Nigerian Taliban leader killed in custody

THE RISE OF BOKO HARAM IN NIGERIA

September 26, 2011

Author(s): David Cook

Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point

Articulation of ideology of religious violence

Nigeria's 'Taliban' plot comeback from hide-outs

11 Jan 2006

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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segun ogungbemi

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Murder a 90 years women because she was alleged to be a 'witch'? What did government do to those who killed her?

There should be a thorough investigation and severe punishment for the dastardly act.

Segun.

On Sun, Aug 2, 2020, 8:55 AM Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Akua Denteh: Last 'witch' to be murdered in Ghana?

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Akua-Denteh-Last-witch-to-be-murdered-in-Ghana-1023577

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Murdered a 90 years women because she was alleged to be a 'witch'? What did government do to those who killed her?

There should be a thorough investigation and severe punishment for the dastardly act.

Segun.

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 3, 2020, 10:00:22 AM8/3/20

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Roots of Witchcraft Belief in Africa

As is obvious from the news report, the key matrix of witchcraft belief in the context in question is traditional African spirituality, not Pentecostalism.

Pentecostalism, however, adapts some of the crudest aspects of traditional African beliefs and has little or no roots for refinement of those beliefs, as far as I know but the native spiritualities have.

The Yoruba Example and its Complexity

In Yoruba culture, for example, as in the Ghanaian context in the essay, the roots of witchcraft belief are in the native culture itself.

This belief, in the Yoruba context, combines the celebratory and the demonising in relation to women.

It is a very rich complex of ideas in need of refinement, mobilisation and direction and I pray I am able to play a role in this task.

Questions of Terminology and its Metaphysical Implications

Some argue that the translation of the Yoruba terms ''iyami'', ''our mothers'' and ''aje'' into the Western term ''witch'' is non-factual bcs the Yoruba terms are not necessarily negative.

This is not completely correct bcs correlates between the female demonising aspect of pre-modern Western witchcraft beliefs and the female celebrating character of modern Western witchcraft beliefs are both found in Yoruba thought.

Thus the term ''witch'' is a fit translation of the feminine/maternal/nurturing and creative/destructive complex of ideas represented by this spirituality from Yorubaland.

Why the focus on women in pre-modern Western witchcraft and its ideational correlates in Africa?

Metaphysical Interpretations of Feminine Biology in the Yoruba Context

In the classical Yoruba context, it is related to ideas about female biology and its psychological and spiritual correlates, ideas of genital concealment in relation to capacity for secrecy, of unique embodiment of the power to gestate and deliver new life and thus the ability to negatively reshape and destroy life.

Hence the feminine principle, represented by women visible and invisible, ''iyami'' ''our mothers,'' motherhood perceived in a sense both conventionally maternal and arcane, biological and occult, is understood as central to the polity in general and even to the male dominated monarchy, yet this complex also enables the demonisation of women as embodiments of the irrational expression of this principle in terms of the bloodthirsty side of the iyami and aje.

Between Refinement and Elimination of Problematic or Dangerous Beliefs

Clearly, there is a rich body of ideas here that can be refined of misogyny, of superstition, of self contradiction, developed in terms of precise but imaginatively evocative metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.

What are the conceptual contexts shaping the Ghanaian understanding of what is being translated as witchcraft? I dont know.

Should these ideas, wherever they are from, as long as they lead to death and abuse of the vulnerable, specifically women and children-yes-children are left to die bcs of witchcraft accusations-be eliminated or refined?

Is There Any Truth in Witchcraft Beliefs?

I am very interested in knowing more about the conference described by Obododimma in which self professed witches showed up with brooms. I am particularly curious about it bcs its described as a pan-African conference, my curiosity further fueled by the fact that the image of the witch on a broom is an image from Western folklore which even modern Western witches do not identify with except as imagative depictions from a pre-modern era.

It is possible, as I have experienced, and as many have described in carefully documented accounts of first hand experiences in various contexts, for the human mind/spirit to travel outside the body as is alleged for witches but of course, its not done with brooms bcs its not a physical motion.

There is also a basis in reality for the belief that witches can congregate in trees, bcs some trees emit an energy that facilitates entry into another dimension, as I have experienced. Another idea that needs refinement and adequate interpretation.

Between Objective and Subjective Knowledge in Witchcraft Beliefs as a Subset in Belief in the Supernatural

Should the focus also be on convincing people that only knowledge backed by evidence is adequate, as the writer of of the article argues, describing that as vital for demonstrating the non-factuality of claims of misfortune caused by witches and thus disabusing people's minds of the erroneous belief in the existence of witches in the first place?

I expect beliefs in spiritual powers will always be with us bcs these powers exist as fundamental to human nature, experienced in different ways by various people and understood and responded to variously by different people.

The human being also needs sensitivity to the idea that the universe transcends mechanical laws of cause and effect and is not locked within the quotidian limitations of the everyday universe of space, time, the office, the school etc, the social frameworks that enable civilization remain stable and progress.

The Western Example in Eliminating Anti-Witchcraft Ideas and the Development of Modern Western Witchcraft

England dealt with the problem of witchcraft accusations as a means of persecution by banning any expression of belief in witchcraft. That stopped the witch murders, some of them being massacres of groups of women, of various ages, young, middle aged and old.

It was also terrible in the US, as in the infamous judicial massacre directed at women known as the Salem Witch Trials.

The anti-witch culture in Europe was so deeply institutionalized in its virulence, it bred its own unique literature, exemplified by the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches, a book which described how to identify a witch.

On the lifting of the Witchcraft Act in England, Gerald Gardner initiated what is now known as modern Western witcraft, one of the fastest growing of the world's new religions.

He claimed descent from a traditional witcraft coven, existing underground before the repeal of the Act, but his claim is disputed, the verdict being divided on whether witchcraft actually existed before the modern open development.

What Are the Realities of Pentecostalism?

Pentecostalism, a spirituality that deeply influenced me, as others also have, is essentially beyond the economic and superstitious crudities into which it too often degenerates.

As its name implies, it is centred in the descent of divine power at Pentecost, enabling a distinctive relationship between the individual, any group so energised and the creator of the universe.

The economizing of this relationship-except in the sharing of goods in a communal spirit as was done by the early apostles- and its use as a tool of superstition, dehumanisation and cultural destruction, is ideally not part of its mandate.

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Obododimma Oha

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Toyin,

Sorry for this later addition : it was a conference of the Pan-African Association of Anthropologists (PAAA).

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Obododimma.

On Monday, August 3, 2020, Obododimma Oha <obod...@gmail.com> wrote:

Toyin,
Thank you for the long explanation. Obviously, one has learnt more about witchcraft in Africa. The conference that I mentioned was an anthropology one anchored by Prof. Paul Nchoji Nkwi. It was held some years ago and I doubt that I could reach the major papers and some photographs. One is struggling to decongest now, you know.

I don't know why the witches carried a Western stereotype of the symbolization of witchcraft. Maybe they did not even see that (the broom) as negative. It was obvious that they tried to reconstruct witchcraft and to allow people to think of the good sides.

Sincerely,
Obododimma.

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Obododimma Oha

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Toyin,

Thank you for the long explanation. Obviously, one has learnt more about witchcraft in Africa. The conference that I mentioned was an anthropology one anchored by Prof. Paul Nchoji Nkwi. It was held some years ago and I doubt that I could reach the major papers and some photographs. One is struggling to decongest now, you know.

I don't know why the witches carried a Western stereotype of the symbolization of witchcraft. Maybe they did not even see that (the broom) as negative. It was obvious that they tried to reconstruct witchcraft and to allow people to think of the good sides.

Sincerely,

Obododimma.

On Monday, August 3, 2020, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

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Obododimma Oha

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Toyin,

Sorry for this later addition : it was a conference of the Pan-African Association of Anthropologists (PAAA).

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Obododimma.

Obododimma Oha

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Been thinking of analogue witchcraft and digital witchcraft. While I feel horrified by this killing, I think those in witchcraft should upgrade their technology. Why are they still flying with the aid of the broom? That's old tech! Broom is not just imperialistic. It is outdated!

Michael Afolayan

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Aug 4, 2020, 6:46:10 AM8/4/20

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Schools and palaces are among the agencies perpetrating this horrendous crime against humanity. It's the foundation on which our warped understanding of aging is. The woman simply suffered dementia (I am 95% sure). My Nigerian friend in America takes care of folks like that for a living. He and I often talk about the fact that if those folks were to be in Africa, especially the women, they would be accused of witchcraft and stoned to death; the men in thee group would most likely go scot-free!

Edward Kissi: I think a more feasible and immediate action could be proposed here. Why not find some human rights group in Canada, United States, England or anywhere in Europe that would drag the Ghanaian government to court for human rights abuses based purely on this case, doing so through the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights? The first step may be getting in touch with the members of the family of this woman (and who knows, they too may even be accessories to the crime and among those stoning her). It might even lead to joint actions of other Ghanaian families whose grandmas and great-grandmas have been subjected to similar humiliations and extra-judicial executions! And, you never could tell, it might be the beginning of a cultural revolution across Africa.

What a glowing tribute that would be to the unfair treatment and blood-sacrifice of an innocent nonagenarian!

Michael O. Afoláyan

(In sackcloth and ashes)

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 4, 2020, 10:36:56 AM8/4/20

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thanks Obododimma.

Nigerian witchcraft belief, as an African example, has always been more significantly abstract than the broom image, being focused on the idea of the motion of spirit.The material aspect has been the belief in witches moving as birds, a view which looks to me as largely superstitious.

Modern Western witchcraft has a carefully worked out interpretation of the flying idea.

An aspect of it is called hedge riding, using a hedge as a metaphor for a dividing line between physical and non-physical realities.

On digital witchcraft, a good entry into Western magic is the Internet, including social media.

In terms of Western magic in its more benign and less benign aspects, a good window is Robin Lucas, who, in her identity as Occult Kitten, has created and runs Facebook groups that cover a broad spectrum of topics and practical magical techniques, from Satan's Sex Kitten to Maledictions and Apotheosis.

One could also see the Grand Priestess of Gehenna, who specializes in " priestess practices, occult ceremonies, infernal/ Hell occult practices and infernal witchcraft.''

The infernal/demonic/Satanic rose in Western magic after the more conventional forms of spirituality pioneered by the 19th and early 20th century trailblazers of Western magic, a side prefigured, however, by the eclectic explorations of the polymathic Aleister Crowley, a book on whom I reviewed.

Such more conventional forms include Gardnerian and Alexandrian Witchcraft.

One could join A Sanctuary for Real Vampires, and interact with people who describe themselves as needing human blood or human energy to sustain themselves.This group contains really nice people, very rational and open to their beliefs being discussed outside the group.I saw there this piece on the vampire community titled Victimisation in the Vampire Community from the public group VCN - Vampire Community News, a document also accessible outside Facebook.

These are not the kind of vampires in films who steal blood from others. In the vampire community, they have a culture of people who donate their own blood to help sustain the person who needs it.

In sum, the spiritual, the unusual, the occult, is very strong in the West. It is related differently than in Africa, that being the difference.

A very good book on the scope and development of modern Western magic is Neville Drury's Stealing Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic which I reviewed here, while Ronald Hutton's classic The Triumph of the Moon : A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft is superb both in its general history of Western magic and its central subject, although the scope of validity in his conviction of modern witchcraft as an invention by its founders is disputed by some witches.

I was so happy arriving at the University of Kent in 2003 to find people openly declaring their witchcraft/ Pagan beliefs. The religion dept even had a course on the theory and practice of divination within a fantastic MA in Mysticism and Religious Experience.

I got huge encouragement in my time there and at SOAS shortly after, to plunge deeply, in an intellectual sense or the filtering of the spiritual through the intellectual, into my work on Ifa and Western spirituality. That was where my journey at the intersection of scholarship and spirituality began in earnest.

thanks

toyin

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Gloria Emeagwali

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Aug 4, 2020, 10:36:58 AM8/4/20

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This is a horrendous act generated by ageism, ignorance of the biology of ageing, misogyny, fear of the known and the unknown, and an overall lack of respect for senior citizens at this juncture. I am not sure that the state can be sued except symbolically, but the symbolism may have an impact.

Weeding out the negative aspects of

African traditions and belief systems, and preserving the many positive aspects, is the challenge for researchers, individuals, the community and the state.

GE

gloriaemeagwali.com

On Aug 4, 2020, at 06:46, 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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Michael Afolayan

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Aug 4, 2020, 1:18:51 PM8/4/20

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Murder is murder. All perpetrators must pay for it. It is even worse in the case of a ninety-something year old woman who, instead of being held in dignity and celebrated, which her life deserved, was desecrated with such heinous crime and countercultural impunity!

Having said that, I am really not sure if the translation "Witchcraft" as understood in the West is the same as we conceptualize it in Africa. The Yoruba, for example, have two categories of Àję, both of whom are culturally presumed to be women - the good ones and the evil ones. Not much is said about the good ones except that all women are supposed to be good àję if their children are doing quite well, their husbands are making progress exceptionally, and everything is going well for the family. An exceptionally brilliant fellow has what they call "àję ìwé," which would classify them also as àję. I've heard folks tell me that TF must be an àję; but being a man, he would not qualify to be stoned to death, even if the àję is a bad one; instead, they would say it must be the mother who rubbed on him the potion of her good àję spirit.

