Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - re- A Take on Pan-Africanism and Freedom From Religious and Cultural Colonisation
Obadiah Mailafia
Dear Cornelius Magnus,
Greetings! Thanks for your commentary on Christianity, Islam and Christianity. When you say Africa’s population is 53% Muslim and only 38% Christian, with the rest ‘animist’, I am compelled to ask, which Africa are we talking about? There is the fictitious, ‘pan-African’ Africa that includes the Mafghrib and Egypt. You and I know that this is not the ‘real Africa’. I used to live in Carthage, Tunis. These people don’t really regard themselves as Africans at all. They only do so when it is convenient and advantageous for that moment. They see themselves first and foremost as Arabs. How many Arab Africans, for example, are in this “African Dialogue Forum”?
So, when we lump everyone as being ‘African’, we aren’t saying very much. In Egypt, of course, some 10 percent of the people are Christian; a people under savage persecution centuries – it’s a miracle they have survived. I once invited to Tunis my ‘father’ and mentor, Rev. Dr. Johann Boer, a Dutch-Canadian missionary who served in Nigeria for 3 decades. I took them to the ruins of the ancient churches and monasteries of Carthage. He was moved to tears. People do not easily remember their history. The whole of North Africa was predominantly Christian. St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a village across the Algerian border. He came to study in the seminary in Carthage. Together with St. Ambrose and other Africans, they literally laid the foundation of the Latin Church. The old cathedral in Carthage, which has been turned into arts theatre by the Tunisian government, has produced no less than 3 black Popes.
No, we should never speak as if Christianity is alien to Africa. In fact, it is more indigenous to Africa than it is to the West. The Desert Fathers of Egypt were the first to institute the practice of monasticism. There are also the monopysite Ethiopian Copts, with their rich tradition of spirituality centred in the mysterious rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and the ancient Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, where it is believed the most sacred object in Jewish spirituality, the Ark of the Covenant, is kept.
Edward Wilmot Blyden was a remarkable man – regarded by most of us as “the father of pan-Africanism”. He wrote about religion in the new Africa with great wisdom and sensitivity. But I have no evidence that he expressed a ‘preference’ for Islam over Christianity. He was a preacher and evangelist with a Doctor of Divinity degree. What he really said, to my understanding, is that we in Africa must evolve a modus vivendi between Mazrui’s “trinity” of Christianity, Islam and Traditional Religion. I believe that Ethiopia and Eritrea (minus the dictatorship) offer a model of peaceful c0o-existence between Christianity and Islam. In Senegal, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, Muslims and Christians live largely peacefully. They see themselves as Africans and they have no illusions regarding the bersekeries that Arabs have committed against the African people – and still do in Mauritania and Sudan.
Christianity a ‘minor Jewish sect’? This must be the understatement of the millennium.
The claim of Jesus Christ is a serious, overwhelming claim that has been confronted by the greatest geniuses of all time. No book comes close to the Bible in its sheer record of publication. Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world. The Chinese are turning to Christianity in their millions. He claims to be Lord. Ironically, each time Christians are persecuted and killed in northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Egypt and elsewhere, more converts are won. People are beginning to ask, between the killers and those who preach love and peace, who are the genuine children of God?
The writer C. S. Lewis says that claim is totalitarian and does not give room for any equivocation. He must either be a lunatic, liar or Lord. What we think of Him makes all the difference to our spiritual destiny.
There is a new movement to bring together Jews and Christians in a new oecumene that will hasten the return of Yeshua ha Mashiach. It is a movement that reached its most dramatic moment when the most revered Rabbi in Israel, Rabbi. Avadiah Yosef, Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi in Yerushalaim, revealed that he had seen the Mashiach. He revealed Him to be Yeshua. World Jewry can never be the same again.
The Christians of Africa do not buy into the redneck fanaticism which sees Christianity as being in mortal, antinomian conflict with Islam. No. Muslims are also God’s children. Anyone who hates Muslims or anyone else – including lesbians and homosexuals – does not know the Lord. Of course, we know that He hates sin and everything that grieves the Holy Spirit. But He loves the sinner and He weeps for the lost. He came mainly for them and it is for them that the whole universe groans for the revelations of the children of God, to echo St. Paul.
Christianity, far from being a 'minor Jewish sect', is the most audacious spiritual message in the entire history of Humanity. It is not a religion – forget this Europe and their cupidity in turning the Light into an ideology of power, domination and racial bigotry. There is only one question: What did you do with Jesus Christ? Did you walk in His spirit or did you crucify Him once again? Christ is being re-crucified today by Fulani marauders in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, by Boko Haram, by ISIS and the lot. But then, very soon – sooner or later -- everyone will have to face Him to answer that question.
Obadiah Mailafia
--The Africa of which she speaks so powerfully is the second largest and second most populous continent in the world.Today, 53% of Africa’s population is Muslim whereas Christianity in Africa can boast of 38% of the continent’s population. Of course, Islam is winning the battle for converts – and this, despite its ban on the consumption of al-cohol and perhaps because of some of the reasons outlined in Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race – in which he expresses a personal preference for Islam basically his claim being that Islam is a little closer to the natural ( fitra) and naturally closer to African cultures and the so called African way of life, to begin with.
In context, this is from her (the speaker’s) preamble, on her way to “there must be a cultural revolution” and the continent coming into “revolutionary consciousness”:
“The other weapon that imperialism uses which is a challenge for Pan-African Renaissance is religion. Some of us, you know, with all our rhetoric – it’s shocking, we are still deeply Christian, deeply Muslim, deeply this, deeply everything but African. …” (not clear… some laughter from the crowd) “And we can’t understand as long as you continue to see and to understand God and the creator through the lenses of another race you will never know freedom in your life – never! Religion is a cultural understanding of the spiritual….”etc etc. etc.
