Gerd Meuer mit Nobelpreisträger Wole Soyinka
   |||  Contact  | Imprint     

GLOCAL CULTURAL IDENTIES and (the fight for) SURVIVAL

( thoughts for a lecture to the students of the Radebeul school for translators - 2007)

!!! Amarty SEN on Identitätsfalle - still to be integrated HERE!
________________________________________________

Let me first of all do what I always do at the start of my lectures in Africa, when I teach in Schools of Journalism or in Mass Media Institutes of African Universities:

I start with a Press Review:
What did I find on our subject in the local papers of that day ?
And what did I find on our subject in today's German papers?

Well, today I couldn't' engage in that exercise, since I had to get up at 5.45 to be here in time and I couldn't find a newspaper vendor that early…

So let me tell you about my discovery two days ago in Leipzig, where I discovered Amartya Sen's

"Die Identitätsfalle - warum es keinen Kampf der Kulturen gibt."

which is a very good translation of the original title:

"The Illusion of Destiny"

Well, the German title may even be better…

But both are valid….

And then I have been re-reading my friend Ilja Trojanow's "Collector of worlds",
just out in English,

And you ???
If you haven' read those books yet: both should be part of your educational baggage or background - in your future job !!!

You know both - do you ???

I warn you :

this is NOT going to be easy! Not at all !!!

This is the time of GLOBALIZATION

Or what Joschka Fischer called - way back in the nineties:

"Die Globalisierung ist die erste Herausforderung des wiedervereinigten Deutschland."

And we are all being challenged, for example by
- those hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians, who are only too willing to work for any amount between E 100 in the sweat-shops of Shenzhen to E 1000 in the SAP think-tank in Bangalore, India …

You have been warned !!!

American high school students do get coached daily by their teachers in India or Singapore… on the internet !

And Indian doctors read the x-rays sent to them by American doctors, to be ready in the US next morning…

And now…

First what we call - in German journalese - some very 'plastic', i.e. vivid, recent impressions - as an INTRO:

- you remember the TV and still pictures of the 1st and 2nd Intifadas, with Palestinian youths brandishing burning Israeli flags and placards (in bad English…) into the cameras:
- they knew very well that it was only thanks to the cameras of the international news networks that their protest really became...


'real'

you remember the violent scenes after the Danish cartoons, which hardly any of the demonstrating youths in Pakistan, Nigeria or elesewhere had ever seen, as we learnt, had, in fact:  NEVER seen

and then we learnt that the organization of the riots was well-orchestrated thanks to cellular phones and SMS messages,

meaning:

Western technology and soft-ware from the US (!) -
-   no. MOSTLY FROM India! (most of it, though, written in Bangalore, which is in… India = which is just another example of much-decried globalization!)

-   (quote on CULTURE from "ECONOMIST" and "The man in the Bagdad Café", written before that war !)

-   I could also give you the example of Nigeria, of some 140 million inhabitants, where youths also demonstrated while I was there -

-   for the same reason - or really?

-   Were the igniting sparks not really internal ones?
And not the far-away Danish cartoons, which - again - nobody in Maiduguri, Kaduna or elsewhere had seen?
here again the orchestration was organized, communicated by cellular.

I was made to feel it on a Sunday in late Feb 2006, when travelling with a certain Wole SOYINKA, (Literature Nobel in 1986!) who was planning to hold a PRONACO conference in Nigeria's 'muslim' (muslim?) North… where PRONACO has (courageous!) Muslim sympathizers...
and while we were travelling between Lagos and Abeokuta he was being bombarded regularly with SMS messages telling him that 'Kano was not safe, and that riots had already started', news which was later contradicted by another sender, which made him use me for a trick…

I was to call the sender by phone under a false name and tell him that he was calling the wrong number, and would he, please, stop that nonsense…

which just goes to show you

a. how you can easily become the victim of false and dangerous (because inflammatory!) news, and how
b. how you have to play a game to no longer be a victim…
to survive…
c. not be a victim of the 'Identätsfalle'…


These few examples just to show you what

GLOBALIZATION

is also about!

a. technical
Handy, SMS, Internet mail etc.

(NOT technological, since the cellular phone is the end-product of a technology,  LOGOS - the science of tech, just as bio-logy is the science of living things) - rather superficial, since the cellular is just one more product of modern technology - the logy of tech (just like electricity, the  radio, the fax before that) with a pretty long history of questioning things (Wole on open discourse!!!)

b. cultural GLOBALIZATION: since both the Palestinian youth in Gaza, Ramallah, those demonstrating in Delhi, Karachi or Kano know they are part of the 'Global
Village', (they are holding these placards into the cameras, to be seen elsewhere, first and foremost on CNN - and thereby in the WEST, in the NORTH) the demonstrators are part, see themselves as inhabitants of the so-called

'global village'

- in which ALL the 'villagers communicate with each other -

- but do they REALLY communicate?

Or is it a dialogue of the deaf and the dumb?
Also with powerful 'gate-keepers' (to be developed !)
- in any case: that global village is anything but an idyllic village, as imagined by the NEGRITUDINISTS… it is rather like the village in SOYINKA's play "A Dance of the Forests" - PLEASE READ!