The Ifa literary corpus does not help in the epistemology of the subject. It dedicates a whole Odu to the cult of Àję, and that Odù is called "Òsá Eleye." In it, àję, called "Eleye" (fellows with the bird spirit) are bad and so are categorized among the malevolent spirits when the gods were descending into Ayé (the human abode). It even provides a myth of mortal confrontation between Ikú (Death) and a convoy of Àję. They are called "Ìyà Mi" (noticed the tone on the word "Ìyà" (oppression) which separates it from the word Ìyá (mother). Being malevolent spirits, they are hailed in negative tones of cannibals who feast on human flesh, a fact that must have in a way contributed to their castigation in various Yoruba societies:

Ìyà Mi, Osoronga

Ojiji fùú

Arogba aso má balę;

Awon ajapa-jori

Ajora-joronro

Ajefun eeyan ma bi

(Ìyà Mi, Osoronga

The unseen shadow

One who wears 200 clothes and they remain skimpy on her;

Those who feed on arms and heads

Those who feed on fat and gull

Those who eat human entrails without throwing up)

I agree, even our belief system has to be evaluated and reconstructed. When all is said and done, it would always amount to killing an elderly woman who is experiencing a gerontological process of life! And by the way, From what I heard from mommy Dad, the worst of this crime among the Yoruba was perpetrated in the early 1950s during the Ghanaian Atinga (Nana Tinga) Drive, the wave of which traveled across the Coast of West Africa and hundreds of women were accused of being Àję and murdered. Historians may shed somme light on this episode.

Michael O. Afoláyan

===

.

Obododimma Oha

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Aug 4, 2020, 2:45:16 PM8/4/20

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On a more serious note, please, Ghana, was this "killing" of a very old woman from a scene in one of your films ("Ghanawood") or for real?

I can't imagine that happening to my grandma!

-- Obododimma.

On Tuesday, August 4, 2020, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

This is a horrendous act generated by ageism, ignorance of the biology of ageing, misogyny, fear of the known and the unknown, and an overall lack of respect for senior citizens at this juncture. I am not sure that the state can be sued except symbolically, but the symbolism may have an impact.

Weeding out the negative aspects of
African traditions and belief systems, and preserving the many positive aspects, is the challenge for researchers, individuals, the community and the state.

GE

gloriaemeagwali.com

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Elias K. Bongmba

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Aug 4, 2020, 2:45:16 PM8/4/20

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Thank you Michael for this statement. The other image of TF is that he is a modern day apostle.

Elias

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 4, 2020, 2:45:19 PM8/4/20

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Thanks Michael Afolayan.

This rendition of iyami is new to me.

All authorities I have come across before now do not interpret the term as ''My oppression'' but as 'My/Our mother/s''.

Could you throw light on this difference, particularly since the motherhood motif, in relation to female spiritual power, is strategic to the classical understanding of the foundations of Yoruba polity and even to the power of the monarchy, as described by such works as those of Abiodun, Lawal, the Drewals and others?

Ifa depicts aje in both positive and negative terms but the negative seems to be dominant in the ese ifa, Ifa literature ive seen so far.

A particularly powerful positive depiction of aje in ese ifa is one quoted by Abiodun in an essay on the goddess Osun, in which it is stated that ''all women are aje and Osun is aje'', Osun being a particularly honoured deity.

Hallen and Sodipo's Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft, if I recall correctly, interviews Yoruba onisegun, a particular class of spiritual practitioners, who describe themselves as aje, but state they keep the information to themselves for fear of reprisals.

The iyami/aje concepts, like a number of spiritual beliefs, particularly in a situation of inadequate development of theological consistency, as this one, may be said to range from the inchoate and contradictory to the more sophisticated.

thanks

toyin

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 4, 2020, 11:16:19 PM8/4/20

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On Who Can Be Successfully Accused of Malignant Witchcraft

Obododimma wonders if the story comes from a fictional film and states he can't imagine his grandmother suffering the fate of Akua Denteh. Afolayan states that a Yoruba woman remains ''good'' aje as long as her children and husband are thriving.

Obododimma's response might suggest that among his native Igbo people, belief constructs and their social implications akin to ideas of malignant witchcraft, particularly directed at women, might not be common.

His reference to himself and his grandmother, Afolayan's reference to the staving off of suspicion agst a Yoruba woman by the well being of those close to her and Farooq's description of the young man who beat up the spiritual specialist accusing his father of being an evil sorcerer, all suggest the question of the immediate family relationships that influence the possibility of negative witchcraft accusations and the likelihood of these accusations being sustained and acted upon if they emerge in the first place.

Illuminating these questions is story told by a Yoruba female friend on Facebook, in which her mother entered into an unusual mental state in which she was describing herself as assuming the identity of a cat.

Shape shifting-the technical term in Western magic-into a cat or having a cat as a familiar-another Western term-a spiritual intimate, is one of the characterizations of witches in their feminine identity in the Nigerian and pre-modern and modern Western contexts, in terms of both magical practice and imaginative literary construction in the West, although the contemporary Western witchcraft practice is likely to bypass the idea of being able to transform oneself into a cat.

Temi and her family concluded that their mother was delirious and had her treated.

The mother of pioneering European astronomer Johannes Kepler was accused of being a witch, an accusation reinforced by the testimony of neighbors and close associates, possibly further empowered by her own lifestyle that may have suggested to even later writers a much less than positive orientation, an accusation that, in her 1615 Germany meant a serious trial, possibly involving torture, and, if found guilty, death.

In a trial lasting six years, in part of which his mothers was imprisoned, Kepler mobilized the full arsenal of his intellectual skills in getting his mother acquitted agst the verdict of the judicial authorities who had declared her guilty, a story dramatically told by Ulinka Rublack in The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother and distilled in the delightful account in CAM, Cambridge Alumni Magazine, 78, Easter 2016.

Thanks

toyin

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 5, 2020, 1:10:54 PM8/5/20

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Ìyà does not mean oppression in 'Ìyà mi Osoronga' It is the ara oke ( Yoruba northerner' originary dialect variant of what the Òyò call Ìyá ( mother.)

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Date: 05/08/2020 04:17 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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On Who Can Be Successfully Accused of Malignant Witchcraft

Obododimma wonders if the story comes from a fictional film and states he can't imagine his grandmother suffering the fate of Akua Denteh. Afolayan states that a Yoruba woman remains ''good'' aje as long as her children and husband are thriving.

Obododimma's response might suggest that among his native Igbo people, belief constructs and their social implications akin to ideas of malignant witchcraft, particularly directed at women, might not be common.

His reference to himself and his grandmother, Afolayan's reference to the staving off of suspicion agst a Yoruba woman by the well being of those close to her and Farooq's description of the young man who beat up the spiritual specialist accusing his father of being an evil sorcerer, all suggest the question of the immediate family relationships that influence the possibility of negative witchcraft accusations and the likelihood of these accusations being sustained and acted upon if they emerge in the first place.

Illuminating these questions is story told by a Yoruba female friend on Facebook, in which her mother entered into an unusual mental state in which she was describing herself as assuming the identity of a cat.

Shape shifting-the technical term in Western magic-into a cat or having a cat as a familiar-another Western term-a spiritual intimate, is one of the characterizations of witches in their feminine identity in the Nigerian and pre-modern and modern Western contexts, in terms of both magical practice and imaginative literary construction in the West, although the contemporary Western witchcraft practice is likely to bypass the idea of being able to transform oneself into a cat.

Temi and her family concluded that their mother was delirious and had her treated.

The mother of pioneering European astronomer Johannes Kepler was accused of being a witch, an accusation reinforced by the testimony of neighbors and close associates, possibly further empowered by her own lifestyle that may have suggested to even later writers a much less than positive orientation, an accusation that, in her 1615 Germany meant a serious trial, possibly involving torture, and, if found guilty, death.

In a trial lasting six years, in part of which his mothers was imprisoned, Kepler mobilized the full arsenal of his intellectual skills in getting his mother acquitted agst the verdict of the judicial authorities who had declared her guilty, a story dramatically told by Ulinka Rublack in The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother and distilled in the delightful account in CAM, Cambridge Alumni Magazine, 78, Easter 2016.

Thanks

toyin

On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 at 19:45, Elias K. Bongmba <bon...@rice.edu> wrote:

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 5, 2020, 1:35:14 PM8/5/20

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MOA:

Ifá is only being faithful to reality.

The most potent force in the universe belongs to women. This power can be used for good or for evil. This is why the Yoruba say:

Òrìşà bí ìyá òsì, ìya làbà sìn, iya l ba bo. ( No deity compares to a mother; we should worship and propitiate mothers.)

The positive force of mothers is represented in Soyinka's Madmen and Specialists as Ìyá Mátę (Gracious Mother) whose counsel was sought in the resolution of the tragedy of the war.

It is not for nothing that the first deities in most human civilizations are fertility goddesses; Èşu the Ifá deity is one of them.

OAA

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Date: 04/08/2020 18:24 (GMT+00:00)

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Murder is murder. All perpetrators must pay for it. It is even worse in the case of a ninety-something year old woman who, instead of being held in dignity and celebrated, which her life deserved, was desecrated with such heinous crime and countercultural impunity!

Having said that, I am really not sure if the translation "Witchcraft" as understood in the West is the same as we conceptualize it in Africa. The Yoruba, for example, have two categories of Àję, both of whom are culturally presumed to be women - the good ones and the evil ones. Not much is said about the good ones except that all women are supposed to be good àję if their children are doing quite well, their husbands are making progress exceptionally, and everything is going well for the family. An exceptionally brilliant fellow has what they call "àję ìwé," which would classify them also as àję. I've heard folks tell me that TF must be an àję; but being a man, he would not qualify to be stoned to death, even if the àję is a bad one; instead, they would say it must be the mother who rubbed on him the potion of her good àję spirit.

The Ifa literary corpus does not help in the epistemology of the subject. It dedicates a whole Odu to the cult of Àję, and that Odù is called "Òsá Eleye." In it, àję, called "Eleye" (fellows with the bird spirit) are bad and so are categorized among the malevolent spirits when the gods were descending into Ayé (the human abode). It even provides a myth of mortal confrontation between Ikú (Death) and a convoy of Àję. They are called "Ìyà Mi" (noticed the tone on the word "Ìyà" (oppression) which separates it from the word Ìyá (mother). Being malevolent spirits, they are hailed in negative tones of cannibals who feast on human flesh, a fact that must have in a way contributed to their castigation in various Yoruba societies:

Ìyà Mi, Osoronga

Ojiji fùú

Arogba aso má balę;

Awon ajapa-jori

Ajora-joronro

Ajefun eeyan ma bi

(Ìyà Mi, Osoronga

The unseen shadow

One who wears 200 clothes and they remain skimpy on her;

Those who feed on arms and heads

Those who feed on fat and gull

Those who eat human entrails without throwing up)

I agree, even our belief system has to be evaluated and reconstructed. When all is said and done, it would always amount to killing an elderly woman who is experiencing a gerontological process of life! And by the way, From what I heard from mommy Dad, the worst of this crime among the Yoruba was perpetrated in the early 1950s during the Ghanaian Atinga (Nana Tinga) Drive, the wave of which traveled across the Coast of West Africa and hundreds of women were accused of being Àję and murdered. Historians may shed somme light on this episode.

Michael O. Afoláyan

===

On Tuesday, August 4, 2020, 10:36:58 AM EDT, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

.

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 5, 2020, 4:05:28 PM8/5/20

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''Ifá is only being faithful to reality.

The most potent force in the universe belongs to women. This power can be used for good or for evil.''

OAA

Really?

Reality represented by bloodthirsty, irrationally destructive creatures feeding on human limbs and entrails?

Misogyny is misogyny.

If the Ifa composers wanted to visualize a balance of good and evil, why that extreme?

Why is it that in this landscape of terrible evil, its women alone who are so represented?

Why is there no corresponding male group in Ifa literature like the feminine aje, a group who dramatized the evil that men do?

Very beautiful- ''Òrìşà bí ìyá òsì, ìya làbà sìn, iya l ba bo. ( No deity compares to a mother; we should worship and propitiate mothers.)''

Yet, the image of dangerous occult mothers, of the kind that ''kills her husband while pitying him'', as quoted in one of Drewal's essays on Gelede, is central to this institution which celebrates these same mothers.

A tension between the appreciation ad fear/denigration of the feminine.

thanks

toyin

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Michael Afolayan

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Aug 5, 2020, 4:47:00 PM8/5/20

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Toyin Adepoju:

Your comment duly acknowledged and appreciated.

I really do not have the expertise on the subject of Àję in the Yoruba thought system. But this much I can say, it cannot be the same thing as what we have been referring to in the general theme of witches, witchcraft, wicker, etc. Such level of interpretation would not be different from when some are equating "Èsù" in the pantheon of Yoruba Òrìšà to Satan of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

As you know, wickers are a religious order in the US. Indeed, the State Chaplain for Wisconsin Prison System in 2001 was a woman by the name Jamyi Witch, who professed to be a witch, and when she interviewed for the job and they asked for her faith, she said it was Wicker. No Yoruba. "Àję" would have the audacity to make such declaration. I recall vividly when Dr. Okediji, the Professor of Art History at UT-Texas was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he once showed me a building in Madison, located on a street called Williamson, which he said was the meeting place for the witches. It was a beautiful glass building decorated with all sorts of paintwork and artifacts. I saw people coming in and out of the building routinely. I knew that could not have been the same concept of Yoruba "Àję" they were talking about because that place was too open - no secret or sacredness attached to it. The Yoruba Àję activities were supposed to be nocturnal.

