The Innocence of Charlie Hebdo

The Innocence of Charlie Hebdo

As the event unfolded, people gathered in Paris to show solidarity with the victims in Charlie Hebdo. People condemned the attack from around the world, expressed sympathy, shock and disapproval. In the meantime, there were millions of people right in Paris and other places who did not share this sentiment. 

Some parts of the world have ruptured following the killings of the owners and publishers of a satirical magazine in Paris, even though there are other inhumane and more tragic killings of innocent people in north-eastern Nigeria’s town of Baga, (but I tell you they are blacks), and many more around the world by the U S drones which the world chooses to remain silent on. In everything there is selection, there is liberty to consider whose death is worthy mourning and acknowledging. Although some have the view that others elsewhere should also stand up for their people. But thousands of people that converged at Paris were not all Parisians, nor member of a single continent or religion.

Going by the culture of frees speech of the Western societies, the Charlie Hebdo were innocent because nobody in his own land would allow “invaders” to overrule their long-standing heritages. The magazine has given excuses that it has been French culture to satirize on the ground of free speech and thought; and given that they are “civilized “ society – the paper has been publishing cartoons and satires on prominent religious and political leaders.  It is on this argument that years back the paper won a case against some Muslim communities when they dragged it to the court for publishing filthy cartoons on the Muslims’ holiest icon. Various French presidents sent letters to be read publicly to the court while hearing the case in support of the paper.   

But free speech does not warrant insults on other people’ belief – no matter how “backward,” “barbaric” and “uneducated,” at least they are human beings with feelings like everyone.  There has been opposition from many quotas around the world, not against free speech, satire or publishing cartoons, but against the hate and racist approach of the magazine and its supporters. I’m saying this because I learnt that everyone has condemned the attack but only very few (not wracked with psychiatric disarray) have the clue that nothing could happen without something, to condemn the paper for its provocations and its insensitivity to “the belief of others.” Don’t we agree that we will respect each other’s belief especially in this rapidly globalized world?

Other than what appears on the surface, one with discerning mind can learn that it’s not only in defense of free speech – if true it is, but the hypocrisy of those who set a racist agenda against certain sensibilities. It seems to me that some people have made up their mind to portray Islam as violent religion. Killing of human being is an appalling and condemnable tragedy as disrespecting our prophet.

But I still I don’t know on what ground some people ganged up in Paris.  if it’s the killing, where were these people when thousands of people were killed in the same week in Baga, (they are blacks), where were these people when Israeli forces massacred hundreds of unarmed innocent kids in Gaza and where are these people when the US drones silently kill unarmed civilians, kids and women in other places around the world? Where were these people when police gunned down black teenagers in the US and the authority are very reluctant to punish the culprits? There is selection everywhere. Some deaths are meaningful.

I’m telling the world that this is not the first time free speech has been in crisis in Western societies. The tradition of free speech has been there in crisis for long. There were history of heresy trials, and witches had always gotten it terribly bad during the Protestant Europe. So, the idea that the attack on Charlie Hebdo is the only threat to freedom of expression is a mere hypocrisy. If it is truly in defense of free speech, where were these people when Egyptian government imprisoned Aljazeera journalists?  Edward Snowden has been hunted for revealing government information, Chelsea Manning is serving thirty-five-year prison term for her role in Wikileaks. There are many instances like the mass surveillance on social media where anti-police or anti-Iraqi war comments were monitored and punished. But people did not rally against this.

These incidents are not solidified as have done the Charlie Hebdo.  Why?

Particularly me, I cherish freedom of speech and thought as well as investigation of deep thought. There are many books we read that deconstruct any religious theory about the existence of God, and make reference to them, but such writings have some degree of objectivity. What about Charlie Hebdo?

All the cartoons and what have you are their rights, but the obnoxiously ‘sublime’ tad of malice, hatred and racism laced subtly in the magazine is the most horrific and dangerous of all. There are some far right-wing fundamentalists who are opportunists busy thinly filing their Islamaphobia.

Somebody somewhere wrote some opinion like this:  “at the same time why the West does need to impinge on other people’ cultural, political and religious sensitivities? The Sony picture hack is an example of this. Just imagine the outrage if North Korea, Iran, Syria, or Russia have made a comedy of the assassination of the first black American President and cast him in an unflattering light. Also the Western media applies greater sensitivities and censorship when it comes to matters concerning Jewish people and their faith.” Why shouldn’t they apply similar deference when it comes to Islam? 

Some people have even agreed that Edward Snowden should be hunted. “He willfully broke the law and jeopardized our country’s security. If he thought what he was doing was right, he should have been man enough to face the consequence.”  See it for goodness sake. If someone really did something bad he should expect the consequence! If you can lunge into such outcry about the killing in Paris, then the only innocence of Charlies is racism. We all condemned the killing but nobody cares to send an apology for the violation of the belief we hold so dear. So I’m not Charlie because I’m not racist.

