Israel and Egypt, how do we begin to compare these two democracies?
Cornelius Hamelberg
Assensoh, Akwasi B.
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.
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?
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Chika Onyeani
Cornelius Hamelberg
Wofa Akwasi,
The current Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was the guy who was cleaning his teeth with a siwak and laughing even as he issued that video tape recording in which he was imitating the late Osama bin Laden and threatening the United States of America.
That Southern Baptist preacher Carter is an esshole. I read some extracts from his Apartheid book and followed the interminable discussions in much of the Jewish media immediately after it was released. I suppose that it’s been translated into Arabic and is a best seller with that reading public. (Left to them, they’d give him the Nobel Prize in Literature, just for that, just as the Igbos would like the Swedish Academy to award it to Achebe for his “Things fall Apart”.) Carter himself gave more oxygen to the fiery discussions by granting interviews and sometimes responding directly to some of the attacks on him. I wonder what he really thinks about the start of peace talks and the possibility of a two-state solution to his problem.
No coup d’état in Israel, as in the Egyptian military dynasty of Nasser, Sadaat, Mubarak and now the mass-murderer el-Sisi, but Israel has had her fair share of military leaders – like minister of defence Moshe Dayan and leaders who were ex-military men such as Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak (Israel’s most decorated soldier so far) and Ariel Sharon (“the bulldozer”)...
Isn’t the coup era essentially over in Africa South of the Sahara?
Let’s hope so.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Biko Agozino
Personally, I do not agree that Nigeria is cursed, for as Femi Osofisan would put it, The Gods Are Not to Blame. There are historical and structural reasons why people of African descent are suffering the incompetent leadership that we are burdened with today. As Obi Igwe put it in one ofhis gospel songs, what we need are leaders (Ndi ndu, also literally, forces oflife) and not rulers (Ndi ochichi, ;also literally, forces of darkness). There are some concrete steps we can take to reverse the ineptitude at the leadership level and uplift our people from avoidable penury in the midst of plenty...
Please follow above link to continue reading and or leave a comment
Cornelius Hamelberg
In this long sentence (but not from the Chief Justice of Nigeria):
That was impeccable Biko Agozino and although you concur with Alagba Soyinka’s advice to the then president, el-Generalissimo Olusegun Obasanjo to “go – just go” and you feature Obi Igwe a gospel light disciple of Jesus of Nazareth and Biafra singing in Igbo, why do you not have it in your heart to pray for Mr. Obasanjo or say Pa, say it ain’t so? We know that after catching so much hell here on earth, the suffering masses don’t want to catch some more fire in hell after they die and Obasanjo knows even better than most of us about the resurrection, and obviously hopes, since he has hopefully repented of all his sins and entered graduate school in theology to turn a new leaf - his phase two here on earth - phase three is the cemetery - but just before that to prepare for eternal life in the hereafter after his stint at the steering wheel as president of the complex federation of Nigeria!
Don’t forget that Brer Obasanjo saying that we (including the penitent himself) are all deserving of the hell fire was conditional – at least according to how it is reported in Nairaland, he said that “if Nigerians were yet to commend a leader after 53 years of independence, “Then we are jinxed and cursed; we should all go to hell” – and there is much virtue in that “if” - if not, then we’re all going to go...
Obasanjo himself did a lot of good things, so did Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Muhammad Murtala, Muhammadu Buhari & Tunde Idiagbon, in fact so did Tai Solarin and so did Chief Obafemi Awolowo and so did Fela, Dr Sir Warrior, these are contemporary Nigerian leaders among many others in Nigeria that I pray will never go anywhere near what Muslims call “the fire”
I am terribly excited that you mention Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s “Beatitude to the Youth” - terribly excited because I had never heard of such a poem before, and my Better Half Ebba, was staying with my parents, in London in 1971 and was specialising in African history, was in her third month of research in the colonial archives at the British Museum in London, gathering material for her thesis on “ Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe , Kwame Nkrumah, I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League” when she had to undergo a brain operation and a miscarriage...and since then I have avoided mentioning any of the three. But, please how do I get hold of Dr. Azikiwe’s “Beatitude of Youth”? (By 1973 I myself had become a youth leader in Sweden and was working at the Swedish Basketball Association, with people like the national coach Ali Strunke (Yugoslavian) and his assistant, Egon Håkansson...) around that time an African -American brother Glenn Berry was the best basketball player in all Sweden and he used to tell me that I looked like Arthur Ashe – looked like, not played like...the first time he told me that, Arthur Ashe had just beaten Bjorn Borg, here in Sweden ...)