It’s not as if Christianity (a little Jewish sect) was ever imposed wholesale wherever it travelled from Jerusalem – to Rome, Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt and the rest of North Africa (before the advent of al-Islam) and what’s now known as the West, its wholesale conquest of Europe, North and South America etc.….
There is this something known as contextualisation . Nowadays, the mass is celebrated in the Igbo Language because Christianity has adapted/ been adapted to its various localities in Africa South of the Sahara, although I do not know the extent to which it has been adapted in e.g. Nigeria to accommodate the exigencies of local traditional cultures (such as polygamy) that flourished before the advent of Christian mission – Christian missionary zeal attempting real-time fulfilment of the great command
This little practical item that occurs in this Sabbath’s Torah portion has been acted upon in Nigeria for example with tremendous zeal, but perhaps not as Torah induced zeal?
Shemot 22: 17 in my Torah: “You shall not permit a sorceress to live”
It’s Exodus 22.18 in the Christian Bible
The stone Chumash not reads: “17. A Sorceress. The court-inflicted death penalty applies equally to male and female sorcerers, but the verse uses the feminine because this activity was more common among women ( Rashi)…. By definition, sorcery is an attempt to assume control of nature through the powers of impurity and thus to deny God’s mastery. “You shall not permit to live.” This is a stronger expression than simply stating that she incurs the death penalty. Those who engage in sorcery are extremely dangerous to others, because of the corrosive and enticing nature of such an activity. Regarding such great dangers, the Torah exhorts the nation to root them out zealously. (Ramban) “
In Africa people identified as “witches” are being rooted out by the death penalty / summary executions without trial ( as was the historic case of Christianity’s extermination of alleged witches in Europe from the Middle of the fifteenth century
On the whole, m
issionaries have tended to regard indigenous African religions as witchcraft…
What I don’t know and have never investigated is whether or not the death penalty for people who are alleged to be witches in Nigeria is a pre Christian and pre-Islamic cultural tradition – and arising from that , with or without a “cultural renaissance” or revolutionary consciousness “ what is to be done ? Is it high time that that these executions were brought to an end?
Only asking this one of a dozen questions,
Cornelius
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Dr. Obadiah Mailafia,
Shalom and many thanks!
What a day this has been so far! First I was woken up my most Roman Catholic friend Robert Feely who left a message on my cell phone informing me that today is a feast commemorating Jesus being presented at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem by his mother Mary and her husband Joseph the carpenter. A few minutes later I was reading some sentences from “Some Kind Of Incumbency Factor, Nevertheless” that brought this picture to mind. After which I read your letter.
I’m flattered that I was not addressed as “Dear Cornelius Ignoramus” as that by itself alone would not remove the addressee far from human error or absolve me of any claim to omniscience or infallibility. I*m grateful for all the matters you have taken up beginning with the troublesome rather inclusive statistics that usually show up encompassing the whole continent from Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia to Cape Agulhas in South Africa. But, may I hasten to free myself from any blame with regard to your claim that I said or in any way implied that when you add the already suspect figures 53% Muslim to 38 % Christian the remainder 9% of the continent’s population are “animist” – since I never said any such thing and I should hope that among that remainder could be counted a sizeable number who are adherents of Olodumare and perhaps a much tinier fraction who belong to the class of sceptics known as atheists and agnostics, infidels, disbelievers and unbelievers, not to mention that vast majority which from the Christian missionary point of view are heathen and from the point of view of Islamic mission are mushrikun / idolaters, idol worshippers and I guess that would include the witches, wizards and magicians of the African Continent and its Diaspora.
For me the lines of demarcation between faith and folly are drawn here:
Faith and Folly: The Occult in Torah Perspective by Rav Yaʻaḳov Mosheh Hillel
There might be a school of Pan-Africanist thought that wants to subtract or exclude North Africa - mainly the Arabs and the Berbers from the equation or the definition - but is that not a blatant illustration of barbaric racism and conscious apartheid tribal-ism? The proponent of the idea “Africa Must Unite” was himself married to an Egyptian, was he not? And if indeed the continent is one -as the late Muammar Gaddafi left it, then why should we divide it on the basis of ethnicity? Or any other differences/ diversities? The consolation is that contrary to what you say it is Islam and not Christianity that is the fastest growing religion in Africa and in the world) and indeed Islam is spreading southwards, faster than the Sahara Desert currently being blown by the Harmattan winds.
More important matters: For a surety the Ark of the Covenant is not in that rumoured location in Axum.
Secondly, re “a little Jewish sect” : it was an error of omission and I had meant to write “Christianity started off as a tiny Jewish sect - or as a heretical sect –but still well within the Jewish fold” ( Please take a look at Jesus from Judaism's point of view)
Thirdly, you must disabuse yourself of the idea and repent for attributing to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef the heinous idea that he “revealed that he had seen the Mashiach. He revealed Him to be Yeshua” (Jesus). He did no such thing! This is completely untrue and nothing less than a malicious and demonic fabrication aimed at sullying the good name of the Rabbi. What was sensational is that another rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri is purported to have left a hand written message which I have also read and which some people have interpreted to mean that Yahushua (Jesus) is the intended Messiah.
C.S. Lewis, yes he (according to his autobiography) wrestled with the idea unsuccessfully and came to the conclusion that Jesus is his Redeemer or as he put it, that “God is God”. I read most, if not all of his religious stuff in 1985 – and his children stories, the Narnia stories in particular are the moral diet (distinguishing right from wrong) on which a lot of Swedish kids are brought up...
