Monday, March 18, 2024

The Horrors of Female Genital Mutilation

 

By Adan Makina

August 5, 2010

*This article contains graphic pictures illustrating the horrors of Female Genital Mutilation. Viewer discretion is advised.


I have a bone to pick with the contributors, readers, and administrators of WardheerNews. For almost two decades beginning with the fall of the military junta in 1991, the most burning issue posted on the articles section of WardheerNews and continuously debated over and over echoed topics related to the state of the Somali nation yet little attention has been given to aspects pertaining to social issues–especially the most excruciating practice that has been the cause of unspeakable pain and suffering experienced by our daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces, and grandmothers–living or dead. It is a practice that is commonly known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)–a practice whose origins remain shrouded in mystery. Nowadays, it is known as Female Genital Cut (FGC). Other than unreliable mythological explanations, questionable rationality, historical narratives devoid of relative validity, and philosophical thoughts immersed in objectivity, societies who practice FGM have failed to come up with religiously and theoretically convincing evidence regarding its benefits to womankind. Female circumcision, often called Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), is a practice found in some African and Middle Eastern cultures whose origin goes back to the era of the pharaohs of Egypt (though no historical data exist to substantiate such claim) where women underwent the ritual of clitoridectomy which implied the removal of the clitoris, and infibulations meaning to surgically cut-off either the labia minora or labia majora or all at the same time. Many reasons have been given as to why people of those days applied this agonizing procedure to their female kinfolk. One theory suggests that Egypt of those days was constantly embroiled in wars internally and externally which meant women and girls left behind fell prey to servants and other men around them. We also learn from authorities familiar with the cultural practices of Egypt, Nubba, Abyssinia, and Somalia how women resorted to unusual artificial sexual procedures to satisfy their sexual desires in the absence of their men. One definition to infibulation is “to close off or obstruct the genitals of, especially by sewing together the labia majora in females or fastening the prepuce in males, so as to prevent sexual intercourse.”[1]


The picture shown above depicts an innocent baby girl being circumcised without regard for medical ethics; without antiseptics; without painkillers; without anesthesia; and without simple numbness inducing creams perhaps by a feeble lady (for such a task was reserved for elderly women) or by a visually impaired midwife assisted by the mother of the child and her accomplices. The surgical tool illustrated in this operation, regardless of whether it is a Nacet blade, a Wilkinson sword or a double-edged Gillette platinum could be contaminated and may even have been used dozens of times. As a rule, in a procedure like this one, the biological mother of the child or guardian must be present to witness the nature of the operation. In some instances, it is the child’s caretaker who navigates the circumciser’s hand and the surgical tool for the sake of mutilating the most sexually agitating, corruptible, and men-tempting sensitive parts. The removal of parts targeted by the parent or guardian will place a cap on the young girl’s impulsive sensuality in the presence of men when she attains marriageable age leaving no room for horseplay and satanic temptations. By the time the procedure is over, the mother is assured her daughter will grow up sexually virtuous until such a time when she is wed to a husband who will bear witness to the new bride’s unbroken virginity. In some rare cases, the mother of the new husband who is the new bride’s mother-in-law may investigate the bride’s purity of virginity before pronouncement of the wedding ceremony by inserting her two fingers in the vaginal opening of her son’s new wife. A wider opening is cause for fornication and could result in the annulment of the wedding. A husband may dissuade his mother from such a harrowing experience by wedding his new wife without strings attached. Positive news denotes the new wife has had unblemished character. This can be easily verified by the husband by observing the splatter of blood spill on the white bed sheet–a sign of broken virginity.


To discourage a victim of circumcision from raising any objection to the procedure in adulthood, parents ensure their daughters undergo the cut at an early age. Here are some key facts from the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding FGM:

  • Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
  • The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women.
  • Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and newborn deaths.
  • An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM.
  • It is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15 years.
  • In Africa an estimated 92 million girls from 10 years of age and above have undergone FGM.
  • FGM is internationally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.