The role of the youth, in the future of Nigeria, Africa cannot be overemphasised...
Will get back to you and your essay a little later, am being a little overwhelmed by this report about Egypt , thinking about it about you about Obi Igwe and that sort of Boko Haram scenario in Nigeria right now. Later.
Peace and love,
kenneth harrow
well, the time frame is loose, but we can say central africa is not free of the turbulence that military rule leaves in its wake. eastern congo is continuing to be ruled by local militias who fight to control the mineral trade.
what have i left out? guinea-bissau, whose silent coup has been by the drug lords; guinea 4 years ago.
and the kind of instability and fighting that marked cote d'ivoire is coup-like.
i think we thought it was over, but it feels as though the military coup in mali was a shock. if it seemed like a throwback to the old era, in fact it simply opened the door to the militias in the north, reinforced by malian military defections, creating what seems like the new dispensation of our times, where even stable rule, like that of cameroon or nigeria, doesn't extend over the whole of the country.
that seems like the pattern of the weakened nation state, and i am curious to hear from others whether they see this as a period of the weakened nation state or not
ken
Wofa Akwasi,
The current Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was the guy who was cleaning his teeth with a siwak and laughing even as he issued that video tape recording in which he was imitating the late Osama bin Laden and threatening the United States of America.
�That Southern Baptist preacher Carter is an esshole. �I read some extracts from his Apartheid book and followed the interminable discussions in much of the Jewish media immediately after it was released. I suppose that it�s been translated into Arabic and is a best seller with that reading public. (Left to them, they�d give him the Nobel Prize in Literature, just for that, just as the Igbos would like the Swedish Academy to award it to Achebe for his �Things fall Apart�.) Carter himself gave more oxygen to the fiery discussions by granting interviews and sometimes responding directly to some of the attacks on him. I wonder what he really thinks about the start of peace talks and the possibility of a two-state solution to his problem.
�No coup d��tat in Israel, as in the Egyptian military dynasty of Nasser, Sadaat, Mubarak and now the mass-murderer el-Sisi, but Israel has had her fair share of military leaders � like minister of defence Moshe Dayan and leaders who were ex-military men such as Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak (Israel�s most decorated soldier so far) and Ariel Sharon (�the bulldozer�)...
�Isn�t the coup era essentially over in Africa South of the Sahara?
Let�s hope so.
�
On Tuesday, 20 August 2013 16:17:12 UTC+2, Assensoh, Akwasi B. wrote:
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'�tat 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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-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Femi Segun
--
Biko Agozino
Biko
From: Femi Segun <solor...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 5:25
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why Obasanjo May Be Heading to Hell
Biko Agozino
I did not know that you are the devil's advocate. Please note that, as Fela would yell, 'no be me talk am o'. The man take him own mouth curse himself. If we do not have any leader to commend then we (i.e., the rulers) are all going to hell. I agree with you that we should pray for the old man so that his sins may be forgiven on the condition that he repents of the crime against millions of our people. As I said in my opinion, God is a merciful God ever willing to forgive repentant sinners. But first, he must repent, he cannot play 419 with God.
You are right that no one is completely evil. Even Lucifer was the arch angel whose capital offense was hubris in opposing the democratic motion from God: 'Let us make man in our own image.' Oh no, opposed Shetan, why don't you make him like all the other dumb lower animals lest he becomes like us and plot to do a coup against us and play God himself? Bad mistake to oppose God. Even Hitler was said to have achieved something no one else has ever managed - full employment albeit in his killing machine - but few will dispute that he is burning in the fire and quite rightly so.
Instead of offering a plea in mitigation on behalf of Ekwensu, my favorite perspective is that of Malcolm X who nearly lost his faith when he learned that his revered leader was also a bit of a player. That was until the son of the leader sat him down to peruse the Bible and reach the conclusion that all the great men in the bible did something incredibly naughty and yet they were forgiven by a merciful God especially following repentance. Let us pray that Baba Iyabo and his fellow gangsters will repent and ask Ndigbo for forgiveness or he may be heading to the fire of the devil that he deserves, according to his own mouth. Listen to Baba K; 'And them dey do bad, bad, bad things, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen, Amen, Amen. By the grace of Almighty Allah, Amen, Amen, Amen.'