Ah yes, North Africa! I spent two months in Alexandria in Egypt in 1991 - visited Ahmad Badawi in Tanta (and spent two months in Cairo - almost wound up in Gaza -…. long story) indeed some people are not aware of Alexandria’s place in the history of Christianity or indeed and for me too only during my visit to Turkey in April last year did I commune with St. John at his burial site in Ephesus – forgot to leave a stone/ pebble and also visited the Mother of Jesus’ burial site just a few yards away from St. John’s. Many extraordinary things happened that evening but since I also visited the nearby mosque where I did something ( made a small donation) I don’t know what I should attribute the occurrences to, suffice it to say that whether we are impervious to and not impressed by miracles or not, I am systematically reading the so called New Testament
I am happy to the point of being thrilled that you have this conviction in common with Edward Wilmot Blyden when you say that “The Christians of Africa do not buy into the redneck fanaticism which sees Christianity as being in mortal, antinomian conflict with Islam. “
I am stunned that you say that you or indeed anyone else could say that they “have no evidence that he expressed a 'preference' for Islam over Christianity” - the evidence is overwhelming and explicitly so- and that is an aspect of Edward Wilmot Boyden that I know most vastly and most thoroughly and so should you if you are familiar with his collection of essays that were published in 1887 under the title “Christianity Islam and the Negro Race” – and it is universally known from his own incontrovertible words that Edward Wilmot Blyden preferred Islam to Christianity in Africa. unfortunately I cannot quote from it right now because at this very moment the book is not on my shelf or cellar - since I have lent it out and can’t even remember who to ( lesson : don’t ! Do not lend out books , records, CDs ) but please take my word for it - and to be as brief as possible let me quote from the middle of page 124 of the collation of his words, sermons, polemical articles, pamphlets and other books on the matter in Hollis R. Lynch : EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN, PAN-NEGRO PATRIOT 1832-1912 :
“In 1889, to years after the publication of his book Christianity Islam and the Negro Race, Blyden returned to the United States as a much more widely known and controversial literary figure than ever before. His white colonization friends were chagrined at his trenchant criticism and public rejection of sectarian Christianity, and his strong sympathy for Islam, but their attitude was for Blyden further proof that even the most well-meaning white men could never understand the viewpoint of a Negro patriot. It was widely but wrongly reported in the American press that Blyden had become a Muslim, and he did little to dispel that impression. Indeed, during this stay in the United States, he gave serval lectures on the Koran and Islam in West Africa.” (Note 64 – refers to C Eric Lincoln’s “The Black Muslims in America” (Boston 1961) and E. Essien Udom’s “Black Nationalism: A Search for Identity in America” (New York, 1962)
This reply will be completed in my next posting in which I shall address the misgivings you expressed in your last paragraph - matters of great concern to us all - and in which I also intend to thoroughly convince you with the necessary evidence of Bylden’s position on Islam vis-à-vis Christianity in our part of Africa.
Sincerely
Cornelius
Farooq A. Kperogi
There were no Arabs in Africa (or what we now call "North Africa") until about the 8th century. The indigenous groups there, as I said earlier, are broadly called Berbers. Romans called them Africans, ancient Greeks called them Libyans, Medieval Europeans called them Moors, and they call themselves some version of the word Imazighen. They converted to Christianity from about the 2nd century but became Muslim from about the late seventh century after the Umayyad invasion of the area. Nonetheless, it was the invasion of the Banu Hilal in the 11th century that completely Islamized and Arabized them. But there are still many Berber cultural revival efforts (collectively called Berberism) fighting to either reclaim (such as in Tunisia and Algeria) or preserve (such as in Morocco and Libya) what the people consider the lost or dying glories of their pre-Islamic past.
And, in any event, as I pointed out, Arabs have lived in the continent of Africa in large numbers since about the 8th century and have been referred to as “Africans” hundreds of years before us. We even have Nigerian Arabs, called Shuwa Arabs in Borno State, who have lived in that part of the country since at least the 12th century, that is, hundreds of years before there was a country called Nigeria. Would you, Dr. Mailafia, consider Shuwa Arabs “fake” Nigerians since, by your definition, Arabs are not “real” Africans? I would hope not. Arabism and Africanity are not mutually exclusive categories since contemporary Africanity isn’t an essentially racial or ethnic category. You can be an African and be an Arab. The late Professor Ali Mazrui even invented a term for that kind of dual yet fluid identity: Afrabian.
Skin color can’t be a criterion, much less the sole criterion,
for "admitting" people into the “real” Africa, because the
"purebred" Berbers of Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, etc. (the
original or, if you will, the “real” Africans) are actually, on average,
"white" if we can, for now, arbitrarily deploy blue eyes and blond
hair and pale skin as markers of "whiteness." Several studies have,
in fact, shown that there are more blue-eyed and blond-haired people among the
Berbers of North Africa than there are among southern Europeans (that is,
Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, etc.). The Berbers, additionally, have
more genetic proximity with Europeans than they have with black Africans.
Malcolm
X had a poignant, life-changing experiential encounter with the complexity of
what it means to be African when he visited Ghana in 1964. In his impassioned
Black Nationalist speeches in America, Malcolm had always made glowing and
approbatory references to “Algerian revolutionists” (whom he, of course, regarded
as Africans) who fought the French to a standstill. “In Algeria, the northern
part of Africa, a revolution took place,” he said in his famous October 10,
1963 speech called Message to the Grassroots. “The Algerians were
revolutionists; they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into
France. They told France: to hell with France. They wanted some land, not some
France. And they engaged in a bloody battle.”
