Maafa

2012-09-24T15:06:39Z

Proscript: fixes to refs, Further reading, punctuation

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The term '''Maafa''' is a [[political neologism]] (coined 1994), used within [[African-American]] subculture to collectively refer to the suffering of [[Black people]] through [[slavery]], [[imperialism]], [[colonialism]], and other forms of [[oppression]] throughout history.<ref>[http://books.google.co.za/books?id=8KKeSy7AhpAC&pg=PA164&dq=African+holocaust&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BDDJT_XLKMGJhQeByqjnDw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=African%20holocaust&f=false ''Black History and Black Identity: A Call for a New Historiography'', William D. Wright.]</ref><ref name="Barndt, Joseph 2007, page 269">Barndt, Joseph. ''Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century''. 2007, p. 269.</ref><ref>Mazrui, Ali. ''The Global African: A Portrait of Ali A. Mazrui''. Omari H. Kokole.</ref><ref>[http://humanrights.uconn.edu/documents/papers/Howard-Hassmann_Slavetrade.pdf Reparations for the Slave Trade: Rhetoric, Law, History and Political Realities”]</ref><ref>Ryan Michael Spitzer, "The African Holocaust: Should Europe pay reparations to Africa for Colonialism and Slavery?", ''Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law'', vol. 35, 2002, p. 1319.</ref><ref name=joneswest />

Alternative terms such as '''African Holocaust''', '''Holocaust of Enslavement''', '''Black holocaust''' are also in use, in order to evoke a parallel between injustices suffered by historically by Black people and the [[Nazi holocaust]].

==History==
Usage of the Swahili term ''maafa'' ("misfortune") in English was introduced by [[Marimba Ani]]'s book ''Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora''.<ref name="Barndt, Joseph 2007, page 269"/><ref name=joneswest>Jones, Lee and West, Cornel. ''Making It on Broken Promises: Leading African American Male Scholars Confront the Culture of Higher Education''. 2002, p. 178.</ref><ref>Dove, Nah. ''Afrikan Mothers: Bearers of Culture, Makers of Social Change''. 1998, p. 240.</ref><ref name=morris>Gunn Morris, Vivian and Morris, Curtis L. ''The Price They Paid: Desegregation in an African American Community''. 2002, p. x.</ref>
It is derived from a [[Swahili language|Swahili]] term for "[[disaster]], terrible occurrence or great [[Tragedy (event)|tragedy]]",<ref name=oj>Harp, O.J. ''Across Time: Mystery of the Great Sphinx''. 2007, p. 247.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Cheeves |first=Denise Nicole |title=Legacy |year=2004 |page=1}}</ref>

The term ''African Holocaust'' is preferred by some academics, such as [[Maulana Karenga]], because it implies intention.<ref name="Ethics on Reparations">{{cite web|url=http://www.africawithin.com/karenga/ethics.htm|publisher="[[Ron Karenga]]"|title=Problem with Maafa}}</ref> One problem noted by Karenga is that the word ''Maafa'' can also translate to "accident", and the holocaust of enslavement was clearly no accident. [[Ali Mazrui]] makes a note that the term '''holocaust''' is a "dual plagiarism", and therefore no one can have a monopoly over the word "holocaust" Marzui states: "This borrowing from borrowers without attribution is what I call 'the dual plagiarism.' But this plagiarism is defensible because the vocabulary of horrors like genocide and enslavement should not be
subject to copyright-restrictions."<ref>http://igcs.binghamton.edu/igcs_site/mltrs/Newsletter17.pdf ANCESTRY, DESCENT AND IDENTITY</ref>

Some [[Afrocentric]] scholars prefer the term ''Maafa'' to ''African Holocaust'',<ref>Tarpley, Natasha. ''Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity''. 1995, p. 252.</ref> because they believe that indigenous African terminology more truly confers the events.<ref name=morris /> The term ''Maafa'' may serve "much the same cultural psychological purpose for Africans as the idea of the ''Holocaust'' serves to name the culturally distinct Jewish experience of genocide under German Nazism."<ref name=outof>Aldridge, Delores P. and Young, Carlene. ''Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies''. 2000, p. 250.</ref> Other arguments in favor of ''Maafa'' rather than ''African Holocaust'' emphasize that the denial of the validity of the African people's humanity is an unparalleled centuries-long phenomenon: "The Maafa is a continual, constant, complete, and total system of human negation and nullification."<ref name=joneswest />