In fact, what we are being faced with is a rather DIALECTICAL relationship, link or nexus

in which it is also difficult to make out what is

REAL and what is VIRTUAL ???

Since

a. as a youth in Gaza, Lahore or Lagos
you ARE or WANT TO BE

part of a global community

while at the same time

b. declaring, insisting on, claiming a distinct , separate, own, what is more,

'pure' cultural identity
(remember those 70 virgins as a reward for assassins!

See Cartoon: where do I find my genitals ?

But: our, your own Neo-Nazis are behaving the same way…

But what do women assassins get?

The Pakistani comedian
who had to run away from Norway!)

CULTURAL IDENTITY           

And as far that distinct IDENTITY is concerned we are faced with many different aspects of it, many

willed expressions
of it…

-   CULTURAL: Arab, Persion, African, Bolivaresque (Chavez in Venezuela), Basque, Serb, Flemish, Igbo, Yoruba, Ouolof, Zulu, Ndebele, etc. etc.
-   NATIONAL: Nigerian, Ghanaian, ? Ivoirian (Ivorité  and its inflammatory, deadly results! )?
-   RELIGIOUS : MUSLIM - versus Christian and vice versa
Hindu (fascist,  BJP) in India in recent years

Africans, for example, whom I know best, when they tray to define themselves, must also ask themselves:

-   but why no African ANIMIST or 'Pagan', too?

-   WHY not yet a claim to African religiosity, as opposed to the two INVADING faiths (Christianity and Islam) and their 'social cost'?

(show short WOLE DVD from ARTE - Beaulieu but also Sembene Ousmane)

asks f.e. Wole SOYINKA !

Insert
a. quote from OBATALA and TOLERANCE
b. quote from I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE DEAD
(chapter IV, in CLIMATE)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

or nearer home: on Dec 3rd, 2007, German papers carried ay news item, according to which "there is very little GERMAN in Germany, and that therefore Germany should rather be called

CELTANY

Because of the CELTS… (the early inhabitants!)

But do we really care? Who does?

The ones at the bottom of the social ladder and the clever demagogues mis-using them as 'useful idiots'

(see film by MO ASUMANG - "Roots Germania")

________________________________________________

And now another 'plastic' or vivid intro - personal:
though here used to enlighten us on the subject!

you might wonder:

what is the IDENTITY of the guy speaking?

who am I?


A quote from Wole SOYINKA from conversation with Ulli Beier

"I look at Gerd Meuer - he is at home one moment here and one moment there. Right now he is in Addis Ababa. It has never occured to me that there is a problem, or that there is something special about anybody striving towards two or three or four multiple worlds. It is a very Eurocentric thing..."

in:

"Wole Soyinka on Identity", from a conversation with Ulli Beier, Iwalewa-Haus, University of  Bayreuthj 1992, page 1

what is MY OWN identity ?

I am a RHINELANDER and a EUROPEAN

INSERT: Zuckmayer on Rhenish Identity


I have little use for the GERMAN identity
Though I cannot escape it

I am from the Rhineland          Europe is the new reality

Rhineland is a MIX
mix and no more borders

but what is EUROPE? Without our Arab/Jewish heritage

although we mean the old OPEN (Arab) one!

When Europe was still open, too!

What is (modern) EUROPEan Culture ?

Without    

a. The African influence in the arts -  Picasso & others
b. Music - Jazz and nowadays Manu Dibango, Baba Maal, Dollar Brand, Fela Kuti etc. Etc. Rap from Senegal etc.
________________________________________________

Problem(s) - only a few ones selected...

What do we think makes up our Cultural Identity ?

What are the INGREDIENTS ???

let's subsume some under HUMAN RIGHTS - fought for over the centuries

a. Freedom of RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Or NON-BELIEFS (Atheism)

Voltaire and Rosa Luxemburg -

"I may not share your belief, but I will fight for your right to your beliefs!

question: no church or cathedral in Saudi-Arabia allowed..., but Mosques being built all over Europe ???

this linked with:

b.  INDIVIDUALISM
Linked with social responsibility (not in the US!)

which produced the SOCIAL WELFARE STATE - now threatened by NEO-LIBERALISM and  shareholder-value...  (from the US there 'Pursuit of happiness', only)

but the question for us here is:
is the welfare state also valid for the immigrants?
As in France, GB, Netherlands, Germany ???

Both linked with

c. FEMALE HUMAN RIGHTS - is part of our cultural    
identity
Or Gender Equality
Which again was a very long fight,

and we are NOT ready to give those up!

These values have to be defended DAILY in OUR own societies - and now world-wide in the global village

male Africans, for example, DO agree with us, whenever they  accuse us of  having supported for far too long regimes like those of MOBUTU, MOI, BONGO, Houphouet etc. - apartheid

but very often refuse to fully accept those other ingredients like gender equality which are part and parcel of our heritage in fact, they are being very selective!, by claiming

"it is not part of our culture" (see Wole Soyinka!)

