Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sir Winston Churchill on Islam. Still true close to 100 years later...

Ogugua,

Thanks for addressing my questions about the loosely-attributed quotation of Churchill. 

I am not one to defend any religion per se, but it bothers me when stereotype and prejudice clouds the characterization of any group or aspect of life, or when religious propaganda is used for partisan purposes. The Churchill observations at issue strike a chord.

Specificity of context and time matters. I did not mean to ask for the totality of Churchill's experience with Muslims and their religion. I sought to know what his experiences amounted to up to the time he made the statement. He gained the vast majority of the experiences you marshaled so well after he had made the statement in question, not before. 

Churchill made the statement at the age of 24 or 25 in a book published in 1899. He had returned to Britain from India, Afghanistan and Sudan at 23 in 1898. It would have been okay if Churchill was specifically characterizing the extremist sects he had engaged in Afghanistan and Sudan; anybody whose most sustained and closest encounter with Muslims were with the Sudanese Mahdist sect of the 1890s (when he was in his early twenties), as Churchill's Muslim encounter was, was likely to make the kind of observations about those particular groups. Problem arises when those observations on "Mohammedanism" (whatever that is) are generalized the way the youthfully exuberant Churchill did. And that is my problem with the statement. 

A statement made at 24 or 25, informed by experiences gained as an under-23 junior army officer is quite different from the sagely observations of the seasoned statesman and empire builder you have portrayed. Who knows, the said statement may not even be an accurate representation of the views of Churchill during his mature years. He was Prime Minister in 1951-1956, for the second time in his long career, during the heyday of decolonization when the British policy of favoring the Muslim northern Nigerian elite over their Christian counterparts from the Middle Best and the south flourished. Did he and his colleagues mean to turn the entire Nigeria into this dangerous "Mohammedanism"? My guess is, Churchill would had become wiser from the experience gained as a traveler and senior statesman during the intervening half a century since he made the remarks in question.

I would caution against circulating and lending credence to a statement like this. The emergence of murderous Islamic sects, like the Al-Quaeda, Boko Haram and the Islami State, does not necessarily represent a vindication of Churchill's statement; they represent continuing evolution of extremists sects. 

We all have to be vigilant against the use of religion for political purposes. It has been bad for Nigeria. Before the 1980s, the Christian/Muslim divide was not much of a problem, but the situation has steadily degenerated ever since, and much of this is down to the politicization of religion. Babangida's politically-motivated enrollment of Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1986 and the equally politically-motivated introduction of the Sharia regime in defiance of the secular status of our republic during the 2000s have helped to radicalize the Christians and politicize the Muslim and Christian clergies. It is a vicious circle that gets more vicious by the turn. Whereas the Nigerian politico-military class of all persuasions had up until the 1990s united to crush violent Muslim terrorist groups, some of these elements now support Boko Haram, openly act in ways that sometimes suggest they are the political and PR wing of the murderous sect while contriving to accuse the most unlikely sources to be the instigators of the movement, and yet they seek to reap the political reward of the extremism they fomented!

The circulation of statements like the one the very young Churchill made adds to the conundrum of insidious political machinations, blames the activities of Islamic extremist groups on an irrationality allegedly innate to the religion of Islam (as if there are rational religions), and lift the burden of culpability cold calculating politicians, who do not necessarily share in the irrationality of these sects. In the world of Islam, there are moderates and extremists, rational and irrational, and the hardnosed calculating that milk the irrationality of the co-adherents. Most, if not all religions, share this characteristic to a lesser or more degree.

Ugo

On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 8:46 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

 

 

Anyone truly familiar with Churchill's engagement, prominence, and role in Great Britain's domestic and imperial politics, and world politics too, for as long as he was, would acknowledge that he must have been very informed and knowledgeable in important public interest issues of his time. Religion and religious differences in British colonies was one of the more important issues. Remember British India?

Churchill held many offices of state including some of cabinet rank in different British Governments. They included Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Prime Minister (twice). He was an active politician and leader in his country at a time she was a great colonial/imperial power. His country's Kings and Queens ruled over what some have described as the  British Empire- the last, great, old style empire in the history of the world. That empire had a large population of Muslims- hundreds of millions of them.

Churchill was a historian on avid commentator on public affairs. He played an important role in his country's reshaping of the world in Africa, the then Near East (now the Middle East), and Asia after the two great wars of the twentieth century. As Secretary of State for the Colonies for example, Churchill's Department was directly responsible for the administration of all British colonies including many Muslim countries and lands. He was even more so as Prime Minister.

Churchill was actively involved in the dismantling of the Ottoman (Islamic) Empire including the creation of new countries with large or majority Muslims populations after 19 18. He knew Muslims. He met Muslims. He negotiated with them. He visited their countries. He did not have to live with them to be informed about their idiosyncrasies, lives, predilections, religion, and beliefs. What may be true too is that one does not have to live a life- experience it in real time, to know the life enough to have an informed  and fair opinion of it.  

Churchill was and remains an important historical figure. He was a significant player in recent world history. His imprint on recent world history is and should not be in doubt. Was his opinion on Islam and Muslims correct and fair at the time he held and made them public? Is that opinion correct and fair today? Is it right and fair in general historical context? That I dare to propose should be the question. Everyone on the basis of historical and still unfolding evidence, must make up their mind for themselves.

 

oa

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ugo Nwokeji
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2015 12:34 PM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sir Winston Churchill on Islam. Still true close to 100 years later...

 

I saw this on the social media on Saturday, and I don't understand what commends this statement to circulation, particularly in a forum like this.

 

As sagely as Churchill apparently was, I don't think he was particularly known to be a keen observer of Islam and Muslim life. Did he ever live in a Muslim country or among Muslims? Had he read the Islamic scriptures? Had he even ever met a Muslim? Why would such a statement made from so far aloof, as Churchill likely was from Muslims and their religion, be so elevated?

 

Ugo

 

G. Ugo Nwokeji

Director, Center for African Studies

Associate Professor of African American Studies
University of California, Berkeley
686 Barrows Hall #2572
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel. (510) 542-8140
Fax (510) 642-0318

Twitter: @UgoNwokeji

Facebook: facebook.com/ugo.nwokeji

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/profile/view?id=243610869

 

On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 7:40 AM, Olusola Daniel <olusoladaniel316@gmail.com> wrote:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! 

Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

 

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

 

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

 

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

 

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

 

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