Since people like Edward Snowden have violated what the citizens of their country believed to be the rule or something they hold dearly with respect, then you should also consider the sensibilities of others – and you should always predict to bear the consequence. These people only brought their fate upon themselves and you should not expect me to carry the guilt for the crime I did not commit – just as I did not blame the crime of some uneducated street-roamers in the US Jim-Crow era or some fundamentalists and deranged Nazi bigots. I have my own problems with the terrorists back home. They are killing me and my friends for our resistance to join their belief. I know some are not Charlie but they are to their enemy. I ‘m not terrorists but I ‘m to my enemy.

When some unruly people killed, you don’t expect me to take the blame because they are Muslims – the way I don’t generalize all people as killers in Ferguson or Israel or conclude that all Germans are Nazi – even when their people have actively participated in various pogrom.

The US has no-go area, the manifest of no joke on security issue, the French societies are fundamentalists when it comes to free speech, and the Muslims have no tolerance for a joke on the prophet. Maybe, you just can’t understand how we respect our prophet, the way we can’t understand how you respect free speech.

We have been economical with the truth. But truth should be told: Now we have to stop the expansion of Islamic organizations that are building mosques and are “imposing” Shari’ah against the laws of their host communities.  Many countries including France have adopted a clandestine way of suppressing minority view in the form of ban on Hijab under the veneer of secularism. But we should ask where they have thrown away the freedom that allows one to practice their religion. It is negotiable to say that everyone has given equal right to preach and practice their religion.   

My conclusion is that some people cannot come out publicly to declare war or their hatred against Islam, but will derive enormous pleasure when some group of people did. The Muslims on the other hand, although brutally and badly affected than anybody by the terror attacks, could not come out publicly to attack what they perceived as suppression, oppression and hatred against their religion but will in turn be happy if ISIS or Alqaeda does the work.

French political leaders, intellectuals and their citizens are right to defend their norms and values, something they cherish and seek to protect at all cost when seemed to be offended or denied. They have all the right for that. But they should also not forget that other people have their norms and values they would protect at all cost. As they could not surrender their values and norms, so do Muslims all over the world.

What I found a staggering shock is how the French society appears that provincial, so remote from the mainstream that doesn’t think their action is hurting certain sensibilities.  Muhammad (pbuh) cannot be sacred to you, the only thing that is sacred to you is your freedom something you rather die standing for than die on your knees. Yet other people believe in reverence of their religion who will rather die defending   than leaving it to ridicule. Each of the faction is fundamentalist! people who are downright incapable of viewing it from multiple perspectives - in a free world and global village where tolerance seems to come from a certain minority who are always to submit and tolerate or else they would be called barbaric.

How can we co-exist where you already made up your mind that I should always submit and tolerate, with the expectation of me to always grant respect to your values while you could not for a single moment care about mine? If you have the face to condemn the activities of those who attacked the magazine, then why couldn’t you be fair enough to also condemn their attack on the holiest person in Islam? We expect at least a mock condemnation, but nothing yet comes out. I’m not Charlie! I will never be!

It’s on this note I am reminding the world that I can make peace with anyone who has respect  for my belief the way I regard other people’ belief – whatever it is for that matter, the free speech. But I cannot make peace with someone who could ridicule my prophet. Nothing could justify the abuse of my belief as you think adamantly that nothing could justify the undermining of your free speech. I might be wrong if I missed the point of Britain, German and French societies’ ways of life. Yet other people have also missed the type of my society where respect for other people’ belief exists. So the only way of building civilized society (so we believe in our religion) is to grant fairness to all and respect, regarding the belief of everyone. We can live harmoniously if I don’t look down upon you as someone doomed to damnation in as much as you don’t undermine the little god I curve and believe to worship.

Intrusion and Imposition are what make people rise against such odd and hubristic behavior at whatever cost. You can stop the expansion of Islam in Western countries by whatever means you possess and demand the immigrants who travelled to your land to be harassed if they could not blend with the culture of the host communities. No excuse for that matter! Notice that immigrants did not make it there by plane, it was with chains around their wrists. Yet you have the gut to travel up to my land to force me with gun and kangaroo international laws to accept democracy, gay marriage, secularism and other anti-religious policies to a people with their own civilization, and force them to sacrifice their heritages right on their land.  It is liberation!

We believe in our Shari’ah and you believe in your Western values. So live and let live. For me I only require you to leave alone do my religion. Use of brute force and demonization would not help matter in any way. It would only make Muslims to put a stiff resistance. Muslims are the people who have no role model other than their prophet. So any labeling and pressure could not move them. It’s hardly to tell an incident where a Muslim denounced their religion because of the embarrassment caused by the activities of terrorists, or following demonization and hatred of Islam in any vivid or subtle manner.