Those values also have to be defended against:

-   MULTI-CULTURALISM and RELATIVISM

Which make all 'cultures' equivalent - which they are NOT!

Because - just a few examples - there can be no defending:

- female genital mutilation
- sugar daddy marriages (Text by Wole on Ghana) (see placards on the subject along the roads in TOGO)
- wrong ideas about HIV/AIDS and the use of virgins like in South Africa

Another vivid example of what CULTURE or CIVILIZATION is all about:

You do NOT want to live without
-   the CELLULAR and SMS, the internet
-   cold drinks, Aircon,
-   the car, planes, boats;
-   medicine and medical care

BUT: all those are the end-products of the

one major REVOLUTION:

the liberation of the MIND

from
the enslaving shackles of catholic 'dark ages'-concepts (or CREATIONISM nowadays in the US!)

of the formerly single religion: CATHOLICISM!

Liberation happened thanks to

M. LUTHER and PROTESTANTISM

- his 99 revolutionary theses posted on a door at the  Wittenberg church in Germany
- his translation of the Bible from Latin into 'the  people's' German;

the HOLY WORD thus available to everybody and not only to the CLERCS
like the Ayatollahs ('The owners of TRUTH)

see: ZEIT 9.2.06 und Jensen in Lettre 71

so the WORD was no longer monopolised by the CLERCS!
by the CLERGY or IMAMS

Coincidence: by doing this LUTHER at the same time also created the modern German 'high' language -  which prepared the way for Germany's political unification

2nd COINCIDENCE: Liberation also happened thanks to
to the invention by about the same time of the Printing Press - J. Gutenberg

result: multiplication of the new Bible, But very soon also of other - wordly - texts!

Sum: opening up of a world of knowledge

Though for a long time it was still:

CUIUS REGIO, EIUS RELIGIO - religious wars

which devastated and de-populated vast stretches of
Europe: 100-years, 30-years, and 7-yerars-wars -
Similar to what has been happening in Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone - and may still be happening elsewhere in Africa...

But the tone was set for ENLIGHTENMENT 
(Aufklärung) later

men and women went for the ratio-nal understanding and Exploration of
And experimentation with NATURAL PHENOMENA

(Short side-track to Negritude, and Senghor's claim that the 'Negro was all emotion, where the white man was RATIO...' a pretty racist claim, to which Soyinka opposed his famous statement about TIGRITUDE)

back to the subject proper:

Ex: in GEOGRAPHY - the world is NOT flat (Wole) (Galileo was only rehabilitated by the Catholic Church late in the twentieth century!!!)

in PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY, MEDICINE

and the apllications (from technology to techniques)
which gave us:
- the steam, then the OTTO and Diesel engines;
- electricity;
- communication technologies, from the telegraph to the phone, fax, internet, cellular; Radio, TV
- the aeroplane, rockets and space travel;
- separation of the atom: nuclear power, and fusion
- Biotech a. genetic manipulation of plants and animals
b. Cloning of animals and... humans?

is MAN really playing GOD now? Should he?

Profound ethical questions arising!

we are increasingly shocked by what we

CAN or MIGHT still do!

since we do NOT know what the consequences might be:

our time concept is just too short!

- ex: atomic poser - what to do we with the left-overs from the nuclear power stations, which will radiate for at least 10.000 years - how many generations?

- we have no clue what will be result (mutational, evolutionary) of genetic manipulation (ex: effect of Thalidomide pills in the sixties - misformed children)
DIOXIN which was shipped from Italy to the Niger delta in the eighties..., more recently toxic wastes off-loaded in the middle of Abidjan, Ivory Coast!
Thanks to the criminal collaboration of local elites !)

The question of the former German chancellor H. Schmidt therefore remains valid:

Must we really DO all that is Do-able?

but ever since the start of mankind's history on this planetman has always been, or trying to be PROMETHEUS or FAUST!
_______________________________________________

looking back one sometimes gets the impression that we have only been moving in circles, ever since
- living in caves, and dragging women into those with their hair (just like the BURKA or 'purdah'...)
- we seem to be re-creating (or cloning) ourselves or destroying ourselves...

by thus proceeding or racing through the HISTORY ofman's scientific adventures, and the HISTORY of the Scienceswe have reached a high level of abstraction. so there is an urgent need to come back to earth to where we started we did start with what philosophers, sociologists and media psychologists call

EPI-PHENOMENA

PHENOMENA on the surface = superfical

since the causes, roots or DETONATORS (like those of hurricanes like KATRINA in New Orleans) are deeper, profounder
Just like the causes of terrorism!

Back to the causes of
- terrorism
- youth violence (France, black ghettos in the US)
- state terrorism like that of the US and GB in Irak
and elsewhere
Extra: smallish GB is only riding piggy-back on the US!

and the US is still or again playing the LONE RANGER

- still trying to 'save the world'
- a nation invented by all sorts of 'illuminés' from Britain (Pilgrim Fathers) and Germany (Pietisten)
- all fundamentalists, the same as today's Islamists.

see. The CRUSADES - and Bush's reference to them.