The healing duration depends on the strength of the victim’s immune system. Medications used during convalescence include application of sifted ash to affected area, herbal medications, sprinkling of capsule powder (preferably antibiotics) or any feasible medication. For many women, FGM is a rite of Passage. In many societies where the practice is widespread, it is societal pressures that lead women to undergo the procedure as a precondition for marriage. Regardless of the implications this pharaonic practice may have on women and girls, leaders who are strict in the observation of local customs condone the continuation of the practice as a deterrence to prostitution, HIV/AIDS epidemic and other sexually transmitted diseases. In some communities such as in Sudan and Somalia, the practice is so common that it is as if those engaged in the practice are going by the adage, “old customs die hard”. Almost 90% of women in Djibouti, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, and Sudan have had the cut in one form or the other. Worldwide, the practice is pervasive in 28 countries. “It is estimated that 95% of Somali women have undergone FGM (UNICEF, 2004); and 80% of Somali women in Britain (Black and Debelle, 1998).”[2]

Feeling emotionally broken, females who feel affected most by the cut may have the propensity to resort to atheism or other religious practices after renouncing the faiths they grew up in. With help from human rights advocates, willing literary activists, social campaigners or if literate themselves, some of these aggrieved women who are vocal, impressive, attractive, artistic, rambunctious, sociable, and fortunate enough, could find themselves catapulting to celebrity statuses overnight by producing much-admired manuscripts full of harrowing tales, award winning documentary films, and even Hollywood movies in real life drama or in fabricated form. In some documented cases, immigrant parents living in the west have been accused of taking their daughters back to countries of origin to undergo the cut while others, knowing that they won’t face prosecution against the practice due to the nature of secrecy involved and the laxity of the law, mutilate their daughters during summer vacations using surgical tools bought with taxpayers’ money.

While many who practice FGM cite religious references, some Islamic scholars disprove it in the strongest terms. Those scholars who refute FGM claim it is neither obligatory nor supererogatory and that it is simply a culture widespread among nomadic and uncivilized peoples. FGM leads to lacerations, microbes, and deformities. As you will see on a YouTube debate between two Arabic-speaking scholars conducted by a female moderator on
MemriTv, 95% of Egyptian prostitutes are circumcised while 100% of prostitutes of the west aren’t. So why is this practice widespread only among poor communities with high illiteracy rates? Why do we have to endorse a practice that is the cause of pregnancy complications and death among women?

The agony faced by the millions of women who had had the cut cannot be described in a simple essay. Removing the clitoris of a woman is like removing the penis or tongue of a man. Where there is no tongue, there is no sense of taste; and where there is no penis, sensation, arousal, erection, climax, and penetration are hard to achieve. No matter how many Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra a penis-less man consumes and no matter the pressure and suction power of an erection pump, sexual satisfaction will remain an elusive attraction. Among modern semi-literate Muslim men who are considered scholars, citing fabricated Hadith for female circumcision and known as “Sunnah Circumcision” seems to be gaining ground. Islam does not condone the application of FGM and nowhere in the Qur’an and Hadith is female circumcision mentioned. Sunnah circumcision denotes the cutting or shortening of the clitoris and that’s unphilosophical, inhuman, and out of context theologically. Circumcision is only meant for men and it has been in existence for millennia among the People of the Book and Muslims. Without an iota of doubt, male circumcision is obligatory and not supererogatory because, it is unhygienic for a male organ, especially the prepuce to dangle from an uncircumcised penis.

We'll leave it to our experts to come up with remedial measures to save the rest who are waiting in line for the procedure from further harm and sexual ruination. Please pick up the pen and raise your objection to this inhuman and unholy practice.

References

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Killer Love

 

Mention Blues and my heart trembles with the anguish of personal past and present turmoil. Born in the Mississippi Delta, the fact for me is that it was first delivered in Kansas City, Missouri–The City of Fountains–the city where my four children were born and the home of former President Harry Truman who dropped the Atomic Bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during WWII in 1945.

In the Somali song Qooraansi–a song that resembles the Blues of Kansas City having rhythmical beats that instills sudden depression, sadness, and melancholic feelings and whose vocalists are Sahra Ahmed Jama–the “Queen of Voice” and male singer Fuad Omar­–a no nonsense self-proclaimed man with indescribably sensational voice recount the pain and anguish experienced by his female lover. While unearthing her hidden secrets, he clearly tells her that her glances and visualizations are no cure for hunger and deprivation. To him, she has no symptomatic ailments and that it is her self-pride and nonsensical elevation that are lowering her self-worth and human value. Her perspiration in cold weather and shivering in the scorching heat and her concealment of her personal affairs are indicators of deliberate painful injections since she is not a patient of diagnosable infirmity but one derived from sheer stupidity.