If the attack on Charlie Hebdo is attack on free speech, yet attack on Islam is an attack on me. What the world seems to be unaware of or deliberately ignorant of is that the gathering in Paris and brewing storm of Islamaphobia could not change anything. The West should never surrender their heritage and Muslims should always continue to see any disrespect to their religion as uncultured, barbaric, uncivilized, and racist presentation under the veneer of free speech.

But my worry is that Charlie Hebdo did not physically carry any weapon to attack anybody, so why should they be attacked? And they say they do their work on anybody. Stick hurts bones but words don’t. After all the cartoons are not close commensurate of the revered prophet. Can mere words justify a killing? Me? - nor, I don’t kill but American drones and the police in Ferguson as well as Tony Blair and French forces fighting on foreign soils do.

So, there are many other ways people can oppose the magazine although some might have this belief that the system have already alienated minority where leaders had taken side in a judicial system designed to tell White from Black, Muslim from non-Muslim and rich from poor.

But it seems to me that there is much more than cartoons conflict on one hand, and free speech on the other, between the magazine publishers and the attackers. Everyone is such extremist and fundamentalist to their view, nobody will listen to each other. They would never for a single second allow the attackers to have a sense that they could win. Yet, we can read the unspoken determination of the attackers to carry out deadlier attacks if this continues. You can publish everything weekly or even daily, but the attackers believe to strike once in every four years, for example. To them is achievement!

But if the paper believes what they are doing is the right thing like the BBC or the Washington Post or any other media is doing, why should it be always guarded by security?  Then the government of France must cut funds from other sectors and invest them in security to secure their people. But I’m afraid, French government should establish a counseling-seeking delegation to contact the almighty USA and its warlords and experts if fighting somebody who is ready to die is that easy thin proven.

It is sad how the attack lent popularity to the small-circulating paper, unknown to the attackers that certain stupidities are easily defeated when ignored. Charlie Hebdo’s Wednesday edition to include cartoons of ‘mohammed’ and would be translated into sixteen languages. Please I need a copy here! 

Kwankwasocracy: Government of A Saint

With the return of democracy, the child of Lincoln as we know by layman definition as government of the people by the people and for the people, another form of rulership exits. And the people of Kano were met with a brilliant person who would introduce and champion this course.

Moving into the Government House in 1999, before he lost 2003 gubernatorial election to a poor man  he humiliated from a permanent secretary position to being a “wretched” classroom teacher, he started working, spending all his time for the people, manning tractors to clear fields for projects. His has been an engineer. Out of some mysterious luck, the poor man in an old rickety Volkswagen emerged as his party flag bearer, but had no resources to carry out the task of Nigerian expensive electioneering. Old moneys and power-brokers intervened. The Alhaji ‘Tall’ and Alhaji ‘Short’ sponsored the candidature, mortgaging the State Government into the hand of some individuals. After the election, they turned the state allocation into a group personal saving where every contributor would come to collect his share. The regime cronies, political appointees and high-end contractors wined and dined with the state resources where they excluded masses from being part of the regime. The government was for all and the benefits were for the few.

Instead of being obeyed, now the chief Executive had to receive and obey directives. The elites surrounding him took the Mallam in as a docile and politically no-brain. Wasn’t it from their favour he became the state governor? The political appointees and their accomplice civil servants added ghost workers to the payroll of various ministries, and unlike the “rationale” Kwankwaso, they schemed a kind of expensive family-friends scholarship to send their children abroad. Lot of off-side scores and the referee turned away his eyes. Kanonians, elites and masses needed a laid-back regime.

When he lost his re-election in 2003, he went to serve a capacity in the Nigerian armed forces which the military training steeled his mind.  But it was not just that, Kwankwaso went into what one might call political sabbatical where he carefully observed and understood the circumstances that led to his loss. The ousted governor had been preparing and hardening to regain his lost throne. “Why on earth they voted me out?”  He was complaining why people refused to accept him of all his projects in rural electrification, education and health. Perhaps, the projects were of low-standard and awarded on inflated cost.  So he learnt the lesson, understood the rule and the psychology of the poor. “These people, I know what they want.” He muttered jn anguish, yearning enviously for the gubernatorial seat while experiencing the bitter and harsh humiliation the masses subjected him to.

First, he needed to be prudent with fiscal responsibility and had to make sure he write his name in gold, and punish all his enemies. He deployed any available means he had and demonized the incumbent as a careless regime run by the Halimas and Sadiyas surrounded by commissioners who disobeyed executive directives. Of course he would easily win the election “with a landslide” since the Halimas “were accused of adultery” in our fervent religious society. It was election eve and this strategy had worked perfectly.  But there were other hitches to be cleared from his way smoothly to the Government House. Kwankwaso went to Abuja and pleaded the abolishing of the White Paper that prevented him from contesting in 2007 gubernatorial election. White paper not black, now he would be a saint.