Sorry about the miscarriage of justice on your beloved. You should have considered suing her university for putting her through all that torture. Did her supervisors not know anything about narrowing down her topic to a manageable scope? Each one of those giants was worth the focus of more than a few doctoral dissertations and yet they let her bundle all that together to scatter her brain and mess up her swagger. Kpele.
The Beatitude to Youth is a chapter in Renascent Africa, the compilation of Azikiwe's editorials in the Accra Morning Post that was published in 1937 after he beat the rap for sedition following his publication of the satirical dissing of colonialism in an article by Wallace Johnson, 'Does the African Have a God?' According to Nkrumah, that sedition trial was what inspired him to go to Zik of Africa and ask him where he got the knowledge and courage to challenge the British empire and win for he would like to get some of that ginger to spice up his own swagger. There and then, Zik gave him a letter of recommendation to Lincoln University and the rest is history. Later, the Beatitudes became the catechism of the Zikist Movement in the 1940s.
So how can a short man devil like you coach basketball and be flattered that your Calabar mask-like face looks like Arthur Ashe? I know, in Sweden, they say that all Africans look the same.
Biko
From: Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Biko Agozino <biko...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 7:17
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Why Obasanjo May Be Heading to Hell
Cornelius Hamelberg
Corrected:
Mighty Biko of Nigeria,
Many thanks for the valuable info that,
“The Beatitude to Youth is a chapter in Renascent Africa, the compilation of Azikiwe's editorials in the Accra Morning Post that was published in 1937 after he beat the rap for sedition following his publication of the satirical dissing of colonialism in an article by Wallace Johnson, 'Does the African Have a God?' According to Nkrumah, that sedition trial was what inspired him to go to Zik of Africa and ask him where he got the knowledge and courage to challenge the British empire and win for he would like to get some of that ginger to spice up his own swagger. There and then, Zik gave him a letter of recommendation to Lincoln University and the rest is history. Later, the Beatitudes became the catechism of the Zikist Movement in the 1940s.”
Indeed, the rest is history.
As for my beloved (not to be confused with the jealous Almighty who has the same title, albeit with a capital B), she can handle six European languages fluently and can also handle me – has been doing great things since then. The trinity of Zik, Kwame and Wallace is quite a meaty bone to chew you must agree, but the focus of that thesis was “The West African Youth League” and not any extended hagiographical accounts of the in-puts of Zik, Kwame and I.T.A. a local idol who I often went past on Westmoreland Street where I lived, ( no 37 - opposite the Cotton Tree and the Sierra Leone Museum) - I’d greet him with a reverential nod and then one day we got the terrible news about that car crash in Accra, that took him away from all of us. So if Mr. Wallace-Johnson was still with us in 1970, I would have introduced my Better Half to him personally, and that could have only been all to the good.
Since then Leo Spitzer the author of “The Creoles of Sierra Leone" together with LaRay Denzer have authored “"I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League"
About the posthumous fate of the ex-grand Oba of Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo, since he is a Christian it’s possible that he will be saved by grace alone, by the one and only merciful Almighty , and just as we don’t live by bread alone, so I pray that the Almighty will take into consideration some of Mr. Obasanjo’s prayers for the nation and other and his good works, such as his farming so that more people of Nigeria will be fed – even as the masses pray, “ give us this day – our daily bread” and more good works of his such as the Obasanjo Foundation . Would Biko like to crucify him for that also?
Some more of his handiwork: “In 1979, we had 20 new ships specially built for Nigeria. When I came back 20 years after, the national shipping line had liquidated”
I was told by some Yoruba Krio Oga from Sierra Leone, that Bra Obasanjo is really a “Yoruba Krio”. Don’t know how true that is. The same guy told me that Ironsi’s father was a Krio guy. The midwife who delivered me, Mrs. Chukuma Davies was married to an “Igbo Sierra Leonean” - and one of my best friends from way back in Sierra Leone, now mostly a facebook& telephone friend Samuel Archer- Davies is also of Igbo extraction, so you see, I’m biased , way back, twelve tribes of Israel.