Aggravated by his ludicrous lambasts of her condition, she poetically and meticulously engages him using her melodious voice to further deliver her in-depth knowledge of love’s devastation in recorded history. In response to his revelations of the ailments that afflicts her, she analytically begins reminding him that his rhetorical language is immensely a terrifying issue and surreptitiously bereft of philosophical help but flatly platitudinous since love has been the mastermind of the death of Qays and Elmi and Qarshe and Ismail, and Ali Sugulle and many others that have not been documented.

No doubt, love is a killer psychological disease that has evaded human perception, though in Somali traditional psychic observations, human-to-human concupiscence has been in existence since human creation. Prostitution, the second oldest tradition, did not simply evolve vacuously but from human soul’s attraction to desire for a partner. In a conversation with a gentleman who seemed to be well connected to some of the refugee youth from Somalia in Kenya, his keen observation of the many who have gone haywire must not be taken lightly.

Working in cahoots with experts in thaumaturgy, a practice Somalis refer to as Ayaana or Boorana has gained momentum in recent years. Young ladies abandoned by Diaspora vacationers arrive in modern vehicles with tinted windows seeking the help of voodoo experts who intervene through abracadabra–a form of demonic invocation where the practitioner, after renouncing Islam, performs urinary ablution that catapults him into the unknown satanic realm. Presenting an unwashed shirt of the culprit, an underwear, a T-shirt or any other wearable garment allows the Voodooist to extract perspiration for ease of deporting the vulturous Diasporan. Though paganistic, the use of magic has been overwhelmingly spreading among Somalis since early 1991 when the Somali central government collapsed.

 The practice of magic is not only restricted to the African people because, it is widespread and remains a driving force among disbelievers. It is used among the Māori and the Trobriander who are Melanesian people of the Kiriwina (Trobriand) Islands who are known for practicing heresywitchcraftshamanismVodou, and superstition.[i] That’s not all, anyway. Somali music is mostly divided into Qaraami, Qaaci and Jazz and other traditional types that bring together many players like Saar and Dhaanto, and theatrical dances and humorous ones. The major instrument is the non-electrical type called Kaban. Likewise, Somali musicians use pianos, trumpets, and drums to make their music captivating.

In the song “Sida faras Bullaale” by vocalist Abdi Tahlil Warsame, he describes his lover using metaphorical language that is hard for modern youth to comprehend its meaning. Other than enjoying the voice of the vocalist and the deafening noise from the musical instruments, the young refugee confounded by invisible love that penetrates his or her psychiatric dimensions, may be hard to postulate.

Like the horse of Bullaale*

That has never experienced drought

Browsing in Nugaal Valley

Overwhelmed by fatness all over

Or immaculately sitting undisturbed

After being fed to the fullest

The navel and chest emblazoned

Is when the skin undergoes melanophores

While the tail brushes the ground…

The vocalist is describing his female lover who has never experienced hunger and deprivation in Bullaale because of the abundance of food and other necessities. Fat and close to obesity after years of being a solitudinarian, resulting from loneliness due to the absence of her male lover, she remains seated in one place undisturbed. Her chest is so beautiful such that her bosoms remain visible to him alone. After years of feeding on the best nutritiously managed balanced diet, her skin experiences melanophores–change of skin pigmentation that catches the eye of every man in search of a partner. Even though human beings have no tails, obviously, she is approaching a stage of becoming steatopygous–for it is beyond reasonable doubt that Somali men of aforetimes had great admiration for girls with big buttocks and fatty thighs.


While Western countries give credence to beauty contestants who are slim and that pageants convergence arena is “a platform for showcasing women's empowerment, diversity, intelligence, and leadership”, for some Muslim countries like Mauritania, force feeding starts at a young age while being thin is considered a sign of inferiority.


[i] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2015, October 26). Trobriander. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trobriander.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Evolution of Leadership

The best leader to walk on the earth was Prophet Muhamad, the Seal of all Prophets to whom the Qur’an was revealed. If all leaders would have followed the leadership style of the Messenger of Allaah, Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, all humankind would be living in stable conditions, but the presence of disbelieve and distorted faculties of thinking drove many leaders into disrepute. Those who preceded Prophet Muhammad espousing good leaderships were the 24 prophets that are mentioned in the Qur’an. Leadership is clearly evident in the Qur’an and Hadeeth.

 

In support of Prophet Muhammad’s leadership, Allaah states in the Qur’an:

“And you stand an exalted standard of character.”


And indeed, you are of a great moral character. Chapter (68) sūrat Al-Qalam (The Pen), Verse 4)– Sahih International.