The white paper hampered his dream to be in the Government House during 2003 gubernatorial election. It was cleared and now the former governor had a perfect point to strike in 2011. Kano needed a leader, and that’s where the Kwankwasocarcy exists! The civilian dictator.

With the hysteria of free ganja and hard drugs, deluded  gangling marauders went to political rally around the forty-four local governments of the state, the ganja-smokers found a convenient resort free of law enforcement influence, and the entire electorates of female and shallow-minded young adults were easily wooed by a song. In this return, everyone should get into his right senses. He would not apply the method he used almost a decade ago. Instead, he would double his effort to outdo his predecessor and would categorically make a different government. He would not rule like the coward Mallam who allowed his cabinet members to influence his decision.

It’s a kind of government with bold, brave and strong leader, our own Pharaoh! - who is to possess and wield enormous power and impose his will without cabinet consultations, and at the detriment of the sovereign interest and opinion of the poor. The commissioners, PAs and SAs and other political appointees are mere ceremonial. The sole ruler knows it all and any political appointment is at the mercy of the benefactor. Members of the legislature are the biggest puppets; they cannot check his actions according to the Kano State Constitution where many of them was elected under the banner of his “legendry” Kwankwasiya ideology of which without it, most of them could not have won their seats.  Can’t you see now, the civil dictatorship?

High cabinet members and political beggars are obliged to identify with a red symbol like members of a mafia group and bow before the presence of the Chief Executive. Top government cabinets must also remove their shoes and sit on the floor while the Governor is luxuriating and wagging his leg on the executive throne.  His speech mannerism carries orders and bears aristocratic sensation, commanding and imposing. Kwankwasocarcy is a form of government dressed and presented as democracy with beneath layer of autocracy.

It is the rulership of a sole looter facilitated by cronies and family members, a system where the wife would not make public appearance like the Halimas but will go secretly to receive contracts for interlocking the sate from her construction firm with the renovation of the newly inaugurated projects subject to renewal, depending upon the targeted contract kickback her company wants to accumulate at a given time. This reckless and frequent demolishing of recent constructions is extremely disturbing as if the administration doesn’t have brilliant minds to foresee and design the whole process. Oh, I am a fool; Abubakar you just can’t understand, it isn’t a backdoor for the inflow of infinite commission. 

The Garos would be nominated market chairmen to stop the fifteen thousand Naira annual allowances of the poor markets workers. They are the contractors of fuel and food supply to the government house. They could be nominated party chairmen and later posted as respective chairmen of their various local governments.

The Deputy Governor is held with complete contempt and disdain, treated as a houseboy whose master can send him on errand from Kano to Kaduna and upon his return can instantly be sent to Abuja again. While the governor is travelling abroad, any executive responsibility would be transferred to an in-law, the unofficial deputy governor who is the only trusted person throughout the cabinet to oversee the state affairs. Every government projects that would fetch “big ten per cent,” the bridge, the Northwest University, the road and whatnots, are directed to his ministry, so that all the money would be shared among father, mother, daughter and the son-in-law and their grandchildren. Isn’t that a smart technique?

It’s in this regime that a road construction would be initiated with the surface intention, but beneath lies a hidden motive of punishing political adversary. They would destroy his home. That’s just it, while there are other places that are in much need of such constructions. They would never do them because a perceived enemy and member of the opposing camp will be using the road.

Of course there is free education on the executive papers and media reports. The primary and secondary schools which the government relieved the burden of collecting money from the parents, now have to struggle with maintenance,  fining the pupils to buy chalk, brooms, aerosol, sterilizer and other basic materials. They also have to beg residents to assist with the teaching. If you’re not a school teacher, please keep silent and hurriedly go ask one. Free education while teachers are nursing untold agony because making loud complaint could cause the termination of their contract. Can you please remember that under this regime, political criticism is highly tolerable? I’m afraid if they would not search me out and send me to Gwauron Dutse.

There is also this mistrust between parents and their children initiated by the government’s hypocrisy. Parents get confused when a son comes to ask for a university fee. They damn believe that education is free to every son and daughter of the state, so why asking for more even when government has paid? Unknown to them, because they only listen to radio programs where the political mouth-soldiers are stationed, those in BUK, ABU and Sokoto haven’t received bank alert for the refunding of their last year’s fees, and have to register again for the new academic calendar because the government is so much efficient and thrifty, the reason that has prevented them from releasing the money. You see, even the health sector has been subsidized where the pregnant must buy a razor and cotton while delivering. I think there is so much exaggeration at the expanse of reality. we are being used by someone  to sell currency across the country. What do you see, huh?

