Hadithi ya Nana Asma'u
Posted by molisa under afrikan herstory, hadithi | Tags: nana asma'u, nigeria, one woman's jihad, pan-african postcards, women of sufism: a hidden treasure |
(revis/it/ed excerpts) from a Qadiri heart of Nigeria
Nana Asma'u (1793-1864) was a Qadiri Sufi woman who helped to guide entire communities in what is now (neo-colonially legislated a s) Nigeria. Born in the small village of Degel in the dry plains of Hausaland at a time when the French revolution was at it's height, she played an important part in an Islamic revolution that affected an area the size of Western Europe(and then some).
Nana was raised under the careful eye of her father, who was the spiritual and tribal leader of the Shehu people, as well as her mother and a number of other scholarly women….At an early age Nana had memorised the entire Qur'an, and she soon spoke and wrote in the local languages of Hausa, Fufulde, and Tamachek, as well as Arabic.
When she was quite young, her family and their expanding community of Qadiri muslims began their journey of emigra tion to settle in a place where their community might be free to practice with appropriate care the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (salaam en blessings be upon him). As they moved from one place to another during a time of intense civil war (1804-1830) when strong efforts were being made to reform and purify the practice of Islam in the region, one of the few things they carried with them was the family library consisting of hundreds of carefully copied loose-leaf manuscripts. These books were continually passing through a process of renewal, as in that climate, even though the tomes were enclosed in sturdy goatskin bags, it was not long before the parchment pages would begin to disintegrate. Books were of such importance that wherever the family journeyed, a room was always set aside for the copying of texts so that the library of important Islamic and Sufi texts might be preserved.
Nana Asma'u became an enthusiastic teacher of men, women en pikney and one who was well loved by her students and her whole community. At the same time she was both a wife and a mother, devoted daughter en sista , she was also an educator, an author, and a "respected scholar of international repute who was in communication with scholars throughout the Subsaharan Afrikan Muslim world," as Beverly Mack and Jean Boyd report [in One Woman's Jihad].
Her efforts to promote reconciliation education and justice helped change forever the Muslim culture in which she lived. This was her personal 'jihad' (meaning struggle or effort) and it took three aspects:
First was the preservation and propagation of all that the Shehu stood for (the right-full following of the sunnah of the Prophet and justice for all).
Second was the education of women, who were the primary mentors of future generations…..
Thirdly, she devoted her life to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, using her wit, her imagination, and her immense prestige to find pragmatic solutions to the problems that faced her…..
She was not only famous among the Muslim scholars in her community and beyond, but she was also loved by ordinary unschooled villagers……Asma'u's teachings songs in Hausa are still well known today and continue to be learned by both young girls and boys. Her people speak of her as if she were still alive and recite the injunctions she taught their great grand mothers….
She herself spoke and wrote about the women of her father's generation who had been 'teachers of women, teachers of exegesis of the Qur'an, and women of great presence.' They in turn had been taught by earlier generations of women who included her grandmother and great-grandmother. In her own generation there were six other women writers whose poetry survived: they were her sisters Hadiza, Fatima, Habsatu, Safiya and Mariam – the sixth was her cousin Aisha. [as reported in One woman's Jihad]
(Preface…)….We will look forward to witnessing the continued reflecting of the Divine light in all the ways and being through which it may be granted by our most gracious Sustainer. May the stars of this universe shine ever more and more brightly!
[source: Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure]
God/dess is the light of the heavens and the earth
The parable of Her/his/hir light
Is as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp;
The lamp is enclosed in glass, the glass like a radiant star;
Lit from a blessed tree – an olive tree
That is neither of the east or the west –
The oil of which would almost give light
Even though fiya had not touched it: light upon light!
God/dess guides to Her (/His/Hir) light the one who wills to be guided;
And God/dess offers parables to human beings,
Since God/dess has full knowledge of all things.
(Ase….)