In the city called Mount Horeb, a suburban town south of Madison, Wisconsin, witches are the town's symbol. The central downtown main monument is a huge obelisk of a huge woman with a jumbo nose, sitting on a mega broom. Every house in town has that symbol fixed into the frontside. It didn't take me long to say this could not have been the same as the Yoruba "Àję." St. Paul, Minnesota as well as Salem, Massachusetts are also known for their witch/wicker histories and traditions.

Òtà in Ogun State is the only Yoruba town called ìlú àję" (àję's town), which is more of a nickname than a functional nomenclature. NO one in town ever parades himself or herself to be an "àję." Now, to briefly address your concern (excuse me if others have done that already). . .

"Ìyà mi" (d:d:r) in Yoruba means anything in the semantic range of "My oppression, my suffering, my pain, etc." I am not familiar with Alagba Agbetuyi's reference. I would like to know the northern Yoruba dialects where they refer to "my mother" as "ìyà mi." It is not impossible, I just haven't heard it. It would be an interesting phonological investigation. I am seriously not familiar with those dialects and if anyone finds out, please do let. me know.

"Ìyá Mi" (d:m:r) in Yoruba simply means "My Mother."

As a tone-language, the Yoruba language sometimes uses tonal variations to deliberately create an antithesis. This is exactly what I think happens here. it's true that many translate "Ìyà Mi"as "My Mother" (even Professor Wande Abimbola did so in Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa) but then he explains it as an expression of parody, a pure caricature of "My Mother." it is a mirror image or fake mother.

That àję is generally cast in negative light is quite true. In the context of Yoruba rhetoric, is a popular Yoruba proverb that, "Àję ké lánàá, omo kú lónìí, taa ni ò mò pé àję àná l'ó pa omo ję?"

(The Àjé cried out yesterday and the baby died today, who would doubt that it was the àję of yesterday that killed the baby?). There is always the epic battle between the f forces of good, and the forces of evil, including àwon ajogun, which is another name for "Àwon "Ìyà mi" as well as other forces like ikú (death), àrùn (disease), òfò (loss), ęwòn (bondage/prison), èse (accident), etc

And by the way, the concept of "Ìyà" (oppression, ordeal, challenges, pain) may not be totally negative in Yoruba all the time. For example, Ifa gives the folk etymology for the word "Ìyàwó" (Wife) as "Ìyà Ìwó" (the ordeal, suffering that Orunmila endured in the legendary town of Iwo), saying "Ìyà ti Orunmmila ję ní Ìwó l'ó b'áko, l'ó b'ábo" (It was the ordeal that orunmila endured in Ìwó that gave birth to male and female offsprings).

Honestly, the Àję 'theology", as you nicely christened it, is a novel idea to me, and is poles away from my area of interest but I appreciate your interest, insistence, and inquisitive quest for epistemic investigation of the mystical.

Kú isę o!

MOA

===

I agree, even our belief system has to be evaluated and reconstructed. When all is said and done, it would always amount to killing an elderly woman who is experiencing a gerontological process of life! And by the way, from what I heard from my Dad, the worst of this crime among the Yoruba was perpetrated in the early 1950s during the Ghanaian Atinga (Nana Tinga) Drive, the wave of which traveled across the Coast of West Africa and hundreds of women were accused of being Àję and murdered. Historians may shed some light on this episode.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTSB3qkFM_6X7yrvovbXdrTPgjuiVwD59AwMO9fnM1QZaA%40mail.gmail.com.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 5, 2020, 7:29:30 PM8/5/20

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Alagba MOA:

If you accept that Ìyáà mii re in Ibadan dialect ( I grew up in Ibadan and Mr Moderator knows what Im talking about ) is not the same dialect as a Lagosian's Ìyá mi then the ará oke dialect should not be a surprise that it coincides with another homophone meaning oppression but they are different in signification.

There is another rendition. The I jeşa/Ekiti may say èyé re ( his/ her mother) they may also say èyè mi ( different tonality same word: my mother) depending on the context.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 05/08/2020 21:49 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Toyin Adepoju:

Your comment duly acknowledged and appreciated.

I really do not have the expertise on the subject of Àję in the Yoruba thought system. But this much I can say, it cannot be the same thing as what we have been referring to in the general theme of witches, witchcraft, wicker, etc. Such level of interpretation would not be different from when some are equating "Èsù" in the pantheon of Yoruba Òrìšà to Satan of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

As you know, wickers are a religious order in the US. Indeed, the State Chaplain for Wisconsin Prison System in 2001 was a woman by the name Jamyi Witch, who professed to be a witch, and when she interviewed for the job and they asked for her faith, she said it was Wicker. No Yoruba. "Àję" would have the audacity to make such declaration. I recall vividly when Dr. Okediji, the Professor of Art History at UT-Texas was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he once showed me a building in Madison, located on a street called Williamson, which he said was the meeting place for the witches. It was a beautiful glass building decorated with all sorts of paintwork and artifacts. I saw people coming in and out of the building routinely. I knew that could not have been the same concept of Yoruba "Àję" they were talking about because that place was too open - no secret or sacredness attached to it. The Yoruba Àję activities were supposed to be nocturnal.

In the city called Mount Horeb, a suburban town south of Madison, Wisconsin, witches are the town's symbol. The central downtown main monument is a huge obelisk of a huge woman with a jumbo nose, sitting on a mega broom. Every house in town has that symbol fixed into the frontside. It didn't take me long to say this could not have been the same as the Yoruba "Àję." St. Paul, Minnesota as well as Salem, Massachusetts are also known for their witch/wicker histories and traditions.

Òtà in Ogun State is the only Yoruba town called ìlú àję" (àję's town), which is more of a nickname than a functional nomenclature. NO one in town ever parades himself or herself to be an "àję." Now, to briefly address your concern (excuse me if others have done that already). . .

"Ìyà mi" (d:d:r) in Yoruba means anything in the semantic range of "My oppression, my suffering, my pain, etc." I am not familiar with Alagba Agbetuyi's reference. I would like to know the northern Yoruba dialects where they refer to "my mother" as "ìyà mi." It is not impossible, I just haven't heard it. It would be an interesting phonological investigation. I am seriously not familiar with those dialects and if anyone finds out, please do let. me know.

"Ìyá Mi" (d:m:r) in Yoruba simply means "My Mother."

As a tone-language, the Yoruba language sometimes uses tonal variations to deliberately create an antithesis. This is exactly what I think happens here. it's true that many translate "Ìyà Mi"as "My Mother" (even Professor Wande Abimbola did so in Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa) but then he explains it as an expression of parody, a pure caricature of "My Mother." it is a mirror image or fake mother.

That àję is generally cast in negative light is quite true. In the context of Yoruba rhetoric, is a popular Yoruba proverb that, "Àję ké lánàá, omo kú lónìí, taa ni ò mò pé àję àná l'ó pa omo ję?"

(The Àjé cried out yesterday and the baby died today, who would doubt that it was the àję of yesterday that killed the baby?). There is always the epic battle between the f forces of good, and the forces of evil, including àwon ajogun, which is another name for "Àwon "Ìyà mi" as well as other forces like ikú (death), àrùn (disease), òfò (loss), ęwòn (bondage/prison), èse (accident), etc

And by the way, the concept of "Ìyà" (oppression, ordeal, challenges, pain) may not be totally negative in Yoruba all the time. For example, Ifa gives the folk etymology for the word "Ìyàwó" (Wife) as "Ìyà Ìwó" (the ordeal, suffering that Orunmila endured in the legendary town of Iwo), saying "Ìyà ti Orunmmila ję ní Ìwó l'ó b'áko, l'ó b'ábo" (It was the ordeal that orunmila endured in Ìwó that gave birth to male and female offsprings).

Honestly, the Àję 'theology", as you nicely christened it, is a novel idea to me, and is poles away from my area of interest but I appreciate your interest, insistence, and inquisitive quest for epistemic investigation of the mystical.

Kú isę o!

MOA

===

I agree, even our belief system has to be evaluated and reconstructed. When all is said and done, it would always amount to killing an elderly woman who is experiencing a gerontological process of life! And by the way, from what I heard from my Dad, the worst of this crime among the Yoruba was perpetrated in the early 1950s during the Ghanaian Atinga (Nana Tinga) Drive, the wave of which traveled across the Coast of West Africa and hundreds of women were accused of being Àję and murdered. Historians may shed some light on this episode.

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 5, 2020, 10:33:08 PM8/5/20

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ADDENDUM:

I also want you to compare Ijebu dialect 'Iye' as in 'Iye Jemila, Iba Jemila.

Here it is clear that the originary ara oke word èyé has begun its journey of transformatiin from èyé to Oyo Ìyá via Ijebu land by dropping the initial 'e' for 'I' and by the time Ijebu traders connected with Oyo traders in the northwest the terminal 'e' was dropped for 'a' completing the transformation from ' èyé' yèyé in Ifè to ' Ìyá' ( I have more than ten years ago on this forum recounted how part of those we call Ijebu today migrated from Ìmęsí Ìgbódó and Ìmesi Ìpólé areas of Ekiti in antiquity.. Mixing with other settlers in Ijebu land may have motivated the change in the initial 'e' in ' èyé to ' iye' It is interesting that both Ekiti and Ijebu still call the Oyo 'bàbá ' iba' in Ijebu or ' ' àbá in Ekiti It follows that the Oyo got the title Basorun -Iba Oşòrun- from interactions with this tradition. My father used to be referred to as' Iba' by his sisters and towns people and never bàbá.)

OAA

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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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I agree, even our belief system has to be evaluated and reconstructed. When all is said and done, it would always amount to killing an elderly woman who is experiencing a gerontological process of life! And by the way, from what I heard from my Dad, the worst of this crime among the Yoruba was perpetrated in the early 1950s during the Ghanaian Atinga (Nana Tinga) Drive, the wave of which traveled across the Coast of West Africa and hundreds of women were accused of being Àję and murdered. Historians may shed some light on this episode.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTSB3qkFM_6X7yrvovbXdrTPgjuiVwD59AwMO9fnM1QZaA%40mail.gmail.com.

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Aug 6, 2020, 10:59:03 AM8/6/20

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At first contact, Africa and Europe were at the same level of development. Africans were mastering and controlling their environments. Naming of, insects, herbs, trees, and animals (with some being domesticated) began in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans who saw such creatures for the first time. The words, WITCH and WIZARD existed (originated) in Africa and Europe independent of contacts between the people of the two continents.

In Yoruba part of Nigeria, a female that exhibited an extra-ordinary knowledge resulting in useful invention in the past was referred to as an ÀJE, while the corresponding name for a male with an unusual capacity to invent was called OSÓ (pronounced OSHÓ). In the Yoruba traditional belief, a male, like TF, can never be a WITCH but a WIZARD. Long before the grand parents of Isaac Newton were born, a Nigerian climbed the palmtree not only to harvest the palmfroots but to extract palm wine. He calculated the strength of the twined rafia with which he climbed the palmtree armed with an axe to cut down the palm froots, and a gourd into which he collected palmwine. The first person who climbed the palmtree in Nigeria many centuries before Isaac Newton propounded the law of gravity was regarded by the people of that time as a WIZARD. Similarly, the first woman who extracted palmoil from palmfroots, derived grease (called ÒRI in Yoruba), and black candle (named ÒGÙSÒ, pronounced ÒGÙSHÒ) was called a WITCH. Every science is preceded by myth or fantasy and Yoruba people of the old had a lot of myths and fantasies. For instances, the Yoruba of the old believed in what they called KÁNÒKÒ, a stripe by which one strikes the ground and find self at a predetermined long distance location; equally the Yoruba people of the old believed in what they called ÀPÈTÁ which is a means by which a person's name anywhere in the world is called and made to appear personally in a mirror and once the mirror is stricken into pieces, the person will die. With the arrival of direct and indirect slavery, the development of Yoruba people was arrested and the transformation of our rich fantasies into realities were stopped. The Euro-American equivalent fantasy of KÁNÒKÒ has transformed into real vehichles for fast transportation of goods and humans while their mythical ÀPÈTÁ has transformed into drones and inter-continental ballistic missiles.

While Africans, particularly Nigerians, of today are engaged in money rituals, Witch/Wizard's practices, Islamic/Christian miracles and destiny help, ethnic stealing and conversion of National Economic projects into private wealth, and trafficking in women with the aid of voodoo to foreign countries, the Euro_American world are engaged in, stockpiling Nuclear weapons, space science, artificial intelligence, 5G technology, bio-chemical weapons, advanced medicine, solar energy, global warming, planning space tourism, moon bases and malls. It is barbaric in the 21st century to murder any person suspected of being a WITCH/WIZARD, a none crime in any criminal code in Africa. The murderers of Akua Denteh should be arrested and tried according to the laws in operation in Ghana.

