The Reality Class

Back then in the university, examination was our biggest challenge. Every student dislikes being encased in a hall, and being served question papers and answer sheets for some hours. It was always gory, terrifying and dreadful.  But then, exam is what we have to do and pass to promote to higher level, therefore we just have to do it and pass it –like it or not. And sometimes we would fantasize a miracle should come and eradicate the dreadful examination system; but no miracle came.

After serious lessons and lecturing by our lecturers, plus the preparation time that would be given to us to get ready for the exam, students would also ask lecturers for tips. They want to know which part of their modules the lecturers would ask in exam. Students would dislike any lecturer that is not ready to give tips. They would badmouth him/her. Some students can even decide to drop the course and wait for the next semester.  And after all those institutionalized supports to help student pass, it won’t satisfy them. Students would remain disassembled, desperate and restive, just because they can’t dare to fail. And whenever students see the chance to interact or copy each other in exam halls, they would never hesitate to do so.

Those tricky to-dos worked for us. We passed out and we were so happy, believing that there will be no more terrifying exam papers in our life anymore. We were too juvenile; we were so melodramatic about our passing-out with endless celebration and jubilation. All because there will be no more examinations. We knew nothing then that our graduation was an indirect matriculation to a new class. A new class called REALITY! In this class, an entirely different and very odd pedagogy is adopted for teaching. We were so childish and we ignore to notice that, exams in this new class will no more be in halls and no more papers. There won’t be any study week before exams, no more tips and in fact this class is more strict to the extent that we won’t be seeing the teacher that is teaching us; thus we can’t intimidate anyone again with our bad mouthing. In this new class, we can’t drop course and it is not wise and not encouraging to copy answers, because you and your seatmates are given different questions. More strangely, lessons will be taught after examinations and not before. In this class, even though you pass or fail an exam, the same exam can be brought to you again and again; everything depends on your unseen lecturer. In the reality class, there is no seniority. A senior can be forced to do juniors exam and vice versa.

The more challenging thing is that, in the reality class, only one course is being taught with different modules for different students. The course code is “LIFE”. The unseen lecturer is super powerful, omnipresent and super-high so you can never cheat on him. He alone is the proprietor, the examiner and the creator of the new class. The tips that help in passing exams in reality are: DO’A (prayers) and total submission.   

Friends.. Enemies... and Frenemies

Friends are those that love you, care for you, protect and appreciate you and always ready to absolve your flaws and forgive your shortcomings. they share both sad and happy experiences with you. it will always be peaceable between you and them because there is no need to be careful around them or wary of them. On the other hand, Enemies are those that don't care about you, they don't like you, they don't wish you well. They are always ready to zing your opinion and they are naturally cynical about you. They enjoy gloating at your failures and your achievements will always irritate them. It is not too dangerous to be around them, because you know they are your Enemies, you are suppose to be careful with them. The sad thing is that, this life would have been so easy and peaceful if there is no third categorization of relationship. There are also "FRENEMIES", those are the most perilous set of human being, they are neither a friend nor an enemy. they won't hate you truly and they won't like you sincerely. they will be utterly a supporter but inherently they are your antagonist. Because you don't know who they actually are, what they actually hold against you and what is really your offense to them, it is almost impossible to impress them. Unfortunately, this life is naturally imbalance, friends are always rare to get and enemies won't linger too much around you, but Frenemies won't stay with you per se and won't go away for good. They will just be a life appendage and you will have no other option than to learn diplomacy. Much more more love to my sincere friends !!! I am forever sorry to my Enemies !!! To my Frenemies; I never know what to say !!!!