Prophet Mohammad states in the Hadeeth: 'each of you is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects' (Saheeh al Bukhari: 212). Likewise, according to Sahih Bukhari, hadith 3.733, Prophet Muhammad has been reported to have said: “Each of you is a guardian, and each of you will be asked about his subjects.”

Leadership is the process of inspiring or influencing people to achieve specific goals or to accomplish certain tasks. It is a means to influencing and encouraging people to come up with or conceive extraordinary results at the organizational and societal levels. The study of leadership has been growing out of proportion in recent years due to the need for better leaders in expanding economies at the national and workplace levels. The advancement of leadership sciences has opened so many sub-fields such that, in recent years, there have been increased focus on newly-emerging leadership traits. Some of the leadership traits that are commonly discussed in academia include transactional, transformational, laissez-faire, charismatic, participative or democratic, autocratic or authoritarian, bureaucratic, and people-oriented or relations-oriented leadership styles.

Born in 1925, Mahathir Mohamad became the first Malaysian commoner to become prime minister of his country in 1981, a post he held until October 31, 2003 when he retired from politics altogether. Mahathir embodied specific traits that helped him transform his ramshackle nation into an industrial economy. For the twenty-two years he was in power, Mahathir courageously fought hard to make Malaysia the Asian Tiger it is today. Because of his extraordinary wisdom, charisma, and visionary leadership style, Malaysia excelled in many aspects including trade and commerce, gender empowerment, education, infrastructure, healthcare, politics, communication, and banking. By providing direction to his people and by defining certain objectives, in the end Mahathir was able to count his political and developmental achievements in just over two decades while at the same time elevating himself to the level of intriguing maverick and politician. A pragmatist as described by Wain (2009), Mahathir later on clashed with political Islam and as well rose to international prominence by championing the rights of the “third world”. Dr. Mahathir, Malaysia's great statesman of the century, espoused transformational leadership style.

Political Islam rose to prominence in the 19th century with the rise of intellectual figures like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani whose political ideology pertained to the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1918. However, Islamic Brotherhood started to take roots in Ismailiyah in Egypt in 1928 when Hassan al-Banna took the mantle of leadership.[i] Another Islamist political figure of the 1930s was Abul-Ala Maududi, who founded the Indo-Pakistani Jamaat-i Islami party, and that corresponds to before the separation of Pakistan and India in 1947 when each country proclaimed independence from the former British Empire. While Political Islam has “social-democratized” itself after many years of fragmentations, the coining of etymologies like orientalism, Islamization, Islamism, Islamic politics and economics, Muslim intellectual or Islamic intellectual are inherently modern Western political creativities. Western audio-visual press and media denigration of Arabs as bad leaders has been growing on for over a century with Hollywood[ii] taking the lead in videography intermixed with musicology. Part of gerrymandering propaganda machinery that is meant to demean Arabs and Muslims, Hollywood now seems to be succumbing to defeat since globalization of media has grown roots everywhere.

 

In Islam, Muslims have been urged by the Prophet to choose a leader of their liking–a leader they have agreed upon unanimously. In Islam, a leader has no authority to compel his followers to partake in issues they find unnecessary or not befitting them. Muslims have been advised to select a leader when on a mission or a trip, pick the right Imam to lead prayers, and other group activities.[iii] Since leadership is a process that deserves deliberation, in an effort to reach certain objectives, the Muslim leader must seek the voluntary participation of willing followers. Compelling followers to certain tasks contravene the laid down rules and regulations of Islamic traditions. The Qur’an refutes compulsion in religion in Surah Al-Baqarah, ayah 256:

لَآ إِكْرَاهَ فِى ٱلدِّينِ ۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ ٱلرُّشْدُ مِنَ ٱلْغَىِّ ۚ فَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِٱلطَّـٰغُوتِ وَيُؤْمِنۢ بِٱللَّهِ فَقَدِ ٱسْتَمْسَكَ بِٱلْعُرْوَةِ ٱلْوُثْقَىٰ لَا ٱنفِصَامَ لَهَا ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ٢٥٦

Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly from falsehood. So whoever renounces false gods and believes in Allah has certainly grasped the firmest, unfailing hand-hold. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.



[i] March, A. F. (2015). Political Islam: Theory. Annual Review of Political Science18, 103-123.

[ii] Shaheen, J. G. (2003). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social science588(1), 171-193.

