From Chibok with Love

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Nobel Laureate and staunch defender of freedom and humanism, Wole Soyinka, joined Pakistani women's rights activist, Gulalai Ismail, in being honoured with the International Humanist Award at the World Humanist Congress 2014. Presenting the award Wole Soyinka, British Humanist Association trustee Patricia Rogers argued that the sharpest possible contrast the terrorist Boko Haram's dichotomous disavowal of 'western education' as alien their world, Soyinka has long been the intellectual leader of distinctively African voices within the universal Enlightenment tradition. Soyinka's attendance was precluded by illness (he accepted his award via a recorded audio address, available below). In his August 12, 2014 speech Soyinka warned that humanists are in need of a stronger response the scourge of fundamentalist terror, arguing need deploy a new language whose message is: the world is not your And he warned that even moderate religious leaders bear responsibility if they fail confront the perils of religion. Referring the Nigerian Islamist extremists Boko Haram he said: It's considered virtuous by some abduct 200 girl pupils from a sanctuary of learning in the name of a religion. We are reduced pious incantations, such as: 'These are not the true followers of the faith--our faith does not sanction killings, abductions or the designation of other human being as infidels'. We have ask such leadership penitents: 'Were there times when you kept silent while such states of mind, overt or disguised were seeding fanaticism around you? Are you vicariously liable?' Perhaps Humanists should pause from time time and ask themselves a simple, straightforward, even neighbourly question: what do religionists really want? Not what they worship--that is beyond rational comprehension for many but--what do they really seek? After all, society is built on the practical, unavoidable principle of co-existence. If this proposed exercise appears strange, it is perhaps because society is very much in denial, afraid confront such a focused question lest it receive an answer that imposes unwanted responsibilities on the rest of its members. We prefer take refuge in the narratives of ancient wrongs and even, sometimes legitimately, wallow in present contradictions. However, if society appears be foundering, and along lines that clearly indicate religious factors--the world being in no shortage of current exemplars--then it becomes a duty, even for self-preservation, understand what the various constituent parts seek for their self-fulfillment. And so, the question once again, what do religionists really want? For most, the answer is simple: to serve God, by whatever name. That, for the larger humanity should remain unexceptionable--the devil you know is better than the one you don't. Unfortunately, not all religionists are content with that aspiration or else--even more critically!--raise issues of how they propose fulfill such a supposedly harmless mission. We are speaking here of a resolute, but proliferating minority who declare their objective as the right intervene dictatorially in the rights, mores and undertakings of others--all in the name of their presiding deity. This claim the privileged exercise of Control is what plagues the world in ever expanding arenas of conflict, a belief that absolute authority is invested in them by a supreme, though invisible entity, meddle in the lives of others, not even in an advisory role, not even as provider of optional guidelines, but with an absolutism that brooks no dissent. The ambition of such religionists is nothing less than place all of humanity under their jurisdiction. That declaration is stark, undisguised. Its brutal efforts at actualization presently infest global existence, some parts more lethally than others but, with increasing assertiveness, including the insertion of 'sleeper' warriors in seemingly insulated societies. …