In light of the recent fallout from Fani-Kayode’s thoughts about the Igbo claims to some alleged “ no man’s land” in Lagos ( Yoruba’s Judea and Samaria) we should take a closer look at “Tribalism: A Pragmatic Instrument for National Unity”
One last thing before I tuck in to some fried plantains – probably from Mr. Obsanjo’s farm (fried in palm oil) as a side dish for dinner – I agree with you that it’s not only the Chinese who think that we all look the same - all of those who come from the planet of the apes – but let me tell you this: I was exactly 3 cm taller than Glenn Berry in 1973...
So who better than you to ask help me locate Kenneth Ofodile who looks exactly like a big Yoruba man?
No laughing matter: Will return to the more serious issue of the Biafra genocide the next response to your blog post.
Sin-cerely,
Biko Agozino
I agree with you, Baba will be saved by the Grace if not by our prayers and by his good deeds: The first and only Nigerian ruler that handed over to a successor following an election (although it was always an arrangee selection), not once but twice; appointed more ladies into office than any other ruler, made peace with Cameroon over a few millimeters of colonial boundary rather than wage a wasteful war, set up the EFCC and jailed a sitting Inspector General of Police and a few Governors for the first time in the country, resolved a few coups in neighboring African countries with a few Ghana Must Go bags (some say).
But na him dey crucify himself over the overall records of his one-fifth dominion on the independent presidency. My puzzle is why he had to drag Nyerere and Biafra into the fact that he claimed to have spent $12 billion on electricity and yet we still live in darkness, as Obi Igwe alluded. Why will 20 ships not rust away when the farmer went to the village market and handed ovder 30 billion dollars to dodgy creditors when that kind of money could have given us a fast railroad between East and West, turned our universities into prominent institutions, invested in health research and health care, built 100,000 low cost homes across the country, started medium scale farms for unemployed graduates so that it is noty one man who wants to boast that he is feeding the whole world, funded Nollywood productions, started a bicycle factory and still have some change to pay welfare checks to the deported destitutes in 'no man's land.' My hunch is that he still has nightmares about Biafra for he may have taken GMG bags to Nyerere to buy his betrayal of Africans facing genocide and the Mwalimu told him where to stick the filthy lucre, but I might be wrong.
I join you in praying that the Baba will repent and confess the wickedness of ordering the shooting down of a relief plane that was bringing in supplies to our starving and diseased people rather than continue bragging about that in His Command. Nothing stops him from publicly apologizing for his role in the genocide against our fellow country men and women, children and collective psyche. Sorry is such a hard word for some people to say but it is not even necessary because the Igbo have forgiven people like him and returned to provide essential services for their fellow citizens despite the risk of the continuing massacres that grow on the soil fertilized with genocidal blood.
We are one people really, Kru, Kri, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Ijaw, Akan, Ashanti, Zulu, Kikuyi, Luo, Congo, Jew, Arab, Oyibo, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Aboriginal, we are all the children of one African woman. If any mad man takes a chain saw and cuts down three million threes in the rain forest in 30 months, Rainbow warriors will be on his case. If a lunatic starves three million dogs to death and claims that all is fair in warfare, he will be doing more time than Michael Vic. But we are talking about three million lives of innocent fellow Africans genocidized by wanna be leaders! Where is the outrage?
Biko
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 16:28
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Why Obasanjo May Be Heading to Hell
Cornelius Hamelberg
Mighty Biko of Nigeria,
Except for when the library is closed in the summertime, I’ve been going through this alley on average several times a week since 1995.
By genocide, is meant something deliberate, planned, even systematic, and not merely accidental.
In my personal library, I guess that I have some fifty books about The Holocaust...but I still don’t have the stomach to watch documentaries. I tried once, it was about Treblinka - but couldn’t: I haven’t even seen “Schindler’s List”, or “Blood Diamond” (there are several true stories that parallel the events in Blood Diamond) or any of the few hours of bloody footage from the Sierra Leone civil war – I was given live videos of the carnage a thousand times more bloody than Sorious Samura’s “Cry Freetown” - I turned over one such video to our (Sierra Leone) national goalkeeper Kelfala Marrah.