S. Kadiri

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Femi Segun

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Aug 6, 2020, 12:58:19 PM8/6/20

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'The Euro-American equivalent fantasy of KÁNÒKÒ has transformed into real vehichles for fast transportation of goods and humans while their mythical ÀPÈTÁ has transformed into drones and inter-continental ballistic missiles'. Ogbeni Salimonu Kadiri. Thank you for bringing up this matter. Something around this came up during a recent conversation that I had with the Moderator. The lockdown has kept me away from my family for months. I told the Moderator that I needed to travel compulsorily but there is no flight. He asked why did I not use the 'EGBE (remi) that my father gave me in 1939. I reminiscenced on this and I remember hearing stories of people using EGBE to disappear when dangers such as accidents are lurking. My father also told me of Aroko, which was a means of instant communication like the Internet or email through which urgent messages can be sent. He told me of the story of an individual who was kidnapped many years ago. It turned out that this person belonged to a royal family or the Ogboni cult. Immediately this was made known to the powers that be, an aroko was sent to different places and once the message got round that the kidnapped person was an omo abore that cannot be used for ritual, he or she was promptly released. The Moderator explained as you have just done that our indigenous knowledge system was not developed and that it was something along the form of knowledge that we rejected that the Europeans or the Caucasians used to develop what we are using as modern tools of communication and transportation today. Dr Abimbola Adelakun, the Punch Columnist once challenged us that rather than dismissing some indigenous things that still happen in Africa, such as Magun (Don;t climb) in Nigeria, why can't we try and understand the science of it. In 1974, I witnessed where Sango struck someone dead instantly. The next day, they invited Sango worshippers from Oke-Agbe who came to perform some rituals before the woman was buried outside the town. They said the cause of the death was because the woman gba ibode. What is the science of this? I guess if it was coincidental, all of us in the room would have been struck. During a breakfast meeting with Professor Wole Soyinka in Dakar two years ago, I raised this issue in relations to African spirituality. He narrated his own experience of how the current Alaafin of Oyo once invited one of his wives to invoke the spirit of the gods, I think Obatala who ensured that after making some incantations, the clouds gathered, wind blew and rain started to the extent that all of them had to run for cover. How can we study these occurrences and translate them to productive use for the advancement of our societies in Africa? How can we rebuild Carthage?

Inquiring mind wants to know

Ire o

Femi

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Toyin Falola

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Aug 6, 2020, 1:25:58 PM8/6/20

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Sam:

In general, we have not paid attention to Anecdotal Knowledge. We are dismissive of it, but they are real. And whenever I say that something is real, I use it to mean a “belief”, a testimony, an experience limited to an individual or a group. Science teaches us that a woman without a womb cannot be pregnant. Pentecostalism teaches us that God can insert a replacement womb. Anecdotal knowledge, which can be corroborated by testimonies, teaches us that the belief is real—they know the woman and saw the child. Anecdotal is in the realm of personal experience, a non-rational interpretation of a phenomenon. It cannot be evaluated along the paradigm of the rational-scientific. Dreams are real! The interpretations are something else.

I have a headache. You don’t know, as it is my head, not yours!

My headache is caused by you. Why not?

Take “Panado,l” you said.

No, I need to see Baba Falola to make sacrifices!

You provided palm oil and chicken

The headache is gone!

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 6, 2020, 1:51:51 PM8/6/20

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different people's anecdotes might be more reliable than others.

for instance, you have covid. you take chloroquine, you get cured. you now tell us chloroquine cured you.

did it? are you sure?

ok, mr. trump, you can go prescribe it for yourself and your family; but better not do so, as you have done, you idiot, for a nation.

someone takes chloroquine and dies. already happened in texas at the outbreak, thanks to strump. who is responsible? bad anecdotal knowledge can be deadly. maybe good can save you.

what is not, really, anecdotal in the end? even science is just i looked, i saw, i measured, and then i deduced.

does this delegtimize anecdoctal evidence, or is it a warning?

the wonderful thing about niels bohr and the copenhagen school of physics is their modesty. we can't know both the location and speed of a particle at the same time, because when we measure it, we change one or another of the parameters. our knowledge runs into a limit, a real limit; we can't know anything about reality that is smaller than a planck length. we can't go faster than the speed of light, nothing can. is the universe flat or curved?

there are limits to our knowledge, and the best we can do is try to know our limits.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 6, 2020, 4:25:20 PM8/6/20

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To what degree are the limitations evident in the development of classical African knowledge systems due to colonial interference?

Given the account of the migrations of the human race from Africa, those colonialists are the descendants of the same Africans who migrated from Africa centuries ago, developed superior technology and returned to colonize their erstwhile brethren.

Why did their former brethren not develop literacy, for example, beyond particular stages, talk less making it widespread?

I suspect part of the problem was and is excessive gerontocracy, excessive reliance on tradition and on social conformity and excessive secrecy among those with specialised knowledge.

What follows is not definitive, since I have not addressed these issues in depth or done so recently but these are my tentative thoughts-

The Nigerian Cross River Ekpe/Mgbe esoteric society centuries ago developed the powerful Nsibidi symbolism, but even as of today, unless things have changed since I studied Nsibidi some years ago, the knowledge is so closely held that even PhD theses on this society and the plethora of writings on Nsibidi, even in its rich influence in the Nsukka art school and its foundationlity in the work of prominent artist Victor Ekpuk, what is known is but a fraction of what is likely to be one of the world's richest symbol systems, covering graphic signs on surfaces, symbolic gestures, stances and body motions, object arrangement and perhaps verbalization.

I did not see a single picture of this object arrangement. Pictures are available of the graphic script and the physical motions but I did not to see any explanation of them, in spite of scouring print and online texts, including PhD theses accessible online on Nsibidi.

To the best of my knowledge, the masters of Nsibidi do not publish their knowledge in public form and confine themselves to presenting the entertainment dimension of Nsibidi. They once applied for UNESCO recognition of Ekpe I think as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity but did not succeed, not surprisingly, because the evidence for the superlative value of the symbolism can only be pieced together by careful study and is not readily visible, unlike Ifa, which got the UNESCO recognition and whose colossal scope of literary texts and the range of its visual art is everywhere for any to see, with secondary texts upon texts responding to these literary and visual forms, an expressive universe organised around Ifa,.

One of the most richly symbolic systems of mapping was developed by the Luba, integrating space and time, landscape and history, but John D. Studstill's Education in a Luba Secret Society (Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer, 1979), pp. 67-79 )the interpretive keys were taught only within the higher levels of the Bumbudye secret society and it seems to have taken research like that by Mary and Allen Robert's fantastic work on Luba and that of Lynne Kelly for the lukasa, a central Luba mapping device, to be developed into a mapping device that may be used by anyone, though perhaps not as sophisticated as the original.

thanks

toyin

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 6, 2020, 4:25:28 PM8/6/20

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Thanks, Michael Afolayan, for appreciating my ''interest, insistence, and inquisitive quest for epistemic investigation of the mystical'' and for your patient analysis.

Intersections of Culturally Divergent Spiritual Ideas

Spiritual beliefs are often not identical but they may demonstrate parallels. These parallels could be so strong as to justify translation of terms from one spiritual tradition to other.

Ìyámi / Àję and Pre-Modern and Modern Western Witchcraft Ideas

Àję and Pre -Modern and Modern Western Witchcraft Conceptions

It is such parallels that convince me that the Yoruba terms ''iyami'' and ''aje''[ with particular tonal inflections] are translatable as ''witch'' in terms of the diachronic understanding, the historical development of the term ''witch'' in Western history.

'' Àję '' as an often feminine and often destructive spiritual personality, is correlative with the pre-modern Western image of the witch, which shares the same qualities as the àję concept.

Within this pre-modern image is represented the nocturnal you reference as the space of operation of àję.

Àję and the pre-modern Western witchcraft concept are also correlative in that they exist/ed more in superstition than verifiable fact.

Wicca in Modern Western Witchcraft

You referenced what I expect you meant to refer to as Wicca, the nature centred religion founded by Englishman Gerald Gardner.

Wicca is a reworking of what one might call the ethos of pre-modern Western witchcraft beliefs as a female centred spirituality outside the dominance of Christianity and concerned with both relationship with non-human spiritual powers and the ability of the witch to use their powers in effecting change in reality, often physical reality.

While pre-modern Western witchcraft beliefs were represented more by accusations of witchcraft than by self identification as witches, modern Western witchcraft is demonstrated in open self identification as witches, the openness you observed.

The valoristic aspect of àję conceptions, in the identification of Osun as àję and all women as àję in the ese ifa I earlier referenced is correlative to the valorisation of feminine spiritual power in Wicca.

Wicca and Yoruba female related spiritualities are also correlative in terms of interpretations of female spiritual power in terms of biological cycles associated with the moon, a correlation suggested by Babantubde Lawal's description of this image as central to the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order, an order to which the idea of female spiritual power is central, as he demonstrates in ''À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni''.

Constructions of Arcane Mothers in Ìyámi and Ìyámi Òṣòrongà Conceptions

Convergences between the Ìyámi / Àję concepts and pre-modern and modern Western witchcraft in terms of scholars' interpretations of the Ìyámi concept- -Lawal-Gelede, Olajubu- Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere, Washington- Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature among others, and the general understanding among practitioners in Nigeria and the Diaspora as I have observed from online discussions, carefully use the tonal marks depicting Iyami as ''my/our mothers'' in relation to the idea of motherhood in relation to female spiritual power.

Thus Lawal in Gelede,1996, references "Ìyámi Òṣòrongà" (swift powerful mothers) in his index, and describes this reference on page 73 as a primordial female, empowered by the Supreme Being by a unique àṣẹ, cosmic force, ''in the form of a bird enclosed in a calabash, copies of which she presented to her disciples, the ''powerful mothers'', Lawal throughout the book conflating Ìyámi and àję.

Oyerunke Olajubu's Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere, 2003, on p.120, references ''Iya Mi'' (Society of Powerful Women), though without tonal marks, quoting the same story given by Lawal.

Pierre Verger's extensive essay ''Grandeur et Décadence du Culte de ÌyámiÒsòròngà (Ma Mère la Sorcière) Chez les Yoruba'' (1965) is rendered by Google Translate as ''The Rise and Fall of the Cult of Ìyámi Òsòròngà (my Mother the Witch[ another translation reads ''My Mother the Sorceress'') Among the Yoruba''.

Franco dos Irinéia M. SANTOS, also has ''Iá Mi Oxorongá: Ancestral Mothers and Feminine Power in the African Religion''. Sankofa: Journal of African History and African Diaspora Studies , p. 59-81, 2008. [ Translated by Chrome browser]

Silvia Barbosa de Carvalho's ''Notes on Collaborative Research with Priestessesof the Goddess Iyami Osoronga'', [ translated by Chrome browser] based on Brazilian Candomble, a development of Yoruba origin Orisa spirituality, is centered in

priestesses of a secret society of worship to the goddess Iyami Osoronga. The Osoronga Society, which worships Iyami Osoronga, considered as the mother of all, the womb of the world, the earth. The goddess is feared as a powerful sorceress, capable of accomplishing the greatest exploits through powerful spells.... Her secret teachings are passed on only to women summoned by the goddess to worship her, and her stories are told and retold, extolling her deeds and ratifying the powers of her priestesses, the Iyalode (s).

Between Verger, Lawal and Teresa Washington- Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature, 2005, its Washington who uses both "Ìyà Mi" and Ìyámi'', making no difference between the two, translating both as ''mother'', rendering ''Àwọn Ìyàmi Òṣòrongà'' as The Great and Mysterious Mother, on p.13, first page of chapter 1.

Oyekan Owomoyela references this question of tonal markings in his review of the book in Research in African Literatures, Volume 38, Number 3, Fall 2007, pp. 215-216-

Washington asserts that among the Yoruba of Nigeria, ìyá mi (my mother) having undergone tonal changes becomes ìyà mi, which she translates as “My Mysterious Mother” (4).

Thereafter she consistently substitutes Ìyàmi Òsòròngà for Ìyámi Òsòròngà.

While dialectal or individual idiosyncracies might make Ìya-à-mi into Ìyàmi, the widely acceptable (or authentic) rendering is Ìyámi (My Mother), not Ìyàmi (which means not “My Mysterious Mother” but “My Suffering,” “My Punishment,” etc.). [ 216].

I would have loved to discuss this with Owomoyela, particularly in the light of your question about dialects.

A vital reference in this enquiry would be Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí's chapter ''Matripotency: Ìyá, in Philosophical Concepts and Sociopolitical Institutions'' in her What Gender is Motherhood? Changing Yorùbá Ideals of Power, Procreation, and Identityin the Age of Modernity but I don't have access to the book right now, although I will see if i can immediately access the journal articles where she first explored the ideas in the chapter.

I will also contact her, other scholars and Orisa spirituality practitioners in Yorubaland for their views on this subject.

The fact that the ''ìyá mi'' concept in the occult sense is being disputed requires one to get the source of the scholarly consensus on its meaning, referencing the question of which dialect of Yoruba has influenced this consensus.

From Theory to Practice in Ìyámi / Àję

In Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society, Verger presents a text ''Ìmú ni di ìyàmi tàbí àjé '' [ a different tonal inflection here from that in his essay] which is translated in the same text as ''To Become a Witch'', a procedure consisting of a mixing particular leaves in ìyèròsùn, a powder used in Ifa divination, immersing the leaves in water, chanting an incantation over them and bathing with the water, a procedure I intend to apply one day and observe and publish the outcome.

The book is available on Scribd and I publish the ritual in ''Expanding African Female Centred Spirituality from a Base in Yoruba Iyami Aje Witchcraft Thought:Theory, Practice, Images'' and ''A Description of How to Become IyamiAje, Translatable as a Witch,as Understood in Yoruba Cosmology, Using Plantsand Ifa Ritual'' [PDF].

Between Suffering and Honour in Iwo

On this -

''And by the way, the concept of "Ìyà" (oppression, ordeal, challenges, pain) may not be totally negative in Yoruba all the time. For example, Ifa gives the folk etymology for the word "Ìyàwó" (Wife) as "Ìyà Ìwó" (the ordeal, suffering that Orunmila endured in the legendary town of Iwo), saying "Ìyà ti Orunmmila ję ní Ìwó l'ó b'áko, l'ó b'ábo" (It was the ordeal that orunmila endured in Ìwó that gave birth to male and female offsprings).''