Surah an-Nur 24:35
getting nekkyd: behind the mask
Posted by molisa under afrikan herstory, hadithi, the Q/T werd | Tags: 13 questions, 2007 kenya elections, 32 stories, a is for orange, abscondita, abunuwasi, AfraKenya, all afrikan people revolutionary party, anais nin, anitAfrika dub theatre, AQSAzine, asa, ashanti alston, askyuamutha black militants, assata shakur, audre lorde project, avengers, ayiti, bagirwa, bathhouse raids, BE-DIS, blackness yes!, blockorama, bredrin en dadas in solidarity, britannia zimeisha, buffalo soldier, bukusu, bunge la mwananchi, Catherine mackinnon, champion, china, clarissa pinkola estes, class wars, colour spill productions, comfortable with uncertainty, concerned kenyan writers, crash pad, crooked q, daniel arap moi, dead prez, deviant productions, dini ya msambwa, dogon, east afrikan hiphop, eco tourism, el farouk khaki, elebga, eleggua, elijah masinde, elimu sanifu, eshu, estimated prophet, Farug, field marshall muthoni, founders of 1981 pride, from a whisper, fulani, funkasia, G20 summit, g8, GALCK, gay kenya, gaza flotilla, GEAP, gender justice, genge, Geoffrey philps, ghana, girl with the dragon tattoo, GLAD, gladstone hotel, goddess on your shoulder, goodhandy's, gran nanny, guide to open relationships, hadithi, harriet tubman, hausa, homophiles, horn of my love, human rights abuses, icebreakers, ifa, igbo, IGLHRC, indigenous myths, inside out, is the crux, ishtar, juakali, kagendo murungi, kalenjin, kalmplex, kamasutra, k'naan, kenya, kikuyu, kipsigis, kisii, kwame nkrumah, lame deer, lesbian revengers, let's talk about sex, lezgetreal, Lil kim, louisiana, lucumi, luhya, lukemi, machiavelli, mad house, makmende returns, maroons, martin gladstone, mau mau, Mbeki, mekatilili wa menza, meru, michael jackson, miriam makeba, muhumusa, multicultural day, musikari kombo, MWA, mwai kibaki, MXGM, nana yaa asantewaa, nandi, national day against homophobia, nekkyd, nelson mandela, nigeria, nneka, nneke dumele, non monogamy, nyayo house, ochosi, ogun, okot p'bitek, Onyango Oloo, oshun, oya, pambazuka news, pat califia, peace theatre, pink dollar, pio gama pinto, pokomo, polyamory, polygamy, pornography, pride coalition for free speech, pride Toronto, Prometheus Project, pumzi, pussy palace, QuAIA, queen nzinga, queerlessness, queers against israeli apartheid, R3, raila odinga, rangi sita, Reagan era, red lips.cages for black girls, reparations, restitution, Richard fung, Richard Shchener, robert ouko, rwanda, ryerson students union, saba saba. Mwakenya movement, safari sevens, salt n pepa, sankofa, santeria, seeker of visions, seven sistas, sex wars, sex work, shailja patel, shango, shine louise houston, shona, simba, simiyu barasa, Sirius a, sirius b, SMUG, sodomy laws, SOY, story of o, swagger, tachoni, taita, tanzania, tel aviv, the q/t werd, the river and the source, the river between, tiger woods, TIT's, tomboyfriend, toronto coalition against racism, TRCC, TWB, uganda, ukoo flani, vagina monologues, victor mukasa, voodoo, voudoun, weapon of the revolution, women who run with the wolves, word! sound! powah!, world cup, world pride, xtra, year of the tiger, yemoja, Yoruba house project, zimbabwe, zulu |
(re) introducing the q[/t] werd: a video diary
It ain't no mystery that we (been) preparing for dis' (not-so) new film & video projects: nekkyd & the Q[/T] werd.
season 1 features 32[+4]stories en the magic is in retelling of OUR stories
some of the [extra] ordinary people featured [en behind the scenes] include: anitafrika dub theatre, blackness yes! and blockorama, bombastic kasha, bunge la mwananchi, bredrin and dadas in solidarity, colour me dragg, [is] the crux, deb singh, Elijah Masinde, elimu sanifu, faith Nolan, funkasia, the funketeers, gender education and advocacy project, house of munro, Ishtar, kalmplex, nikki mawanda, nneke dumele, red lips. cages for black girls, swagger, tajudeen abdul raheem, victor mukasa, en the Yoruba house project
A love letter to rafikis, [aka.] bredrin and dadas in solidarity.
b is for blackness yes! and blockorama
Make it plain: a litany of love
Posted by molisa under alternative media, hadithi, the Q/T werd | Tags: 1924, a is for orange, African Liberation Day, ALD, algeria, ancestors, angola, anitAfrika dub theatre, audre lorde, ayiti, behind the mask, blocko, blockorama, botswana, burkina faso, burundi, cameroon, cape verde, central african republic, chad, colour spill productions, cote d'ivoire, djibouti, do you know your history?, DRC, egun, egypt, el farouk khaki, el hajj malik el shabazz, engender, equatorial guinea, ethiopia, frankly speaking, ghana, goodhandys, guinea, guinea bissau, hadithi, harlem underground, heroes, jamaica, kanem, kenya, kwame nkrumah, kwanzaa, legends, lesotho, liberia, libya, litany of survival, madagascar, make it plain, makmende, makmende returns, malawi, malcolm x, malcolm x grassroots movement, mali, marcus garvey, mozambique, MXGM, namibia, niger, nigeria, pan-africanism, patrice lumumba, paulo freire, pride Toronto, pussy pen, QuAIA, queers against israeli apartheid, revenge of the batty boys, rhoma spencer, rwanda, sao tome and principe, senegal, seychelles, sierra leone, somali land, songhai, sons of malcolm, south afrika, sudan, T&T, tanzania, the q werd, troy jackson, tunisia, uganda, united states of africa, zambia, zimbabwe |
I give thanks for El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (aka. Malcolm X), for (t)his birth (to)day, en for tomorrow, for the fruits of the work that not only (baba) Malcolm but so many other of our ancestors have done in liberating themselves en 'other' (people)s…
I give thanks for African Liberation Day (on May 25th), which is (depending on one's 'politics') the biggest holiday of the year for (all) Afrikans, or more like, should be…. afrika moja!