To some extent I’m probably feeling just like you, I know that the anger about justice delayed accumulates and gets worse. It’s not good for the liver or if you have a peptic ulcer. Worse thing I know is watching TV news about Syria, ( personally, I don’t believe that Iran would condone Assad doing a repeat of what Saddam did in Halabja) more heartaches watching atrocities in Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and at the height of the last Intifada, all that bloody footage from Israel.
Here, as elsewhere, I’m making points all the way:
Yeah, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” (The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King) and we all agree.
And it’s yeah again, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
I did say that I intend return to the more serious issue of the Biafra Genocide in my next response to your blog post and I’ll do just that, but would like to transfer all future communication on the Biafra Genocide to another thread heading and not continue under this “Israel and Egypt, how do we begin to compare these two democracies?”
Before we do that I’d just like to clear up some outstanding issues in this thread – just for the record:
1. The cause of my Better Half’s surgery was congenital – her older sister a professor of medicine (same mother and father) had to undergo the same surgery...
2. Basketball was being popularised in Sweden when I worked at the Swedish Basketball Association as a certified youth leader in 1973: our task was to spread the basketball culture. I guess basketball is now being globalised - in my day in Sierra Leone our national sports were football and gentlemen’s cricket (a Commonwealth pastime) my favourite sports were, the English mile, table-tennis and volley ball (more Diaspora news: even in Sweden, which is not a member of the Commonwealth club, the Caribbeans still have their matches and annual Cricket dances).
Having just mentioned the Commonwealth let me ask you: What has Igboland’s outstanding son Emeka Anyaoku said so far about the Biafra Genocide? As a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth he has a very strong advocacy position from which to throw much light on what we are stomping about, right now.
3. You have made a number of religious citations and references which have inevitably activated some pavlovian responses somewhere in me:
A lot of criminologist talk about Lucifer, the devil, Hitler, hell, prayers of repentance, forgiveness (forgive and forget?) – all the bullshit neo-colonial escapist vocabulary about immunity from prosecution, a general amnesty and forgiveness for all ( if you are Christian) all in the name of the blood of Jesus, which gets people off the hook when they should be taking responsibility for their acts of perfidy
You mentioned Ola Rotimi’s “The gods are not to blame” , even the word beatitude is suggestive of the ideals in the Sermon on the Mount versus the realities of the human nature that we are endowed with (part of our mortal flesh) Jacob Neusner in that his long talk, tears it to pieces and Zik himself cannot beat that, but Zik’s beatitude to youths is more practical than that, I’m sure.
Reality: Universal soldier
About Lucifer/ Satan objecting to man being created this is what the Quran says
And about hardness of heart
The Bible tells us about the first murder and it’s still a matter of the victims’ blood and the voice of the Almighty is still saying, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”
Still have one more posting to make on this thread and it’s not about the Biafra Genocide but about other matters arising from your blog post.
Latest update on Israel and Egypt, how do we begin to compare these two democracies?”
Cornelius Hamelberg
Important correction: About Lucifer/ Satan objecting to man being created this is what the Quran says:
Al- Baqarah 29 -38:
“(29) And when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth, they said: Wilt thou place therein one who will do harm therein and will shed blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise and sanctify Thee? He said: Surely I know that which ye know not. (30) And He taught Adam all the names, and then showed them to the angels, saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if ye are truthful. (31) They said: Be glorified! We have no knowledge saving that which Thou hast taught us. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower, the Wise. (32) He said: O Adam! Inform them of their names, and when he had informed them of their names, He said: Did I not tell you that I know the secret of the heavens and the earth? And I know that which ye disclose and which ye hide. (33) And when We said unto the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam, they fell prostrate, all save Iblis. He demurred through pride, and so became a disbeliever. (34) And We said: O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and eat ye freely (of the fruits) thereof where ye will; but come not nigh this tree lest ye become wrong-doers. (35) But Satan caused them to deflect therefrom and expelled them from the (happy) state in which they were; and We said: Fall down, one of you a foe unto the other! There shall be for you on earth a habitation and provision for a time. (36) Then Adam received from his Lord words (of revelation), and He relented toward him. Lo! He is the relenting, the Merciful. (37) We said: Go down, all of you, from hence; but verily there cometh unto you from Me a guidance; and whoso followeth My guidance, there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. (38) But they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.”