[iii] Beekun, R., & Badawi, J. (1999). The leadership process in Islam. PROTEUS-SHIPPENSBURG-16, 33-38.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Report on the Decline of Violence in Iraq

Introduction

Formerly Mesopotamia or the “Land between two Rivers”, the current modern state of Iraq is situated in the Middle East. It is bordered by Syria to the West, Turkey to the North, Iran to the East, Kuwait to the South-east, Saudi Arabia to the South, and Jordan to the South-west. The country descended into anarchy and insurgency when the former President of the United States, George W. Bush, ordered a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 under the pretext of destroying Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Iraq has been under the dictatorship of the Baath Party from 1979 until the subsequent capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 by U.S. troops. This article looks at what led to the reduction of violence in Iraq in 2008.

Misconceived Notions about Iraq

Once considered a homogenous Arab Nation and a beacon of peace and stability, the nation-state of Iraq, has, since 2003 (with the exception of 2008), transformed into a safe haven for hard-line insurgents and turned out to be a nation composed of various social structures or social strata each with its unique culture. To the north are the Kurds who consider themselves to be non-Arabs with their own distinct history and culture. Among the Arabs there are two Arab societies: the Shiites in the South and the Sunnis who populate the middle of the country and who had a bigger stake in the running of the country during the reign of Saddam Hussein. [1]


The terms Sunnis and Shiites refer to different religious sects within the Islamic faith. Despite contrasting views among U.S. citizens, according to popular opinion, the “troop surge” implemented during the presidency of George W. Bush is reputedly thought of as being behind the drop in violence in Iraq since 2008 even though there is no way to prove or measure such claims.

The Evolution of a new Political State

Pioneered by the United States, her allies, and the coalition of the willing, the evolution of the current Iraqi state with its multiple political parties came to the fore after the subsequent departure of Saddam Hussein and his Baath party elites from the political spectrum. Likewise, the creation of new democratic institutions of governance and the restoration of freedom and liberty to the Iraqi populace, the formation of northern Kurdish prefectures and the taming of the Peshmerga [ii], and the curtailment or defeat of the predominantly Shia Mahdi Brigade, shepherded the progression of a new Iraqi state. It was Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal who was credited with finding and capturing Saddam Hussein and with tracking and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.[iii] Only 20% of the 479 districts of Baghdad known as Mahallas were free of organized crime before a year-long operation by the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces (ISF) brought safety to the capital and improved the situation. According to Brig. Gen. Mike Milano, a top U.S. military official tasked with restoring security to Baghdad, nearly 80% of the capital's districts became free of organized extremist activity.[iv] The most comprehensive report on the decline of violence in 2008 appeared in the July issue of the Weekly Standard in which the author, Kimberley Kagan, attributes political maturity to be the cause of the partial cessation of hostilities for that period.[v] The establishment of many political parties along tribal lines laid down the groundwork for stable, nonsectarian, and at least cross-sectarian politics.

Decline in Violence

Many may wonder why Iraq got immersed in a sudden sagging political quagmire immediately Saddam Hussein was removed from the helm and why there was a semblance of peace in 2008. The countless spates of reprisals seen in Baghdad before the surge were caused by the bitter hatred that existed between the Sunnis who had a stake in the running of the Iraqi government during Saddam’s 24-year reign of terror and the Shias who profoundly felt marginalized. The bombing of the golden Shia Mosque[vi] on February 22nd, 2006 culminated in the launching of attacks that resulted in retaliation by Shias against Sunnis. After stabilizing the chaotic situation in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man who came to be the progenitor of what came to be known as the Petraeus Doctrine, turned over the reins of power to Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, in October of 2007. [vii] Figure 1 features the overall weekly Iraq trends beginning September 25, 2004 to December 7, 2007 while figure 2 shows coalition, Iraq security and civilian deaths from January 2006 to November 2007.

Professor David Siddhartha Patel of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, commenting on the insurgency in Iraq, had to say this: “The fighting in Iraq really isn’t motivated by Islam. It’s really motivated by politics; it’s about economics; it’s about money. And that divide between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds that we hear so much about … that doesn’t really capture what’s going on. Just as much, the violence is within groups as between groups”. [viii] Consequently, the following factors could be attributed to the decline of the insurgency: [ix]

v  The weakening of Al-Qaida and the collapse of tribal coalitions;

v  Sunni Arab parliamentarians’ acceptance of the Iraqi constitution;

v  Coalition forces’ defeat of Iranian-supported “special groups” and the engaging of Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army/Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM);

v  The establishment of tribal “Awakening Councils” and the formation of Concerned Local Citizen (CLC) groups to fight Al-Qaida in Iraq;

v  Coalition forces’ collaboration with the civilian population led to torrents of fresh intelligence that culminated in the containment of hostile forces;

v  The intensification of military operations against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq by Turkey and Iran;

v  The diminished flow of foreign fighters from Syria and Iran led to reduced suicide bombings, IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), and EFPs (Explosively Formed Projectiles/Penetrators);

v  The training of a more effective Iraqi Security Force (ISF);

v  The transformation of the coalition forces from an army of occupation to an army of collaboration.