SAMPLE FOR : letter of recommendation for data collection

I am yet to understand

A friend of mine told me recently that if he ever has a chance to preside over a country as a president, he will enact secularity or force atheism on every citizenry of that nation. He said because “religion” has been the main cause and force behind most of our societal unrest, dispute and diversity to mention the least. My friend believes that religion that is supposed to be a unifying force has otherwise proven the opposite. At first, I wasn't sure if I should agree or disagree with my friend, because whatever I decide has to be justified convincingly. After I had pondered deeply to my friend’s opinion, I also affirmed the fact that religion has been the usually proclaimed reason for so many insurgencies nowadays. It is the reason why so many children have been made orphans. The main reason why so many women have been turned widow. And why so many family has been made homeless. It is also the so reason the peace in some community has been forcefully exchanged with brutal bedlam. It also the sole reason why the rivers in some cities have been flowing with reddish water heavily mixed with human blood. When I remember all of these, I was closely forced to agree with my friend, while in retrospect I realize it will be too unwisely erroneous to push the blame of those ruthless atrocities on a divinely designed and Godly structured system (Religion). Something else is responsible; something yet unfathomable by either my friend or I myself. 

Your Friend

When your friend is evil harming and hurting people around and you think your own friendship responsibility is to cover him and support him and accommodate him, while others keep on crying from his brutal character. i think you are hurting and harming yourself the most, because the severity of all he has been doing to common outsiders will not be comparable to yours when the time comes. of course, he has been your friend, he will surely know where and how to plant his harm in you perfectly. However, our noble Prophet disallow us from detesting harmful friends he encourage us to help them stop their detrimental evil behavior. PEACEEEEE
قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: انصر أخاك ظالماً أو مظلوماً. قالوا: يا رسول الله! هذا ننصره مظلوماً، فكيف ننصره ظالماً؟ قال: تأخذ على يديه

The Media Bus

Media is the Bus for all social crisis; Bigotry is the engine oil; Prejudice serve as petrol; the full-lights are Sentiments. Seats in the bus are often Cultural or Religious Diversity; Audience gullibility is the perfect tire. The Bus always have different drivers and that's often the Power that be and they are also the owners, so you've got nowhere to lodge complain whenever you are jammed by this Bus. The Bus uses different roads like Islamophobia, Terrorism and Politics to get to different Bus-stations and the most accessed ones are Stereotypes, Imperialism and Framing. Don't forget it is a commercial bus that follow only the map of the owners, its Tickets are cheap for everyone and it is big enough to accommodate numberless passengers... Mind you, whenever i choose not to enter that Bus that means I've gotten a better reliable transportation to the Truth.

In my Opinion!!!

We have intentionally put ourselves in a social predicament! We now live in a dilemma, a situation whereby the mass conveniently believe there is no any other choice than to accept the detriment of a particular problem, not because it can’t be resolved but because resolving it is a problem that could consequently leads to other problems. A social mess whereby abnormality becomes the new normality and amorality now dictates the ideals to the multitudes. What an awful social setting where people have no concern for integrity, personality and identity because they are over-zealously in search of a fleeting popularity, faddy political position, dirty money and other sham life, regardless of where, how and what is the source; be it from scamming, stealing, killing, lying and sundry other illegalities and amorality. Such social problem is becoming so critical to the extent that, preaching against any of those dishonesty and unlawfulness in religious houses is insurmountable; they are easily condoned than condemned. We are witnessing a social challenge where parents do not only encourage and support these illegalities, they are now boldly proud of their fugitive and culprit progeny. A social challenge that has turned criminality to a talent and criminals are now like celebrities or monarchy chiefs with sufficient cultural backings needless to be remorseful, shameful or apologetic.  Scammers now receive social hailing and mass ovations. They are now the new role models for the upcoming youths, because the aim of most teenagers now is not to beat them but to join them. Crooks would now cite poverty as their sound justifications to their atrocities. Kidnappers would blame their outrage on the government incapacities. In my opinion, these are nothing but offenses that can’t be curbed neither with constitutional enactments, legislative nor judiciary laws.  They are sins that can’t be easily controlled with spiritual lecturers and religious scriptures. They are social challenges that are becoming the new custom, legacy and tradition in which anthropologist would not be able to prevent. The only medications I strongly think can treat these social syndromes are governmental, parental and self-reorientation, governments and parents need a lot to do in reshaping the minds of the young on what is right and wrong, the importance of fidelity, integrity and identity should be informally educated and no matter how the condition may be, scamming and stealing from people is never a reasonable panacea and every reasonable mind should know that there can never be an acceptable rationales for cruelty.  

