Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

for a long time--and maybe even now, i don't know--jews could not get into saudi arabia.

what is the point of saying, just try blaspheming there??

i don't get cornelius's point about blaspheming there. no one is interested in insulting the authorities in saudi arabia.

there are a few principles at stake here, perhaps none very interesting.

the laws of one country do not apply in another, even if we imagine the principles are universal. we can say free speech is universal, just as we could say punishment for blasphemy is universal. but neither is actually politically true. certain speech acts that are legitimate in the u.s. say are punishable in canada or france.

a state might be sovereign and thus empowered to act as it wills; but that doesn't mean we are obliged to agree with it.

i don't really think, from what was published, that i would say this girl blasphemed. but even if she did, her lynching was abominable. we don't need lectures on how horrible it is to insult the prophet to understand the principle or what was at stake. if i were to guess how nigerians on the whole felt about this act, i'd guess the vast majority disapproved of what happened.

we are shifting between two concepts: does religious authority deserve having the power to make these judgments? what role should it play in the state, in governance? and what are the acceptable limits that should be placed on it.

in the end, theocracies are abominations; but so are oligarchies. i return in my thinking to moses's ideal of states governed by consensus, which i would want to frame as ranciere did, where the demos or people become the basis on which the power of the state resides.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2022 5:52 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

 

Freedom of speech? Ojogbon Falola likes making fun of me. I'm not exactly complaining. I suppose that he has a quiet laugh and writes his mischievous hyperboles and understatements, with a smile on his face. Ditto Don Harrow. In his case, he likes to provoke me and here's an example of one of his latest provocations, my comments in dark black : 

 " i know it disturbed cornelius, and perhaps others, when i do not take the position that blasphemy is a crime that merits punishment ( the death penalty) like that which the poor student deborah had to suffer. no one likes blasphemy ( like hell no one likes blasphemy)  especially in these days of islamophobia, which we have to find ways to oppose."

This much should be quite clear: It's not going to be  Professor Harrow playing the role of Chief Justice or Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala attorney-general or chief prosecutor 

in the Hereafter, on the Day of Judgement. 

Islam is explicit about the punishment for Blasphemy, and if Professor Harrow doesn't believe me, he should go and commit some blatant acts of wanton blasphemy ( for example, say the sort of things that Deborah Yakubu is reported to have said) in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or for the same test purpose, he should travel to Mashad in The Islamic Republic of Iran, and commit the same blasphemies there, in the hope that Sleepy Joe Biden will save him. The fact is that in such a case  Sleepy Joe won't be able to do jack anything. In either country, they'd love to make some halal kebab out of him, to teach him and other would-be blasphemers a lesson.  If he chooses Iran as the place to test the waters,  in no time at all, we will be reading here that an infidel has been arrested and is awaiting execution as a blasphemer and as an Israeli spy. Pa Biden will cry   " Israeli spy?  For goodness sake, the Brother's an American citizen!". whilst back in Tehran & Qom the Mullahs would be remonstrating, " LIke hell, " An American citizen", and what was Jonathan Pollard? Ang, who indeed was Eli Cohen?" Obviously, the Mullahs haven't  been reading any Rush-die, but  have been reading a lot of Holy Quran & Al-Kafi,  a lot of John le Carré  too, probably cut their teeth on George Smiley or "The Little Drummer Girl"

I'm also as much against the death penalty as Danny Glover is but crying oceans of tears wouldn't make Kenneth  Harrow come back. Not even nuclear threats from Alabam or preachments from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  So, knowing all this, the would-be blasphemers should exercise more self-control at the basic minimum, and the uttermost self-restraint in order to save their own skin. 

This much is also certain: In the philosophy department of a Western type University, a discussion of blasphemy (atheism/agnosticism/heresy is not regarded as criminal or as a crime…

For my birthday in 2008 - and this was from a close relative who knew I would be more amused than offended, I got a copy of  Christopher Hitchens' magnum opus titled " God Is Not Great" which turned out to be really, quite trite!

