Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
‘The afterlife of slavery’: Historian lectures on Boko Haram, slavery, Islamic theology By Subaah Syed January 28, 2024
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Around 15 people packed into the Humanities Center to hear Dr.
Abdulbasit Kassim's lecture breaking down the historical context of Boko
Haram's pro-slavery ideology using the cross-analysis of texts from
various centers of learning
Campus Times : The University’s Department of
Religion and Classics hosted a guest lecture on Wednesday centered on
tracing the history and colonial context of the pro-slavery ideology
held by Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group founded in northeastern
Nigeria that has been involved in violent insurgencies and kidnappings.
The talk, titled “Islam,
Emancipation, and Proslavery Theology in a Post-Abolition World,” was
given by Dr. Abdulbasit Kassim, a decorated interdisciplinary historian
in the African diaspora. Kassim, currently a postdoctoral research
fellow at NYU’s Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora,
was the co-editor of “The Boko Haram Reader: From Nigerian Preachers to
the Islamic State,” which was about Boko Haram’s recent insurgencies in
Nigeria.
The talk was undoubtedly heavy.
Kassim discussed how Boko Haram’s recent insurgencies reflect their
belief that the enslavement of non-Muslims is permissible. In April
2014, the group kidnapped nearly 300 young Christian girls from Chibok, a
town in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno. The tragedy spurred
the #BringBackOurGirls movement, which garnered attention worldwide for
the effort to bring the girls to safety.
The kidnappings were indicative of
Boko Haram’s wider attempts to revive slavery. Through his talk, Kassim
aimed to break down the group’s flawed beliefs, analyzing the points in
history that built up to this moment, going all the way back to the
Atlantic Slave Trade and European colonialism. His methodology consisted
primarily of cross-analyzing samples of texts from different centers of
learning and piecing them together. He also attempted to interview
scholars, but he found that it was a touchy subject for most of them, so
he relied more on textual evidence.
Kassim pointed to the continuities
and changes in Islamic legal terms pertaining to slavery. These changes
mainly concerned who should or should not be legally enslaved. In
pre-colonial times, West African societies that observed Islam practiced
slavery, but it was different from European slavery. Muslims were not
supposed to be enslaved, and if the individual converted to Islam, they
could not be held as a slave by another Muslim. Kassim referenced the
words of the 15th-century West African Islamic scholar Ahmed Baba,
“Whoever is enslaved in a State of unbelief may rightly be owned”.
Slave-master relationships were also different in pre-colonial
societies, as slaves were treated better, and religious texts advocated
for the fair treatment of slaves. Yet there were still Muslim
aristocrats who used Islam to justify slavery, even though their
treatment of slaves sometimes deviated from the ideology of Islam.
European colonialism “ignored
religious and jurisdictional discourses on slavery,” Kassim said.
Europeans’ systematic approach to chattel slavery and the Atlantic Slave
Trade disrupted social structures and nuanced local discourses on the
religious and legal terms of slavery. 19th-century British colonialism
of West Africa, Kassim continued, contributed to the persistence of
pro-slavery thought that can be seen today in groups like Boko Haram, as
the colonization itself was based on regulating the slave trade.
Attempts to revive slavery were seen
through movements Kassim labeled the “old” and “new” jihad movements.
The term jihad has been subject to misconstrual and contending
interpretations. Though it generally means the struggle to connect more
with God on a personal level, extremist groups have made this an
outward, violent struggle that has produced bloodshed.
The “old” jihad movement, which took
place during the 17th and 19th centuries, waged “jihad” movements and
campaigns that engaged with religious classic texts and attempted to
legitimize the institution of slavery. Little modifications of Ahmed
Baba’s theological justification for slavery were made in order to
justify enslaving enemies that were actually Muslims. One example was
the case of William Harding of Borno, a state in northeast Nigeria, who
was a Muslim but was kidnapped and enslaved by jihadists. At the time he
was enslaved in 1808, trading was banned, so he was transported to
Sierra Leone. His case showed the hypocrisy of Muslim authorities who
captured and sold free Muslims for their own benefit.