Our Family, Our Friends, and the Associates we make are our “Social Properties” that should be well-managed just like our “Tangible Properties” for a long-lasting usefulness. If otherwise mismanaged, these social properties are also vulnerable to damages like the tangible properties. For instance, love can be stolen just like an unlocked car, friendship can worn-out like an engine, and intimacy can deteriorates like a botched construction, so as family affection can get lost, just like a bunch of key. The Yoruba people refer to associates and friends as “Nightgowns”, if one’s nightgown gets lost, you can end up sleeping in cold even if you have a wardrobe full of expensive clothes.  One of the best ways one can be good to himself is by being good to people around him…

Pioneers are not just extraordinarily wise, what is special about them is the dialectic ability to understand the past, the analytic comprehension of the present and a pragmatic foresight to presume the needs of the future. Achebe is truly a pioneer, because he managed to book a suitable permanent room for our genre in the house of literature. He is a warrior who fought for our representation and against imperializing our culture through his writings. We are lucky to have him from us.

I remember when I was younger, back then I always have this hallucination on the reasons why we all have to live at all, when it’s not an everlasting chance! I became myopically confused when both formal education and religious lessons taught me contradictory views about the reasons why we live, though I was quite comfortable to believe the later view. But then, even as my age develop my belief on the reasons why ALLAH has created us could not exonerate me from childishly fantasizing and internally wondering about life and how seemingly meaningless its display itself when people I know or I love get to vacate it; the reason for LIFE and DEATH still mystifies me. Talking from my obligatory believe on religious purpose of living, I found no humanly reason for our existence, we are not actually on this surface and under the sphere of earth for our own self purpose. We are actually dancing to a TONE knowingly to us or not, acceptable or not, we believe in it or not. We are here because this TONE orders us to be, so as we are going to leave when this TONE orders. What bugs me is that, since being here is not my decision and I won’t, can’t and never been told whenever am supposed to evacuate, so what is the essence of me being joyful of it, or anything that comes my way in it (life)? I can’t help it; I keep asking myself again and again the reason why things that brings us happiness leave us with sadness? Or are there anything called HAPPINESS, JOY, and LAUGH at all? Maybe those words are used to express sham feelings and moments. Because in a real sense nothing tends to be real in this life and maybe I am being childish and my thinking and reasoning are juvenile, but what I keep deducing from realities is that life itself is not REAL.

I gathered these meaningful and thoughtful quotes about tolerance, and i thought it worth sharing. maybe it can help anyone out there reflect on how perseverance is an important key to togetherness:
**Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. 
**Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
**The highest result of education is tolerance.
**Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.
**Toleration is the best religion.

