Nations will be?The universe is meant for humans to live and to live peacefully with one another. Africans own North Africa but they allow Arabs to live there. Why can't Israelis and Palestinians live in peace since they belong to the same Semitic tribes? Why must they be killing themselves over the land they did not create? What joy and happiness do they derive in hostility over the land they met, which eventually will outlive them? Consider the colossal amount of money and incessant diplomacy the rivalry has cost them, the US, United Nations and not to talk of human lost and properties destroyed, the psychological trauma that went with it and yet no peace.In my view, they should leave God or Yaweh, or Allah or whatever Supreme Being out of the claim of their authority over the land and live as rational human beings with moral sense and values for life and existence.Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone--Dear Professor Segun Ogungbemi,
As if your antagonists haven't heard of folks like Chaka Zulu !
Thanks for making your point and making it so well – that the Yoruba are not a predatory folk – that we don't go jumping on someone just because they are weak or even just because they want to secede from the Federal Republic of Nigeria and take with them, all that oil.
"But when the blast of war blows in our ears," (just like the English)
"Then imitate the action of the tiger "- (as Brer Soyinka has said, a tiger pounces.... (Even a pussy tiger, she pounces)Our non-violent nature is a folkloric characteristic which Lady Ayo Obe also recounts in her unadulterated prose:
"our sensible trait of avoiding serious injury in a personal quarrel by making enough noise about it that by the time you come to shouting: "Leave my shirt!" [i.e. and let me beat this idiot] there will be enough people around to hold your said shirt and prevent you from doing either yourself or your opponent serious injury"
And that's the way it usually happens, and that's what we've been told: that in order to delay the denouement – say to a street fight, make ee noh fight, to avoid or to delay inflicting grievous bodily harm the Yoruba man will slowly start taking off his clothes, one piece of clothing at a time until he's left in his underpants – and hopefully before the final push, someone, will come and intervene and save the day, so that he doesn't have to do what a man's got to do…
The Salone man? You are in the nightclub and you hear the unmistakable sound of a bottle breaking or of broken glass (like broken English) the sound of someone smashing a beer bottle – you turn around, you know – instantaneously - that it's time for the cameras and some action!
For many years I believed the story the first time I heard it that my dear friend Diro Johnson who was my very good buddy – he played bass for Sierra Leone's best lead guitarist my teacher Dr. Dynamite ( Balogun Johnson-Williams) and his band " The Jazz Leone National" – that Diro got into a fight in Monrovia – smashed a beer bottle – and as is the wont of the Salone man when he is serious, first stabbed himself with the broken bottle - and that unfortunately he made too deep a gash and so he bled , and bled to death. And so I mourned and mourned and years later was told that Diro was in Lagos. Have been unable to locate his older brother Claudius Johnson who must be a Professor of English somewhere or other, as Claudius was marked to be our second Eustace Palmer. Cannot find Alongo his younger brother either.
Yoruba man (moi-meme) will take off his jacket and say, " Balogun, here hold my jacket, and let me teach this son a of a honey bee a lesson" - but Moi-meme knows that instead of holding the jacket Balogun should put his arms around me and hold me and start begging me loudly, to leave the hooligan… and no matter how much vituperation I poured on the aforementioned hooligan and his mother – on no account should Balogun and my other sympathizers and supporters let go of me to face the hooligan alone and man to man, bottle or no bottle…
Dear Sir, but to get back to the genesis of this discussion, these interesting words of yours:
"There cannot be peace in the Middle-East and North Africa which is illegally occupied by the Arabs until they have respect for their common historical background."
If we are to be biblical about it, then this is what I read late this afternoon, from The Gutnick Edition of the Chumash: The Book of Genesis, an explanation according to Toras Menachem and it's important to understand this when talking about Israel or even North Africa, from a Biblical point of view:
"According to both Noachide Law and Jewish Law, land acquired as a result of military conquest is not considered to be stolen property (see Shulchan Aruch Admor Hazakein, Orach Chayim 649:10). Therefore, the nations of the world could not possibly accuse the Jewish people of being "robbers" merely due to the fact that they seized the land of cana'an.
Rather, the nations' complaint is that the Jewish people have transformed the land permanently to be an essentially Jewish one, precluding any nation from identifying it as their own at any future time.
Even if the land will be conquered by another nation, it will remain the "Land of Israel" and Jewish people will refer to it as their own, perceiving the loss of the land as a temporary "exile." For after Jewish conquest and inhabitation, the land became holy, uniquely Jewish at its very essence, remaining associated with the Jewish people forever."