The terms "[[Transatlantic Slave Trade]]", "Atlantic Slave Trade" and "Slave Trade" are said by some to be deeply problematic, as they serve as euphemisms for the intense violence and mass murder inflicted on African peoples, the complete appropriation of their lands and undermining of their societies. Referred to as a "trade", this prolonged period of persecution and suffering is rendered as a commercial dilemma, rather than as a moral atrocity.<ref name=diouf>Diouf, Sylviane Anna. ''Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies''. 2003, p. xi.</ref> With trade as the primary focus, the broader tragedy becomes consigned to a secondary point, as mere "[[collateral damage]]" of a commercial venture. Others, however, feel that avoidance of the term "trade" is apologetic act on behalf of capitalism, absolving capitalist structures of involvement in human catastrophe.{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}}

==In scholarship==
While Maafa can be considered an area of study within [[African history]] in which both the actual history and the legacy of that history are studied as a single discourse, it can also be taken as its own significant event in the course of global or world history.<ref name="Maafa of the African Holocaust">{{cite web|url=http://www.africanholocaust.net/html_ah/holocaustspecial.htm|publisher=[[Owen 'Alik Shahadah]]|title=African Holocaust: Holocaust Special}}</ref> When studied as African history, the paradigm emphasizes the legacy of the African Holocaust on [[African people]]s globally. The emphasis in the historical narrative is on African agents, in opposition to what is perceived to be the conventional [[Eurocentric]] voice; for this reason Maafa is an aspect of [[Pan-Africanism]].

[[Owen 'Alik Shahadah]] traces a pattern of "Eurocentric" scholarship to the era of slavery and colonialism, when it first came to serve as a means of removing any noble claim from the victims of systemic persecution; this served to rationalize their plight as "natural" and a continuation of a preexisting historical status, in order to eschew moral responsibility for destroying societies and undermining indigenous social and political systems. The first expressions of this academic trend appeared in the claim that "Slavery was a natural feature of Africa, and that Africans sold each other everyday." This contention sought to justify the commercial exploitation of humanity while denying the moral question, a pattern Shahada perceives to have continued beyond the eclipse of slavery and colonialism.<ref name="Agency and Africa">{{cite web|url=http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/agencyandafrica.htm|publisher="[[Owen 'Alik Shahadah]]"|title=Removal of Agency from Africa|accessdate=2005}}</ref>

African scholar [[Maulana Karenga]] puts slavery in the broader context of the Maafa, suggesting that its effects exceed mere physical persecution and legal disenfranchisement: the "destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples."<ref name="Ethics on Reparations">{{cite web|url=http://www.africawithin.com/karenga/ethics.htm|publisher="[[Ron Karenga]]"|title=Effects on Africa}}</ref>

==Further reading==
* Anderson, S. E., ''The Black Holocaust For Beginners'', Writers & Readers, 1995.
* Ani, Marimba, ''Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora''. New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1988 (orig. 1980).
* [[Eve Troutt Powell|Powell, Eve Troutt]], and [[John Hunwick|John O. Hunwick]], ed. ''The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam'' (Princeton Series on the Middle East), 2002.
* [[Ivan van Sertima|van Sertima, Ivan]], ed. ''The Journal of African Civilization''.
* [[Walter Rodney|Rodney, Walter]]. ''How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'', Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974.
* ''World's Great Men Of Color.'' Vols. I and II, ed. [[John Henrik Clarke]], New York: Collier-MacMillan, 1972.
* ''The Negro Impact on Western Civilization.'' New York: Philosophical Library, 1970.
* [[Benjamin Quarles|Quarles, Benjamin]]. ''The Negro in the Making of America'', 1964.
* DeGruy, Dr. Joy, ''Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome'', 2005.

