Coronavirus: Africa needs knowledge
Toyin Falola
With over 2000 cases of Coronavirus in Africa, it is time to repeat that my people, especially scholars, must promote knowledge.
So many silly ideas have been made that should not be associated with people who go to school:
- Africa is immune because of hot weather. Yet, you see a Coronavirus case in Burkina Faso close to the desert edge. Will serious-minded people not revise their theories?
- Pepper soup cures most things. I heard this from as senior a person as a federal permanent secretary. How can someone who formulates and implements policy for a country of 200 million people say this kind of nonsense? I never use the words “stupid,” “dumb”, “fools” for anyone, as I am not their Creator, but I only appeal that we should honor God for giving us intelligence.
- God is in control. Yes, and you and I need forces greater than us so that we don’t cannibalize one another and cook human flesh for dinner, but God does not ask us not to process and use knowledge. Faith and mind, spiritual and secular realms, etc. are actually balanced in the Holy Books. Stop misapplying statements made centuries ago.
- God will save us from everything. God listens to prayers, and I thank Him for that, but what God will not do for you and I are so many. God can do anything, my people say, and I reply: “What God will not do is the real issue.” I am not denying Him His infinite capabilities to do everything, I am just appreciating His sense of balance and proportion to refuse to do everything.
- Africa is not a home of viruses. Nonsense. We have always had both domestic and imported ones. Virus cults developed in virtually all parts of the continent with their local names. The Yoruba worshipped Sonpona, the cult of smallpox virus.
- Let us be part of the world of science and technology, while not demeaning people of faith. Indeed, I feel offended when people insult people of faith.
- Ideas expressed by some educated people have led to dangerous beliefs that you can rape a teenager to cure your AIDS; if you shower after sex with a patient with HIV you are save; you can use human organs for money rituals, you can eat human testicles to live long and stay in power. If you have cancer, look for the handkerchief of Adeboye. If you are about to die, collect the sweat of Oyedepo. And today, they ask you to eat grass and you do so; in church, they ask you to undress and display your pants so that you can get a husband and you oblige; they ask you to drink Detol and you do; the pastor sleeps with mother and daughter and they accept it, etc. Those who behave like this, who think like this, etc. should surrender themselves to be chained and chained and sent back to school.
Knowledge is important.
TF
Gbolahan Gbadamosi
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (With over 2000 cases of Coronavirus in Africa, it is time to repeat that my people, especially scholars, must promote knowledge.
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 9:06 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cornelius Hamelberg
Apart from crazy ideas about super and natural divine cures such as black skins and hot weather, hot pepper soup ( the Kru sure believe in that panacea for all evils) it’s not only Africans that must constantly be on their guard against the ever-present danger of apostles such as Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, for the simple reason, that in many parts of Africa where credulity goes hand in hand with illiteracy and superstition, people are prone to believing anything, provided the purveyor of the nonsense is a doctor ( Ph.D., M.D. or D.D.) - and to accept as “God’s truth” “ God’s Word” and “God’s Last Will and Testament” whatever is written on any piece of paper, preferably in some European language, or Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Quranic Arabic or Sanskrit from which they can quote profusely, at their own convenience citing whole chapters and verses which they mostly misinterpret or invoke in support of whatever they want to persuade their gullible 21st-century disciples to believe and say, “It’s written here. God said so! And remember, The Truth will set you Free!”
Take heed: Devarim 18: 20:
“But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.”
With all due respect, but when Pastor Adeboye guarantees Divinely sanctioned Immunity by merely quoting some verses of the Bible in support of his thesis that no member of his Congregation “ the Redeemed Christian Church of God” will be infected by the Coronavirus, unbelieving Thomas advises you to take what the pastor says with some Cayenne pepper and a pinch of salt. Of course, if he is not an Unbelieving Thomas, then he could join the “The Redeemed Christian Church of God “ and claim the immunity promised by Pastor Adeboye. Ditto, all the endangered species at Aso Rock
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