So when he went to Ghana (his first visit to Africa), a year after this memorable speech, he sought and got audience with the Algerian ambassador to Ghana. The ambassador turned out to be what Malcolm recognized as a white man—he had blue eyes, blond hair and pale skin. But he was a Berber, a “white” African. And he was just as zealous about pan-African unity as Malcolm was. But in the course of their conversation, the Algerian pointedly asked how a person with his kind of racial and geographic origins fitted into Malcolm’s exclusivist and racialist constructions of Black Nationalism. The formulations of Black Nationalism—and Africanness—that Malcolm had cherished crumbled.
How could
someone who looked exactly like the people he called “white devils” in America
be an African—and a “black nationalist” at that? This was particularly epiphanous
for Malcolm because, not long before this encounter, he had repulsed a
conscientious white American girl who’d told him she wanted to join his Black
Nationalist movement to fight white racism. He later confessed that his brusque
rebuff of the white girl’s sincere offer to join his movement for racial
justice in America was one of the greatest regrets of his life.
So,
if “whiteness” (or “non-blackness”) is, in fact, original to the conception of
“Africanness” why is the idea of a white or Arab African anomalous? Well,
the converse can also be asked: if whiteness is original to the conception of
Africanness, why is it now always necessary to modify “African” with “white” if
a non-black African is being identified?
The truth is that the notion of a non-black African strikes the mind as counter-intuitive precisely because over the last centuries, the term “Africa” has undergone tremendous notional transformations. In the popular imagination, Africa now evokes the image of “blackness.” The people to whom the name originally referred (whom we would call "white" by today’s racial classification) have now been effectively marginalized from its contemporary ideational universe. There is perhaps no greater proof of this reality than the fact that present-day North Africans themselves concede ownership of the name Africa to black people, as you, Dr. Mailafia, testify. Our blackness, it seems, has stained the “purity” of their name. Now, they would rather be “Arabs” than “Africans.” The trouble, though, is most Arabs don’t recognize North Africans as Arabs, but that is a topic for another day.
A few years ago, I sat close to a Tunisian lady during a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea. In the course of our chit chat, she told me she was “going to Africa” for the first time. I was balled over. When I reminded her that her country, Tunisia, in fact, used to be the symbolic and administrative nucleus of “Africa” for several centuries before black people became a part of Africa, she agreed but insisted that black people have now rhetorically appropriated Africa. Well, at least, unlike Dr. Mailafia, she is not unaware that Arabized Muslim Berbers in North Africa are the “real” Africans, not “Black Africans” in so-called sub-Saharan Africa.
But the point of my intervention is not to make a case for some romantic geographic African unity or to minimize the well-documented cases of anti-black racism among Arabs about which my friend, Moses Ochonu, has written persuasively, but to call attention to the arbitrariness—-and power—-of naming. As Ali Mazrui once reminded us, even our name was named for us by Europe. “Europe chose its own name, ‘Europe,’ and then chose names for the Americas, Australia, Antarctica, and even Asia and Africa,” he wrote in the book Collected Essays of Ali A. Mazrui. “The name ‘Africa,’ originating in North Africa as the name for a sub-region, was applied to Africa as a whole by European map-makers and cartographers.”
And when has membership of the USA Africa Dialogue series become the litmus test for Africanness? Perhaps you would also make the case that black African nations that are not represented on this list--and they are many--have lost their claim to Africannness?
And why do you have a need to call attention to the 10 percent Coptic Christians in Egypt who are actually racially "white"? Are you suggesting that their Christianity immunizes them from your arbitrary, ahistorical de-Africanization of contemporary Arab and Muslim Egyptians?
It is interesting that the same Maghrebi people you de-Africanized a few paragraphs ago because they are Muslims are the same people whose ancient Christianity you are invoking to show that Christianity is not alien to Africa, even going so far as to make the (intentionally) false claim that the cathedral in Carthage "has produced 3 black popes." You have gone from restoring the "Africanity" of Maghrebi people (the way you seem to have done for Copts of Egypt--apparently because of their Christian faith, which you share with them) to actually attributing "blackness" to them (which you appear to think is an infrangible essence in the notion of Africanness).
Well, Pope St Victor I (the 4th pope who reigned from 186 to 198), Pope St Miltiades (the 32 pope who reigned 311 to 314), and Pope St Gelasius (the 49th pope who reigned from 492-496) weren’t black; they were Berbers who were almost physically indistinguishable from Romans. They had straight hair, sharp noses, pale skin, and all other markers of “whiteness” by today’s racial typologies.
Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor who reigned from 193 to 211, was also born in what is today Libya. Although many "black nationalists" like to refer to him as “black,” because he was African, he wasn’t black; he was just African. Blackness and Africanness are not one and the same thing.
Finally, you can't have your cake and eat it. You either consider North Africans as not "real Africans" (which is laughably nescient) and not use their history to lend notions of indigeneity to Christianity in Africa or regard them as Africans and accept that their addition to West African Muslims gives Muslims a numerical edge over Christians on the continent. I frankly didn't know that there were more Muslims than there are Christians in Africa until Oga Cornelius pointed it out. It really means nothing--frankly--but when an otherwise smart and well-traveled scholar like you wants to twist the facts to give comfort to your emotions, it behooves those who know to intervene.
Farooq Kperogi
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Cornelius Hamelberg
Many, Many Thanks. In Swedish, tusen tack (a thousand thanks)
At first I thought, “Holy al-Islam has been touched and boy oh boy, someone is angry! Someone is going to be straightened out and will soon shout “touché!”