==See also==
* [[African Renaissance]]
* [[Pan-Africanism]]
* [[Ham (son of Noah)|Curse of Ham]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.africanholocaust.net African Holocaust Society]
* [http://www.africawithin.com/maafa/slavery.htm africawithin.com/maafa/slavery Africa Within]

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[[Category:Democides]]
[[Category:Labor]]
[[Category:Slavery]]
[[Category:European colonisation in Africa]]
[[Category:History of Africa|Africa]]
[[Category:Pan-Africanism| ]]
[[Category:African slave trade]]

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Omeros

2012-09-08T16:53:57Z

Proscript:

{{Refimprove|date=July 2011}}
{{Italic title}}
'''''Omeros''''' is a 1990 [[epic poem]] by Caribbean writer [[Derek Walcott]]. Many consider it his finest work. "The girl who typed it was saying, 'This is going to win the [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel prize]],' " Walcott was later to remark.<ref>{{cite news|first=Stephen|last=Moss|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/03/derek-walcott-interview|title=Derek Walcott: 'The Oxford poetry job would have been too much work'|work=The Guardian|publisher=Guardian Media Group|date=3 May 2012|accessdate=3 May 2012}}</ref> He did, in 1992.

==Overview==
The epic is set on the Caribbean island of [[St. Lucia]]. Although its name is Omeros ([[Homer]] in [[Greek language|Greek]]) it has just a minor touch of [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' and ''[[Odyssey]]''.

The narrative of ''Omeros'' is multilayered. Walcott focuses on no single character; rather, many critics have taken the "hero" of ''Omeros'' to be the island of St. Lucia itself.

The narrative draws heavily on the legacy of the Homeric epics; Book One even opens with an invocation of the Greek poet, who is likened to the blind character, Seven Seas. However, while many characters within the epic derive their appellations from Homeric characters, this is the only absolute correlation; the themes are Homeric in inspiration, but the story does not imitatively follow the plot of either the Iliad or the Odyssey. Achille has been identified as [[Achilles]], but also as [[Menalaus]] and [[Odysseus]]. Hector has been connected to [[Paris]] and [[Agamemnon]], Plunkett to [[Priam]], [[Nestor]], and even [[Paris]]. Helen is [[Helen of Troy|Helen]], but also possibly [[Cassandra]], and Ma Killman, [[Patroclus]] and [[Andromache]] (whose Greek name means "battle" and "man").
The story can be divided into three main threads, all of which are introduced in Book One of the poem.

*The first follows the rivalry of the Homerically-named Achille and Hector over their love for Helen. Considerable attention is paid to Philoctete, an injured fisherman inspired by Homer's and [[Sophocles]]' [[Philoctetes]].
*The second is the interwoven story of Sergeant Major Plunkett and his Irish wife Maud, who live on the island and must reconcile themselves to the history of [[British Empire|British]] [[colonization]] of St. Lucia.
*The final thread is the tale of the poet-narrator, who comments on the action of the poem and partakes in many [[Transatlantic crossing|trans-Atlantic]] journeys and wanderings himself.

The poem is ambitious in scope. Walcott draws on Homer, [[Virgil]], and also [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] (the form of the poem is reminiscent of the Dante-invented [[terza rima]]). Themes presented in this poem include [[nostalgia]], [[colonialism]], [[historiography]], homecoming, paternity, [[poetry]], and [[love]]. If any theme binds the characters together, it is a universal human desire for communion with the past.

Walcott has been praised for his rich and inventive use of language in ''Omeros''.

Walcott was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1992.

==See also==
* [[1990 in poetry]]
* [[Caribbean literature]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* [http://academics.eckerd.edu/facultywiki/index.php/OMEROS:HOME Omeros Chart: A guide to Derek Walcott's ''Omeros'']
* [http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/wbc/rss.xml Podcast of Derek Walcott discussing ''Omeros''] on the BBC's ''[[World Book Club]]''
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=Qoh9zIXGjjcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Omeros&lr=&sig=i-VNMVhXVaTfjqZs2T9n5ntROtg#PPP15,M1 In the Shadows of Divine Perfection By Lance Callahan]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=VUFI53dBmFAC&pg=PA547&dq=Omeros&lr=&sig=VucJVw7eRjLPlMiz0n2PjnHtpkc A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry: Derek Walcott: ''Omeros'' by Bruce Woodcock]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=5NXCc04fw3cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Omeros&lr=&sig=g8hr7pOv387GfmKaiT4uWkFnuC0#PPP1,M1 Ambition and Anxiety by Line Henriksen]

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[[Category:1990 poems]]
[[Category:Caribbean literature]]
[[Category:Epic poems in English]]
[[Category:Verse novels]]
[[Category:Works based on The Odyssey]]

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Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

Maafa

Omeros