Conclusion: Though there is no way of measuring the causes of the decline in violence in Iraq in 2008, on the other hand, the escalation of retributions, hostility, and tribal hegemony diminished because the warring parties became exhausted and wary of war after much damage was done to both sides of the isle. The famous saying among Arabs that states “me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the world”, seems to have been the driving force behind the complex divisions, mistrust, and negative cultural attitudes that resulted in the dragging of Iraq into the senseless cycle of abyss that left thousands dead and an equal number unaccounted for.

Figure 1

 


 

Figure 2


 




[1] Charles W.L. Hill, Global Business Today, McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020 (pp. 91-92)

[ii] Peshmerga is the name of the Kurdish guerilla army.

[iii] Stanley A. McChrystal: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/stanley_a_mcchrystal/index.html?inline=nyt-per

[iv] U.S. reports violence decline in Iraq, 2-23-2008: Read more http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-02-23-saturday_N.htm

[v] The Future of Iraq: The decline of violence, the rise of politics by Kimberly Kagan, July 28, 2008, Vol. 13, No. 43: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/345jfuan.asp?page=3

[vii] Gates Notes Shift in Mission as Iraq Command Changes Hands by Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service: CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq, Sept. 15, 2008 http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=51170

[viii] Professor Discusses causes of Iraqi insurgency by Ian Wells, November 2, 2007. http://cornellsun.com/node/25728

[ix] John T. Rourke, Taking Sides: Clashing Views in World Politics (14 ed.), The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.


Friday, February 9, 2024

What is the Universe and is it Expanding?

 

The Qur’an clearly expounded the expansion of the universe over 1,440 years ago. Likewise, Muslim Astronomers spent enough time explaining the expansion of the universe, yet, modern Western astronomers or cosmologists are yet to discover it. Regarding the expanding universe, the Qur’an explains in the following ayah:

 

وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بَنَيْنَـٰهَا بِأَيْي۟دٍۢ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ ٤٧

We built the universe with ˹great˺ might, and We are certainly expanding ˹it˺ (Qur’an, Adh-Dhariyat, 51:47).

According to NASA, “the universe is everything. It includes all of space, and all the matter and energy that space contains. It even includes time itself and, of course, it includes you. Earth and the Moon are part of the universe, as are the other planets and their many dozens of moons.”[i] We often hear now and then that new inhabitable planets are being discovered. The expanding of the universe is not one that is only dedicated to heavenwards cosmos only but also to our own earth whose expansion will one day be known to all as stated in the Qur’an. Obviously, there is tremendous outgrowth of all living things on earth that is termed as overpopulation, and there is no logical or scientific suspicion at all that the number of dying living creatures will also be widespread in every continent. Thus, for the Creator of all living things, He has a plan for the container we call earth. The expansion of the heavens has a natural meaning: to create space for the expanding living population on earth that include human species, aves species, and insects and so forth. It also includes all water species plus the Jinns that have been created from smokeless fire and are unknown to the Western Hemispheric scientists. The expansion of the earth also accommodates all dead living things. Therefore, there must also be space for the dead, meaning graveyards will cover or take a better part of the earth.

The expansion of the universe also pertains to the cosmos for there are living things or creatures that are invisible to the human eye. Planets that have been nine in number in the past but have now been reduced to eight after the removal of Pluto The solar system that includes planets like Earth, Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Venus, and Saturn are also expanding and it will one day come to be known with the discovery of advanced satellites and sophisticated visual image cameras. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded Pluto in August 2006 because it is dwarf like and “has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”[ii]

NB: Excerpt from upcoming book. 



[i] What is an Exosplanet? Retrieved from https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/what-is-an-exoplanet/what-is-the-universe/#:~:text=The%20universe%20is%20everything.,their%20many%20dozens%20of%20moons.

[ii] Library of Congress: Why is Pluto no longer a planet? Retrieved from www.loc.gov.

Sambur

 In Samburu language which should have been Sambur, Egypt means desert. Khartoum is adulteration of Katoum, meaning "you'll get it." The name Sambur means "white." The  man I interviewed who was Sambur claimed his father who passed away last year, had blue eyes.