But adab - it turned out to be a courteous, interesting historical, political and linguistic review of the continent by the erudite Professor Farooq Kperogi! It’s called, “real change”: Cornelius Ignoramus for one is now considerably more educated about these matters than he was just a few minutes previously. Indeed at this point in time Cornelius Africanus himself would be proud of him even if his use of Latin has fallen into desuetude these later days.
As to what sounds like a thesis that it’s impossible to subscribe to, namely the notion of racial purity ( in spite of what must have been – not miscenagation but honourable inter-marriage ) throughout this educative mind-bending ( search the post and bear me out) Professor Farooq Kperogi gives the impression that Berbers are mostly white (pale) in complexion, in spite of centuries, indeed millennia under Africa’s (or Kemet’s if you will) midday sun! The fact is that Berbers come in all shapes and sizes, the full rainbow spectrum is represented in their “infinite variety” ( like Cleopatra’s) of colours, from lily white , Germanic and Scandinavian sky-blue eyes and blonde hair to blue black skin and hair, they are like Joseph’s coat, a variety of colours
I have and have had, many encounters with Berbers (I know a few, here in Stockholm) and some of them resent being mis-identified as Arabs (just as some Canadians don’t/ didn’t like being mistaken for Americans – especially during the Vietnam War).
One of the most famous Berbers in recent history is surely Ahmed Ben Bella, a noted Pan-Africanist, “of Berber roots”
Another matter arising, since the name Shuwa Arab turned up : I read somewhere that Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa the First Prime Minister of Nigeria had a Shuwa Arab father and a Fulani mother?
Must now get cracking with representing as succinctly as possible, Edward Wilmot Blyden’s views on al-Islam. (I once knew his grandson once Ambassador to Russia, and know his great grandson Babatunde Edward Blyden a personal friend and chairman of Excelsior (a fraternity to which I belonged), in the country that we call Sierra Leone!)
Wa Salaam
Cornelius
...
Mario Fenyo
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2016 10:48 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - re- A Take on Pan-Africanism and Freedom From Religious and Cultural Colonisation
Malami Buba
Prof Malami Buba
Farooq A. Kperogi
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
--
Cornelius Hamelberg
At various times, I have lived with Moroccans, Algerians, Egyptians, but my Berber friend since the early 1970s used to swear that Ahmed Ben Bella was Berber and constantly impressed this on me. However, just now, looking through “Notable Berbers” his name does not show up.
A note on Ahmed Ben Bella: “Berber roots”
In my not so limited experience with North Africans (mostly Muslim Arabs) and some judaized Berbers/ judaized Berbers, I have found that the Algerians that I have known and still know have always shown the better understanding of the plight of Africa South of the Sahara (Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, of course South Africa) and this perhaps can be attributed to the fact that they fought hard for their Independence and perhaps also due to the impact of Frantz Fanon who in his time actively supported the Algerians War of Independence and was also a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front…
...
kenneth harrow
ken
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-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
kenneth harrow
who decides?
face it, we are talking about race as if not talking about race. and if we do that, we can return to what about mixed race? and who is not really mixed race? we are talking about non-issues settled long ago, at the very least, by appiah in In My Father's House.
we are talking about house-cleaning, meaning ethnic cleansing, only now it is racial cleansing.
and on top of it, it is who is a real christian....
well, is this worth it, really, to expend our breath on?
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
An exciting discussion but the Berbers or Amazighs were not the only
inhabitants of ancient north africa.
What of the Tubu?What of the Beja and others of the Sahara and environs.
Nubians, Amharas, Tigrayans and a host of other ethnicities were adventurous
people. Some travelled west over time and space. In fact there is also the theory that some West Africans actually came from up north at one point.
Germanic Vandals invaded north Africa in the 5th century and interacted with the Amazigh
who incidentally are pigmentationally diverse.
There are lots of Amazigh (Berbers) who are ebony black
although, sadly enough, some people try to write them out of history.
GE
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Sent: Monday, February 8, 2016 10:09 PM
Moses Ebe Ochonu
Cornelius Hamelberg
Prof Kperogi,
As always, tusen tack!
(This is a personal letter – nobody else can do it for me - or play my guitar for me (or like me)…or write my memoirs instead of me or speak to the Almighty in my name)
I take your word for it, that, “No, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was not Shuwa Arab” – a direct contradiction of some of the entries here: Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa's father was a Shuwa Arab. Gere or Geri or even Shuwa, Creole or Krio, William or Guillaume, as usual there are all sorts of confusions about place names, personal names, genealogies – at some point in history “Abyssinia” was the derogatory Arabic derived name for Ethiopia, so it’s often the case of “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” - and - as you have explained, what some people call “Shuwa Arab” is what Hausa people call “Bageri" (singular) and Gerawa (plural… “different from the Bagara” etc.
North African Arabs speak a variety of dialects/ vernaculars and sometimes in some gatherings of diverse North Africans e.g. Libyans and Mauritanians/ Moroccans, many of the arguments and misunderstandings are sorted out at length by eventual consensus about exact definitions or intended meanings of words. (You tell some guy that you’re from Sierra Leone and the first thing he hears is “Syria“ or “Sri Lanka”. You are speaking your Desert Queen’s English, you say “Sweden” and he may hear and believe you said “Sudan” (Habash). Sometimes I just say “Agadir!” to confirm the wooliness of the hair.) At a later date my Egyptian friend (I suspect he’s a Sadatist) coined the friendly name Israeleone. Oh! And I forgot to add that if the geezer is from the Indian subcontinent he may even think “Ghulam” (thick lips and a big bottle) and that’s why the last time I met my Shia friend from Pakistan - even after I had presented him with a litre of Olive oil, he told me that the devil must have sent me to him. Up till now I don’t know which devil he had in mind, the great or the little shaitan…)
In my world – my musical world, colour and tribe are not so significant – are less significant than the music itself --- ok we know that the Igbo don’t play / don’t know how to play Juju music and that Kwela is South African etc.…
# Actually, I was wondering whether Ali Farka Toure ‘s musical brothers, the desert blues group Tinariwen being “Tuareg” means that they are or may be both Arab and Berber…and and …or or? That’s why I consulted/ googled “Notable Berbers “
Further down to the south-West, I’ve listened to some superb recordings of Mauritanian music’ have covered much of the continent but have still barely heard more than a few notes of music from Northern Nigeria. You may laugh if you want to, but I imagine that with Islam’s restrictions on stringed instruments (the only problem that I have had with al-Islam) I imagine that post-Islamic Northern Nigerian traditional music must sound a little bit like Yoruba Fuji?
