Soyinka: ‘England is a breeding ground for fundamentalist Muslims’

Strong words from Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and arguably the world’s best-known Nigerian (note what he implies about cultural accommodation):

What did the 76-year-old Mr. Soyinka—who divides his time between the U.S. and Nigeria—make of his country’s placement on a watch-list of states deemed to be incubators of Islamist terrorism? “That was an irrational, knee-jerk reaction by the Americans. The man did not get radicalized in Nigeria. It happened in England, where he went to university.

“England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there.”
Why is Britain the way it is? “This is part of the character of Great Britain,” Mr. Soyinka declares. “Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.” And so it is, he says, that Britain lets everyone preach whatever they want: It confirms a self-image of greatness.

Read the entire article here.

A strange walk from Trinity to the Lazy G

He must have just fallen when I realized he was there, at the far corner of Trinity’s parking lot, near the old playground area on the 30th Avenue North side. It was 11 p.m. two nights ago. I was checking the doors after a group left the church.

“Where am I?” he asked as he sat.

“Myrtle Beach!” I said.

When he stood up, he was clearly drunk. He didn’t quite stand still; instead, he circled a piece of parking lot. He was dressed too well to be homeless. He had Birkenstocks with white socks and a nice pullover fleece. Later, I found out he was from upstate New York.

Eventually, I walked him back to his hotel. We walked up 30th to Kings Highway, and headed south to 27th Avenue North. At least he remembered where he was staying.

When I explained where he was — for the seventh or eighth time — I mentioned Trinity as part of his location.

“I’m Catholic,” he said. “Are you Catholic?”

“No, I’m Episcopalian.”

“I’m Catholic. Did you know Jesus was Jewish?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Catholic.”

That same snippet of conversation was repeated a couple of more times as we walked down Kings Highway.

He fell and got sand on his face.

He asked permission to smoke a cigarette.

He locked arms with me to walk straight.

“I’m a bad person,” he said.

“No,” I said, “we’ve all done this once or twice, right?” I didn’t imagine a full conversation about faith and grace would actually sink in. After all, he kept asking me where he was, and he couldn’t walk straight. Maybe I should have tried anyway.

But eventually, he said something that struck me as funny and heartbreaking at the same time: “Say hi to Jesus for me.”

We continued to walk along.

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I am trying to write up the full account for publication in a print journal; even it doesn’t seem like such an incredible situation, it’s the kind of experience that people with a master of fine arts in creative writing tend to write about. (I felt a vague and indirect echo of Poe Ballantine’s essay “501 Minutes to Christ.”) Eventually the drunk man from upstate New York said it again, for a second time: “Say hi to Jesus for me.” When I returned home, I prayed that he wouldn’t sleep on his back.

The Cross and the mirror

We’re just about done moving, while working and attending conferences and taking little daughters to the Y for basketball.

Last night, I brought home a small, wood-framed mirror from our previous residence.

I thought about hanging it right inside the front door on a nail that holds an artist’s handy work: a cross of green glass with sheet-metal trim. I could just move the cross to another place.

Then it struck me: Replace the cross with a reflection of myself?

I don’t believe that moving wall hangings has to have a spiritual meaning, but taking down a cross to hang a mirror seemed too symbolic of a bad internal disposition.

I found another place for the mirror.

Meet the neighborhood Episcopalians: ‘their light, airy ways’

The following excerpts give a hilarious view of Episcopalians. It’s from an essay entitled “Parish Streets” by Patricia Hampl. The essay is not exactly recent, but Hampl captures the cultural trappings of Episcopalians.

“Lexington, Oxford, Chatsworth, continuing down Grand Avenue to Milton and Avon, as far as St. Albans — the streets of our neighborhood had an English, even an Anglican, ring to them. But we were Catholic….

“We were like people with dual citizenship. I lived on Linwood Avenue, but I belonged to St. Luke’s….

“Not everyone around us was Catholic. Mr. Kirby, a widower who was our next door neighbor, was Methodist — whatever that was. The Nugents across the street, behind their cement retaining wall and double row of giant salvia, were Lutheran, more or less. The Williams family, who subscribed to the New Yorker and had a living room outfitted with spare Danish furniture, were Episcopalian. They referred to their minister as a priest — a plagiarism that embarrassed me for them, because I liked their light, airy ways.”

New Yorker subscription? Check.

Spare Danish furniture? Check.

Light, airy ways? Check.

Yep. Episcopalian.

Noah’s flood probably didn’t cover the entire earth

Data from various scientific disciplines provides a clear indication that Noah’s Flood did not cover the globe of the earth. Before considering that data, however, we must first determine a rough earliest probable date for the Flood. If the Flood is an actual historical event, it must touch down in the empirical data of history somewhere.

So begins Paul Seely’s guest post at Science and the Sacred, entitled “The Flood: Not Global, Barely Local, Mostly Theological, Part 1.” Click the title to read more.

NC State 88, Duke 74

It’s a religious issue — a bit of ecstasy.

But how does the Good Book look?

“Bible Design Blog, as the name suggests, is a site dedicated to the physical form of the Good Book. Innovative design, quality binding, that’s what it’s all about. If you’re looking for information about a particular edition, the right-hand column includes an ever-expanding list of reviews and features.”

Check it out here.

London Postcard: Here’s what the UK needs

Roughly between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square in London, I found indisputable proof that people everywhere just want to be … eating fried chicken.

Marty Peretz: Will the murder of seven Egyptian Christians, outside a church after Midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, be assigned to ‘isolated extremists’?

Actually, I don’t think we are going to hear the phrase “isolated extremist” again, at least not from the president. In fact, the more we hear from him from now on, the more entangled and united the terrorist international is likely to appear. The shock of Detroit has probably been most traumatic for Obama himself. He really did believe that the world of Islam was a civilized order, and he simply can’t believe it now. Or can he?

But the Copts won’t get much attention. After all, they are Christians. What “progressives” worry about the survival of a Christian church or, for that matter, of pious Christian lives? [emphasis added]

Read the rest of Marty Peretz’s post on The Spine blog for The New Republic here.

London Postcard: A 30th Anniversary

Thirty years ago today, the U.K. punk band The Clash released “London Calling” in the United States.