Our dignity and heritage are at stake if we believe them

I am not an addicted reader, not because I don’t like reading, but because I seldom have free access to books that interest me; books that contain stories of my origin, my history and my heritage. Perhaps because I am from Africa, where most of the books that are sold in local bookstores tell foreign stories and the few that contain my historical stories are mostly written by foreigners that know less or nothing about them. It is not as if I was lazy or I couldn't understand the literal composition of those books, but I chose not to read them because I am aware of the consequential gravity of subscribing to stories of me written by other people. I should be cleverly doubtful of those stories, because it seems too abnormal to me, why an outsider could be telling an inside story to an insider, it is never logical. Because if such stories are not manipulated, contorted, and twisted to the writer’s self-interest, it would practically be the presentation of an image seen through an opaque glass or I should say the portrayal of illusory. Anecdotally, I believe there are motives behind such illusive storytelling; part of their motives I can sense, is that they have inherently enjoy misrepresenting and stereotyping Africa for most of the flaws that were actually spawned by them or their ancestors. 
Chimamanda; a prowess novelist from Nigeria said in one of her eloquent and never-boring presentations that the detriment of our grossly twisted stories is not only limited to the consequence of stereotype and imperialism, the loss of dignity, heritage and historical legacy but it is more detrimentally harmful when those twisted stories are inherited by successive posterity. She might be right or wrong, or there might be some analogical fallacy in the way I interpreted her voice. I've gotten some insistent reasons that convince me that our dignity is at stake just like our heritage is, especially when I remember where I grew up, where elite are those that their four years old kids can speak fluent English and not their mother tongue. This is part of what mystify me if the shameless sagging our girls roam with is actually an African thing or as if the popular doggy bling-bling jewelry in the necks of our youths is really an African male fashion. I am not also sure of how we should combat the cultural inferiority constantly battling with the African originality in our entire social and societal atmosphere. The kind of inferiority and unoriginality that made Akin; my Facebook friend wrote his name as (Her-kin), purposefully to get international friends. If it is not inferiority, maybe Her-kin (Akin) is just subscribing to the over-colorized globalization and westernization. As if any of the duo can beneficially reduce the price of bread in his local market; that is if they are not actually the cause of the hike. Maybe it’s futile to complain about cultural imperialism at this moment when the unitary aim of the entire world is to globalize. Because I can remember how I disappointed a black friend of mine that annoyed me for cheerfully greeting with “Whats up Nigger?”, “You are not in vogue” so, he responded. To him, Nigger is of course not offensive, because that is what they call black people in American movies, and the more effects those Hollywood characters have on your socialization is what determine your modernization. Maybe our gullibility to their stories of us is truly part of our culture, because people in Japan, Thailand, China and Malaysia do watch Hollywood too and they still value their cultures more than their surnames.

From A Colorless Today to A Colorful Tomorrow!!!

Sometimes growing up is tiring, not only because of the strangeness in status and stature changing, not because of the continuum boredom in the days and time ensuing but the very tiredness is in an endless waiting for an uncertainty called future.  Every growing mind subconsciously or consciously expects a colorful future, fantasizes a wonderful day where its present situation would be drastically aright and imagines a morning where there will be a noticeable different between yesterday and today. Such expectations, fantasies and imaginations don’t always come to reality, and if they come at all, they come in disappointment. What is very sure is that, as long as the OWNER of time still let it count, Tomorrow will never stop coming and the natural colorless of everyday will be waiting to characterize it. I guess our mind has been created so tuneful to continuously sing us interesting fantasies even when it seems too miraculous to realize. It is a universal maxim that what pull us ahead are our hopes. 

REVENGE WILL ONLY MAKE YOU WORST

Back in the days when I was too young to be called a man and too old to be called a boy, when I can’t reason like either a man or a boy. Then, I have a very eccentric reasoning style which is mostly in conflict with my environmental, social and parental standards. Sociological theorists believe I was an adolescent, because environment, society and parent affect every adolescent’s thinking and behaviors. As an adolescent I do not have a full mind of my own, and even if I do, I would always want to contort it to suit the expectations of those three mentioned guidance. I learnt from psychologist that adolescence is a developmental stage, a transformational junction and a critical point in everyone’s life, because things that happen across this moment could eventually affect the whole rest of one’s life. I can’t argue that, because I myself can testify that most of the things I learn back then are still vividly sinuous in my memory. Part of the parental guidance I enjoyed reshaped my reasoning on “revenge”. I can still remember my father always told me whenever he sees me planning or showing a revenge reaction to an unacceptable action previously done to me by contemporaries. He would teach and caution me by saying; Oh you! Don’t let revenging bad actions teach you the bad you don’t actually have in you, because revenge would end up making you bad or even worst. He will fondly emphasize that there are so many bad people with bad minds living this life with us, and whenever you come across them, learn to avoid them and never to revenge their purposeful bad deeds if you don’t want to end up like them. Now that I have a mind of my own, what I can meaningfully infer from my adolescence lesson is that; bad actions and bad reactions are both bad deeds and it takes a bad mind to actualize either of the two. 