Must first update my blog and soon get back to Blyden’s praises of Islam in West Africa….
Wa Salaam,
Cornelius
...
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 07:33:38 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - re- A Take on Pan-Africanism and Freedom From Religious and Cultural Colonisation
Farooq A. Kperogi
as you have explained, what some people call “Shuwa Arab” is what Hausa people “Bageri" (singular) and Gerawa (plural… “different from the Bagara” etc.
Oga Cornelius,
Cornelius Hamelberg
In his The Destruction of Black Civilisation your friend Chancellor Williams is very assertive that Black people became Arabs in exactly the same way that they became early Americans : through slavery. He is wrong of course. That is far from being the whole story, and many generalisations/ over-generalisations / simplifications should be treated with caution….
...
Salimonu Kadiri
From historical perspective, I repeat once more that Arabs became Africans through the same means by which Europeans became Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Americans. If I am wrong, I stand to be corrected with historical facts and not with verbal incontinences - many generalisations/ over-generalisations / simplifications.
S.Kadiri
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Ken,
Theoretically speaking, " race" and nationality are not identical categories. One is outright political. The other has biological/ genetic/ DNA
significance and intersects with geographical ancestry. Genetic markers and physical makeup seem to kick in too.
Gordimer is South African by nationality. Who decides? The existing body of laws and legislation governing citizenship.
There is nothing mysterious about it.
I don't have access to Gordimer's DNA profile etc to comment on her "biological" identity. I can conclude, though, that she was probably
in a relatively advantageous position during the era of apartheid. In that case race certainly existed for her in a social sense.
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2016 1:41 AM
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chancellor Williams did not say that Africans became Arabs. If my memory serves me right, what he actually said was that the Black man arrived in the Hijaz in the same way that he arrived in North America: through slavery.
The history of slavery is a very long one, sanctioned by all sorts of religions, was practised in Ancient Greece and Rome and as you have previously told us, even practised in some parts of Nigeria.
You say that “Black people did not become Arabs or Americans as a result of being taken as slaves by the Caucasian brothers, which is why you have African American but not European American citizens” But today there are Irish Americans and Italian Americans who identify as such and an American whose father is from Kenya is president of the United States of America.
I have read your post carefully and that’s why my questions are simple and I want some clarity from you:
How did Africans become Muslims? (And excuse me, if I may so ask, how come your name is Salim Kadiri? Is there a difference between Qadiri and Kadiri? Are these not Arab names? You notice that I do not ask as this Oyibo imp asked Malcom “Is that your legal name?” )
How did Africans become Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Americans?
You say that "Arabs became Africans" and I guess Africans also became Arabs, right?
I hope and trust that you will answer the questions in your usual dignified manner.
Sincerely
Cornelius
...
Samuel Zalanga
Farooq A. Kperogi
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Well let us not forget that the resistance movements against Rome emerged precisely because the people
of the region did not want to be part of " the West." Rome was viewed as an exploitative colonial power
that was draining the agricultural and zoological resources of the region for its benefit. The occupied
territories vigorously resisted the cultural and linguistic impositions of the hegemon, Rome.
By the way, are you suggesting that the continent did not exist before the Romans allegedly gave a relatively small
segment of the continent a name? So far, we have conventionally used the term "Africa" to refer to the entire
continent, from earliest times of human activity to the present. We know that polities emerged in the continent
thousands of years before Romulus and Remus allegedly founded the city of Rome around 750BC. Ta-Seti
in the Nubian region dates to 3700BCE.
Extreme linguistic determinism can be problematic but thanks for engaging in an often
neglected aspect of intellectual discourse.
Samuel Zalanga
Farooq A. Kperogi
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Farooq A. Kperogi
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Salimonu Kadiri
In your previous post of February 9, 2016, you wrote, "In his The Destruction of Black Civilisation your friend Chancellor Williams is very assertive that the BLACK PEOPLE BECAME ARABS IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THAT THEY BECAME EARLY AMERICANS:THROUGH SLAVERY." Premised on the above written words of yours which I found credible, I responded that Chancellor Williams was stating obvious historical facts since the common denominator for the Blacks in becoming Arabs and Americans was through slavery. Within 24 hours of your submission that "Chancellor Williams is very assertive that the Black people became Arabs" you wrote below, "Chancellor Williams did not say that Africans became Arabs." Your fluctuating memory on what Chancellor Williams asserted/said within 24 hours is astonishing. You floated Irish Americans, Italian Americans and crowned it with an American whose father is from Kenya as President of the United States of America. If there are such identities as Irish, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and British Americans then there should be Sierra Leone, Kenyan, Ghanaian, Angola, Congolese and Nigerian Americans. In fact, the President of USA whose father is a Kenya should be identified as a Kenyan American President and not as an African American President. Truly yours, I have never heard of European American President and the only way to pinpoint an abnormality in electing a 50% Caucasian blood mixed with a 50% Kenyan blood is to title him, African American President.
