Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has blasted the Emir of Ilorin, Sulu Gambari for having the effrontery to cancel Isese Festival, saying he committed a crime against cultural heritage of humanity.
Soyinka, in an open letter to the Emir on Thursday, said it
was sad to see the ancient city of Ilorin, a confluence of faiths and ethnic
varieties, reduced to this level of bigotry and intolerance, manifested in the
role of a presiding monarch.
“The truncation of a people’s traditional festival is a
crime against the cultural heritage of all humanity. Year after year, the
Ramadan has been celebrated in this nation as an inclusive gathering of
humanity, irrespective of divergences of belief.
“Not once, in my entire span of existence, have I
encountered pronouncements by followers of any faith that the slaughtering of
rams on the streets and market places is an offence to their concept of
godhead. Vegetarians hold their peace. Buddhists walk a different path. Prior
to Ramadan, non-Moslems routinely join in observing the preceding season of
fasting as a spiritual exercise worthy of emulation,” he said.
Soyinka said he recalled for instance how a procession of
Corpus Christ was once attacked, some killed, by a brood of Muslim fanatics,
for daring to process along the streets of that same Ilorin, lamenting that
such abominations had become routine, as community is sacrificed to bigotry.
The Nobel Laureate added: “Your Royal Highness, it is
conduct like this that has bred Boko Haram, ISIS, ISWAP and other religious
malformations that currently plague this nation, spreading grief and outrage
across a once peaceful landscape, degrading my and your existence with their
virulent brand of Islam.
“It is conduct like this that has turned, before our very
eyes, a once ecumenical city like Kaduna into a blood-stained mockery of
cohabitation. It is conduct like this that makes it possible for a young
student, Deborah, to be lynched in the very presence of armed police, on mere allegation
of having belittled the image of a revered prophet. It is action of this
nature, perpetrated in obscure as well as prominent outlets of the nation that
turns a young generation into mindless monsters, ever ready to swarm out and
kill, kill, kill. Simply kill for the thrill of it, but under presumption of
religious immunity.
“It is conduct like this that then nerves one extremist to
wake up one day in a Scandinavian country, publicly announce his intention, and
proceed to make a bonfire of copies of the Qur’an. Reprisals follow, equally
mindless, trapping humanity in an ever-ascending spiral of costly but gleeful
violence.”
He decried that the African continent had endured centuries
of disdain and despoilation at the hands of alien religions – Christianity and
Islam at the forefront.
Soyinka stated that both religions had been sanctimoniously
deployed as justification for unspeakable atrocities, for the dehumanization of
the black race.
“Do I need to teach you your own history, or is it that you
prefer to forget? To encounter, in this century, a convert to alien spiritual
dogma, appropriating the cloak of piety to impede the observation of our
antecedent spirituality is not just racial treachery but an assault on
civilized conduct as a universal aspiration of humanity, where every discovery,
every new encounter usher in new propositions of enlightenment.
“Humanity builds on the past, preserving alternatives of
world views, not destroying that past which, in any case, is indestructible.
Your conduct is an affront to my sense of racial being, and that holds true for
millions beyond these national and continental borders, stretching into the
Americas and the Caribbean.
“There you will still encounter ISESE and allied
spiritualities. There, ISESE still exerts its hold on the human spirit. Visit
Brazil, go to Columbia, explore Cuba, and be humbled by the tenacity of this
spirituality among the descendants of black humanity,” he said.
Soyinka stressed that even the sturdiest of thrones crumbled
and that long after “you and I are gone, generations will continue to endure
the effects of present anomalies, pretensions, hypocrisies, will continue to
harvest the bitter fruits of the seeds of discord being sown by their
forebears.”
He urged the monarch to rein in those agents of division, of
triumphalist intolerance, such as the Majlisu Shabab Ulamahu Society.
The Nobel Laureate stated that there is a thin line between
power and piety, urging Gambari to call Yeye Ajasikemi OIokun Omolara to his
side, make peace with her and make restitution whichever way he could for this
grievous insult to “our race.”
“We know the history of Ilorin and the trajectory of your
dynasty – but these are not the issues. The issue is peaceful cohabitation,
respect for other worldviews, their celebrations, their values and humanity.
The issue is the acceptance of the multiple facets of human enlightenment.
“The greatest avatars that the world has known were not
without human frailties, flaws, and errors of understanding. You are NOT Omniscient. And you are not
Omnipotent,” he said.
1 comments:
i concur
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