In terms of recruitment, the application procedure is designed in such a way that one must have not known somebody who is a card-carrying member of the red cap revolutionary group. The applicant must not also wear red cap or else he would be turned down. When being a member of a cult group became a requirement for job employment? This way, the government would prevent the recruitment of ghost workers and bring sanity to the civil service where people would be employed on fairness and justice, that’s, a system free of any political affiliation. If fortunately the applicant’s surname bears the name of an antagonist, you surely believe he (won’t) be admitted. This has unequivocally not discriminated many against their right of being eligible candidate. 

It’s prudent government that requires sizable employees of the in-law of Gwanis and sons of Garos where they enjoy whimsy transfer from ministry to ministry even when they prove notoriously incompetent. You could remember that lecturer who enjoyed such privilege. Who can enjoy this if not the son of somebody who has his mouth close to the government’s ears?

Kwankwasocarcy is the appreciation of autocratic adventurism, political corner-cutting and hypocrisy led by a former/serving looter who attempts, but fails, to delude the masses. A government where the ruler connived against the masses to remove fuel subsidy and attempted to stifle and destruct any media that sought to report the happening during the Occupy Nigeria protest. What is worrying is how he secretly and smartly corners the public fund and appears as if nothing has ever happened. The fencing of the government house at #655 million is outrageous, 4billion Naira for hotel bill, 800 hundred million Naira to renovate roundabouts and the extra-judicial sacking of the state university Vice Chancellor. Can we please talk about the cost of his presidential campaign? It will take a century to find someone so smart like Kwankwaso and yet dangerously witless.

We are robbed in a mysterious way and we’re jubilating while the culprit, a mistaken devil seen as a saint, turns around gladly and laughs at our naïveté. It is the same Kwankwaso who ordered the shipment of three SUV Toyota armored cars similar to Stella Udua’s, only that her case was in another country where corruption is not common stealing, and nobody talked about that because the governor casts a spell on our people. We only kept silent, because we want to encourage him, but that doesn’t mean we are stupid.

We are a society where people feel well satisfied from the “little they get from the status quo” and see any change as horrendous. I guess, people are jubilating because they see streetlights, overhead bridges, free education and sponsorship of Kano State indigenes to study abroad. Thanks to Kwankwaso, he had improved very little than other governors who could not curve their avarice from the loot of fuel subsidy scam. But what would he have done with the fund owned by all of us if he has not worked for us? I will apply for the scholarship, I am also a Kano indigene.

While Shekarau administration was crowded with nouveau-riche exhibitionists who emerged recently from poverty, they understood government as a means of primitive accumulation of wealth: as an opportunity of bringing more wives, building more houses and cruising expensive cars while unbearably conceited and uninterested in developing the state. Impartially, the kwankwaso administration had also passed through this phase. What we are witnessing in the present time is a next stage of the former case, which is equally another primordial way of wealth acquisition shamelessly brought to modern times, where the powerful autocrat lords it over the weak. Isn’t it medieval capitalism?    

He tries so hard to appear saint by shifting the blame upon opposition politicians who are also friends in another way. Kwankwaso accused Shekarau of selfish allocation of fund to build a mansion after the expiration of the latter’s  tenancy at Africa House, while the former could strike a deal to collect the selfish allocation. “Ok, Shekarau how much? I need that money too.” 

Other politicians accidently found themselves in unlucky circumstances, and because of the mass propaganda and politicization of the insurgency; the opposition are trapped in a tight corner. They are being painted to appear devil in the public eyes, using Jonathan and PDP as scapegoats and Buhari and APC as a smokescreen to hoodwink the masses and get away with their loot. Now he is in the height of sainthood, away from the PDP of OBJs and Kwankwasos where a whole big oil ship disappeared while serving as Defence Minister. Or was it reported it sunk without the death of her crew?

You know Abuja office is very seductive; one can easily be susceptible where anti-graft law is so lax. The interesting thing of life is its dynamism, to borrow from a linguist David Shariatmadari, “today’s mistake would be tomorrow’s rigorously defended norm” and that’s why we have mistaken devils we are celebrating today.

Now, he takes our collective intelligence so mildly for granted which he thinks will allow him do anything and easily pass because he is in the APC. We are awake and vigilant with our eyes open. The reason we voted the Shekaraus out was their haughty show of sole ownership of the state resources and mismanagement. Yours kwankwaso, I’m afraid, is beyond this because of your unreserved show of monopoly, unbridled contempt of our intelligence and total lack of empathy. You exercise an aristocratic and autocratic control not only over our resources but also our intelligence, and that’s the reason we are telling the world we aren’t in slave colony.