WAY TO SUCCESS

الطريق إلي النجاة  وعرٌ  فيه  زيـــغٌ  يقال بالرسوب ونجد يقال بالشك وهوته  الرفقاء , وموقفه الأعداء, ومتقاه الأنصاب , تكون الحرفة  مفلسة عجلته, ولكن إن كان لك لها عوضٌ تقال بالهمة, ومكينةٌ  تقال بالإحتمال, والوقاية هي الإيمان, و السائك هو الله "إذن"  بكل الإبقان  والإ طمئنان تصل إلى أرض تقال بالنجاة.!

WAY TO SUCCESS

The way to success is not straight. There is a curve called failure, a loop called confusion, a speed bombs called friends, red lights called enemies, caution light called families, you will have flat called jobs; but if you have spare called determination, an engine called perseverance, and an insurance called faith and a driver called Allah you will make it to a place called success.

Media and Islamic Representation

Cultural representation is a theoretical credence to the socially constructed identity of any object, while language and media is in many occasions the tool of that construction. Some analyst have noted that the terrorist attack of the September 11, 2001 spark the viral conception of “Islamphobia”, “Islamic Terrorism”, and “Muslim Fanatics” (Akbarzadeh and Smith, 2005) while others believe that it has been a western historical orientation, where Muslims are constructed and represented by the essentialist as other, immature, and backward ethics. The later and the former are unanimous. Deductively, the media has successfully represented Islam and the Muslims to the world as fanatics, fundamentalist, terrorist, and orthodox (Dunn, 2001). Cultural theorists believe that there is a strong nexus between the development of society, culture and the media, hence media is an influential tool that enliven social construction of identity; cultural representation. Interpretatively, what people do, affect what media say, and vice versa. Precisely, Hall (1997) regards media as a representational system with a potential capability of constructing and transmitting cultural identity.  Essentially with these theoretical postulations it is rightful to deduct that Medias are societal mirror that project a particular societal/cultural representation of a particular object.  According to Hall (1997), media applicably present and represent societal cultures, and the interpretation of media (TV programmes, Photograph, Entertainment and Music) is a cultural function that is bound to be unitary and unanimous.  Corroboratively with the Hall (1997) anthropological promulgation of language as a media and that media function through and for representation of human culture. Consistently, Mokhlis (2006) positively maintain that religion is an inseparable part of human culture that inherently affect their lifestyle and use of information. Apparently, religion is affectively capable of monitoring human emotional, cognitive and psychological transactions, depending on their level of affection and commitments.

Individual perception and believe are characterized by several demographic factors, such as educational background, social and cultural environments (Akbarzadeh and Smith, 2005).  Meanwhile, Poole, (2002) behold that media is an influential and powerful institution that opine the construction and implementation of cultural knowledge. Additionally, media itself contribute meaningfully to the societal source of information and knowledge, and its reportage (media content) relay on the vulnerable editorial decisions, which can indulge the framing of media content and sometimes availing the media content for an unconventional usage. A very good example of such manipulation is the account of the presently prevailing world media stereotyping of Islam and Muslims (Akbarzadeh and Smith, 2005).

To some extent, theorists believe that the conventional function of media surpass religious affiliations but still, the daily output of the entire media today, can be conspicuously associated to religiosity, thus it is arguable that religion and media are functionally connected. In fact, it is historically believed that Media was initially spawned purposefully for religious usage (Soukup, 2002). The “media output” as according to Soukup, is what the essays of (Hoijer, 2011; and Sanson, et al. 2000) referred as the intrinsic nature of media responsibility to actively compose, construct, shape, present and educate the societal perception of the world. Although, this societal or cultural perception construction by media can psychologically educate the society to allow or reject, like or dislike and can as well negatively or positively tag an object. As the world media has successfully stigmatized or rather represent Islam and Muslim with terrorism and extremism (Dunn, 2001), Akbarzadeh and Smith (2005) sense that media is capable of placing a prohibiting pressures and societal or cultural rejection on minority groups. The masterpiece of communication theory by Griffin (2012), reviewed the cultural studies of Stuart Hall, where he was accord the most influential figure in cultural and representation studies till date. The review highlighted most of the theoretical stands of Hall, such as the; corporate control of mass communication; making meaning through discourse; post 9/11 media coverage: the chill of constraint, most of which illuminate that “media has an influence and responsibility on societal culture and perception” and that influence could be true or false, and holds positive or negative effect. Griffin can be quoted as follow;

