Who did you say I am?

Here is what. I think I have started to realise who I am. Note my reflections seeking me or myself. Really, if psychologists want to make a meal of analysing and profiling, I am concerned with how I feel within my environment. Do you realise that where you were born (an accident of history) really helps in determining who you are and who people think you are? The other day I was a visitor at Professor An-Na'im's site and waited through a webcast(?)! Wow! I saw this man speak of himself as a Sudanese on account of his being dressed 'peculiarly' within the environment of his presentation. You see, he was speaking to an 'all American audience' . He had a wide flowing dress with a large headgear, particular to the Sudanese male dressing. He was indeed typically Sudanese. Yet, did he have say he needed that identity? Maybe, he did not want to be mistaken for a 'libralised fundamentalist!

The idea is this: The Lord created us and dispersed us all round the surface of the earth. He made us different. Black, 'white', hispanic (?), indian (...) and what have you (or you know what). All so we may know and identify one another. How should we relate to this? Why should I bother seeking to signify my identity? A muslim is (should be) a muslim anywhere on the surface of the earth. An-Na'im only needed to make the point that he is a muslim, peeriod. Is a Sudanese muslim different from an American muslim?

I have found my identity. Thanks.

Funmi Iyanda: Discarding a Course!

Somehow I felt deflated reading Iyanda's blog this afternoon. Here is a woman who has shown some promise and will not allow some percieved pressures to defeat her. I hate to think it is a love thing - or maybe the obasence of it. But, whatever it is, Funmi has put so much into making her personality that allowing something small called fatigue to set in now is quite discomforting. I know she will reconsider and not yeild to the 'fucking fabulous' feeling of dispondence to change her prolific orientgation. Come on girl, there are people waiting on you to shine.

Here is hoping the Iyanda we all know will come up 'running' even if our packaged water will be missing.

Look up. There is someone there.

Me or Myself: Searching for My Identity

I am a Nigerian. I am a northerner, which means I am a person indigenous to a community in northern Nigeria. I speak the hausa language very fluently. In fact I studied hausa langauge in college, so I write the hausa langauge using the english alphabets well. I do not write hausa smoothly in ajami script. Ajami script uses the arabic alphabets. In my country, I have acquired a name which is not my own. I am generally called 'a hausa man.'

The tag 'hausa man' is because I am a muslim. I practice the Islamic religion. I am trying very hard to live my life according to the dictates of the Qur'an and the Sunna, which means I hold tenaciously to Shari'a. Yet, I belong to a family of dialects within a tribal affinity known as Kilba in the Hong local government area of Adamawa State in North Eastern Nigeria. How am I a 'hausa man?'

I'm I myself or not? Should I be me, whose identity is a convinience for historians? I am looking for my identity. I am not a hausa man. I live in northern Nigeria and speak the language well. Who should I be? Me or Myself?

Obama's vanity or America's hypocricy?

So I read this piece in the Washington Post on the vanities of Democratic hopeful Barack Obama and I wondered: Is that not the hallmark of American psychology? Is that not what America represents for all the rest of the world. Why should a columnist list the 'oddities' in the raising profile of a 'good' political personality like BArack Obama and conclude that the lawyer politician should tell the people who he thinks he is? I am confused.

My confusion does not come from not actually knowing Obama for the short space of his ascention to prominence; it does come from my continued apprehension of the tools employed by the American press to deal with their subjects. This is a man seemingly in tune with the aspirations of the people, whose image as a Muslim lover is daily cristicised because America is a christain country with good christain values; here is a man who places himself as a change agent, yet would quickly distance himself from anybody whose opinions differ from the main stream American psychology as the 'best of the best' of God's own people; Obama is arctypical America, yet his desire to show himself as such is now being criticised. Maybe, the man should have waited to be president.

In the event he is elected (certainly, the majority would have indicated they love him), the likes of Charles K would reshape their attitute. They may be forced to appreciate the fact that America is ably portrayed by Obama. If his actions amount to vanity, print USA in all the spaces that Obama appear and read the story to yourself. You have the picture. That is the image that comes across every day.

Nine to one, Obama will not be elected the next President of the United States of Americ. It will not be because he is not qualified; it will be because he represents the type of single mindedness which the illusive American establishment resents and which the media extols daily, but would readily throw away as soon as the economic lifeline(s) appear to be strained. The media are all America; America grows and swells upon establishment doctrines.

Obama may be vain. But so is the United States of America. Two of a kind. May the romance live long. Howeve ... !