Perhaps, the intermingling of different communities through acculturation, integration, assimilation and the practices of exogamous marriages and polygamy created linguistic alterations, changes in skin pigmentations, and the adulteration of the studies of etymology and toponymy.

The name Addis Ababa in Ethiopia means "New Flower."

Ilegal Arms Sales

An armed altercation occurred somewhere close to Gabon after they were invaded by 18 vehicles carrying heavily armed men. However, the Somalis managed to destroy 9 of the vehicles and the armed people on board. Likewise, they captured a lady who was their commander, but out of humanity and respect for human rights, let her go free.

They traveled nights and rested day times. In entire global Africa, it is only Somalis who often traveled at nights and it has been a common thing for Somalis to travel in the darkness using the stars for navigation without the use of compasses and the Global Positioning Services that is known as GPS in short. 

The journey took over a month and it is mind boggling how they were able to travel such a long journey with little resistance from foreign invaders.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Affluenza Style Weddings

 While every man and woman has the right to marry a partner of choice as enshrined in every community and national marriageable rights as agreed upon, wedding ceremonies have become unceremonious mainly because of the financial constraints attached. 

In the Somali occupied counties of Kenya and even deep inside the nation in places like Eastleigh that is home to a great Somali population, parents of the bride to be demand insurmountable financial resources to be misappropriated so that eventually the married couple plunge into unanticipated marriageable breakups. 

Not knowing the financial resources of the husband or the bridegroom that could serve as the future upkeep and conservation of the newly established household is a recipe for disaster. The absence of financial management and parental responsibilities, gullible and stone-hearted near or close relatives who serve as advisors, and the lack of comprises between the bridegroom and bride families' lugubrious exaggerations, are profoundly some of the factors that finally propel unanticipated family breakups.

On the material wedding day, the amount of money spent on the gormandizing guests by the hosts, is disastrously irreligious, unethical, immoral and outrightly ravenous. As if imitating the "Affluenza Lifestyle", food that could be enough for 10 guests is served to 4 men who appear not in need of food.

In the majority Somali region of Ethiopia, stringent measures have been effectuated by the ulama and the regulations seem to be flourishing. The regulations set by the ulama has been universally accepted such that many struggling  lovers are now able to fund their weddings in remarkable ways that suit their chosen ways and means

Slaughtering animals beyond the bridegroom's financial capabilities, spending lots of money on housewares, hiring numerous taxis for the wedding periods just to blow their horns as a form of social attraction even though the blaring noise from the honking is disturbance to everyone around.

 In a wedding conducted in a European country, the bride requested a helicopter to be hired to deliver her to the ceremony arena. The husband to be accepted her request. The helicopter flew upwards to a higher elevation that suited the bride's needs. After a while, it landed on top of a storey building. Leaving the pilot alone, the two took the elevator that brought them to the ground floor where  guests had gathered to welcome them with open hands. A wedding of that nature is considered traumatically contumacious and absolutely spendthrift because of it's effects on the future the newly wedded couples.


While there are limits to wedding expenditures, Kenya Somalis require to emulate their fellow Somalis of Ethiopia. When compared, Somalis of Ethiopia have grasped the exhortations of their religious scholars while those of Kenya are still entombed in the old stone age philosophical foundations of the past.

Always depending on religious scholars to answer questions related to marriages and other social lifestyles like how to live harmoniously, must be abandoned altogether because, all answers to those questions are either in the Qur'an or Hadith.


Friday, November 10, 2023

AFRICANS AND THEIR PURSUIT OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

 

AFRICANS AND THEIR PURSUIT OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

By: Adan Makina

Friday, April 07, 2006


For many Africans who come to The United States, education is an important factor in determining their future, while for others; it is nothing but amusement and play. The number of African students in colleges and universities is great though the number who have chosen to drop out or never attempted to set foot a campus outnumber those already in campus. Education in the United States where the focus of this paper is a tremendous undertaking for the African student which demands greater attention and better coordination among family members if class concentration, better grades and stable living conditions are to be achieved. For many, failing to do the right thing at the right time due to outside influence, pressure from families in need of financial resources, being tied to bogus friends and acquaintances, failing to abide by the rules of the institutions like plagiarism, theft, soliciting, drug abuse, procrastination, making sexual advances and other criminal activities within or outside of the institutions create obstacles for the potential student.