This story is presented by Cromwell Osamaro Ibie in a volume of his Ifism. I retell it in ''Themes in Ese Ifa, IfaLiterature : Courting Women 2 : The Exquisite Woman at Iwo''.

The story is about the ordeal a woman he was courting in Iwo put him through before she surrendered to him, having exhausted her grievously provocative behavior.

The woman therefore becomes ''the suffering I went through in Iwo', hence "Ìyàwó" (Wife) as "Ìyà Ìwó" '

Is that not another female negativising stance?

Thanks,

toyin

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Aug 6, 2020, 5:03:11 PM8/6/20

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Do you have any specific reason for excluding ancient Egypt, Nubia and Aksum from your examples of Classical African Knowledge Systems?

GE

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Aug 6, 2020, 6:35:27 PM8/6/20

to Toyin Falola, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

It is one thing to study the activities of

people like T.B. Joshua, Adeboye, Chris Okafor and other evangelical pastors and their ministries, and investigate their charisma, delivery and propaganda systems, psychological and mental make-up, the people who follow them, their real goals and motives and impact, and so on. But to join their ranks and retain credibility as a researcher, is another thing entirely. A beautiful hard won academic career may go up in smoke. I watched the interview of the Texas - based medical doctor who was in support of the use of chloroquine for Covid19. She defended her argument very eloquently and with great confidence. For a moment I thought that critics of chloroquine use had a formidable opponent.

Then she started talking about her “Ministry” and what I label as evangelical “ demonology “ and it was downhill from there. Her ministry may have expanded as a result of her being in the limelight but this was probably in direct proportion to her loss of scholarly support and intellectual credibility.

By the way, Alassane Ouattara has just announced his decision to run for a third term.

If he succeeds he may be there for life.

A sad day.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Sam:

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 6, 2020, 9:58:34 PM8/6/20

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Oga Moderator:

I disagree that anecdotal knowledge in the way you describe it can be on par with observable critical knowledge since they are easily manipulable against others to defraud. If objective umpires can not corroborate knowledge and only insiders within a body can cite gratuitous testimonies, that knowledge or belief is suspect. Yes many people are gullible and are too trusting of societies to which they belong. The fact they believe what they believe does not make it true. In the case of unstable personalities what they believe they see is actually the product of their unstable mind. The fact that what they actually ' see' exists for them does not make it real. That is why we have mental institutions. That does not mean societies cannot protect the architectonics of knowledge from outside if they dont have patents to protect their livelihood based on such knowledge.

In the scenario painted by GE we just have to confess that too much deliberate deception is going on in the Pentecostal world by the priesthood for financial and selfish gains. Insiders are ( I strongly suspect) coached to provide testimonies that defy the workings of practical reality as we know it and the trained priesthood deliver homilies on their own handiwork professed as miracles by God. Knowledgeable people can see the gaps and loooholes but they know believers are too gobsmacked to see them if placed directly at the tio of their noses ( See Soyinka's ,Jero Plays.)

Alagba Femi Segun:

Do you really believe that if the Yoruba have in reality the EGBÉ His Majesty the Alaafin will suffer the Prime Minister of Oyo Kingdom and his confidant Başòrun Abiola to be falsely incarcerated by the criminal in uniform Sanni Abacha without instructing the EBBÉ practitioners to immediately lift him out of bondage rather than suffer him to be assassinated in captivity?

There are things we wish we had which exist ib the realm of fables. We must admit as much.

In the case of invoking rain through incantation I cannot say Professor Soyinka lied; he can only report what he actually saw and not the background preparations he did not see. It is sacrilege that will NEVER come from me to allege His Majesty the Alaafin is involved in fraud. I can only seek solace in the Yoruba saying' Ìyę lę nwò, ęę tęyę rí' ( No one can divine the texture of the skin of a bird by merely gazing at the plumage.)

I know that the Yoruba like other African civilizations are adept at rain making The incantations by Olorì were just part of the dress rehearsals for a whole process; few Yoruba by now will deny the knowledge of electricity and electricity transmission showcased in the reign of Alaafin Sango and that they can direct bolts of electricity to strike at enemy targets. (After all the Yoruba practiced smithery and metallurgy before meeting any Europeans and they could observe bolts of electricity flying everywhere.) The intricacies are passed down the lineage of Sango worshippers because of lack of patent and to prevent abuse in wrong hands. But the corollary is that there are charlatans who claim to be what they are not.

When the Àwíşę Àgbáyé Prof Wándé Abímbolá chose to concentrate on only the poetry of Ifá, for publications it is not because he forgot he is also an Ifá priest with post-literary knowledge of the ramifications of Ifá.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>

Date: 06/08/2020 23:42 (GMT+00:00)

To: toyin...@austin.utexas.edu, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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It is one thing to study the activities of

people like T.B. Joshua, Adeboye, Chris Okafor and other evangelical pastors and their ministries, and investigate their charisma, delivery and propaganda systems, psychological and mental make-up, the people who follow them, their real goals and motives and impact, and so on. But to join their ranks and retain credibility as a researcher, is another thing entirely. A beautiful hard won academic career may go up in smoke. I watched the interview of the Texas - based medical doctor who was in support of the use of chloroquine for Covid19. She defended her argument very eloquently and with great confidence. For a moment I thought that critics of chloroquine use had a formidable opponent.

Then she started talking about her “Ministry” and what I label as evangelical “ demonology “ and it was downhill from there. Her ministry may have expanded as a result of her being in the limelight but this was probably in direct proportion to her loss of scholarly support and intellectual credibility.

By the way, Alassane Ouattara has just announced his decision to run for a third term.

If he succeeds he may be there for life.

A sad day.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Sam:

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 7, 2020, 6:36:49 AM8/7/20

to usaafricadialogue

Reality Construction and Perceptions of Female Power : Ogboni Esotericism, Witchcraft Beliefs, the Arts and Science

This course explores the nature of reality through questions provoked by images of female power as these intersect with artistic depictions and puzzles in scientific cosmology.

From celebratory depictions of female power in the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order and Luba, Congo art and in modern Western witchcraft, to negative portrayals in other Yoruba contexts and to pre-modern Western witchcraft beliefs, this course will examine views of reality, in spirituality and science.

I'm moving towards organising this as an online course of a single, perhaps one hour session. Its inspired by the discussion we are having here which is clearly at the cutting edge of discourse on this subject.

Anyone who is interested in participating in the course may contact me.

On Fri, 7 Aug 2020 at 07:10, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

Falola's comments on anecdotal knowledge suggest the need to critically investigate those anecdotes.

Tragically, the Pentecostsls have often negatively manipulated their calling, but strange things are truly possible through the use of various techniques.

On 'excluding ancient Egypt, Nubia and Aksum from your examples of Classical African Knowledge Systems'' if Gloria was referring to me, I actually thought of Egypt when referencing African writing systems and their contribution to the dissemination of knowledge.

I know less about them than I do about the two examples I gave but the following comment by mathematician and artist Evelyne Huet, in a response to debates on scope of secrecy in the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order, at my July 14 Facebook post ''Dissociation of Self from Collection of Money in Connection with Participation in the Ogboni Fraternity'' could be helpful-

...the Great Ancient Egyptian civilization, which was undoubtedly Black, disappeared because its immense knowledges, notably in geometry and astronomy, were strictly owned by a very small circle of great priests, who were very jealous of this power they had.
Their huge knowledges, because they were not at all displayed outside their minuscule circle, was kept (not to say stolen) and absorbed by Greeko-Roman civilization when they took the control of Egypt. And these amazing knowledges became White(!!) in the collective memory of the world!! Beginning with,for instance, the famous theorem by Pythagoras.
This was of course a terrible loss for the history and collective memory of Africa. And this happened because the Greeko-Roman model was to spread the knowledge, in contrast to the Egyptian priests' practice.
So, pt’s not an insane bet to think that world history,notably in its darkest components like the slave trade, would have been totally different if the Egyptian priests had shared their knowledges with a largecircle of their Egyptian contemporaries.

Because the history would not have been written at all in the same way, and would have notably necessarily told the prééminence of Africa in the development of the world's scientific knowledges.
And it wouldn’t have been more or less only focused on what iscalled her « back to Totemism » which resulted of the Egyptian Priests behavior towards their own power’s protection. Of course, these so called « Totemism » cultures are extremely admirable, both in their art dimensions as in their spirituality.
But they necessarily are linked to a far more [ ancient] culture, the Ancient Egypt one, and this link has to be shown to restore the continuity of Africa’s history [ so as] to make the world’s citizens realize what is the reality of Africa and Africans' History,with a big H.

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Aug 8, 2020, 9:51:38 AM8/8/20

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My dear professor, not all anecdotal knowledge are real as some remain fables. Some anecdotal knowledge from our Yoruba ancestors assert that tortoise never suffers head ache, the snail never suffers liver pain and fish never suffers fever inside the river. On what experimental facts were these postulations (anecdotal knowledge) based?

Can dreams be real without working to accomplish the dream? Take for instance a person who is worried about how to get a meal the following day while going to bed. In the night he dreamt of eating fried plantains and eggs only to wake up that he has no access neither to plantain nor eggs. How real was his/her dream?

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Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Femi Segun

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Aug 8, 2020, 10:50:00 AM8/8/20

to 'Chika Onyeani' via USA Africa Dialogue Series

Alagba Salimonu Kadiri,

I will appreciate your response to my comments on this thread. You have consistently argued that all our degrees acquired in western institutions have not translated to concrete developmental outcomes. Thus, I want to know how we can use our indigenous knowledge system to change the trajectory.

Femi

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Femi Kolapo

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Aug 8, 2020, 1:28:44 PM8/8/20

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tortoise never suffers headache, the snail never suffers liver pain and fish never suffers fever inside the river. On what experimental facts were these postulations (anecdotal knowledge) based?

Alagba, many many other Yoruba ‘wisdom sayings’ would fall under this hammer, and justifiably so when our judgment is based on modern scientific guidelines. But I believe that the lack of total harmony of these local observational statements with modern scientific knowledge does not necessarily make those wisdoms invalid. For example the Yoruba also say Aja tonlekoko nfiku sire i.e., a dog in pursuit of a hyena is playing with death, or that ajanaku o leekan i.e., you can't tether an elephant

The first statement obviously came about because the people had never seen packs of wild dogs in the Serengeti attack lone hyenas and kill them and actively compete with larger predators as seen on modern TV. If they did, they would upgrade their conclusion and their sayings. But as a logical deduction, it clearly still remains valid and as a piece of counsel to individuals without power or resource who in rashness or foolishness rushes to challenge a dangerous powerful opponents, it can be a lifesaving piece of advice s/he ever gets. The second statement falls flat in the face of the successful chaining of elephants by circus performers and animal trainers/tamers.

The validity of anecdotal knowledge, though, derives from deductions and conclusions made out of local observation – some of which had experimental components (via keeping of and watching the behaviors of these animals).

However, they are contextual rather than universal knowledge with the limited goal of guiding the people who share the same cultural background and experience that formed the basis of this knowledge. As long as we appreciate them for what they are, steps or stages in knowledge formation, we can benefit from the insight and guidance they provide and adapt them to other contexts.

BTW, I doubt whether modern science has proved that animals like tortoise, snail and fish indeed suffer headaches, liver pain, and fever respectively!! The local wisdom referencing these animals as not suffering these type of human ailments seem more to be a demonstration of the people’s awareness of the different estates or biological classes to which the animals belong which condition according to local observations obviates biological responses similar to what humans exhibit that we call headaches, liver pain, and fever. And this does not negate the fact that local people know that some other diseases afflict and kill these animals.

On dreams: I agree that most dreams require that people work to attain their promise. But we have heard of people whose dreams came through without working for them or whose work for them had no bearing on the realization of the dreams. life is complex and there are exceptionalities here and there.

However, I agree with you that as a rule and as a guideline for development and progress, it is reasonable to advise the dreamer to work towards the goal of their dreams.

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Subject: Sv: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Aug 9, 2020, 10:29:14 AM8/9/20

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My brother, Femi Kolapo, we should not make the mistake of mixing Yoruba hypotheses with Yoruba aphorism. While the former may lead to experimental evidence and confirmation, the latter counsels not only against certain actions but consequence(s) of acting contrarily. When the Yoruba say that Àjànàkú kó lèkàn which means an elephant cannot gore, it is because of their observation that the ability of an animal to gore requires horns on the head. A Yoruba youth who has transgressed against an elder may ask for the elder's forgiveness by saying, A kì tóri gbigbó ki a pa ajá, a kì tóri kíkán kí a pa àgbò, beeni a kì tóri wérewère kí a pa òbúko, e dá'ri jìnmi alàgbà, omodé lo nsé mi. Roughly translated to : We don't kill a dog because of barking, we don't kill a ram because of goring and we don't kill a he-goat because of restlessness, forgive me my elder, for being childish. The lessons from the aforementioned Yoruba aphorisms are that since it is natural for a dog to bark just as it is natural for a ram to gore; and it is natural for a he-goat to be restless, it is also natural for a child to be childish and be forgiven.

A Yoruba hypothesis that suggests that preparing a concoction with the head of a vulture and rubbing the ashes on incisions somewhere in the body of a human would make that human leave more than a hundred year must be proved empirically. The Yoruba has observed that vultures never die young (Igúnnugún kìi kú ni èwe) and as such believe that utilization of a vulture head to make incision on humans can prolong life. I am not disputing the fantasy of our ancestors in this regard, what I am complaining about is that we have never been allowed by colonial education to experiment on our different hypotheses.