The Stone Edition Chumash introduces the same theme in Genesis with these words:
"We begin the study of the Torah with the realisation that the Torah is not a history book, but the charter of Man's mission in the universe. Thus, in his first comment, Rashi cites Rav Yitzchak who says that since the Torah is primarily a book of laws, it should have begun with the commandment of the new moon (Exodus 12.2), the first law that was addressed to all Jewry as a nation. He explains that the reason for the Torah's narrative of Creation is to establish that God is the Sovereign of the universe: He declared to His people the power of His works in order to give them the heritage of the nations (Psalm 111.6). If the nations accuse Israel of banditry for seizing the lands of the seven nations of Canaan, Israel can respond, "The entire universe belongs to God. He created it and He granted it to whomever He deemed fit. It was His desire to give it to them and then it was His desire to take it from them and give it to us."
(I made the same point here: This land is Your Land
You were wondering, "if that is the way Yaweh does his things"...
I should like to caution you dear Sir, about the law of blasphemy in Judaism.
I'm sure that you are aware of this commandment: Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain
We certainly have our private discussions with the Almighty, but we do not vilify him – that would be blasphemy and in our lives Kiddush Hashem has the highest value.
I'm sure that you are also familiar with the story of Job
I hope that you also appreciate this painting by Dennis Bacchus. In my calendar it's entitled
Sincerely,
On Friday, 23 August 2013 01:39:44 UTC+2, seguno2013 wrote:Dear Cornelius,From what I know the Yoruba are not warlike people. It does not mean that they're weak. They have traditional warriors headed by Balogun.You know the Yoruba are city or town people and the city life is a civilized one. They are like the Ancient Greeks who historically devoted their time to knowledge, industry and aesthetic values.It is true that we have very many Yoruba who are Muslims but the current wave of violence caused by the Boko Haram Islamic sect makes the religion not to be attractive today. The kind of Islam the Yoruba embrace is not driven by senseless, cruel and inhumane passion but the one that is motivated to serve their material interest in most cases.The Semitic tribes probably have a genetic trait which makes them to be prone to violence or war.Thanks for the Bible references but one wonders if that is the way Yaweh does his things.Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone--Dear Professor Segun Ogungbemi,
I have been made to understand that the Yoruba are not a warlike people, although many have embraced the religion of Islam and Islam's adherents it seems are fighting almost everywhere where they are.
The last time I checked, the Bible (Genesis 16:12) still says the following about Ishmael the son of Abraham who some Arabs claim is their ancestor:
"And he shall be a wild-ass of a man: his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him: and over all his brothers shall he dwell"
The Jewish Encyclopedia is not very generous to him either.
The obstacles to achieving the peace for which we pray every day, is most recently outlined here
But it's not only the Muslim Semites that are fighting everywhere – the Boko Haram people are most probably not Semites but they also believe that they are doing some kind of Jihad of extermination in the name of al-Islam….
If you are merely hinting at an "occupied North Africa", a North Africa under Arab occupation, then you don't seem to be aware that al-Islam is spreading south faster than the Harmattan winds blowing the sands southwards and that it's mostly Christian missionary activities and Islam's prohibition against al-cohol and the promotion of trash and decadent Western lifestyles that is slowing down the Islamization of the rest of Africa South of the Sahara.
I should hope that just going through some of what Rabbi Kook has said about the significance of war, will give you a better idea that our redemption is very near…
Yours truly,
On Thursday, 22 August 2013 21:24:28 UTC+2, seguno2013 wrote:Cornelius,Israelis and Arabs belong to the same Semitic tribes. It seems to me they are prone to violence.If you care to read their religious history particularly the Bible they were warlike people. They never lived in peace with themselves. And yet they claimed to come from Abraham.African countries are unstable for many reason namely, the incursion of the west to the continent and the improper partitioning of the continent, leadership and poor governance, corruption, ignorance and poverty among others.There cannot be peace in the Middle-East and North Africa which is illegally occupied by the Arabs until they have respect for their common historical background.Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone--Wofaase Cornelius:
Was the leader of Boko Haram not liquidated some time ago? I understand that was why the group has been very bitter and utterly destructive.
In terms of Egypt and Israel, try to read former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's book, which calls for true peace in the Middle East but not apartheid.
Also, while Israel seems to be a lot more stable (maybe due to is unified religiosity), Egypt -- like many African countries -- is unstable and volatile. That is why it is laughable when some people want Egypt to be seen as a non-African (but an entirely Arab) country! Can there be a coup d'état in Israel? I doubt it! That is part of the way of comparing the two democracies!
A.B. Assensoh.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg [cornelius...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 7:16 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Egypt, how do we begin to compare these two democracies?
--Is there any confirmation that the Leader of Boko Haram has been liquidated?Is there any confirmation that the Leader of Boko Haram has been liquidated? How long should it take to officially confirm or deny the rumour.Would it have been better to take him as a prisoner of war? (No harm meant, Ignoramus was only asking)
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