One such interview is from Splendid online magazine:
Splendid: The book [Said the Shotgun to the Head] seems to touch on themes of enlightenment, particularly a thematic thread of pyramids. Does this allude to the way they were built (i.e. out of flesh) in the ancient Egyptian sense, or is there something more?
Saul Williams: The idea is simply that I'm dealing with ancient folklore surrounding the matriarchal essence and nature of an ideal society. That's all it has to deal with. So then we're learning about balance...balance, balance, balance. There's a Native American saying that if we're not careful, we'll end up exactly where we're heading. The whole idea is that, if thinking of God is male has led us to the state that we're in, and I would argue that it has, then maybe we should re-approach how we think of things. Get ourselves out from between this rock and a hard place. Re-imagine the world. Don't simply think of your god as this angry man who punishes you, but of this nurturing mother who loves you.
A previous Grenada entry, islam and the divine feminine touches on this idea and points out how there are feminine aspects to God "even" in Islam. One fact which we can briefly point out is that "Rahman" and "Rahim" the names of God which are used over and over again at the beginning of all but one sura of the Quran have a root RHM related to the word for "womb".
Splendid: The book tends to take a more utopian point of view when it comes to God as the eternal loving mother...
Saul Williams: That is the point of the book right there, to have that love and compassion with the harshness. That's why the book initially started off as a poem called "Kali-flower", an allusion to the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation, the goddess who says everything must be destroyed in order for things to be rebuilt. Buildings have to fall, because that's the only way people are going to wake up. It's no different than Malcolm X saying, "You don't have a revolution unless you have bloodshed."
I don't have much more to say about the above, except that it is a good example of the freshness Saul William's wordplay; breaking words down and putting them back together like legos. Also, the larger point is dead on... any kind of change will involve sacrificing something old in exchange for something new... whether you are talking about the political world or your personal life.
V: So, you mentioned Kali. Did you study different religions?
S: Yeah, on my own. I’ve just always been interested by it. I guess my latest interest has been in just spirituality, and spiritual practice. And in searching for the spiritual practice that suits me best, I’ve often pulled from different religious practices. I find that a lot of what suits me comes from Hinduism and Buddhism, as many of us do. I think we pull from the East a great deal. It’s almost like we had a team of experts in the field of spirituality, and we sent them to the East and said, “Okay, you guys, work on that.” They did a great job. We can benefit ourselves by looking to the East for greater understanding and depth of our spiritual connection to reality.
A fact which I keep thinking back to is how, between Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bahais and all their offshoots and everything in between (e.g. Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mandeans, Samaritans, Gnostics, Druzes, Kairites, Noachides, Rastafarians, Hebrew Israelites etc.) in a literal sense more than half of all Earthlings worship the God of Abraham. They may disagree about all sorts of other people and concepts, but they all look back and acknowledge that there was a special covenant between God and Abraham which has some relation to their spiritual life today.
And then the other kind of deep fact is that a large chunk of the other half follow religious traditions rooted in India (Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, etc.)
And so India and Iraq (where Abraham was born) have an odd kind of near-monopoly in terms of being the sources of human spiritual life.
In his Pop Matters interview he says:
The biggest influences on my work, in that context, would have to be Hafiz and Rumi. Hafiz was a 12th century Persian poet whose name in Arabic means "One who remembers." He knew the Koran by heart, he knew his poetry by heart; he was a spoken word artist, if you will. Poetry has always been recited aloud, but besides that, the lightheartedness and spiritual nature of Hafiz's poetry has always been something that I've aspired to. And then there's Rumi; I've been deeply influenced by him. His work is very inspiring. There are tons of poets, moving chronologically from the past to the present, that have inspired me.
The same set of questions tend to run through my mind when I hear non-Muslims say they are into Hafiz or Rumi. First I wonder if as non-Muslims do they have the background to understand the religious references? Do they respects Hafiz and Rumi as products of Islamic civilization which can be part of an argument for Islam's validity? And then I actually have to ask myself the same questions. Do I really understand Hafez and Rumi? Are they really a part of Islamic tradition or are they rebels who are really outside of it? I tend to think that non-Muslims who think Rumi is "cool" are not recognizing the extent to which he was a practicing orthodox Muslim and so they might be misreading him somewhat, seeing what they want to see. But then again, I certainly couldn't claim to be a scholar on the subject. I actually have met at least one person who become Muslim by way of an interest in Rumi. So if we are concerned about dawa or even just about improving Islam's image in the West, it would be beneficial if someone could make and present a coherent argument pointing to the connection between Rumi, Hafiz and the other Sufi poets to orthodox Islamic spirituality.