The United States is guided by a strong constitution that guarantees equal treatment for all regardless of age, race, gender, national origin and religion. It is a constitution designed by learned men with keen foresight and clear vision and it is also one presently in the hands of men and women who hope to create better judicial amendments for posterity. For example, Title IX states: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. America has the best system of government, outstanding and indomitable secular education and prides to parade the best teachers in the world.

 Being a professor or lecturer in an institution of higher learning takes many years before one can be conferred on with the required degrees and academic credentials to qualify to teach students yearning to become leaders and professionals in all fields pertaining to diverse educational foundations. A great number of these professors and lecturers are Africans of dissimilar origin, culture and religion who have traveled far and wide in search of dignity and with intent to disseminate knowledge in an environment where educational expertise, academic integrity and high degree of confidentially are the norm. They have brought with them humility, integrity, justice and brand new supplemental knowledge profitable to the amalgamation of students from distinct backgrounds. These breed of luminaries from mother Africa, had been, prior to leaving Africa, besieged and mortified and had their rights compacted by their respective governments just because they advocated views and ideas that opposed the jungle law of the land–a law that subjugates even the basic rights of humankind.

Statistically, there are approximately 500,000 Africans in the United States mostly students pursuing degrees in colleges and universities of advanced learning. Freedom of speech and the right to assembly has seen many persecuted and even executed as was the demise of human activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa who was a keen advocate of the minority in Nigeria. African students in the America have portrayed great sense of responsibility in their pursuit of education despite the difficult living conditions and biting weather. For them it is a race against time thus the many restrictions placed on them by the institutions and the immigration need not be overlooked or else the consequences could lead to legal action including deportation to country of origin. Besides, the overwhelming burden of paying monthly bills including utilities, rent, and car insurance and frequent remittance to families back home further complicates their stay.  
    
Regardless of how agonizing life may seem, the dark-skinned men and women from Africa live in harmony with other races, eat and drink, party and drive and observe the rules of the road. The African culture, the main artery that binds these students, has found a new place that invites every race out of curiosity, demand for labor and the need to have a heterogeneous society. The display of African curios and other African artifacts in American homes and open-air markets is testament to the uniqueness of the African culture traversing boundaries for many centuries. The number of dedicated African professionals holding high offices in America must be enormous if only we had the right data, statistics and applied economics. In addition, Africans are known for multi-lingualism; attained through colonial infestation or by way of schooling. Many who skipped meals or walked bare foot to school crossing boundaries legally or illegally; are today holders of multiple degrees enjoying positions of prestige and honor in corporate America.

The youth who escaped the jaws of crocodiles while swimming in the meandering rivers of Africa, those who escaped rampaging elephants that devastated their yearly harvests, and those who fell accidentally into wild-traps laid by poachers are healing old wounds with educational medications.

Immigrants from beleaguered, impoverished, and war-ravaged Somalia who have been the latest arrivals in the last decade after the overthrow of Major General Mohamed Siyad Barre’s junta have a lot to be desired. Majority of Somalis, who are concentrated in the cities of San Diego (CA), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN), Atlanta (GA), and Columbus (OH), have a large number of students in high school, colleges, and universities that are hard to ignore. The number of female students in the Somali communities is skyrocketing and is expected to outnumber the number of males.

Furthermore, free government financial assistance is never available without strings attached and that is why even the elderly and single-parents have to enlist in English as Second Language (ESL) classes or else all benefits will be withdrawn. Many who oppose the use of educational loans because of interest charges have no option but to seek other means to attaining educational enrichment.

Among Somalis, the saying goes this way: either make money or get honest education. Returning home with a large family without money and education is deplorable to the relative in Hargeisa, Mogadishu, and Eastleigh. That is why many are either holding two jobs or studying hard for degrees. Somalis are more multilingual than any other nation in Africa today. Speckled all over the world, the return of a million Somalis speaking Queen’s English, American English, Ebonics, Pidgin, Creole, Dutch, Swedish, French, Arabic, Swahili, Mandarin, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Hindi, Gujarati, Hausa, Finnish, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish, Kikuyu, Kinya-rwanda, and few other languages must be a blessing for the dozens of foreign embassies and international aid agencies when peace is finally restored to the fullest.  The many Immigrants from Africa who cross difficult terrains heading towards the west have a lot to give mother Africa in the future.

Those who failed to overcome the trials and tribulations even after having perspired enough hope and resilience is their tool to achieving the best life in the near future.    

Adan Makina
E-Mail:adan.makina@gmail.com

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