You asked, "How did Africans (I understand you to mean the anthropological owner of Africa, the Black man) become Muslims?" Africans became Muslims in the same way they became Christians. You also wondered about my name which you wrongly gave as "Salim" Kadiri. My name is Salimonu Kadiri and Kadiri is my family name. The usual practice in Yoruba part of Nigeria is to name a child according to the religious identity of the parents (of the father actually). Those, like my father, who adopt Islam as a religion in Yoruba land give Muslim names to their children with Yoruba flavour and pronunciations. Nowadays, many Yorubas no longer believe in adopting Arabic or Hebrew/ English names in order to identify themselves with Islam or Christianity. In short, Salimonu Kadiri is a typical Yoruba spelled Muslim name.
Your second question is, "How did Africans become Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Americans?" Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America were extensions of Europe accomplished by the extermination of the indigenous inhabitants of those territories. In his defence at Nuremberg trial of the Nazis, in 1945, Dr. Alfred Rosenberg alluded to the extension of Europe through annihilations in the above named territories which according to him was thousand times greater than what the Nazis accomplished during World War II. No matter how long a tree stays under water in the swamp, it cannot become a crocodile and it cannot become the owner of the swamp.
To your 3rd question, "You say that 'Arabs became Africans' and I guess Africans also became Arabs, right?" Why do you need to be guessing that Africans became Arabs when you should have pointed to any territory in the Middle-east where Africans annihilated the Arab inhabitants and supplanted them with indigenous Africans as Arabs have done in North Africa, Egypt and Northern Sudan?
S. Kadiri
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 06:00:04 -0800
John Mbaku
Since we are taking about Africa and Africans, I thought we may enjoy taking a look at the work of a great African, the Ivorian, Bernard Dadié and his poem about being black. The poem is titled "Je Vous Remercie Mon Dieu" (I thank you God" or "I thank you my God.")
I thank you God, for making me black,
for making me the sum of all pains, putting the world on my head.
I took the world to the Centaur
And I have carried the world since the first morning.
White is a color of circumstance
Black if the color of every day
And I have carried the world since the first evening
I am happy with the shape of my head
shaped to carry the world
Satisfied with the shape of my nose which has to smell all the scents of the world
Happy with the shape of my legs
Ready to run all the steps of the world
I thank you God, for having created me black
for having made me the sum of all pains
....
I am still happy to carry the world,
happy with my short arms
with my long arms
with my thick lips.
I thank you God, for having created me black,
I carry the world since the beginning of time
And my laughter on the world,
at night
created the day
Je vous remercie mon Dieu
Je vous remercie mon Dieu, de m'avoir créé Noir,
d'avoir fait de moi
la somme de toutes les douleurs,
mis sur ma tête,
le Monde.
J'ai la livrée du Centaure
Et je porte le Monde depuis le premier matin.
Le blanc est une couleur de circonstance
Le noir, la couleur de tous les jours
Et je porte le Monde depuis le premier soir.
Je suis content
de la forme de ma tête
faite pour porter le Monde,
Satisfait
de la forme de mon nez
Qui doit humer tout le vent du Monde,
Heureux
de la forme de mes jambes
Prêtes à courir toutes les étapes du Monde.
Je vous remercie mon Dieu, de m'avoir créé Noir,
d'avoir fait de moi,
la somme de toutes les douleurs.
Trente-six épées ont transpercé mon coeur.
Trente-six brasiers ont brûlé mon corps.
Et mon sang sur tous les calvaires a rougi la neige,
Et mon sang à tous les levants a rougi la nature.
Je suis quand même
Content de porter le Monde,
Content de mes bras courts
de mes bras longs
de l'épaisseur de mes lèvres.
Je vous remercie mon Dieu, de m'avoir créé Noir,
Le blanc est une couleur de circonstance
Le noir, la couleur de tous les jours
Et je porte le Monde depuis l'aube des temps.
Et mon rire sur le Monde, dans la nuit, créé le Jour.
Je vous remercie mon Dieu, de m'avoir créé Noir.
Bernard Dadié
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax
Cornelius Hamelberg
One thing that I have noticed about you – and I can give you several examples - is that you are fond of misquoting some people, sometimes by amputating whole sentences some of which transmit a complete meaning / thought/ fact/ point of view. I am not saying it is dishonest, because perhaps even an honourable Yoruba man like you can be completely unaware of some of your own tendencies. And not only that. For example, I wrote and you read: “If my memory serves me right, what he actually said was that the Black man arrived in the Hijaz in the same way that he arrived in North America: through slavery” So, why do feel the need to be “astonished” and to point at my alleged “fluctuating memory” or lapse of memory about exactly what Chancellor Williams said, after I have pointed out and corrected my original mistake – more an error of interpretation of his diffuseness, than an error of fact
As you know when the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for some 200 years or so they did not become Egyptians…
And as you know the indigenous inhabitants of the United States still have their identities of which they are proud , Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee , Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Mohawk, Omaha, Sioux…Sitting Bull , Chief Crazy Horse…
About the particularities of being African-American, those who have arrived after the Middle Passage, especially if they come from big countries like Nigeria, are free to describe themselves as Nigerian- Americans – and if they are a large group they have their own special impact as a group. I guess (yes I do) that’s why some Nigerians are not happy with Brother Buhari saying what he said in that interview with the Telegraph - precisely because it reflects on the group as a collective identity as distinct from e.g. some of the Anglo-Sierra Leoneans ( some of whom are or want to be British to the bootstraps and still make tall claims of genealogies/ lineages that go back a few hundred years…
Don’t forget the Latinos…
“Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America were extensions of Europe accomplished by the extermination of the indigenous inhabitants of those territories” (Ogbeni Kadiri)
Today, one out of every four Black people in this world is of Nigerian ancestry. Who knows, we may soon have a Nigerian-American president of the USA and I guess that the last thing he would do would be to reverse the brain drain by deporting some of his Brethren back to from where they came…
News from Eritrea – maybe Nigeria should send some reinforcements?
