Tag Archives: Religion

Hoisted from comments: On Ayaan Hirsi Ali – “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn’t become a monster”

A reader writes: Without undermining the intellectual capabilities and the personal achievements of Ms Hirsi Ali, she often comes accross as self-overestimating and excessively self-benefitting. Since she stepped out of the islamic faith, she seems extremely obsessed with projecting islam in a negative light. For a self-proclaimed islam expert, I would appreciate a discuss that… Read More »

Reviews of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book

From The Economist: For anyone who has ever felt a tinge of rose-tinted nostalgia for the traditional, Ayaan Hirsi Ali provides a bracing, and on the whole healthy, cold shower. Having experienced traditional society from the inside—in the form of a Muslim Somali family headed by a well-known politician who practised polygamy and left a… Read More »

Should we take Gaddafi seriously? (cont)

The concluding paragraph of Peter Akinlabi’s Beyond Gadaffi: Nigeria, Federalism and Other Quicksands: We can intellectualize these things all we want, but there are no more startling discoveries to be made as far as the causes of violence in northern Nigeria are concerned. Olakunle Abimbola’s getting a lot of verbal bashing (sentimental fool, people like… Read More »

Should we take Gaddafi seriously?

My friend and sociology lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Oka Obono: Nigeria was furious. It recalled its ambassador, told Libya off, and escalated what could have passed for hot air into substance for a diplomatic war. It forgot that its own security forces had failed to maintain peace in the affected area; that they… Read More »

Violent conflicts and modes of identification

My saxophone instructor, a Muslim, asked me today about the ‘religious violence’ in northern Nigeria. I tried to explain to him that most of the violence that is reported from northern Nigeria is about a weird definition of who an indigene is and who a settler is, and that most often, the immediate cause of… Read More »