Dis' litany of love (en survival) is embodied in 'our' symbols of resistance and the struggle of 'everyday', it explores the 'other' pieces of (where we) coming OUT from and embraces those 'intersections' in our diversity that (should) remind us we are all (from) one (Mama Afrika)….
so I give thanks for the work that the warriors of Blackness Yes! & Blockorama do to maintain positive & safe spaces for queer & trans folk of Afrikan descent, and for the folks who continue to do what they can to transform not only themselves, but our communities for betta….
Like (in) dis' litany of pan-Afrikan realities sent out a moon ago, from (some of) the ones we've been looking for…ase.
April 19, 2010,
Dear Pride Toronto,
Thank you all for attending the community meeting on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 to discuss the proposed move of Blockorama. At this meeting you were able to see the passion our community feels for Blockorama. Our communities came out Tuesday to support Blockorama because it is created by and for community, with a deep sense of ownership by the community. We would also like to thank you for your letter, dated April 15, 2010.
Since 1998 Blockorama has been a party at Pride where black queer and trans folks, their allies, supporters and people who love them came together to say no to homophobia in black communities and no to racism in LGBTQ communities. To say Blackness Yes at Pride – loud and proud. Pride Toronto's inability to lead on racism in the LGBTQ communities and homophobia in black communities sends a strong signal to black queer and trans communities and their allies everywhere.
We have built Blockorama out of love, through sweat and toiling. For 12 years, we have claimed space, resisted erasure, found community, shared memories, built bridges, embraced sexuality, and found home. Blockorama is not just a party or a stage at Pride. It is a meeting place for black queer and trans people across North America- Blockorama is the largest space of its kind at any Pride festival on the continent.
Black queer and trans communities have been central to the diversity of Pride. At the same time Pride Toronto as an organization has continually marginalized those communities. It is indeed those communities that enable Pride to be the celebration of sexual life and freedoms that we all cherish. Pride Toronto's inability to recognize its own constituencies is not only sad and disappointing it is indeed politically naïve and damaging to the still necessary struggles around sexual freedom in our city, province and country.
It has been incredibly frustrating to have our concerns regarding the space for Blockorama at Pride be not taken seriously by the arts and entertainment manager at Pride. It is very unfortunate that communication seems to be an issue for Pride Toronto, and that so much institutional memory has been lost through the many transitions that Pride has gone through over the last 2 years. We are glad to have begun a conversation about how to rebuild our connections with Pride Toronto.
Based on the feedback we have received from our communities following Tuesday's meeting and what was offered through your letter, we are prepared to accept the following:
1. A full stage and infrastructure in George Hislop Parkette on Sunday July 4, 2010. This infrastructure will include power, insurance, tents, tables/chairs, toilets,
garbage removal, insurance, permits and fees, security, tech costs and labour.
We assume that the other site requests previously made available to us (pizza and water for volunteers, barricades to which we secure our banners, etc) will, although not mentioned in your letter, still be made available to us.
2. A reciprocal commitment from Blackness Yes and Pride Toronto to respond to emails with 48 hours of receiving them and to check in with each other (by phone or email) at least twice per week from now until the end of the 2010 Pride Week Festival.
3. We agree to your request for programming information to be provided to Pride Toronto no later than April 21st. In fact, we had already submitted this programming information before receipt of your letter.
4. We agree to the request for information for the Pride Guide to be submitted no later than April 21st.
We will provide you with:
o A 100 word intro blurb;
o Two 50 word blurbs for artists' spotlights;
o Any photos associated with those artists in high resolution (300 dpi);
o A 100 word blurb about Blackness Yes and a relevant photo.
5. We are committed to and have always adhered to Pride Toronto deadlines for
information on Site Logistics, Tech, Press etc. We request that any changes to deadlines be given to us in a timely fashion to avoid any delay in information sharing.
6. We are happy to re-join the coordinators committee for Pride. We will send 2 delegates from Blackness Yes to each programming committee meeting as often as is manageable. We recognize that although some other programmers may be paid for their time, we are a volunteer-based committee. We welcome the opportunity to become reengaged with pride committee activities!
We are not able to accept the following offers at this time:
1. It will not be necessary for you to provide us with a Stage Manager for the weekend. We have a Blackness Yes member who will advance the show with the artists and ensure that the stage operates in a timely fashion.