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Aug 10, 2020, 9:31:57 AM8/10/20

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Sorry for the delay in responding to your comments on this topic. As the late Professor Babs Fafunwa pointed out, the colonial education, which is still sustained, robs Nigerians of their inventiveness, creativity and originality. The colonialists rewired and retooled Nigerians into abandoning our needs and aspirations to devote our lives and entire existence into serving the needs of our conqueror, through an indigenous surrogate regime approved by the colonialists.

Just think about a lesson in physics in Nigeria where we were taught about a body on a frictionless surface and the example given was frozen melt snow on the road!! Since there was no snow in Nigeria matched okra or peels of banana on the road would have pedagogically been appropriate to teach Nigerian school children about how slippery it would be for a body to stand on a frictionless surface. All our ministries, departments and parastatals are manned by academically qualified Nigerians. Despite the abundant material and financial resources at the disposal of the officials in our MDAs, Nigeria is not even static but receding economically and industrially because educated Nigerians have failed to contribute to the growth of economy and industry through application of knowledge in medicine, science and technology. We have crude oil and oil refineries but our education cannot refine oil; we have iron ore but our education cannot produce steel; and our education is incapable of generating and distributing electricity. Can you imagine that Nigeria has no nuclear reactor, but it has an Atomic Energy Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Authority consuming millions of dollars annually for salaries and allowances. Instead of blaming Buhari, the earlier Nigerians direct their attentions and angers at intellectual mystics and sorcerers whose expertise (geniuses) is fertilization of misery and poverty in Nigeria, through which they regularly appropriate to themselves funds for the development of our country, the better it will be for Nigeria.

S. Kadiri

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Sent: 08 August 2020 16:46
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 10, 2020, 12:32:34 PM8/10/20

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Salimonu,

I seem to have read you stating that Nigerian underdevelopment is due to colonialist forms of Western education.

But I am yet to read you suggest any alternative to the educational system.

Forgive me, but your stance reminds me of that of Boko Haram, taking advantage of the technological products of Western education while condemning it.

You should be able at this time to be able to outline what you think is the right education for Nigeria.

I hope you will not remain at the level of dismissal of Western education in Nigeria but present an analysis specifying why you think Western education or it's peculiar mode of expression in Nigeria is largely or wholly responsible for Nigeria's underdevelopment and what to do about this problem you describe yourself as uncovering.

Thanks

Toyin

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 10, 2020, 2:12:33 PM8/10/20

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i may have said this before, so forgive me. i have a basic disagreement with salimonu's formulation of colonialist and western here.

i think, well, there is an order of prestige in the production of knowledge, and lots of things, not least money, help shape it. if you were a top researcher in any given field, what would determine where you'd go?

but after we've sorted that out--the money factor, but for most, more important, the culture capital, then the question--is it politically oriented in ways that i wish to collaborate with.

the complaint about knowledge being western strikes me as out of tune with much of what we do and who we are, we meaning those of us working in the same field. i can speak only of my fields, namely, african cinema and literature. it seems very retrograde to use the term colonial in describing a political approach we'd want to critique, say because it is eurocentric or ignores afrocentric values (i am using these terms loosely, and certainly not in ways that are limited to the temple university notion of afrocentric. i take afrocentric as meaning seeing things from an "african" standpoint, not from a "correct" standpoint).

maybe there are aspects of colonial discourse that shape the public domain, say when politicians frame their thoughts on africa. but mostly i believe we are in a world of globalization, with its own and quite different set of values, especially in terms of the economic order that underlies it, the neoliberal order promoted by the conservative capitalism of our day.

i feel like nietzsche proclaiming to the town square the news, here: not that god is dead, but colonialism died long ago. it is a dead horse. go on beating it, but there is nothing there. the new horse, the new king, the new order, is global. it has new dominant figures, especially the u.s. and china, but also something new called the e.u,, the middle east, russia. players who in fact did not have colonies, even if they bore influence on britain and france and portugal and belgium, who did.

so, when i ask, who invented relativity, i don't ask, how was this knowledge colonialist. no point in it. when i ask, how do we treat malaria, i don't ask, is this knowledge colonialist. when i ever get vaccine against the current plague, i will not ask, who discovered this. i'll ask, does it work.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

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Gloria Emeagwali

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Aug 10, 2020, 4:46:36 PM8/10/20

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Colonialism is alive and well and some of the toxic religious propositions that it entrenched are still around. The order of prestige that you speak about helps to consolidate a lot of the toxic past. Why do you think that academies across the west are scrambling to remove some of the more lethally prejudiced vestiges of white supremacy. I have even forwarded some to the list.

These laudable attempts may or may not eventually break down the structural deformities. The King is dead. Long live the King - often applies thus far.

The new political world order may be China-US -EU but in terms of the cultural, pedagogical, curricula and educational world order, that is a different matter. We are struggling to break free from the tentacles of WS. I totally agree with Salimonu.

So what exactly was your real message in Black Trash?

GE

On Aug 10, 2020, at 14:12, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrot

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 10, 2020, 4:46:36 PM8/10/20

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Ken

You and Salimonu are not in disagreement. What he is saying is in responses to Femi Segun's question on the way forward. He said most people want to blame the lone leader of the president when the collective intellectual failure of the intellectual elite that must be blamed for Nigeria's failures.

I think it is a cogent thesis.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 10/08/2020 19:12 (GMT+00:00)

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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i may have said this before, so forgive me. i have a basic disagreement with salimonu's formulation of colonialist and western here.

i think, well, there is an order of prestige in the production of knowledge, and lots of things, not least money, help shape it. if you were a top researcher in any given field, what would determine where you'd go?

but after we've sorted that out--the money factor, but for most, more important, the culture capital, then the question--is it politically oriented in ways that i wish to collaborate with.

the complaint about knowledge being western strikes me as out of tune with much of what we do and who we are, we meaning those of us working in the same field. i can speak only of my fields, namely, african cinema and literature. it seems very retrograde to use the term colonial in describing a political approach we'd want to critique, say because it is eurocentric or ignores afrocentric values (i am using these terms loosely, and certainly not in ways that are limited to the temple university notion of afrocentric. i take afrocentric as meaning seeing things from an "african" standpoint, not from a "correct" standpoint).

maybe there are aspects of colonial discourse that shape the public domain, say when politicians frame their thoughts on africa. but mostly i believe we are in a world of globalization, with its own and quite different set of values, especially in terms of the economic order that underlies it, the neoliberal order promoted by the conservative capitalism of our day.

i feel like nietzsche proclaiming to the town square the news, here: not that god is dead, but colonialism died long ago. it is a dead horse. go on beating it, but there is nothing there. the new horse, the new king, the new order, is global. it has new dominant figures, especially the u.s. and china, but also something new called the e.u,, the middle east, russia. players who in fact did not have colonies, even if they bore influence on britain and france and portugal and belgium, who did.

so, when i ask, who invented relativity, i don't ask, how was this knowledge colonialist. no point in it. when i ask, how do we treat malaria, i don't ask, is this knowledge colonialist. when i ever get vaccine against the current plague, i will not ask, who discovered this. i'll ask, does it work.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 10, 2020, 4:46:42 PM8/10/20

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Whose fault is it that the inherited western educational model has not been adapted to solve Nigeria's problems?

You ate substituting Baba Kafiri's examples for his main argument.

OAA

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Date: 10/08/2020 17:41 (GMT+00:00)

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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Salimonu,

I seem to have read you stating that Nigerian underdevelopment is due to colonialist forms of Western education.

But I am yet to read you suggest any alternative to the educational system.

Forgive me, but your stance reminds me of that of Boko Haram, taking advantage of the technological products of Western education while condemning it.

You should be able at this time to be able to outline what you think is the right education for Nigeria.

I hope you will not remain at the level of dismissal of Western education in Nigeria but present an analysis specifying why you think Western education or it's peculiar mode of expression in Nigeria is largely or wholly responsible for Nigeria's underdevelopment and what to do about this problem you describe yourself as uncovering.

Thanks

Toyin

On Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 14:31 Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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Gloria Emeagwali

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Aug 10, 2020, 7:03:49 PM8/10/20

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Many of us have specific suggestions.

My chapter on “African Indigenous Knowledges and the decolonization of Education, “ch. 17. pp. 335 -352

is one among many in Abidogun and Falola (Eds). The Palgrave Handbook of African Education and Indigenous

Knowledge. 2020.

Some of the suggestions correlate with Salimonu’s observations.

GE

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Aug 10, 2020, 7:03:55 PM8/10/20

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Oluwatoyin,

As Yoruba aphorism goes, E ni mã rire gbà èto ni kó sé rere, roughly translated to he who wants to receive justice must practise justice. For me, I don't know Boko Haram you are talking about. I have on several occasions asked you, including some of our Hausa speaking folks on this forum, the meaning of Boko Haram when it is translated into English language with no response. You continue to insist, out of prejudice that Boko Haram means Western Education is Forbidden. I don't know Boko Haram and how the name originated. The ball is now in your court to tell me. However, I am aware of JAMA'ATU AHLIS SUNNA LIDDA'AWATI WAL-JIHAD which was translated to : People committed to the propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad (please observe that I am not the translator). The organisation began as a socio-religious group in Borno, 2002, when Ali Modu Sheriff was the ANPP Governor of the State. They started farming projects, provided employment for their members, provided welfare for disabled members, trained people to work for their living and, in short, they provided alternative to the government of the state which made them to attract more members. When their popularity was outshining the government of the State, Governor Ali Modu Sheriff tried to corrupt the organisation by appointing one of the front members, Alhaji Buji Foi as Borno State Commissioner for Religious Affairs in 2007. Relation between the Sect and Borno State government was cordial until February 2009, when the government of Ali Modu Sheriff banned riding bikes without wearing helmet in the State. As usual, Governor Sheriff and his cronies' private companies were suspected of having stockpiled helmets for sales to make money besides the fact that such law has always provided new avenue for the police to extort money from the public. Five months after the ban, July 2009, a prominent member of the Sect led by Mohammed Yusuf died and a large number of them rode in convoys to bury him. They were not only stopped by the police for lack of helmets but many of them were shot and wounded.

The despatched Sect members went home to lick dear wounds and returned with full force to attack and kill police in Bauchi, Borno and Yobe States. They took control of Maiduguri which they controlled for three days until the Army was ordered by President Yar'Adua to intervene and crush the uprising. The Army regained control and arrested the Sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf and a lot of his members, who were handed over to the Police. Yusuf was extra-judicially murdered in police custody while Borno State Commissioner of Religious Affairs, Buji Foi, who was a member of the Sect was shot on his back. That was how the conflict between the Sect and the State government in Borno started in 2009 during Yar'Adua regime and escalated during the reign of President Jonathan. The origin and the cause of conflict in the Northeast had nothing to do with Western Education and in fact, not even with religion. My questions to you therefore are : Who gave the Sect the name Boko Haram?; Is the name translatable to English as Western Education is forbidden or is an abomination?

If Western education works well in Nigeria as it does in the Western World, you and the rest of Nigerians will not be complaining about the retrogressive industrial and economic development in Nigeria. Educationally, there is no academic qualification in this world, real or honorary, that one would not find some Nigerians possessing it. Thus, Nigeria has one of the highest manpower indexes in the world which explains why there are more PhDs and Professors in Nigeria's MDAs than anywhere else on this globe. Oluwatoyin, you have given your white clothes to an expert washerman purportedly trained in the Western World, and he returned them to you visibly drenched into red palm oil, what would be your conclusion? There is no short cut to the top of the palm tree, one must start to climb from the bottom. We must go back and start from where we fell to the colonialists before we can rise up. Before then every Nigerian should ask him/herself : in what way is my education applicable to the industrial and economic development of Nigeria? Honest answer to that question will determine alternatives to the present situation we all are ignorantly blaming Buhari for.

S. Kadiri

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Aug 10, 2020, 7:30:29 PM8/10/20

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Ken,

Do you think that the French really completely

left Cameroon and its many former colonies in Africa?

Reflect on France’s continued currency control, military bases and constant intervention to support its favorite puppet regime.

I just realized that my previous comment

was not addressed to you, as I had intended.

Anyway, your response to this post should

kill two birdies with one stone.

GE

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 10, 2020, 10:38:50 PM8/10/20

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hi gloria

i am of two minds about this. before about 5 years ago, i would have argued that the e.u. supplanted neocolonial ties based on nation to nation relations. france is just part of the e.u., and not the dominant partner in it (germany is). the e.u. is the major european donor to africa.

also, on independence, france had around 50,000 people in senegal. the last i heard it was closer to 10,000, though probably fewer now.

when i first went to africa in the 70s, the french presence in francophone countries was very very palpable, and their dominant position seen in everything from army presence to boulangeries and french cars.

in all ways that has changed enormously, with the chinese now having supplanted much that was french, and visibly as well as in invisible economic ways.

the cfa currency worked two ways: the french could not undo the tie so that when the french currency went up, so did the cfa.

my opinion has been modified, however, in some regards. so, the brief answer to you, friend gloria, is well, in some ways i still see strong signs of the french presence, which i hadn't quite realized before. i overestimated globalization, underestimated the french. if people want to stop reading, that's my brief answer.

in more detail, i still think the cfa is not a real issue; the french don't control their own currency any more, the euro. and the chinese presence is increasingly dominant. but the french still have strong agreements, economic and agriculture, which i learned more about, and which imply a stronger french presence than i realized. the french still intervene in places like the cae or mali, though the case of mali is so very convoluted since it is to prop up regimes threatened by islamists. the french couldn't do it logistically without the u.s, and trump is threatening to pull out africom, so i do not know where that all stands. if we all agree we don't like boko haram, and the nigerians received western aid to oppose them, how would that strike you? it certainly must be happening to some degree.

the french promotion of la francophonie is vexed. it is not as strong as in the old days; but it isn't gone in some places. the last fespaco i attended a few years ago had the french cultural center written all over it. yet no one in their right mind can now claim that the french have a strong influence on, say, senegalese culture, though they are still present.

so i have to yield a bit to your point. it just seems way out of date to imagine we are back in the 70s, and not to see how much the old structures of neocolonialism have changed. and that's "neo." colonialism is not a useful word to describe anything here. postcolonialism is--and it is the most vexed term of all. i use globalization and neoliberal to describe things of today.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

Islamists attack Nigeria police

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 11, 2020, 3:19:22 AM8/11/20

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Edited

On Whitewashing Boko Haram

Salimonu, you like to present what I call Revised History of Boko Haram According to Salimonu.