I’m not supporting his plan of maintaining firm grip on our politics. If only to be a governor requires you first to be a deputy governor, then many governorship aspirants with progressive mind could not realize their dreams. So what if only to be a senator demands that you must have initially served as a governor? Can you tell any difference which parts our beloved Kwankwaso of our darling APC from Babangida Mu’azu of PDP in their bid to relocate to the former governors’ forum?

Forgive me god, I have committed hellish sin. I know my reward is hell for such grave sin of abusing one of your prophets. Should I enter paradise if I don’t apologize? I doubt much. Let me do so quickly before violent disciples lynch me:

Please, I am also a die-hard supporter of Kwankwaso. I can even die because of him, can you? -  while his sons are there at Ivy League. I believe in his commitments towards human development, economic policies and other progressive initiatives. He would always be remembered for the good work he has done as a Kano State governor who sponsored thousands of Kanonians to study in and out of the country irrespective of their family background. The first governor who introduced various learning institutions and vocational centers. The first governor who built subways and the longest flyover ever in Nigeria. There are many achievements, the “first” is endless that he becomes the first governor whose stubborn stupidity only helps construct his coffin.

Happy New Year!

Feminism They Call It: A Jumble of Thought

Feminism, they call it disdainfully, those who look at it from negative angle. In order to go along this line, I add a jumble of thought as it appears exactly from the title. I wished the piece initially to be purely my thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences about the events surrounding women and men, for fair judgment. I also add “a jumble of thought” because the ground I stand might differ from yours.  

I’m neither an advocate of misogyny nor of misandry; but a little more of philogyny: a positive and kind attitude towards women. Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women while misandry is the hatred for men. The friction of the two, according to many, is the driving force for a sort of homosexuality called gynophobia: the fear for women.

Sociologist Allan G. Johnson describes misogyny as “an attitude of hatred of females because they are females”, which constitutes the basis of their oppression in the society. An apt example of this is Pre-Islamic Arab where women were viewed as negation and shame and buried alive because they were females. It is a belief accompanied in patriarchal society where women are placed in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making position. Islam had made attempts to redeem women from this torture.

Some scholars share in Aristotle’s view to see a woman as an incomplete man and deformity. Nicholas Pappas, in the “Rutledge Philosophy, Guide To Plato”, says that Socrates described those who pleaded apology in court as “no better than women” on account of their cowardice. The ancient Greek believed that those who led an immoral life would be reincarnated as women. Some scholars have attributed that one of the failure of democracy is its attempt to promote sexual equality.

Jack Holland writes of the evidence of misogyny in The Old Testament in the story of The Fall of Man in The Book of Genesis as a myth that blames women for the suffering of man: The Original Sin.  Some misogynists have the belief that Islam has its own criticism of women in the 34^th verse of Annisa’i, although a Muslim scholar Taj Hashmi have discussed this in his book, “Islam and Misogyny: A Case Study of Bangladesh.”

Asra Nomani, in a Washington Post article, discussing Sura Annisa’i, says  “domestic violence against women is prevalent today in non-Muslim communities.” She further wrote that Islamic historians agree that the Holy prophet Muhammad (PBUH) never hit a woman. Professor Reza Aslan, University of Southern California, writing in “No god But God,” says “misogynistic interpretation of the Qur’an is persistently attached to Annisa’i 34 because commentary of the holy Qur’an has been exclusively domain of Muslim men.” 

Many western scholars such as Immanuel Kant, John Lucas, G W F Hegel, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rene Descartes, Oswald Spengler, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Arthur Schopenhauer, Otto Weininger, Fredrick Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud, etcetera, have been accused of misogyny.   

Comparing women as equal to men is absurd and ridiculous. When feminists call for equality, what comes first to my mind is to assume their much-needed call for fair and equal treatment. Literally, if we can assume a woman to be like a man, we will always end up proven wrong. Naturally, men can withstand harsher condition, able to absorb more difficulties and stress than women. In spite of this, it’s pretty possible to have some men much lazier than some women.

However, we can also state the opinion of Socrates who insists that men surpass women at any task both sexes undertake. Men are the successful version of what women aspire to become and have a natural feeling of awe and respect for men. For this, we have the widely circulated statement as ‘what man can do woman can do’ not the other way round.

To further accentuate this point, whenever a woman achieves certain success, people hurriedly say ‘wonderful,’ sounding extravagantly impressed and surprised, echoing the fact that her achievement is a rare feat among her sex while there is hardly such admiring comment when a man achieves a similar or even superior success. When a woman assumes a high political post or economic status, for example, people will exaggeratingly and proudly say ‘the first female to hold the post in the history of this country,’ while no such thing at all for a man.