“…Hall and Scholars who follow his lead wish to place the academic spotlight directly on the ways media representations of culture reproduce social inequalities and keep the average person more or less powerless to do anything but operate within a corporatized, commodified world…” (Griffin 2012, p. 347)

Evidently, researchers from different disciplines (communication, philosophy, psychology and sociologist) have always been interested to theoretically and academically resolve the chaotic relationship between media and religion (Soukup, 2002). So far, a multidisciplinary and documentary literatures have recorded several findings on the issue of media and religion, including and most especially representation theorems. Sanson et al. (2000) advocate the relevancy of media researches, since the alarming and worrisome role of media in the societal public sphere continue to escalate. 

More particularly to the academic realm of which this project research propose to sail through, there have been quite a number of formative efforts by researchers (Susskind,2002; Akbarzadeh and Smith, 2005; Yenigun, 2004) that have examined the media representation of Islam and Muslims both before and after the 9/11 attack, and most of these studies have been done objectively to examine the Australian, European, and the United States media, hence; states where Muslims and Islam are minorities, immigrates or alien to their societal culture.

Yenigun (2004) in his study essentially examined the response of the American Muslim to the provenance terrorism stigmatization in the American Media amid his quest to compare the colonial and the postcolonial representation of Islam in the western media. The study of Yenigun found that American Muslims are reactive and responsive to the popular media discourse of Islam, but their response being a minority could not override the dominant discourse. The findings of Yenigun coincide with the critics of Griffin (2012) while reviewing the “corporate control of mass communication” by Stuart Hall, that the ownership and corporate control influence media reportage of events and resultantly “media representations”.

"Pain" is an experience that unites both the rich and the poor ! because "Happiness" is a subjective commodity that money is not always enough and not often the only needed fee to buy it !! Life is just about being sure of your own subjective needs and wants, because only when you are sure of it, only then you can discover a shrewd way of actualizing it. Sometimes if we decide to join the over-celebrated-stream for money and luxuriousness we might at the end realize it just a wasted effort if it could not earn us the eternal happiness that every human being struggle for, after wish we have over-zealously misuse our health, amorally offend our conscience, and sometimes illegally become the stain to our family and country names. it is categorically wrong to say being "rich" means being successful. likewise saying having the most high degree on earth make you the highest achiever. but we can hardly argue the fact that achieving any type and kind of our target is a success. if that's correct why don't we think of aiming something meaningful, something satisfactory, something righteous and something that would make us be prideful. If you can only reflect and flash back, there have been some predecessors to your dirty and pride-less way, they have also see pride in a ramshackle way of gathering money. i only want you to reflectively ask yourself can you refer them as successful?.. that's if they can still be referred as rich.. so then why would you think giving your ever-living name and history to a worthless course ?

i wonder how and where superstitions are generated, it's really funny the way people believe those anecdotal facts. for instance if an absentee is a subject matter of a discussion and S/He suddenly appears, the western says "it speak of the devil", in my culture they believe it ascertained S/He is not a bastard while a malaysian told me to them it means S/He will live long.... (^^^) :P

WHO ARE YOU ?