I am now going to read the latest about the refugees and migrants in the Swedish newspapers…
Godnatt
Menahem
dAme jOo
Salimonu Kadiri
From the title of your submission below, I am not sure if you are writing to correct yourself or me. In your corrected submission, you wrote, "One thing that I have noticed about you - and I can give you several examples - is that you are fond of misquoting some people, sometimes by amputating whole sentences some of which transmit a complete meaning/thought/fact/point of view." Please, notice that I have quoted the whole sentence of yours instead of confining myself to the main subject of the sentence which is 'One thing I have noticed about you is that you are fond of misquoting some people.' Reading through your submission, however, you failed to give examples of me misquoting you or some people. Honestly, I don't see why you should draw in some people into the discussion.
In your submission of 9 February 2016, you wrote, "In his The Destruction of Black Civilisation your friend Chancellor Williams is very assertive that the Black people became Arabs in exactly the same way that they became early Americans: through slavery." Do I quote you correctly? The answer is capital YES. On February 10, 2016, you wrote, "Chancellor Williams did not say that Africans became Arabs." Do I quote this simple sentence from you correctly? The answer is capital YES. The following sentence about whether your memory served you right or not is an embellishment that does not deserve my attention.
My original intervention on this thread reads, "On the whole, the Arabs became Africans through the same process that made made Europeans to become Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Americans. The original inhabitants of what is now called Africa were dark-skinned people and not the pale-skinned people, the so called Caucasians of which Arabs are included." As anybody can see, I have never stated that Africans became Arabs or Americans. It is you who in your usual illogical association of events introduced Chancellor Williams' assertion of Africans becoming Arabs and Americans through slavery into the discussion. In spite of that, I refuse to see you as a mudslinger portraying self as a sound analyst.
S.Kadiri
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 16:04:16 -0800
Cornelius Hamelberg
Calm down. As some wives sometimes tell their husbands in the middle of a heated argument: “You know that shouting like that is not good for your heart!” You are either taking me or taking your self far too seriously. Even Jesus did not have this kind of discussion with his brothers, the Pharisees.
I’m aware that Ogbeni Kadiri can do no wrong and that is why he is for ever correcting everybody about everything. He of course is also aware that his 50-50 horizontal perceptions are not in decline and that one day, not gradually but suddenly it and he, all vanity, all pedantry, his concrete and his abstract thoughts will turn to dust and rot. I am fully aware and know that you want to argue about that too. And so will mine.
The history of the slave trade, the history of the Black man’s struggle in America and African American history, politics, music, literature and the political from its beginnings up to Ta-Nehisi Coates - don’t we all know it or am I going to start arguing with you or him or Malcolm Little about a petty word or two, about his mistakes, their mistakes and mine – every step of the way?
How petty-minded can you be! There you go again, chattering on like an angry old lady about some minutia of detail and waving your impotent school teacher’s walking stick at me – aiming for correction and the wayward’s mending of his ways. Say astagfirullah or despair! Please do not hope to get anywhere with me. In the several blips of ongoing time, the cross-fire in course of a single dinner conversation I guess ( yes I do) that you wind back the tape to review the wording of this and that take in the rapid flow of an exchanges of ideas, to edit what was wrongly said and what defied your passing grasp of Aristotelian logic and the grammarian’s passion for subject-verb agreement and disagreements . That way, even small talk conversations wouldn’t get anywhere “You said “, “but you said”etc. when I’m talking and thinking whole pages at 100 mph, how many times are you going to stop/ interrupt and rewind to get the hang of petty unimportant distinctions of jive-ass nigger and his rap ? How would dialogue progress or do you consider yourself an overarching, divinely appointed teacher sent to this earth to conduct Socratic dialogues or even un- Socratic ones?
Well, I was raised by a less Gradgrindian regime and have never been in the Nigerian army. I do not intend to waste a second more taking orders or trying to derive more accurate meaning and sense from you, I’ve even forgotten what you said last year not to mention what Chancellor Williams “Destruction” which I read about thirty years ago on the recommendation of Koro Sallah – and was not impressed by what he said and especially not by what he did not say – after Martin Bernal - so I’ll stick to the Torah and to poetry.
In his room at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm –and this was in the day of his portable Olivetti typewriter ( 1979) Wole Soyinka showed me some sheaves of his manuscript in progress and I was surprised about his pen and ink alterations here and there, on top of the type. Not even Kerouac -genius at work produces an unedited spontaneous flow from typewriter to publication….
The petty-minded old pettifogger devil is more pedantic than even the sophistry of the likes of you and me and is capable of producing more than your feeble one-liners such as “mudslinger portraying self as a sound analyst”. Do you think that I care about what you just said or will say if you reply to this with some more of your usual? When the old pettifogger devil reads your Holy Quran in its historical or non-chronological sequence he sees and quotes inconsistencies that only he is capable of seeing and not resolving. I thank God that that I’m not like him.
Now here’s something of interest, from my point of view pertaining to an aspect of the subject matter at hand (Africa-America) – the Gullah. It was sent to me on the 21st of January this year by David Allen who used to be the vocalist of our band: A Vanishing History: Gullah Geechee Nation
Cornelius