SOYINKA quote:

We have moved from 'I am right and you are wrong' to
I am right and you are dead!
____________________________________________

And now an aside on 'multiple identities'

Or more concrete to US ' MULTI-CULTURALISM'

It is NOT and CANNOT be the answer to our problems

it is a declared 'liberalism', which leads to parallel societies ghetto (self)-isolation

With WASPism (...) reigning supreme (see: wikipedia!)

we in smallish Europe simply cannot afford this!
________________________________________________

SURVIVAL - even merely PHYSICAL and
CULTURAL
depends on the realization of a

PROJECT
That is much more           demanding
challenging   = positive

But also burdensome

But in the end also more REWARDING!
The fashioning of
GLOCAL IDENTITIES (see Jensen)

which already exist anyhow!
Ex: WOLE SOYINKA - Yoruba and WORLD
(Wole on me:"I look at Gerd Meuer - he is at home one moment here and one moment there. Right now he is in Addis Ababa. It has never occured to me that there is a problem, or that there is something special about anybody striving towards two or threeor four multiple worlds. It is a very Eurocentric thing..."
in: "Wole Soyinka on Identity", from a conversation with Ulli Beier, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuthj 1992, page 1

EGO - Rhineland and Europe, and Africa (see conversation with AJANI!)

and millions more in the world, in Nigeria and Germany
(see: Vicky, Nakow but also Artur Rapp and many others…)
_______________________________________________

Important: those are

open, flexible, evolving IDENTITIES
And they are demanding
Because never finished

EXISTENTIALIST   (Sartre and Camus)

They are the contrary of CLOSED identities Like those of
a. The MULLAHS
b. The US preachers

Wole quote: "put them in a rocket and blast them to outer space."

a brilliant idea but unfortunately they are here with us and they want to dictate to us!
____________________________________________

those, however, are the most eviddent, crying, scandalous

EPI-PHENOMENA

whereas the REAL problems we have to deal with are

QUESTIONS OF REAL SURVIVAL

- Survival of CULTURES
- Survival of real people, peoples!

Vivid examples:

take Papua New-Guinea with
- some 600 tribes for 5 mio inhabitants (stone-age people)
- Sitting on immense resources
- but their culture(s) are rapidly disappearing
Because of:
a. Technical (not technological!) and
b. Missionary onslaughts

In only two generations!
Even their languages (my experiences during first GULF WAR - CNN images)

more important:

The very basis for their physical survival is fast disappearing because of vast open mining
NO: that basis is being stolen from them!
It's is the most scandalous world-wide - Their future is being MINED from underneath their feet! and it is highly, intensely compressed in time
(like disappearance of SPECIES which is also happening in their habitat)

it  has NEVER happened before in the history of mankind!
It has also happened elsewhere in AFRICA - although over a longer period of time, since the start of COLONIALISM

And that is also pretty fast - only some 150 years or 6 generations

So the question is:

Where are we at?

See MIKE DAVIS - New Left Review, Lettre 71, Planet of Slums)
_____________________________________________

already in 1972 the 'Club of Rome' in its famous report

"The Limits of Growth"

had made some dire predictions, which the conservatives ridiculed as DOOMSDAY prophecy

it was a shocker, which the same people laughed at!

But only some 30 years later this seems to be very real
(See: SPIEGEL, Nr.13, 2006 scan!!!)

THE NEW COLD WAR - The fight for resources"

what we have seen - again - in the time elapsed is:

a. The acceleration of certain trends, and
b. The Gleichzeitigkeit of developments (contemporaneity)

of the post-WWII and Corean war fifties and boom sixties

and those REAL developments contrasting with the TIME LAG (lagging behind mentally and socially) in our awareness, or our refusal to accept

now the problems are very REAL

In the 'old' days it may have been (was it really ?) a phenomenon affecting only a few (?)

Now it is affecting hundreds of millions of people - of less and well-educated individuals - like for example the WTC bombers from Saudi Aarabia...


This then is the SITUATION:
The challenge to
a. Society as a whole, and
b. Each individual - see JENSEN in LETTRE

And it is a double challenge:

a. The multitude of choices to be made, and the
b. RAPIDITY with which such choices are being forced on the INDIVIDUAL.

It is an entirely new phenomenon in the history of mankind,

since never before have changes been so rapid.

(concrete example: the crazy urbanisation of Africa, and Lagos as an example)

and this is true of both the 1st and 3rd worlds!!!
_______________________________________________

The old CREDO

that GROWTH will do the trick (survival-wise)

no longer holds: it is a myth, as it always was,

Since growth hasn't done the trick for the majority of the poor in Brazil, China or Nigeria - or in Germany, for that matter!.

Since 1972 (and the Club of Rome report) we have seen tremendous GROWTH,
Not only in the first world but also 1st in the so-called Asian TIGER economies, and
lately in CHINA and India  and they are still going strong (not so Africa!)

the effects are being felt world-wide (SPIEGEL) in:
- the price pressure on raw materials,
- and China's support for dictatorial regimes world-wide, especially so in Africa, ex: Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Angola etc.

And what did this growth ideology really mean?
also here in rich Germany ?