I am always baffled and sometimes entirely lost whenever I try to comprehend some thoughtful quotes about “knowing oneself”. It makes me wonder again and again what is it I have to know in myself or about myself, I often curiously ask myself is it my characters, my attitude, my behavior, or my destiny?, What are the actual differences within them? Which of these do I actually design myself? These questions always lead me to more other questions than answers. I doubt it, if those metaphysical features that make up my personality are the reasons why some people hate and why some like me, and why I hate some people and why I like some people. I guess they are not, because these features are too abstract and the fact that there is no correct perceptive skills or a universal systematic measurement to comprehend or measure such abstract properties. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to believe people’s judgments on my personality or for anyone to believe my judgment on their personality, because everyone is actually seeing through a self-constructed paradigm/lens. And you know what a lens sees is determined by how it is twisted (I know that because I use to have a DSLR camera). Consistently, Jamaica Kincaid wrote in “Autobiography of my Mother” and I quote; …who you are is a mystery that nobody can answer not even you… So why should I make myself a victim of other people’s opinion, their opinion is created by them and for them, it is never for me.    

I’m Intelligent, I’m Beautiful and that’s why I SMILE

Psychologists and philosophers unanimously believe humans are the simplest but sensitive social animals, thus primitively known to be sensitive of their mental and physical qualifications. From a psychological standpoint, that is why all our endeavors directly or indirectly relay our mental capabilities and mirrors our physical appearance. Possibly, not all intelligent people are beautiful, but arguably intelligent people are beautiful when they smile and beautiful people are intelligent people when they smile too. That is to prove the fact that SMILE beautifies you, even if you are not originally. Additionally, science has proved that the more you smile the more positive reactions others will give you. Invariably, positive reactions signify your intelligence. Now the reasons why intelligent and beautiful people smile “it’s not rocket science” -and if it is- I can tell you it is because they don’t want to show people that they are ugly or unintelligent. Am sure you will want people to see you that way too, if so you can start making SMILE your daily outfit!!! Apart from the fact that smiling is one of the easiest and healthiest thing to do, – even tight-lipped stretched horizontally is a smile- believe me on this; He Who Laughs Lasts!!!...

I may not know what it is, but it’s not CULTUR...

Advertising and Public Relations: Imay not know what it is, but it’s not  

CULTUR...: I may not know what it is, but it’s not     CULTURE and not RELIGION!!! The philosophical method of reasoning and thinking could be ...

I may not know what it is, but it’s not    

CULTURE and not RELIGION!!!

The philosophical method of reasoning and thinking could be interesting, convincing and confusing. It is interesting because of the way philosophers define human reasoning, they behold that humanly believe and credence must be a result of “reasonable” justifications and rationalizations. Conceptually, the sensibility and reasonability of any concept is pertinent to some subjective peculiarity. To them, there are some arbitrary or primitive characteristics of human nature and culture that inform what is reasonable and what is sensible.

It is convincing, as according to postmodernism theorists, they are of the opinion that there is no single approach to any definition, believe or truth. Human beings believe anything that appeal or harmonize to their historic, cultural, social and religious standpoints and sometimes anything that conform to their demographic features. For instance, it might be so difficult to justify washing the private part after urinating to a Non-Muslim, reasonably because s/he does not have an Islamic background or does not subscribe to the Islamic rationality. So philosophically human being can only believe what is related to their culture.

And it is confusing because philosophers do not have a unanimous way to define culture, but most often, they opine that culture is an identical way of living that historically link or connect a group of people, while religion is categorized as an element of culture and often described as a way of life. Which interpretatively means culture is the mother of everyone’s idiosyncratic and peculiar way of life. Therefore, our religion, society, norms and language are facets or derivatives or our culture which is supposedly said to be the connection between us, just like language can also be. Ostensibly, the connection between culture and religion does not need arguing because of the way they can perfectly intertwine. Sometimes it can be difficult to exemplify by separating some features of culture from religion.