Some women tend to believe that staying at home is just another form of confinement. Being at home in matrimony doesn’t mean closing you up in a prison as some people are trying to make us believe. It is showing care and compassion.  Women are delicate and precious, who deserve comfortable and unstressed condition. That belief of “if you see a woman in suffering, her man is at fault” is a constant reminder to us that we should always provide women with extra-care and facilitate their success. Whenever we see Ellen Johnson Sir-Leaf, Angela Merkel, Dilma Roussef or Margaret Thatcher, sobriquet the Iron Lady, or Deputy Director Avril Haines, we know that there are men: husband, father or colleague, aiding their attainments from behind the scene.

Women in my society should sigh a heavy relief they were not created in other cultures where they are seen as investment opportunities in her education, beauty and cosmetics so that when her marriage comes, her parents would look forward to making profit from her bride price. They also should be happy they are spared backbreaking tasks or live in other societies that hide under the auspices of liberty, freedom and equality to push them into competition with men who will then turn around and laugh when they fail. They can end up enmeshed in dilemma, till they get to realize a Hausa proverbial saying “ba’a kwacewa yaro garma.”

Women hardly appeared in the list of the early inventors. There wasn’t a woman ever conferred the status of knighthood, and even the feminine version of the word is yet to be known.  A Knight has always remained a male character, a symbol of power, might, and strength.

Common evidence that further differentiates female from being like male is that there is sharp gap between the numbers of male and female fighting as allied forces in foreign lands. The sum of females will certainly count to a chicken-feed. This implies that women are less powerful than men. Then, it can be understood that nature decreed that women can never match up with men in many respect.

I believe when people like me talk about women condition in society, we don’t practically and literally assume women to be men in terms of responsibility or strength. According to Aristotle, the female character will be inappropriate if she is too brave and clever and awkward and sinewy. All we mean is special care and assistance; women having access to education, economic, social and political opportunities to have a good life. Well, I can’t judge if women mean something different, something bigger, than this.

Scholars such as Katherine K. Young and Paul Nathan posit that, ideologically, the fervent call for feminism and the overriding focus on women is to prioritize girlish hierarchy which as a result may be a misandry, the hatred and prejudice for men. Then feminist call for equality is a subterfuge form for gynocentricism, the ideological practice and consciousness of asserting particular feministic point of view in which social issues, desires and needs are addressed and analyzed to the detriment of non-females.

Now after looking at the concept from the vintage point that sees feminism as a call for giving extra care to women, we shall also look at it from macho perspective.

Some male decry the idea of feminism, ignoring the idea of giving special attention and opportunities to females, to maintain the status quo. To my view, anti-feminism can to some extreme extent have some links with misogyny.

Hippocrates writing is his book “On Affection,” uses the surviving Greek word of the misogyny as (misogunia) ‘disaffection of women’ and (misanthropia) disaffection of humanity. He grouped the hatred of women with the hatred of humanity in general. In “humanity” lies my advocacy for feminism.

In terms of intelligence and brilliancy, women can do better what men do or some men fail to do. With the creation of modern tools by men, I say by men, (military arena and or computer industry is still man-dominated world), women can perform great things with the sleight of a hand from their tiny offices.

Women can assume some highest decision-making posts in the society. Yet, some interpretations of Islamic scriptures forbid this because women are too emotional, compassionate, indulgent and lenient.

Some people say women have ‘short and deficient sight and thinking.’ I don’t know if there is any difference between men’ and women’ brain. I keep wondering, looking at people’ heads, how they think and what are they thinking? Is women’ brain less powerful than men’? Has men’ brain have more cortex and processors than women’? Is this the reason men are always cleverer than women? Is this the reason men always outsmart women? Do other people think in line with my thought?

Although Allah says ‘‘Arrijalu qawwamuna alannisa’i’’ (men are the protectors and maintainers of women because God has made one of them, (man) to excel the other (woman). He also said ‘‘Inna akramakum indallahi atqakum’’ (surely the greatest among you in the sight of Allah is he or she who fears Allah the most). And all of ibadats (acts of worship) carries equal reward. Wrongdoings also carry uniform punishment irrespective of sexuality.

But some people are opportunists. They are using this advantage to commit crimes against women.  The society forced women for centuries to accept that they cannot be anything beyond the sources of pleasure for men. The unwritten law is that if you are a woman, you can be successful but not too much successful. Because the stenotype has been deeply ingrained, few women can think of slaughtering a ram for religious rituals during Sallah period, especially in this part of the world.

I always feel offended in the midst of married men by their vulgar language in their conversation about women. “Kai wannan fa akwai kaya”, to refer to her breasts, bucks and hips. The most important role given to women in the society is to spread their leg on the bed to give way for men through the shrub and mush into the kingdom of pleasure. In a society where marriage, sex and procreation are the major concerns, women have no important role than this. And that is why, often, girl child education is disrupted in favour of marriage. And later we come to blame government for inadequate female personnel in our hospitals and can brazenly find a face to protest against a male doctor treating our daughters.

