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Arewa: A call for revival.

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A society is an aggregation of 'tendencies and contradictions' which coalesce to form a culture, a civilization on a grander scale. It is alive with a pull, a unique heartbeat of itself. A true humanistic society reinvigorates itself, notwithstanding its recurring ups and downs. It is not associated with cruelty, exploitation, and any other form of inhumane behavior. Nor is it to be imposed by force, intimidation, and threats, leaving trails of devastation in its wake. Moreover, a society that has the upliftment of man as the central ethos should not have innocent blood on its hands. It should not be exclusive, exploitative, and discriminatory, belonging to a high-class club only. Rather, it is to be integrative and bountiful. The relationship between it and the people should be instinctive, organic, and reciprocal, instead of being ruptured, erratic and involuntary.  Prosperity in a society is closely related to the truth, the latter being the cause and point of reference of t...

Education Vs Indoctrination.

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  Education is the process of training the mind to solve problems and proffer solutions for the progress of the individual and mankind collectively. It is a gradual process of setting up thought patterns, setting up foundational blocks for the mind. The human mind or brain is akin to a garden that requires delicate nurturing, abandoned, it gets overgrown with weeds, pests have a field day. The essential feature of indoctrination which emerges then is that it deliberately violates the criteria of rational discussion to achieve a favorable outcome for the position being advanced. The mere exclusion of full rationality in itself is not sufficient, the exclusion must be deliberate and it must be done in a relevant context.  It is logically necessary to the concept of indoctrination that the indoctrinated person arrives at the belief by non-rational methods. The majority of what passes today for education is indoctrination, you identify it mostly by a rabid defense of a dogma, or p...

Integration; Man's mind, body and spirit

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 Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.       - Carl Jung  Man is a three-dimensional being, created by the fusion of body, mind, and spirit. These three are in the 'Integrated man' existing in a state of harmony with each reinforcing the other and never in conflict. Conflict does arise and with dire consequences, as only in a state of harmony between the three can man attain his pinnacle as 'Khalifa-fil-ard' (i.e viceroy of God on earth). With man's fall, from both the literal and metaphysical perspectives succumbing to his base self, Allah SWT promised 'to send him guidance periodically' to reverse this fall into a glorious ascent responding to tendencies embedded in his primordial. Thus, man's struggles on earth is a series of ascents and descents in his journey towards integration and all his toils can be traced back to a lack of alignment of the body, mind, and spirit, it is he who al...

On Gluttony and Obesity.

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  Obesity is a disorder involving excessive body fat that increases the risk of health problems. Obesity often results from taking in more calories than are burned by exercise and normal daily activities. Obesity occurs when a person's body mass index is 30 or greater. The main symptom is excessive body fat, which increases the risk of serious health problems.  Obesity is serious because it is associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced quality of life. Obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death in the United States and worldwide, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer. Gluttony, one of the classical seven deadly sins, an inability for one to stop, habitual greed or excess in eating. Gluttony is 'consumption at one's own expense'. The inability of one to take just what he needs and let the rest go is an epidemic of this age. This manifest itself in the modern world's obsession with unrestrained growth, accu...

Drugs trafficking, Abuse and Terrorism nexus

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There is a strong nexus between Nigeria's war against terror and drug abuse. Illicit drugs trafficking has historically served as a strong pillar in any insurgency. From the Vietcong in Vietnam in the 60's and 70s, the heroin trade was a major source of financing, money laundering that kept the guerilla insurgents alive.  In the Afghanistan-Pakistan region of South Asia (Af-Pak), local conditions provide an opportunity for terrorists to carry out their activities. A combination of corruption, porous borders, and a weak rule of law, has created an environment in which terrorists can operate.  The poppy plant (from which heroin is synthesized) served as the central financial backbone of the raging insurgency sustaining the loop of violence in the Af-Pak region and threatening the fabrics of the Afghan & Pakistani societies. The drug, human trafficking,g, and extortion serve to finance these organizations and sustain their networks, allowing them to engage in specific nodes w...

A Russian Perspective on the Ukrainian situation.

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  Russia is a Nation that is traumatized by Invasions from the West. She fought her major wars of annihilation from the west except one from the east (Mongols, who subjugated her for 200 years). The first was the 'Northern crusades' called by the Pope to convert the eastern orthodox (an offshoot of Christianity after the schism) slavs to an iteration of Catholism, the Slavs led by Russia resisted it, but that singular act sowed seeds of hatred amongst the slav & Europe. A permanent cultural/spiritual border was established along the polish border & Balkans with consequences akin to the Sunni/Shiite split. Thus the Slavs (Russians, Pols, Ukrainians, Serbs etc) have always been treated with contempt by their Anglo-Saxon/Lombard & Romano cousins to the west. A series of invasions followed whom the Russians see as a continuation of the 'Northern crusades' with strong support from the Pope.. The Swedish Empire invaded, an invasion which Tsar Peter the great repel...

Shame, Shamelessness and the price to be paid.

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The Greek myth of the pandora's box begin thus, According to Hesiod, when Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus, the king of the gods, took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus. Pandora opened a jar left in her care containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind, hope. If one could infer from this myth, surely the lock holding the box of Pandora together was surely shame,  for it was Prometheus loss of shame that allowed him to break the box, thus all forms of evil flowed and bedeviled mankind henceforth. Guy Burgess refers to "guilt mobilization" as the act of forcing people to recognize the contradictions between what they say and what they do. Martin Luther King and other nonviolent civil rights leaders mobilized the white's guilt, when they made clear the discrepancy between white American's deep-ro...