The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer,
Society moving towards what German sociologist U. Beck has called  the

BRASILIANISATION

of our society.

More recently another sociologist called it the

MEZZOGIONoISATION

And you can live it when you go to ANKLAM or other parts of the Neue Länder… in the former GDR
_______________________________________________


the question then is: is this the future of international relations - as opposed to

HUMAN RIGHTS?
Are those RIGHTS becoming a LUXURY?

More important:
the RIGHT to a DECENT SURVIVAL LIFE?

it is less and less so for hundreds of millions

see: Mike Davis (and Economist report)

This is what the

CULTURE of SURVIVAL

is all about

CULTURE as we commonly understand will come later

such as: books, music, theatre, painting, sculpture, dance..

We shall discuss their role in the FIGHT for SURVIVAL!
_______________________________________________

Or now: a shocker on CULTURE...

What do we understand by
CULTURE and CIVILIZATION?

(Engl, and German difference in formulation)

See definitions in Oxford Encylopedia or wikipedia

INSERT

CULTURE: from the MESOPOTAMIC (IRAK)

Quote from DER SPIEGEL (1,2 mio copies weekly)

April 15th, 2006

"News coing out of the region between the Euphrates, Tigris and the Nile these days deal mostly with war and sucide attacks. But the make us forget that in this region once a most impresive culture vlossomed, which produced the most mportant western values: the ideal of a society that rested on the equaklity of free individuals..." TO BE CONTINUED from the Hausmitteilung AND STORY INSIDE - COVER)


PHARAONIC (nowadays excluded in
Egypt; since this is being
considered as
PRE-ISLAMIC and thus
PAGAN...

Similar to Christian fight against
YORUBA Gods or Igbo Chi
(see Soyinka text - ENG ORIG )

See Wole Soyinka on the descruction of the Bhudda sculptures by the Taliban in Afghanistan

INSERT script by Wole (look for Eng. Version)