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
--
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
Cornelius Hamelberg
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,
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
K. Gozie Ifesinachukwu
Dr. Ogungbemi,
“The Semitic tribes probably have a genetic trait which makes them to be prone to violence or war.”
You can’t be serious. Oh my.
Gozie
Anunoby, Ogugua
“From what I know the Yoruba are not warlike people.”
so
Really?
How did Yoruba kingdoms and empires come about? What sustained them while they lasted? What led to their decline? The Oyo empire was as martial as it was anything else. Ibadan too. Many Yoruba cities started as war camps. The history of the Yoruba is replete with conflicts and wars. There is a long list of Yoruba wars- Egba wars, Ibadan/ijaye wars, Ijesha wars, ijebu wars, Kiriji wars and so on. There was active slave trading in Yoruba land. Wars were a source of slaves. If only everyone knew correct history.
oa
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Segun Ogungbemi
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2013 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ayo Obe
“From what I know the Yoruba are not warlike people.”soReally?How did Yoruba kingdoms and empires come about? What sustained them while they lasted? What led to their decline? The Oyo empire was as martial as it was anything else. Ibadan too. Many Yoruba cities started as war camps. The history of the Yoruba is replete with conflicts and wars. There is a long list of Yoruba wars- Egba wars, Ibadan/ijaye wars, Ijesha wars, ijebu wars, Kiriji wars and so on. There was active slave trading in Yoruba land. Wars were a source of slaves. If only everyone knew correct history.oa
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Segun Ogungbemi
orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk
You really missed it when you say that the Yorubas are not warlike. In a gathering such as this, we need to weigh our utterances. How can a people who are not warlike have one of the most sophisticated armies in sub-sahara Africa? How can they be so organised not only to defend their territory but even to expand it? How were they able to have tributaries all over the place? Where did the title " Areonakankanfo" come from? Did it come from a "siddon look" set of people?
Let me end by saying that of all the ethnic nationalities of West Africa, I don't know any who has fought more wars than the Yoruba. I stand corrected on this. The 19th century wars are testimonies to the fact that at a time in Yorubaland, being a warrior was seen as more dignifying than being a farmer. Ibadan was/is a good example.
Also, look at these names, "Arogunyo" ( he who rejoices with the prospect of war), "Abogunloko" ( he who meets war on his farm) " Sogunro", "Ologunro", "Ologunorisha" etc.
In fact, even if your intention was to say that the Yorubas are not aggressors who fight needlessly, you would still be wrong if you took a closer look at some internecine wars in Yorubaland, Kiriji for example where Ibadan wanted nothing but domination of the Ijesha and Ekiti or the one-day war between the Ijebu and the Colonial masters over control of trade route. The list is endless.
On Nigeria-Biafra war, the fact is that the scars are still very much with us and we can only build a better and stronger nation IF we accept the mistakes of the major actors in that ill-fated war and genuinely work at healing the wounds on both sides. Only when this is done can we lay claim to nationhood.
Have a lovely weekend, all.
TA
Segun Ogungbemi
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okeyiheduru
Sent from my iPhone Okey Iheduru
Folu Ogundimu
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Anunoby, Ogugua
“so” may benefit from observing what Denis Healey, a British Labor politician, described as the first law of holes: if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Akin Ogundiran
Three quick points:
Either statement: "Yoruba are/were warlike" or "Yoruba are/were not warlike" is not accurate. Every society fought wars, and kingdoms and empires more so than small principalities. Of course, the scale of warfare tends to increase as the size and political influence of a polity increase. Hence, Oyo Empire had a more elaborate military machine than any other polity before or after the 17th and 18th century in West Africa south of the Niger but war was only a means to an end for Oyo Empire - conquest in order to open roads for trade and tributes. Hence, in a publication, I referred to Oyo as a trading empire. There were avenues for self realization other than war.
The statement that there was no Yoruba identity before the mid-19th century is another oft-repeated inaccuracy that has assumed a burnished patina of belief only because it has been repeated so often. The "Yoruba" idea preceded the name. Most of the people from the present-day Togo to Benin shared the view (mythic, symbolic, and material) at least from 1300 up to 1830 – before Samuel Johnson Anla Ogun or Ajayi Crowther - that their ancestors originated from one place. Those polities defined themselves in relation to other polities using kinship terms. Archaeological evidence from Ife to Benin supports this idea (and we are still digging!) That did not of course prevent them from coveting each other's land and fighting one another. The German kingdoms did, and the Greeks did. This is not new. You can only fight or be friendly with your neighbor, brother, or sister, not people you do not know even exist. Our analysis of contemporary events would be richer if we pay attention to the deep past history (of course, I am a partisan here).