Your revised history makes me see your tirade agst Western education as a Boko Haram style narrative.

The Western inspired social order represented by the globally dominant education system and by Christianity are primary targets of attack by Boko Haram.

Having described what you see as the beauties of Boko Haram to us, and presenting them as victims of a hypocritical govt, a group who is fighting only the Nigerian govt, you failed to include the fact that the group from the onset was a murderous group, killing rival Islamic clerics.

You also fail to mention in your picture of this group that from their 2011 escalation their primary targets were also Christians, whose churches they bombed and whose worshippers they machine gunned, even in the packed premises of the Madalla church on Christmas day, as well as demanding all Christians leave the North or face the consequences.

They also declared they would not stop their terorism until the President becomes a Muslim.

They embarked on bombing and murdering all demographics of Northern society after the faliure of their presentation of themselves as Muslim warriors defending Muslim interests.

They slit throats of children sleeping in ther hostals, machine gunned school children taking exams, they abduct school girls and women as sex slaves, along with their attacks on military and govt establishments, the only aaspect you wish to reference in order to present them as motivated purely by revenge agst the Nigerian govt.

This was a group that tried to create a govt within a govt in Borno state, creating a communal system as well as killing Islamic clerics who disagreed with their views, and attacking govt establishments possibly before their better known clashes with the police.

You once demanded evidence that Boko Haram killed Islamic clerics and I provided the evidence.

Its you now who needs to prove they did no such thing in order to justify your claim that their murders are due to being provoked by the govt.

The name Boko Haram is the name given by natives of the regions they have afflicted to the terrorist Islamic group once led by Muhammad Yusuf, in recognition of a primary tenet of the group being their repudiation of Western education.

They have never rejected that name in their recurrent efforts at mass media propaganda, so much so that their original name is now unknown to most.

The attack on Western education is central to such facist and violent Islamic groups, Western education being representative of an anti-Islamic order they want to eradicate.

This has emerged with Boko Haram's attack on educational systems in the Northeast as well as in the efforts of the Taliban in Afghanistan, among others.

Boko Haram, in their original emergence and later 2011 escalation, used a two tier strategy.

Terror and killing agst rivals, either other Islamic clerics and representatives of the fed govt and claims of being defenders of the Islamic faith and of Muslims.

This strategy broke down when Northern Muslims became fed up with their destruction of Northern society and turned against them.

Since then, they have engaged in killing of a broad swathe of citizenry, including slitting throats of schoolchildren in their sleep, machine gunning school children as they sat for an exam, bombing markets and other busy locations, even as they have not been able to continue their earlier practice of bombing churches and machine gunning the worshippers because the GEJ govt's state of emergency drove them from population centres, but from time to time they are able to strike at Maiduguri, trying to take control of the garrison there and establish a command centre there, even though their ability to bomb military barracks and machine gun those there as well as bomb govt and international establishments has been severely reduced.

thanks

toyin

On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 at 07:43, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

On Whitewashing Boko Haram

Salimonu, you like to present what I call Revised History of Boko Haram According to Salimonu.

Your revised history makes me see your tirade agst Western education as a Boko Haram style narrative.

The Western inspired social order represented by the globally dominant education system and by Christianity are primary targets of attack by Boko Haram.

Having described what you see as the beauties of Boko Haram to us, and presenting them as victims of a hypocritical govt, a group who is fighting only the Nigerian govt, you failed to include the fact that the group from the onset was a murderous group, killing rival Islamic clerics.

You also fail to mention in your picture of this group that from their 2011 escalation their primary targets were also Christians, whose churches they bombed and whose worshippers they machine gunned, even in the packed premises of the Madalla church on Christmas day, as well as demanding all Christians leave the North or face the consequences.

They also declared they would not stop their terorism until the President becomes a Muslim.

They embarked on bombing and murdering all demographics of Northern society after the faliure of their presentation of themselves as Muslim warriors defending Muslim interests.

They slit throats of children sleeping in ther hostals, machine gunned school children taking exams, they abduct baducting school girls and women as sex slave, along with their attacks on military and govt establishments, the only aaspect you wish to reference in order to present them as motivated purely by revenge agst the Nigerian govt.

This was a group that tried to create a govt within a govt in Borno state, creating a communal system as well as killing Islamic clerics who disagreed with their views, and attacking govt establishments possibly before their better known clashes with the police.

You once demanded evidence that Boko Haram killed Islamic clerics and I provided the evidence.

Its you now who needs to prove they did no such thing in order to justify your claim that their murders are due to being provoked by the govt.

The name Boko Haram is the name given to the terrorist Islamic group once led by Muhammad Yusuf by natives of the regions they have afflicted, in recognition of a primary tenet of the group being their repudiation of Western education.

They have never rejected that name in their recurrent efforts at mass media propaganda, so much so that their original name is now unknown to most.

The attack on Western education is central to such facist and violent Islamic groups, Western education being representative of an anti-Islamic order they want to eradicate.

This has emerged with Boko Haram's attack on educational systems in the Northeast as well as in the efforts of the Taliban in Afghanistan, among others.

Boko Haram, in their original emergence and later 2011 escalation, used a two tier strategy.

Terror and killing agst rivals, either other Islamic clerics and representatives of the fed govt and claims of being defenders of the Islamic faith and of Muslims.

This strategy broke down when Northern Muslims became fed up with their destruction of Northern society and turned against them.

Since then, they have engaged in killing of a broad swathe of citizenry, including slitting throats of schoolchildren in their sleep, machine gunning school children as they sat for an exam, bombing markets and other busy locations, even as they have not been able to continue their earlier practice of bombing churches and machine gunning the worshippers because the GEJ govt's state of emergency drove them from population centres, but from time to time they are able to strike at Maiduguri, trying to take control of the garrison there and establish a command centre there, even though their ability to bomb military barracks and machine gun those there as well as bomb govt and international establishments has been severely reduced.

thanks

toyin

On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 at 07:23, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
On Western Education in Nigeria

I want to highlight the major qs, so that the political dust does not obscure them.

For that reason, I will respond to the question of the history and goals of Boko Haram in another comment.

These qs are-

1. Why do you think the Western education of Nigerians is the cause of Nigeria's underdevelopment?

In what specific ways is such causation possible and how is it demonstrated?

In other words, what is the precise relationship between cause and effect?

Is it through inadequacy of technical skills through their being trained in different ways different from their Western counterparts?

Are the technological and scientific systems Nigeria needs different from those in the West and operational globally?

Does the Western education of Nigerians inhibit appreciation of the need for alternative social structures?

2. You claimed that Nigerians should return to a pre-Western colonisation system of existence in general and of education in particular. I quote you, highlighting what I understand as the operational core of your perspective-

''If Western education works well in Nigeria as it does in the Western World, you and the rest of Nigerians will not be complaining about the retrogressive industrial and economic development in Nigeria. Educationally, there is no academic qualification in this world, real or honorary, that one would not find some Nigerians possessing it. Thus, Nigeria has one of the highest manpower indexes in the world which explains why there are more PhDs and Professors in Nigeria's MDAs than anywhere else on this globe. Oluwatoyin, you have given your white clothes to an expert washerman purportedly trained in the Western World, and he returned them to you visibly drenched into red palm oil, what would be your conclusion?

There is no short cut to the top of the palm tree, one must start to climb from the bottom. We must go back and start from where we fell to the colonialists before we can rise up.

Before then every Nigerian should ask him/herself : in what way is my education applicable to the industrial and economic development of Nigeria?

Honest answer to that question will determine alternatives to the present situation we all are ignorantly blaming Buhari for.''

Could you please specify how this goal could be achieved?

You are suggesting returning to African knowledge systems as they existed before the colonial experience.

Can you clarify, perhaps with reference to general world views and epistemologies-ways of looking at the world and how knowledge is developed, assessed and applied?

Does this other fine method quoted below you suggest have anything to do with Westernization?

Is it not actually best exemplified by Western approaches to development and might not be a good example of how to de-Westernize African education, the goal that your views suggest-

- ''Before then every Nigerian should ask him/herself : in what way is my education applicable to the industrial and economic development of Nigeria?'' is actually best exemplified by response to Western approaches to development and might not be a good example of how to de-Westernize African education, the goal that your views suggest.

I look forward to Gloria Emeagwali's presentation of her own views on Western education in Nigeria/Africa instead of making a blanket claim of agreement with Salimonu's views which might not be essentially the same as hers.

She can give a summary of her views. Such a fast approach could motivate people to buy the book she is recommending and read the elaboration of her ideas in her chapter in that book or buy the book chapter alone, if that option exists .

thanks

toyin

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 11, 2020, 4:03:05 AM8/11/20

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Boko Haram, Anti- Western Education, Anti-Christian, Anti-Rival Muslims, Anti-State and Anti-People Violence

An Analysis of the Views of Salimonu Kadiri from a 2018 Discussion on this Group

1. Whitewashing On Boko Haram

Anybody who can boldly state, as Kadiri does, reiterating a stance consistently projected on this group:

"Yes, Mr. Adepoju, I stated that Boko Haram as presented by the media to us might have killed innocent people..."

in the face of the thousands continually murdered by Boko Haram Islamic terrorism, bombing packed churches and machine gunning fleeing worshippers, bombing and machine gunning military garrisons, bombing mosques and crowled public places, slitting the throats of sleeping children, machine gunning school children as they sat to write an exam, using children and girls as suicide bombers,the group's destruction of the social fabric and economy of the North East and the displacement of thousands in an ongoing terrorist war continually claiming yet uncounted lives, is a Boko Haram Islamic terrorist ideologue.

Kadiri's culture of whitewashing Boko Haram terorism is also demonstrated by his post of 21 April 2017 on this group, under the thread "Sexual Repression and Extremism in Northern Nigeria" respectively that:

" 'Boko Haram (?)' might have committed criminal acts, but it is a product of the most horrible criminals in Nigeria, which are the political class and the intellectuals that serve under them in the Ministries, Departments, Agencies and parastatals. Any psychoanalytic examination of human motivation to horrendous mass action in Nigeria must start from the political class ruling Nigeria and the intellectuals serving under them. 'Boko Haram(?)' is just a stem in the tree of the evil in Nigeria and the best way to deal with the evil tree is to uproot it and not to just prune its stem."

and by his post of 22 April 2017 in the same thread that:

"Boko Haram might have been committing atrocities but the weapons they having been using were not produced by them or any Islamic countries" .

The Emergence of the Name Boko Haram

As for Kadiri's claim that the conventionally attributed meaning of Boko Haram is misleading, as usual he is presenting ideas that fly in the face of well known facts, twisting a case to support his Boko Haram support ideology and his self chosen task of challenging Western education through ideological stances as the group does through terrorism.

The name 'Boko Haram' is used to suggest the group's core ideology, an ideology in place from its very beginning. The group's initial name referenced an effort to identify with the founder of Islam, and its strategies demonstrated such a identification as being the rejection of Western civilization.

The name was given to the group by observers, specifically people in Maiduguri, its founding base, in response to its strategies.

Nwabuisi Dennis, quoting other sources, sums this up :

"In the town of Maiduguri, where the group was formed in 2002, the residents dubbed it Boko Haram. The term "Boko Haram" comes from the Hausa word boko meaning "western education" and the Arabic word haram figuratively meaning "sin" (literally, "forbidden").

Literally the name translated from Hausa, means western education is forbidden.

The group earned this name due to its strong opposition to anything Western, which it sees as corrupting Muslims. ... It propagates a version of Islam that not only forbids any interaction with the Western World but it is also against the traditional Muslim establishment and the government of Nigeria. ...

The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population and have carried out assassinations in the past of any one who criticises it, including Muslim clerics.

In a 2009 BBC interview, Muhammad Yusuf, then leader of the group, rejected scientific explanation for natural phenomena, such as evaporations being the cause for rain, the theory of evolution, and the Earth being a sphere "[i] f it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah".Before his death, Yusuf reiterated the group's objective of changing the current education system and rejecting democracy".

Boko Haram's Culture of Violence and Terror

^{Kadiri
likes to present Boko Haram as originally a non-violent group who were
radicalized by hard hard-handed govt action and possibly by being hijacked by
another group.}The facts of the case are that the group was violent from its beginnings.

Killing of Islamic Clerics and Attacks on Rival Isamic Groups

From David Cook's THE RISE OF BOKO HARAM IN NIGERIA at Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point :

'The targeted assassinations are the most revealing, involving political figures, such as Abba Anas bin `Umar (killed in May 2011), the brother of the Shehu of Borno, and secular opposition figures (Modu Fannami Godio, killed in January 2011), but also prominent clerics such as Bashir Kashara, a well-known Wahhabi figure (killed in October 2010), Ibrahim Ahmad Abdullahi, a non-violent preacher (killed in March 2011), and Ibrahim Birkuti, a well-known popular preacher who challenged Boko Haram (killed in June 2011). The shootings of these prominent clerics seem to be in accord with Boko Haram's purificationist agenda with regard to Islam. '

NIGERIA

George Gorman | November 20, 2010

Two worshipers were killed and one wounded by Boko Haram Islamists during an attack at a mosque during Friday prayers in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Two gunmen driving a motorcycle taxi indiscriminately shot into a Wahabist mosque. The radical group considers Wahabism heretical.