But still, I insist that even with the ostensible and philosophically proved connection between religion and culture, they may not be the correct way of human life or the apt guidance of human behavior. It is unfortunate that I may not have theoretical back up to support why, but because philosophically, everyone’s believe should base on his/her rationality, I can enjoy that notion to question some of the sarcastic stance that may not conform with the justification of culture being an element of religion or culture and religion being the systematic guide to everyone’s behavior (way of life). At least if culture is not an institutionalized concept like religion, religion-the element of culture- is an institutionalized concept with unique and distinctive jurisprudence, teachings and virtues peculiar to the type of the religion (such as; Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and so on). All universal cultures and religions guide their flowers differently as according to the grounding spiritual ideology of that religion or the historic progression of the culture. But in actuality, human beings have succeeded in contorting the good will of these religion and culture to their own convenience, and that is why religion has now become a dreaded word, and often avoided in peaceful settings. Consistently, the fact that two different people may have the same cultural background, they are supposed to behave identically but it possible they don’t and the fact that A and B are followers of the same religion doesn't mean they behave the same way. I strongly believe every individual singly define his/her way of life that can be different from the postulations of religion and culture. On this, I can’t say philosophers are wrong with their definition of culture and religion, but I believe they should be a refurbishment to their definition. Especially if considering the conceptual flaws that the definition of religion being human way of life has caused to this present world. Because the real interpretation of the aforesaid definition is that genocide is a real teachings of Christianity, or there is a chapter in the Islamic holy book that actually condole insurgence and terrorism, or as if slaughtering of humans is the true Buddhism. And if this philosophical view is not refurbish, it will only continue to give room for stereotyping of other peoples’ cultures and religions, racism will continue to grow viral, discrimination and ethnocentrism will eternally prevail and religious bigotry will forever govern the world’s commentary on some people selfish cruelty and violence. Convincingly, as according to the postmodernism way of thinking, what I personally believe is that most human culture and religion often denounce harming, forbid killing of innocents, refute cheating, condemn stealing and so on, and not always guide anyone to the devilish and satanic behaviors that are universally rampant among people of distinct cultures and religion nowadays. - Raji Ridwan Adetunji (2013). 

IT’S ALL OUR FAULT

Yes I mean it, it is our fault! We the dwellers of the digital century; the owners of the global village; the occupants of the post-modern world (in a social science parlance) are to be blamed. You should all sincerely agree with me that our societies are identically doomed. Both the young and the old among us now difficultly struggle to overcome numerous societal threats that are actually our handiwork  It is almost impossible to cite a living society of nowadays that is not presently witnessing an economic chaos, civilian riots, religious bigotry and prejudice, ethnic or racial oppression  governmental flaws and dubiousness, or intentional massacres of innocents, that is to name few among other severity maiming our societal development.  Surprisingly, looking back to the annals of history among all centuries lived by human, we are actually the most highly equipped with all the developmental and constructive tools ever available to human existence, for instance; our technological innovations is at the pace of light movement, philosophical theories never stop thrusting to perfect our social interactions, knowledge is easily acquired through convenient virtual learning ubiquity, polity had grown modernly mature in simultaneous with world populace minds and dauntless exposures. It is shameful and disheartening that these aforesaid tools are in essence useless and powerless in mitigating and trivializing our present societal troubles. They have failed to provide us the needed sternness and arsenal to combat these globally invading challenges. Or, I rather say we have acquired the best of these tools, but failed to use them astutely. It is a shame that our pole-tall educations, excessive technologies, and modernized politics are not enough for us to build a truthful, trustworthy, nonracial, religious, moral, peaceful, war-less and diligent society. It is as if to say, the more will progress in our innovations, modernization and globalization of our knowledge, politics, religion, cultures, and other backbones of human existence, their intrinsic essence and usefulness fade off. Or to say the utilitarian of these tools have been washed off as they are chronologically and anthropologically passed down to us. But I insist, as I believe nothing as wrong with the functionalists of those humanly constructive tools, it is we that have intentionally chosen to misuse them in order to achieve our own ill-fated, mischievous and malicious purposes. 

Raji Ridwan Adetunji-