Die Taliban haben also wieder einmal zugeschlagen. Doch die Philister treiben in allen Ecken und Kanten des Globus' ungestört ihr Unwesen, und mein eigenes Heimatland wird uns auf nur allzu schmerzhafte Weise als ein begleitender Beobachtungsposten dienen. Wenn denn das bilderstürmerische Virus sich in seinem Wüten auf die Suche nach einem zu besetzenden Raum aufmacht, wird es einen fruchtbaren Boden in jenen Territorien finden, deren Intellektuelle eine derart hartnäckige Indoktrinierung durch ihre einstmaligen kolonialen Herren und Invasoren - mit all ihrem religiösen Gepäck - durchgemacht haben, dass sie sich nicht einmal mehr der Ursprünge ihrer Namen erinnern.(x)
So geschah es, daß vor einigen Jahren in Ost-Nigeria, dem Land des Igbo-Volkes eine Vorlesungsreihe, die dem Lernen und der kulturellen Wiederentdeckung gewidmet war, tief in den Hexenkessel siedendheisser Religiosität gestürzt wurde, die ihrerseits von der christlichen Intelligentsia angeheizt wurde. Die ‚Ahiajoku-Vorlesungsreihe' genannte Vortragsreihe geriet in den tadelsüchtigen Blick dieser christianisierten Elite. Ihre Mitglieder argumentierten, dass die beim Yam-Festival präsidierende Gottheit Ahiajoku eine ‚heidnische' Gottheit, sie deshalb völlig ungeeignet sei, als Vorbild für eine heutige Bemühung um Wissensgewinn zu dienen! 
Mein aus dem Volk der Igbos stammender Schrifstellerkollege Chinua Achebe hat in seinem Roman ‚Arrow of God' (auf Deutsch: Der Pfeil Gottes) die geradezu viszerale (bauchmässige) Bedeutung dieses Festivals für das Leben der Igbos herausgearbeitet. Im Leben der Yoruba-, Tiv- und Idoma-Völker in Nigeria ist das Festival des Neuen Yams (die Yam-Wurzel ist in weiten Teilen Afrikas das Grund- und Hauptnahrungsmittel) ebenfalls DAS Festival des Jahres.
Die Christen aber wollten davon nichts wissen, und da Nigeria zu dieser Zeit gerade wieder einmal in einer Epoche militärischer Diktatur lebte, bot ihnen dies die Möglichkeit, ein militärisches Dekret anzustiften, durch das die Verwendung dieses Namens für einen kulturellen Anlass untersagt wurde. Doch sie (die Christen) gingen noch einen Schritt weiter: sie machten sich daran, alle Statuen Ikengas im Bundesstaat Owerri zu zerstören, weil Ikenga eine eng verwandte natürliche Kraft ist, die ein Herstück im traditionellen Glaubensgefüge der Igbos bildet. Erst in jüngster Zeit konnte die Vorlesungsreihe - nach vielen Jahren der Verbannung in die Abstellkammer - wieder aufgenommen werden, dieses Mal unter der Bezeichnung Odenigbo, und auch dies lief nicht ab ohne einen nachhaltigen Protest der wiedergeborenen christlichen Agitatoren. Die Vorlesungsreihe, so behaupten unsere christlichen Kämpfer, ist ‚besudelt' worden, und Odenigbo wurde denunziert als ein "Versuch, den heidnischen Wolf im harmlosen Gewande des Schafes wiederzubeleben."
Die Rivalen der Christen - und ihre Partner in diesem rasenden Zelotentum der jüngsten Tage - die Muslime wollten den Christen in nichts nachstehen. In früheren Äußerungen habe ich mich bereits mit dem Einfall der Sharia-Gesetzgebung in einige der nigerianischen Bundesstaaten innerhalb der säkularen Nation Nigeria beschäftigt, doch damals beschäftigte ich mich allein mit der stückweisen Vergewaltigung der nigerianischen Verfassung, den daraus folgenden Massakern in der nord-nigerianischen Großstadt Kaduna und einigen anderen Städten, und der Gefahr, die die Einführung der Sharia für den Zusammenhalt der Nation Nigeria darstellt.
Die Einführung der Sharia aber war NICHT verantwortlich für das bilderstürmerische Wüten, das ab und an quer durch die Nation ausbricht, jeweils ganz gezielt von religiösen Demagogen und politischen Opportunisten angefacht.
Hier und heute aber möchte ich die kulturelle Dimension des Problems verdeutlichen, und den Brennpunkt liefert dieses Mal die Stadt Offa im nigerianischen Bundesstaat Ilorin. Der Focus ist eine legendäre Figur namens Moremi.
Die Legende von Moremi  ist eine, die in der Kultur der Yorubas am höchsten geschätzt wird. Als Moremi die Hilflosigkeit ihres Volkes angesichts der nichtendenden Angriffe eines gefürchteten kriegerischen Stammes begriff, beschloss sie ganz für sich allein, zu den Geheimnissen dieser Invasoren vorzudringen und so dem Terror ein Ende zu bereiten. Ihre Strategie war höchst einfach: sie liess es zu, dass sie von den Feinden gefangegenommen wurde, sich voll und ganz der Macht ihrer Schönheit bewusst. Ganz so wie sie es vermutet hatte, nahm ihre Schönheit ihre Einfänger gefangen, deren Anführer sie sich als Kriegsbeute nahm und sie als seine Frau installierte. Dann gebar sie auch seine Kinder. Als sie aber alles erfahren hatte, was zu erfahren war, entfloh sie und kehrte zu ihrem Volk zurück. Als die Angreifer dann das nächste Mal anrückten, war die Stadt bestens vorbereitet und ihre Bewohner konnten ihren Feind leicht vernichten.
Moremi ist somit eine hochverehrte Persönlichkeit. Schreine und Momumente werden ihr zu Ehren errichtet. Die von ihrer Legende inspirierten Lieder sind zahlreich, wie auch die Theaterstücke, so etwa auch ein musikalisches Drama oder eine ‚Volksoper' des verstorbenen Dramatikers Duro Ladipo. Und die Stadt Offa bildet keine Ausnahme, zumal es von einem Dorf in ihrer Nähe heisst, es sei der Geburtsort Moremis gewesen. In just dieser Stadt Offa aber haben nun religiöse Fanatiker, in diesem Falle die von der islamischen Fraktion, einen Krieg gegen ihre Gedenkstätte erklärt. Ihre Lebensaufgabe besteht nun darin, ihren Schrein zu beschmutzen und zu zerstören, dessen blosse Existenz sie zu einem Affront gegen ihren Glauben stilisieren. Das Monument wird wieder und wieder aufgebaut, und genauso oft zerstören die Fanatiker es wieder.
Den Kreuzzug gegen die Ikenga-Statuen, den jihad (oder heiligen Krieg) gegen den Schrein der Moremi in einigen kaum bekannten nigerianischen Städten mag man als Vandalimus im Kleinmassstab ansehen, verglichen mit der Zerstörung des bhuddistischen Erbes durch die Taliban in Afghanistan. Der Wert der Symbole von Völkern mit einer eigenen Kultur und Geschichte aber lässt sich nicht einfach nach der Grösse dieser Symbole, ihrem Alter oder ihrer Ästhetik bemessen. Gewiss: ich habe kein afghanisches Blut in mir und ich bin auch nicht Bhuddist. Und selbst wenn die Statuen mein Ableben überlebt hätten, wäre es doch zweifelhaft, ob ich je hingereist wäre, um jene religiösen Figuren in Afghanistan zu sehen, die gerade mit schwerer Artillerie, Bomben und jedem zur Kriegsführung erdachten diabolischen Instrument pulverisiert worden sind.
Dessen ungeachtet betrachte ich mich als ein Erbe des künstlerischen Erbes Afghanistans, und zwar ebenso sehr wie ich die Legende von Moremi als Teil des kulturellen Welterbes betrachte. In meinem Urteil haben die Taliban somit nicht allein in das Gesicht Buddhas gespuckt sondern in das Gesicht Morenis, somit in das meine. Sie (die Taliban) haben somit nicht nur die Gesichtszüge Bhuddas pulversiert sondern auch die von Orisa-nla, Shiva, Ala, Ogun, Ikenga usw. Gleich in welcher Form die Gottheit auch heimgesucht wird, so haben die Taliban doch die Spiritualität der gesamten Menschheit angegriffen und beschmutzt. Durch ihr Tun haben sie bewiesen, daß sie von sterblicher Hybris besessen sind, nicht aber von göttlicher pietas.  Seit dem bekannten Verhalten der Khmer Rouge in Kambodscha hat kein Besatzungsregime der aesthetischen und spirituellen Einheit der Welt ähnlichen Schaden zugefügt.
Es geht, leider, weit über den Verlust unschätzbarer Artifakte in dieser oder Zone der Infamie hinaus. Muss man wirklich voraussagen, daß just in dem Moment, in dem diese Zeilen geschrieben werden, die kranken, fanatischen Hirne der Welt, und ganz gewiss so die in meinem eigenen Land, bereits dabei sind, ihre Zerstörungsstrupps zu mobilisieren, um die Taliban zu ‚über-talibanisieren'. Visuelle Affronts gegen die ‚Reinheit des verkündeten Glaubens' werden jetzt überall zutage treten, selbst dort, wo sie bislang nie auch nur das geringste Ärgernis erregten. Ein Zeitalter der Säuberungen wird von den Kanzeln, den islamischen Minaretten, den bhuddistischen Altären und sonstwo ausgerufen werden, von den kriegerischen Anwärtern auf das Königreich Gottes, sie alle nur darauf aus, im Vorgriff auf ihre Abberufung aus dem Tal der Sterblichen bereits Gutscheine für ihre Erlösung zu erwerben. Nichts anderes als der Terror der Mortalität treibt diese Hirne an, ein schleimscheisserisches Bedürfnis sich wie Würmer in das Wohlwollen ihrer gewählten Götter einzuschleichen.
Meine Stadt Lagos (Nigerias wirtschaftliche Hauptstadt) wird vermutlich eines nahen Tages aufwachen und entdecken, dass die Figur Sangos, des Donnergottes, die der nigerianische Bildhauer Ben Enwonwu zur Versinnbildlichung der Essenz der Elektrizität kooptierte, von ihrem Podest vor dem Hauptquartier der nationalen Elektrizitätsbehörde weggesprengt worden ist. Und ein einfallsreicher Geist wird zweifelsohne an anderem Orte einen Austausch der nationalen Banknoten predigen, weil die - heute noch - das Bild menschlicher Wesen aufweisen. Und bei der Verfolgung einer oder gleich mehrerer, miteinander konkurrierender Akte dieser spirituellen Säuberung wird sich die menschliche Existenz als solche - jene äusserte Form der Unreinheit - als etwas erweisen, so sei es geklagt, dessen man sich nur allzu häufig auf brutale Weise entledigt….