Timeline of Pre-2009 Boko Haram Attacks and of Boko Haram Attacks on Muslim Clerics

Boko Haram's culture of murder and destruction as endemic to the group is too well known for doubt. Boko Haram apologists present the group as simply a response to injustuces in Nigerian society as well as high hadedness agaugst the group by the Nigerian govt, yet Boko Haram as hs the murder of rival Islamic clerics as central to uts strtaegy, demonstrating this strtegy of kiling ruval clerics almost since the group's foundindg.

As Nigerian Taliban

The Return of the “Nigerian Taliban”1st February 2007 - World Defense Review

1. In December 2003, the Nigerian Taliban attacked a police station in the nearby village of Kanamma, killing a police officer. Over the following week, the group launched raids on police stations and other government buildings in four other towns, including Damaturu, the state capital.

1. ' raided the Yobe state capital of Damaturu in early 2004, attacking police stations. Later that same year, the militants tried to launch a guerrilla campaign around Gwoza, in Borno state near the Cameroonian border. Tthe Nigerian insurgents wanted to establish an Islamic state and pronounced Muslims who opposed them to be "unbelievers" deserving of death.

2. April 17, 2007 attack on police station in Panksera, Kano state

BBC

Car burnt during previous attacks by Nigeria's Taleban

The Taleban attacked police stations in 2004

Armed members of a Nigerian Islamist group known as the Taleban have stormed a police station in the northern city of Kano, killing at least 13 people.
17 April 2007

Islamist group, known as the Taliban, attack Kano police station, killing 21 policemen

naija net Tuesday, April 17, 2007

3. Nigerian authorities arrested Yusuf on Nov. 13, 2008, after an attack by his followers on a police station in Maiduguri; 17 of his followers had died in the attack. Yusuf and the Boko Haram leader of Kano state, who was also detained, were set free despite being initially handed over to the inspector-general of police for prosecution.

Nigerian Taliban leader killed in custody

THE RISE OF BOKO HARAM IN NIGERIA

September 26, 2011

Author(s): David Cook

Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point

Articulation of ideology of religious violence

Nigeria's 'Taliban' plot comeback from hide-outs

11 Jan 2006

Tashen-Ilimi, whose nom de guerre means “new way of knowledge”, is described by his supporters as the leader of a small group of mainly middle-class young men which in 2003 launched a violent but short-lived uprising amid the sand dunes and savannah on Nigeria’s northern frontier.

The movement—which was dubbed Nigeria’s “Taliban” after the Afghan student movement which seized power in Kabul and created an ultra-conservative Islamic government—briefly took control of the village of Kanama on Nigeria’s border with Niger.

The group’s 200-strong force raided several police stations but was bloodily dispersed in an attack on a police patrol near Gwoza on the Cameroon border. A two day battle left 28 “Taliban” dead by government troops in January 2004. Eight months later, 60 survivors launched a guerrilla war.

Global Islamic Terrorism and the Illogicality of Denying Destructive Agency to Islamic Terrorism

Salimonu extends his apologia for Boko Haram to Islamic terrorism in general by arguing that any violence committed by Boko Haram emanates from the destructive character of Nigerian society and elites and struggles to pin global Islamic terrorism on the machinations of the West.

Also invoked is the tired argument that global Islamic terrorism is essentially the outcome of manipulations by Western powers. What have Western powers to do with Islamic ideology that drives these terrorist movements? In the recurrent clashes for power on the world stage, opportunities and challenges will always emerge for various actors to respond to. A strategy of apologists for Islamic terrorism is to argue that these deadly movements are either simply responses to Western manipulations or the creations of Western powers.

The apologists thus seek to deny to the Islamic terrorists their own fervently and consistently declared aspirations to build religious empires of the ruins of the infidel societies they seek to destroy, or those societies they desire to intimidate so they many not defeat their goals, employing mass murders as represented by terrorist strikes in Europe and the US, using Muhammed's military career and later Islamic wars of conquest and empire building as inspirational templates, quoting copiously from the militaristic aspects of the Koran in support of their goals.

The Reality of the Clash of Civilisations

The Muslim world is currently undergoing an upheaval, in which global Islamic terrorism is the most evident expression. Christianity's destructive chauvinism, fed by the remnants of Roman militarism in Italy, has been largely defanged by the Reformation and subsequent transformations in European society, Jewish militarism was diluted by the Roman defeat and dispersion of the Jews though it continues to feed the current Israeli state. Islam alone remains among the warrior religions descended from Abraham that has not been compelled to accommodate itself to the world on a large scale as its geographical and religious centre gas remained largely unchanged for centuries. In this context, why wont Islamic terrorists seek to assert what they see as a pristine identity dating back to the ascendancy of Islam in past centuries?

Boko Haram has always been a full blown, violent anti-modern society radical Islamic group whose three pronged strategy involves attacking the govt and its representatives, attacking and killing rival Islamic clerics and attacking and murdering Christians and murdering citizens of any persuasion, strategies unfolding at various points in their career, actions that out the fiction in the claim that they were radicalized into violence by govt intervention rather than being an inherently intolerant group out to use murderous force to achieve their goals.

segun ogungbemi

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Aug 11, 2020, 4:10:26 AM8/11/20

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Thanks Kadiri.

A point of correction though: what is extracted from palm fruits is called Adin and not ori. Ori is from shea butter.

Segun Ogungbemi.

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 11, 2020, 10:26:21 PM8/11/20

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Toyin Adepoju:

I think both what you and Baba Kadiri stated contain different aspects of the truth: Boko Haram started out on a definite path of limited social emancipation but got hijacked by bigots and religious zealots.

It needs to be totally and urgently wiped by what I once described as a scorched earth assault of the combined forces of the Nigerian military.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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Date: 11/08/2020 08:21 (GMT+00:00)

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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''If Western education works well in Nigeria as it does in the Western World, you and the rest of Nigerians will not be complaining about the retrogressive industrial and economic development in Nigeria. Educationally, there is no academic qualification in this world, real or honorary, that one would not find some Nigerians possessing it. Thus, Nigeria has one of the highest manpower indexes in the world which explains why there are more PhDs and Professors in Nigeria's MDAs than anywhere else on this globe. Oluwatoyin, you have given your white clothes to an expert washerman purportedly trained in the Western World, and he returned them to you visibly drenched into red palm oil, what would be your conclusion?

There is no short cut to the top of the palm tree, one must start to climb from the bottom. We must go back and start from where we fell to the colonialists before we can rise up.

Before then every Nigerian should ask him/herself : in what way is my education applicable to the industrial and economic development of Nigeria?

Honest answer to that question will determine alternatives to the present situation we all are ignorantly blaming Buhari for.''

Could you please specify how this goal could be achieved?

You are suggesting returning to African knowledge systems as they existed before the colonial experience.

Can you clarify, perhaps with reference to general world views and epistemologies-ways of looking at the world and how knowledge is developed, assessed and applied?

Does this other fine method quoted below you suggest have anything to do with Westernization?

Is it not actually best exemplified by Western approaches to development and might not be a good example of how to de-Westernize African education, the goal that your views suggest-

- ''Before then every Nigerian should ask him/herself : in what way is my education applicable to the industrial and economic development of Nigeria?'' is actually best exemplified by response to Western approaches to development and might not be a good example of how to de-Westernize African education, the goal that your views suggest.

I look forward to Gloria Emeagwali's presentation of her own views on Western education in Nigeria/Africa instead of making a blanket claim of agreement with Salimonu's views which might not be essentially the same as hers.

She can give a summary of her views. Such a fast approach could motivate people to buy the book she is recommending and read the elaboration of her ideas in her chapter in that book or buy the book chapter alone, if that option exists .

thanks

toyin

On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 at 00:03, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 11, 2020, 10:42:52 PM8/11/20

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dear oaa

i knew only a little about boko haram, and none of it is good. but you alluded to when they started out, and i read more than once that they did not turn violent until the nigerian army attacked them.

i don't believe in wiping out islamists simply because of their beliefs; i do believe in using force against those who are turning to violence and use it against civilians.

from the earlier reports it was the bad judgment of the nigerian army that set them on this terrible course; and nigerian army attacks have not ceased to alienate the local population, for quite some time now

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Aug 12, 2020, 9:32:13 AM8/12/20

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OAA,

I quoted the views of the founder of Boko Haram on the nature of reality, views that are deeply problematic for living in contemporary society.

I presented an overview of the group's violent activities from their inception, using sources represented by intelligence agencies and news reports from various parts of the world.

I gave evidence describing Boko Haram's foundational strategy of communal consolidation and terror.

So, where did you draw your conclusions from about the picture I am presenting?

Kadiri is basically an ideologue whitewashing Boko Haram terrorism and Fulani herdsmen terrorism.

Your struggling to yoke my views to his suggest to me an effort to avoid reality in order to prevent engaging with a truth uncomfortable with some political persuasions.

Boko Haram is an intensification of the dogmatic and inhuman aspects of the kind of Islam that dominates Nigeria's Muslim North, scarred by recurrent massacres by average citizens of those seen as outsiders, where someone is this month described as sentenced to death for blasphemy agst Allah for whom the entire cosmos is less than the equivalent of a speck of sand to a human being, yet some persons use death of others in protecting what they think are the interests of such a one.

Thanks

Toyin

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 12, 2020, 11:41:40 AM8/12/20

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Ken:

You totally misread me. There are legions of Muslims in northern Nigeria and the South West. Why would I want them wiped out because of their beliefs most of my friends in northern Nigeria are Muslims. Half of my friends in the South West are Muslims.

However if any sectarian group in Nigeria turns violent against fellow Nigerians be such group traditional religious worshippers, Muslims or Christians wantonly kill Nigerians and is unrepentant the Nigerian government owes the overwhelming remainder of the citizenry the onerous duty of wiping that group out or bringing it to a terminal surrender having been shown on the battle field that it is no match for the federal forces, and not negotiating with it. It has happened before with Maitatsine in the same region where Boko Haram is situated now. It happened under a northern Muslim president. This is the first duty of any president.

This government has been in office for FIVE years and the second term. It cannot continue to behave like a government in office and not in power. The combined armed forces of Nigeria has more than fifty times the fire power than Boko Haram can ever muster. Why can it not be used decisively in the best interests of the generality of Nigerians : North, South, East and West? This was the main reason the current President was voted into power; so he can use his past experience in the military to decisively and terminally defeat Boko Haram on the battle field. This is what is known as the Biafra doctrine: a part cannot militarily challenge the whole to solve a sectional problem. The whole will not respond with civil palliatives in part or in full. I was among those who fought tooth and nail for a second term for this government so we are not short- changed that just when the battle was about to be concluded the government was voted out of power. It must be total war on the battle field against Boko Haram until victory is assured and a 'human steel ring' shield of border patrols is established in the North East from Lake Chad to Yola to the effect that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a needle to penetrate the border patrols to harm innocent Nigerians. This government must stop being on the defensive playing costly hide and seek games with Boko Haram forces. It must continuously be on the offensive with search and destroy patrols in the known haunts of Boko Haram operatives based on sound intelligence until complete victory is assured.

Generations unborn will NEVER forgive this government if the problem of Boko Haram is not decisively and terminally solved to the satisfaction of victims and the generality of Nigerians. I have never seen anywhere in the world where criminals are begged not to be criminals no matter the motivation for their criminality and religion is no exception. Criminals are brought to justice and made to pay for their crimes and not the other way round.

OAA

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Murder: Akua Denteh of Ghana

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dear oaa

i knew only a little about boko haram, and none of it is good. but you alluded to when they started out, and i read more than once that they did not turn violent until the nigerian army attacked them.

i don't believe in wiping out islamists simply because of their beliefs; i do believe in using force against those who are turning to violence and use it against civilians.

from the earlier reports it was the bad judgment of the nigerian army that set them on this terrible course; and nigerian army attacks have not ceased to alienate the local population, for quite some time now

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 12, 2020, 11:50:24 AM8/12/20

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dear oaa

not sure where the point of disagreement is. i remarked on islamists, not muslims. there is a difference. my only point was on the moment boko became a violent group. that was well reported as following a slaughter carried out by the nigerian army.

since they turned to kidnapping an violence against civilians they lost any credibility concerning their credo, not matter what violence they were opposing. they resemble the islamist violence we've seen elsewhere in the world, under the name of jihadist groups like al-qaeda, etc.

becoming an old story now.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

https://www.lawfareblog.com/negotiating-jihadists-sahel-and-nigeria

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 12, 2020, 2:45:47 PM8/12/20

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slightly a propos

here is a good essay on the french intervention in the sahel--(the new form of neocolonialism??)--and the jihadist movement in the region, including boko haram's interests in this. it seems completely informed, to me.

and is a region of interest to me, as well--mali, burkina, the locations of recent events/flighting, where the islamic movement is most active in w africa

Negotiating With Jihadists in the Sahel and Nigeria - Lawfare

Jacob Zenn is an adjunct assistant professor on African armed movements at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program and a senior fellow on African affairs at the Jamestown Foundation.

www.lawfareblog.com

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university