Returning to the thread that initiated this fascinating dialogue, the issue might have been phrased this way, perhaps as a thesis: People who believe in dogma tend to be more violent, non-tolerant, and unyielding to multiple ways of being (ontologies). These people have however been more successful in spreading their culture and religion than peoples whose ancestral societies did not live by dogma, who believed in multiple ways of being, and were truly cosmopolitan. The later were so confident in their ways that they did not even seek to convert people they conquer. Instead, they were accumulative of diverse beliefs. The tragedy is that such cultures and societies are almost wiped out from the surface of our planet. Dogma has triumphed. Why? I have an hypothesis, but not a proof. This is an issue that we can debate, hopefully as a way of understanding why Africa capitulated to the world of globalization and colonialism, and the dogmas that arrived with them.
Thank you,
Akin Ogundiran
UNC Charlotte
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
Cornelius Hamelberg
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,
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Professor Segun Ogungbemi,
I'm not angry with you.
At least you are confident that Africans “own” North Africa but they “allow” Arabs to live there, I guess just as the big city civilisation Yoruba people own Lagos and environs but they “allow” our Igbo Brethren to live there, in peace and harmony?
However I don’t think that the Muslim Arabs will agree with you that “Africans” (whatever you may mean by term) that the Africans of your imagination “own “ North Africa, since there is an Islamic principle which divides the world into Dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb, and the principle states that if any territory has at any time been conquered by Muslims, then that territory is lawfully a jurisdiction known as dar-al-Islam - not that you will have to “ believe” in such principles or their rationale if you would like to – with the blessings of Ogun, send a military expedition under the command of General Balogun to test the moral and military strength of your claim to “ownership” of “ North Africa” or indeed the Maghreb
From the point of view of these divisions according to al-Islam, it would seem that Sokoto and Zamfara - would be deemed dar-al- Islam, even though this may not be necessarily so under the current federal Constitution of Nigeria which I don’t think recognises any Islamic state under the federal umbrella. Ditto, if the Boko Haram people should one fine day get the upper hand and conquer the valiant Yoruba warriors, thus causing the non-Muslim inhabitants of the Oduduwa dream, including both the Igbo and Yoruba Christian missionary boys and girls to live and die happily as dhimmis under Sharia law in the Yoruba part of the land. Of course this would not disqualify you from “allowing “the Yoruba Caliphate to be established in the territories that “belong” to you/ the Africans / the Yoruba – after all, whether Professor Segun Ogungbemi is a visionary or not, we will always get the leaders we deserve. It does not have to be a bloody conquest; it could easily be a conquest of conversion by conviction: the King of the Khazars for example, converted to Judaism and so did his kingdom. You see the power of peoplehood religion-.
Turning our attention once again to the Middle East and the descendants of the children of Abraham ,the people you believe belong to the same Semitic tribes, it so happens that the Ishmaelite/ Arabs now have twenty- two State and want to deny their Bothers/ cousins the Jews, the right to have a Jewish State..
Before I bring your attention to some of the Muslim scholars who say that the Quran testifies that Israel belongs to the Jews, I should just like to warm you up by bringing this to your attention: the contention that your best friends the Igbo are one of the lost tribes of Israel.
You have to tread gently Professor lest you be charged with anti-Semitism.IN any case, I’m sure that our Igbo brothers and sisters would put up a greater resistance to the idea of the Anambra caliphate than would be expected of the Yoruba, to such an idea., but please correct me if I’m wrong about that too.
This going to be an interesting discussion and since I’m depending on the attributes of which you speak “rational human beings with moral sense and values for life and existence” your rationality, your humanity and the moral high ground on which you stand, I hope that after a few more exchanges you will be completely with me or with those the Muslim call the Kuffar or the mushrikeen
As an art lover please check her out, if you haven’t already done so: Olayinka Burney-Nicol .
I have some of her etchings, lino cuts and an enormous painting she dedicated to My Better half and me when we got married
Sincerely,
Cornelius Hamelberg
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)