Wenn wir den Fanatismus verurteilen, wenn wir sein unmenschliches Gesicht und seine Neigung zur tödlichen Zensur bedauern, dann sehen wir uns häufig mit den Apologten der theokratischen Machtausübung konfrontiert, selbst bei jenen, die sich selbst als Gelehrte und Intellektuelle ausgeben. Sie beschuldigen uns dann ‚die Religion als solche zu hassen'. Hierbei handelt es sich um eine billige Form der Erpressung, die nicht einmal Verachtung verdient, eine Form der Erpressung, die - unglückseligerweise - bei bestimmten Betreibern des öffentlichen Diskurses durchaus ‚funktioniert', vor allem in jenen Kreisen, die von jener ‚Political Correctness' genannten umgekehrten Form des fundamentalistischen Diskurses befallen sind - und die auf notorische Weise willfährigste Form dieser Krankheit findet sich bekanntlich in den Vereinigten Staaten und in Kanada.
Die Extremisten der Welt lauschen diesem kraftlosen, apologetischen Diskurs mit Schadenfreude und Verachtung, bedienen sich seiner als Freibrief für Repression, als Einladung ihr Territorium ständig auszuweiten und jenen kritischen Freiraum zu usurpieren, der das menschliche Zusammenleben zu einem Abenteuer im gegenseitigen Entdecken macht. Wir bestehen dem gegenüber darauf, daß die Wege zur Wahrheit myriadenhaft vielseitig und für immer und ewig offen sind; verstopft werden sie allein durch den Abschaum des Dogmatismus. Und hiermit erkläre ich mich erneut als ein unbeugsamer Feind der Frömmelei (Bigotterie), der Intoleranz und aller Agendas, die auf ein Verschliessen des Hirns abzielen.  Möge die Pest die Taliban und ihre Kumpane heimsuchen, die Zeloten egal welcher Hautfarbe und welchen Glaubens auch! Lang lebe die Menschheit, ihre Intuitionen, ihre Ausformungen des Unaussprechlichen, und ihre künstlerischen Überhöhungen der natürlichen Umwelt - ob nun von der Religion inspiriert oder auch nicht.  Mögen die Stimmen der Welt klar und deutlich und unapologetisch erklingen, und mögen sie nie aufhören diese Entweihung des universalen Schreins der Kreativität zu verurteilen.
Barka de Sallah. Und fröhliche Ostern. Odun a y'abo!
(Barka de Sallah - in Hausa: Gesegnetes Beiram=Hammelfest;
Odun a y'abi - in Yoruba: Möge die Jahreszeit weiblich, das heisst, sanft sein.)
X Soyinka spielt hier darauf an, dass sowohl die christlichen Missionare als auch die islamischen Prediger die Afrikaner dazu zwangen ihre ureigenen Namen, die alles über die Herkunft eines Menschen aussagen, aufzugeben und durch christliche oder islamisch-arabische zu ersetzen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to

