Corona virus discussion at Harvard forum

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Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 9, 2020, 10:35:20 AM3/9/20
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Biko Agozino

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Mar 9, 2020, 11:45:08 AM3/9/20
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Strange how they are not considering indigenous knowledge systems. Ent?

Biko

On Monday, 9 March 2020, 10:35:20 GMT-4, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 9, 2020, 2:47:40 PM3/9/20
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True. They mentioned China but conveniently left out the role
that Chinese medicine is playing.

Xi brought in Chinese Traditional Medicine from the first week.

Biko Agozino

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Mar 9, 2020, 3:29:04 PM3/9/20
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You see how many different institutions the authors come from where they are supported to study Chinese Medicine scientifically. South Africa comes close by allowing Sangomas to practice in hospitals but I am not aware that they are funding serious scholars to research indigenous knowledge systems the way the Chinese are doing. Come on Africa! Let Us Go!

Biko

Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 10, 2020, 8:31:46 PM3/10/20
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https://news.trust.org/item/20200309161253-0ve6e

Demand for traditional herbals
to cope with corona virus, in the US


GE

Biko Agozino

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Mar 11, 2020, 2:43:52 AM3/11/20
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My Hypotheses:

I appreciate the co-authored paper on the role of Chinese Medicine in the fight against the Corona Virus.

 

I am very impressed by the different institutional affiliations of the authors to show how the Peoples Republic of China takes seriously scientific approaches to indigenous knowledge systems in health. However, Like all traditional medicine systems and exactly like pharmacological medicine, treatment tends to suffer from ingestion and injection biases.

 

The indigenous knowledge system hypothesis in my linked paper here could help the world to prevent and treat the epidemic very quickly. My African hypothesis offers the original and innovative abstention intervention through a 24 hours water only fasting to weaken the virus and strengthen the immune system and produce dramatic recovery. 

 

I am happy to provide other related hypotheses like desistance from blowing the nose and instead sniffing it in and spitting out to reduce hand contamination and the benefit of ventilating the homes and hospitals because the air inside tends to be two times more polluted than the air outside.

 

Let me know if you and your colleagues would like to collaborate with me to trial these hypotheses for immediate results.

 
Biko


Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 11, 2020, 9:13:13 AM3/11/20
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Biko,
It seems to me that the most potent weapon in your medicinal arsenal is fasting - for both malaria and the corona virus. 

 Let me confess that I am a humble analyst and not a practitioner -  but it seems to me that this prescription may hasten the demise of the famished patient in the absence of other forms of meaningful intervention.

 You seem to suggest an epistemological shift away  from plant based medicine to methodological nihilism.

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Biko Agozino

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Mar 11, 2020, 12:06:48 PM3/11/20
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Not methodological nihilism but the scholar-activist paradigm of committed-objectivity that I have been developing. It is universally accepted that fasting is good for us but much of traditional medicine is based on the ingestion of herbs without adequate control over dosage and side effects. On the other hand, much of pharmaceutical products rely on the popping of pills and on the injection of silver bullets. I grew up in Biafra where both forms were not easily guaranteed while starvation or forced fasting was used as a legitimate weapon of war. And so, the socialization from early on emphasized abstinence, wellness and prevention as lifelong learning strategies. There is much more where these tips come from and they are all cost-free, perhaps that is why big pharma is resisting them. But come on Africans, we can serve as citizen scientists to collectively trial these technologies of the self that work without any serious threat of harm to human subjects compared to the deadly side-effects of all other alternatives.

Biko

Ibrahim Abdullah

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Mar 11, 2020, 1:14:09 PM3/11/20
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Is Comrade Biko an anarchist? 

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On 11 Mar 2020, at 1:13 PM, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

Biko,

Biko Agozino

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Mar 11, 2020, 4:21:05 PM3/11/20
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What gives you such a false impression, Comrade?

Biko

Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 11, 2020, 4:21:19 PM3/11/20
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No. He simply wants to take a nefarious domestic war strategy of food deprivation, that emerged in a particular epoch, and turn it into the new normal for the treatment of ailments.

Anarchists may be against
governments and authoritarian impositions, and may rebel against the apparatuses of the state, 
but they eat regularly and do not believe in fasting.

GE

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Mar 11, 2020, 5:44:09 PM3/11/20
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Could he then be a neo-anarchist since his prescription goes against all scientific protocol in the treatment of diseases? What worries me the most is his self-centered claim about his "African hypothesis" that could rid the "world" of diseases! Fasting et al are part and parcel of the medical universe of all precapitalists societies throughout history. There is nothing "African" about it just as there is nothing African about extended families or eating eva/amala with your fingers.  


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On 11 Mar 2020, at 8:20 PM, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

No. He simply wants to take a nefarious domestic war strategy of food deprivation, that emerged in a particular epoch, and turn it into the new normal for the treatment of ailments.

Biko Agozino

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Mar 11, 2020, 6:06:24 PM3/11/20
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Comrade Ibrahim has doubts about the Diopian authentic history which says that human history undoubtedly began in Africa. Why would a self-professed historical materialist like you deny Africans technologies that obviously originated in Africa just because the earlier emigrants carried those tools with them? 

I am glad to hear that you agree that fasting is indeed a scientifically validated healing methodology but the anarchist in you would not recognize African leadership on that one. How can you say that and then claim that my hypotheses go against your Eurocentric scientism?