I have been asking parents why they don’t want to allow their girl children to go to colleges. Their responses remain the same: “waywardness and deviant activities on campuses,” fearing their daughters might get involved in flirtatious affairs with their male friends.

Truth is, if they are fair to themselves and the society, why do they send their sons to go and destroy one’s daughter while protecting theirs. And if you say she will turn a wayward on the campus, I don’t know if all the prostitutes in the red-light enclave in around the town are graduates from BUK medicine faculty. I don’t even know if all the prostitutes have a certificate from FCE or Polytechnic hung above their beds as a testimony for their being professional service providers from the faculty of sex in our colleges. Do you want to mean that all those girls who are in or passed through the university are involving in premarital affairs?

Another injustice is that, on many occasions, there will be a situation where a family of a husband knows that their brother is promiscuous. But they will allow him to marry an innocent girl. While they would never allow their dissolute son to marry a girl alleged to be loose. 

Often there are instances where a husband might have been caught screwing up with other women but the matter would not be given any hoot and his helpless wife must stay in the marriage. And if she refuses, the whole society will gang up against her. The sky will certainly fall if it were the wife having an affair with other men. The whole people from the husband’s family will reach a consensus to divorce her.  

And one argument I have is that if you insist women pursuing western education are evil because they may turn out recalcitrant or deviant, then how much have you invested so far in her religious education?  Are you telling me that all female doctors in Gynecology and Obstetrics Units at Aminu Kano and Murtala Hospital respectively, female lecturers in universities, women judges in Shari’ah courts, women in Hisbah Board, are wayward and intractable and unfaithful to their husbands?

Mothers from my extended family often complained that their daughters are not married by affluent husbands like their rich sons are marrying in others daughters to come and enjoy in their wealth. They are envious. Here, all they want is the ratio to be at least fifty-fifty. They were baffled why the system would put them at the disadvantaged side.

I told them it is because they only allow their sons to pursue go for higher education and disallow their daughters; and that’s why their daughters as educationally backward are usually married off to the husbands less privileged than their sons.

You want your daughter to be the wife of somebody? “Those who read are rewarded with important positions in society.”

People don’t even bother to provide proper Islamic knowledge to women for the fear that once they know the truth, the end of injustice has come. A lady was forced to get into an arranged marriage to a husband whom her father was indebted. She has had her love already but her father insisted she must marry his choice as if he were the one to live in the marriage. She was helpless and couldn’t protest the decision. If she took the matter to the court, the society would curse her for suing her father. She got into the marriage and soon died of heart enlargement.

Although ignorance is never an Islamic teaching, but education is nothing in our society. Nothing in our society is seen as an achievement without marriage. Even a man, not a woman, who achieves great success in wealth or knowledge, yet unmarried, is still viewed as unfulfilled.

I’m not condemning the institution of marriage because it is the foundation of every society. But marriage is not a mandatory ibadat.  There are Muslim scholars who died unmarried, devoting their lives to the advancement of knowledge. The religion describes marriage as non-compulsory (Sunnah) and education as obligatory. Then why are we more of this Sunnah and averse to the obligatory?  We can do many other Sunnah simpler and less demanding than marriage. I do not see any importance in giving birth to drug addicts, thieves and beggars buzzing around beer taverns.

Despite the fact that it’s is men’s responsibility to take care of the woman, yet, some men continue to starve the girls by deliberately refusing to feed them and beat their wives and cheat on them. If a woman can only have her paradise under her husband’s feet, then where the husband could find his paradise? I think we are being presented with one side of the argument.

Women are always at the receiving end. Imagine how boys set rules and criteria for a woman they would marry: ‘tall, beautiful, light-skinned,’ as if it was the ladies who created themselves. Women are unwittingly coerced into unnatural life. For them to be light-skinned, they will have to use creams and lotion to pale their skin. There are many ways of contracting skin cancer; this one is one of them.

In terms of beauty, they only grew up and see themselves as what they are naturally. But if you ever allowed the society to define you and you feel that you are ‘beautiful’, then the danger sets in. You will begin to treat others with aplomb disdain. In the end, you will be the victim of your beauty when men began to chase after you.

Finally, is a suggestion?

I wish women will understand to not be fanatical. Camille Paglia argues that a close reading of the ancient text will reveal that men do not hate women but fear them and ready to serve them, like a Knight in his shining armour. Men can hate woman only in their plays but very fond of them in their beds. Men are fools like cock and hen, eating the stones and leaving the grains to win woman’s heart. Men are idiot gullible who are enslaved by women but rejoice in it. Men are of course living life and dying for women.

If particularly men will feel that women are also human beings and not just articles of pleasure, there will be a drastic reduction in marital and societal problems. If we assume that neither will exist without either, not one as a boss and the other as a servant, then also there will be a progression.