Sadly, in the case of Deborah Yakubu, I don't think that it was necessarily a deliberate series of provocations on her part, It must have been that in the palaver that ensued,  the argument escalated and  - in ignorance and oblivious of the fact that she was standing on very shaky & dangerous ground, she said the things that she said, adding insult to injury and reaped the consequences. 

I would like to ask Christians who love to preach the Christian doctrine of "Love your enemies", how would Jesus have dealt with this matter? 

Would he have said that everyone who threw a stone at Deborah should be

Hanged?

Crucified?

Executed by the stroke of a sword? 

Face the wrath of a firing squad? 

On Saturday, 21 May 2022 at 11:45:44 UTC+2 Kenneth Harrow wrote:

thanks toyin.

i think sublime in the kantean sense means something that exceeds what we can put into language/discourse/rational thought

the ordinary sense is wonderful. but this larger sense is closer to the biblical "terrible," "wondrous", "fearful" etc, and really evokes such moments as moses on the mountain, hidden in the cleft, as god passes by before him.

i always found african religious thought to be much much closer to our jewish biblical thought than any other approach.

as for islam, you are right. my first book was Faces of Islam in African Literature, where i evoke the sufi thought in camara laye and cheikh hamidou kane and tayib saleh. the second book of essays, the Marabout and the Muse, was an attempt to complete the regional converage of islam.

i know it disturbed cornelius, and perhaps others, when i do not take the position that blasphemy is a crime that merits punishment like that which the ppor student deborah had to suffer. no one likes blasphemy, especially in these days of islamophobia, which we have to find ways to oppose.

 i am very very sensible to the insults against and demeaning of islam in the west, and build my political values around that struggle. i wish we could all be on the same page.

but it is one thing to say that this is regarded as an unacceptable act in islam; another to condone killing the offender. the line really must be clear.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2022 10:39 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

 

An unusual kind of sublimity. Would like to read that speech.

Thanks Ken.

I still find it strange referring to you by your first name, since Nigerians don't do that with people far ahead of them, recalling as I do that paper of yours I might have mentioned more than once, "A Sufi Interpretation of Le Regarde de Roi," perhaps my first encounter with a discussion of Islamic mysticism  in African literature, in the basement of the Ugbowo library of the University of Benin, at the beginning of my academic career.

You've moved on from that long ago orientation, including the collection Islam in African Literature, if I recall the title correctly, with a superb essay on Mahmoud Dib, Turareg poet, that being possibly the correct name of the poet,  but it's that Islamic mystical strand I will always associate with you.

Thanks

Toyin

On Thu, May 19, 2022, 15:28 Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

beautiful reflection, but the antithesis of kantian sublime which transcends the beauty and humane spirit of the buddha. when 9/11 occurred, spivak came to our university and described the event as sublime, in the kantian sense

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2022 6:52 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

 

For years, I have lived the ascetic life.

Seated at the entrance to this cave, I see the valley below and the town within it.

In the far distance after this natural space and the human habitation nestled within it, is a mountain range.

Beyond the mountain range, towering to the farthest height of sight,  is the sky.

Beyond the sky is the sun.

The sun is setting,gloriously red in it's circular splendour,  seeming to rest in a gap between the mountains.

My fellow humans. Myself. The sun. The rhythm of it's rising and setting. Our rhythms of being and becoming.

What is beyond this?

" One thing do I preach brother, now and always, suffering, and deliverance from suffering" the Buddha declared, describing desire as the root of suffering.

Without desire, without the tension between ideal and fulfillment, without the pain of indequacy of the world, what would life be worth?

I withdraw from the quest for freedom from pain.I withdraw from the rejection of desire.

"As long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long shall I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world," declares Santideva in his Boddhicaryavatakara.

Sublime.

But, which suffering? Of physical health? Of pain in the dissatisfaction with reality?

How meaningful would a perfect  world be?

"We must be still and still moving, into another intensity, for a further union, a deeper communion " T. S. Eliot.

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