EGYPTIAN Culture - feeding in turn :

- Greek or Hellenic culture , feeding
- ROMAN civilisations - the sum total of previous cultures who contributed - 'many rivers'...
- Arab and Jewish cultures in Spain and Europe...

- French and German cultures (Goethe, Bach, etc.)
______________________________________________

Germany is a special case, since it defined itself for a long time as a

KULTUR-NATION ONLY!

(no other nation ever did)

(see:Lepenies book, Princeton)

Simply because we were, are a

LATE NATION

Only formed by BISMARCK after the 1870/71 war against France..

Result: because our nationalism was so late we then over-did it!

Ex: World Wars I and II

we are also living with a birth defect since our self-understanding as a nation is based on

'ius sanguinis' (blood relationship)
instead of     'ius solis' (you are an American when born
on American soil!)

it is a rather closed, hermetic concept of what
constitutes the nation, its human components...

a concept which is largely contradicted by social reality!

Germany has always been a country of IMMIGRANTS -
How else could it be since situated in the middle of Europe, with 12 bordering nations again -
after the fall of the wall and the Soviet empire!
And also despite the loss of the colonies in 1918
(Migration of Polish workers to the industrializing RUHR district)

Lately so because of the 'invitation to guest workers' in the early sixties by the millions (the 'guests' stayed on!) and
the spontaneous migration of both
- asylum-seekers and
- poverty migrants from Africa, the Near east and Asia.

result: one tenth of the population of 80 mio is 'foreign'

And more will have to come  - soon - simply to keep our factories and our cities and our social welfare system going:
we are dying out!

Calculation: we need some 500.000 migrants per year
to simply keep the population level

And the migrants will have to come from outside Europe since birth rates are similarly low in other EU countries, even in CATHOLIC Poland!

Thus from 'foreign' cultures! That is the challenge to US!
______________________________________________

and since we cannot really IMPOSE our culture only we have to become a

LEARNING culture again (Lepenies!)

we have done it before and
can do it again!

But - REPEAT :
at the same time insisting on the BASICS of the FRENCH and AMERICAN revolutions and HUMAN RIGHTS
Freedom of CHOICE and DEMOCRACY
(also for half of the human population: WOMEN!)

What would be the ALTERNATIVE:

The Algerian FIS - once it had won the elections that would have been the end of ALL elections!
From then on the CLERICS OWN the truth like earlier the TALIBAN in Afghanistan, the Mullahs still in Iran...

- Like the CATHOLIC church did in the dark Middle Ages,
- Like Hitler and Stalin, Pol Pot did! (see Soyinka)
- Like Vorster in apartheid South Africa,
- like Idi Amin in Uganda, Bokassa in CAR,
- Fodeh Sanko in Sierra Leone,
- the Young Patriots claim in the Ivory Coast
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and back to CULTURAL IDENTITIES...
narrow - clannish
- tribal/ethnic
- even national ones    no longer exist, except

(replaced by the pentacostal MEGA-Churches
interestingly enough - 'speaking in many tongues')

in the ideologist's view (Soyinka)

(see wars on the Balkans and 'invented identities' there, which led to wars…)

where they do exist, they are very basic (primaire in French)

and
FUNDAMENTALIST,

and cannot provide the basis for SURVIVAL
especially so in the settlement form of the 21st century:

The HYPER-MEGA-CITY

À la Mexico, Djakarta, Shanghai, Delhi, or nearer home: Cairo, Nairobi, Abidjan, LAGOS and the many sub-centers -
Ibadan, Kano, Owerri etc. Etc.

So what we need is :

-   an understanding that we are all - already a mix : CELTANIANS…
-   that the next generation of Germans will be even more so !
-   that this is THE challenge to our society, which is
a 'work of labour', but also
-   a tremendous enrichment,
not only of our culture, but also
-   of our everyday lives.

BUT ACHTUNG  - ATTENTION :

simple MULTI-KULTI is too… simple !

The acceptance of glocal identities does - of necessity - involve some

hard work

Far away from the stupidifying influence of sub-proletarian or refuse-TV à la BIG BROTHER.

I must admit that I do NOT watch those RTLs 47 oder Sat 32s.

If I want to be true to my words I must from now on at least waste some of my time and watch those trash TV stations,
if only to know what 'the other half' of the German population consumes - to its own detriment,
thus impoverishing their brains…

And now go and read :

Amartya Sen
And
Ilja Trojanow

To be continued !!!