Read again and you will notice that I was not offering a single hypothesis. There are other accompanying hypotheses that the civilizing process would force Europeans to thumb up their noses at - not blowing your nose is an African technology to deal with lack of tissues in every home or handkerchiefs in every pocket while lack of running water makes the whole noise about washing hands laughable. We keep ourselves safe by not picking our nose like children. 

What would it cost your Eurocentrric ego to recognize a bit of African originality and leadership in a time of crisis?

Biko

Ibrahim Abdullah

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Mar 11, 2020, 7:55:17 PM3/11/20
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Comrade:
There is no such thing as “authentic history”. Diop’s seminal intervention is not gospel truth; it is an interpretation that we have to continually wrestle with. So “immigrants” departed from a continent you invented as Africa when that consciousness never existed and you still want to claim them as “Africans” thousands of years after their migration? This kind of backward looping is not the stuff of history. It is heritage studies heavily laced with black nationalism!

If this is what you call my Eurocentrism no wahala. Gloria is a student of pre-capitalist socio-economic formation; and before her, the late Comrade ikenna who defended Biafra by invoking Stalin’s national question. To tag everything as African when those very institutions/cultural formations existed everywhere/throughout human history is as troubling as it is disabling.

Let us ask questions beyond Diop’s nationalism; and let us provide answers and speak to our current concern. If this is subverting "African originality and leadership” then so be it. Its about that we re-think such spurious originality.

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Biko Agozino

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Mar 11, 2020, 9:25:04 PM3/11/20
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Bro Ibrahim,

I am sure that you know exactly why Diop insisted that his approach is an authentic anthropology. Go back and check if you have forgotten. The reason was because there were Europhiles who were defending white supremacy with the racist ideology of polygenesis or the idea that white people descended from a different kind of monkey but with no shred of scientific evidence. It was not black nationalism for Diop to counter with the authentic anthropology that there was only one monogenesis for all of human beings with that origin being in Africa, no matter what you call the land. This has since been settled in favor of Diop but you are welcome to argue with the genome project.

What is troubling about your claims is that you make a silly syllogism of the sort - fasting is a human technology found everywhere; Africans are human beings who probably tried it first; therefore there is absolutely nothing African about it. Why is that? Because you have no qualms about rejecting any evidence of African leadership or originality in anything whereas you would not question Eurocentric claims about even ideas stolen from Africa more recently. And you call yourself a historical materialist to whom nothing but class struggles matter?

I agree with you, this is no time for lame debates about 'the economy all mighty' that determines everything in the final analysis - the world is facing a pandemic. Bring your own own observations and hypotheses for discussion in our search for workable solutions. For once, the Europeans admit that they they do not have a solution and Africans may very well surprise you on this one by offering a cost-free hypothesis for testing by everyone. Yup, it is only a hypothesis, do not get your Eurocentric nerves tied up in a knot.

By the way, Ikenna Nzimiro was defending the principle of self-determination that Lenin inserted in the Soviet constitution to allow oppressed nationalities the right to secede, allowing Finland to do so relatively peacefully. Although Stalin was appointed the first commissaire for nationalities, the principle of oppressed nationalities did not originate with him but goes all the way back to Baba Marx in Capital and to Gramsci in Southernism. Do you have a problem with self-determination?

Biko

Gloria Emeagwali

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Mar 12, 2020, 12:51:58 PM3/12/20
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Well pre- capitalist formations were not amorphous, homogenous blobs. Even Marx recognized this, by introducing the concept of the Asiatic mode of production.  His critics argued that he did not go far enough in the coverage of Africa, in particular, but given the state of knowledge of the continent and prevailing Eurocentric and racist biases, we understand why that happened.

Genetic  and  genomic testing suggests that Africa provided the first Homo sapiens, probably around 300,000 years ago, and the emigrants to other continents would  move out  between 30,000 and 80,000 years ago.

Therefore, the study of pre - capitalist  formations must begin with Africa given the gap of about 200,000 years of human activity such as seen in Blombos, South Africa and elsewhere.

Pre -capitalist formations would emerge in other regions, and would naturally be affected by environmental and ecological 
differentiation in Asian, European, Australian and Native American contexts that are worthy of regional studies.



GE
africahistory.net

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Mar 12, 2020, 7:05:00 PM3/12/20
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Comrade Biko:
The central issue Cheikh Anta confronted was not anchored on the binary you supplied: polygenesis versus mongenesis. It was about Africa's contribution to civilisation in general. This started with his dissertation and continued subsequently in Dakar at his laboratory in the university. The biography penned by his son is clear on CA's project. I will book you in for his centenary in 2023!

I will excuse your sophomoric chant re name calling: from “eurocetric nerves” to “class struggle matter”. I did not claim anything about your beloved “africans” and fasting—that they probably tried first. Recall Afigbo’s spurious claim about Igbo village democracy? If he had read Ikenna on pre-capitalist socio-economic formation(not pre-colonial) he would have talked about communalism—a phase in human development--- not village democracy. Another Eurocentric crap?  

Let me re-state this once again: there is no  such thing as “authentic history” or “authentic anthropology”; and CA never claimed to have penned anything authentic. Your careless drift from history to anthropology is worrisoome.

Biko Agozino

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Mar 12, 2020, 8:43:43 PM3/12/20
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Ibrahim,

Go and read now before you op[en your mouth again, it is no longer against the law for Africans to read book. Let Diop speak for himself:


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