2. We accept your offer to fund the previously agreed upon budget of $5000 for the Sunday stage. We also request that as in previous years, Pride Toronto cover the travel and hospitality fees of artists from out of town who are appearing on the Blockorama stage.
We feel that it is unfortunate that Pride chose to cancel stage-based programming in George Hislop without any consultation with the programmers who program that space. We understand that this decision has resulted in the re-allocation of the funding for this stage to other parts of the festival, thus now requiring Pride to find an "additional" $20,000 to create the stage in George Hislop. With proper consultation and collaboration, we could have worked together to both keep the needed funds for Blocko in the budget, and helped to save costs overall.
Your offer to program 2 full days in George Hislop Parkette is unfortunately not possible. This is not a viable offer as you have specified that you do not plan to cover any artist's fees for Saturday programming. Although we welcome the opportunity to develop 2 days of programming, we cannot do so without money to develop this programming, and the suggestion that we do so is surprising. We welcome the opportunity to discuss options for 2 days of programming with adequate budget in the future.
Pride Toronto should not consider running programming for which local artists are not paid for their time. One of the wonderful things about the festival is that it engages artists and helps support the development of artistic practice in Toronto by paying artists to perform. Blackness Yes cannot consider developing any programming that would result in artists not being paid for their time and efforts.
We would like to request the following:
1. We request funding to rent a temporary floor for in front of the stage – something that can be used on the grass to facilitate dancing, to provide a less slippery and muddy experience for participants, and to deal with the regular rain flooding and seeping that we experience each year in George Hislop Parkette.
2. We thank you for the opportunity to commit to the George Hislop space for both the 2010 and 2011 festivals. However we can only commit to 2010 at this time. We would like to set a date to begin working together shortly after Pride 2010 to find a more suitable long-term home for Blockorama.
3. We note that in 2002, Pride's entertainment budget was $31,040; and the Blockorama stage received $2500 or 8% of overall entertainment budget. This year, Pride's entertainment budget is has increased to $335,027, yet Blockorama is received only $5000 or roughly about 1.4%. We would like to know why the proportional allotment for our stage is shrinking despite increased money in the entertainment budget?
4. We support the use of the stage on Saturday by other community groups and we encourage one of the 4 paid programming staff at Pride to outreach to some of the communities currently not represented at Pride to help program the stage. We feel strongly that artists fees should be paid for any artists that play on Saturday's stage.
We are concerned about the steady removal of community involvement from the structure of Pride Toronto over the past 2 years. As an independent committee programming a stage at Pride, we recognize how far Pride has to go to ensuring that it's programming is reflective of the diversity of Toronto. We encourage and support all community groups currently marginalized by Pride Toronto, and/or the larger LGBTTI2QQ set of communities in Toronto.
There are many other communities that should also have Pride Toronto's full commitment and engagement to develop relevant programming at the festival (First Nations and Indigenous people, LGBTTI2QQ people who are Deaf and those with Disabilities, and many many others) and we encourage Pride to connect with and engage these communities. We are disappointed that this year has seen communities pitted against each other – competing for stage space and funding at Pride.
It is also very unfortunate that Pride has distanced itself from so many of the communities that helped build the LGBTTI2QQ activist movement. Racialized queer and trans people, many of whom were street-involved, working class and poor started both the Stonewall and Compton Cafeteria riots that kick-started the "gay liberation movement" in North America. It is on the backs of racialized and working class queer and trans people that mainstream queer organizations like Pride Toronto have been built.
Yet for many of these same people, Pride is now an inaccessible space, one that is not representative of them in any way, shape or form. Many of these revolutionaries that began the riots would not be able to afford the beer gardens (or this year's Prism main stage party) that have become the cornerstones of the Pride festival.
We wonder if they would be banned from the parade for carrying posters that make people uncomfortable- posters calling for an end to targeted policing of Trans people, calling to an end to systemic racism and homophobia, and demanding the right to sexual freedom and the right to self-identified gender expression. These words of resistance have consistently made certain people uncomfortable, but they have been crucial to the struggle for liberation and self determination of LGBTTI2QQ people.
Blackness Yes is committed to creating a space by and for Black/African Diasporic queer and trans people and all of their allies and supporters at Pride. Blockorama will always remain a political space for resistance and celebration, and we stand in solidarity with so many other groups that have been left out or forcibly excluded from Pride. We will also work to produce a Blockorama that returns to its roots. A Blocko organized by and for a supportive community that has been dancing, laughing, loving and eating at Blocko now for over more than a decade.
Blackness Yes!
Blockorama Coordinating Committee
Tessa C. Duplessis
Mykell Hall
Nigel Holbrook
Abdi Osman
Nik Redman
Syrus M. Ware
Kyisha Williams
Akhaji Zakiya