Splendid: Your interpretation of religion is so much more human that what we're taught -- so much so that you almost feel sorry for those bound by religion, a bunch of sheep in a herd or something akin to a mob mentality.
Saul Williams: They become literalists, sure. But your beliefs can empower you, even if they're completely dogmatic. I think what's most important is that you have a daily practice in your life of prayer, meditation, something, so that even if you have dogmatic beliefs, you have that daily practice to open yourself up to being loving and compassionate to other people. Then everything's cool, even if you're not trying to find the [...] holy grail.
14 comments:
without prompting much disagreement let me say that unless I'm missing pieces of the interview, Mr. Williams has not even discussed the possibility that defining god as having any gender at all is a problem. For example in Ifa Olodumare is not assigned a gender as to do so (even to suggest a dualness of gender) would be to limit Olodumare's omnipotence.
How does an individual of African Descent discuss all derivative African religions and not mention any original African religions? Am I the only person to note this? Am I the only person with a problem with this?
Even a cursory glance at ancient Khemetic theology (or cosmology) would throw a serious wrentch into the Followers of Abraham assertion. be it the Commandments-Oracle, Temple Contruction, Symbolism and terminology (ie. the use of Amen).
Anyways, Still an interesting post.
I agree with you that ultimately, when you get down to brass tacks, it is inappropriate to ascribe a gender to the ultimate reality.
But I think that by "poetic license" we almost can't help but use human langauge to at least point in an inexact way towards the divnity, and so very often that includes using metaphors to describe God.
In terms of your second point about people of African descent, I'm not sure if your comment is directed at Saul Williams or me.
If you are asking Saul Williams, I would check out his piece Coded Language
If you are asking me, I would say that I certainly discuss that in some of my early entries especially.
But briefly, my basic answer to that kind of Afro-centric criticism of Islam is that there is A LOT of cultural, geographic and historical overlap between Islam and the Black world on one hand, and the Muslim world on the other. So it doesn't make sense to say Islam is somehow incompatible with being Black.
And secondly, even if the historical links weren't there Islam really does have the capacity to transcend it's cultural baggage and be truly embraced by many different groups of people.
no bro. Not directing the comment to you specifically, It was a general question/critique taken from my read of the interview and asked as a general question to the reading audience.
The link you posted I'm not entirely clear..well not clear at all ;-)
about how this relates to the question posed. Perhaps you could "orient" me. ;-)
on you last point I agree though the same could be said of other religions, though admittedly not all.
The reason why I mentioned Coded Language is that Saul Williams refers to and acknowledges a wide range of names and spiritual influences including "original African" ones.
hmmmm. 4 orisa
2 neters
3 ancient khemetic royalty (two of whome in the same dynasty) doesn't quite cut it with me, I can't tell you the number of poetry events I've been to where supposed "deep" poets showed thier "knowledge" by dropping names of Orisa and allways the same ones: Osun, Ogun Yemanja and Sango (Obatala is relatively less known). Ask them about Ifa and get blank stares.
It's like when the late Khalid Muhammed of NOI fame was speaking in Birmingham AL.and said Ogun was God. Say what?
;-)
I guess I'm wondering at what point would you be "happy" and what are you ultimately getting at?
Are you saying all people of African-descent should worship the orishas?
Are you saying all people of African-descent should follow non-Abrahamic African spiritual path (Ifa, Kemetic, etc.)?
I guess I would agree if you are saying that Saul Williams probably isn't really deep into the orishas. They are subject to name dropping (see e.g. Brother to the night)
But if he doesn't actually believe in the orishas what else should he do?
good questions.
if I may:
Are you saying all people of African-descent should worship the orishas?
Absolutely not. Indeed that would make me both a religious imperialist as well as a cultural imperialist, not to mention it would be against my religion! I must admit that there are those in Ifa that take an expansive view of Ifa and declare that even the non-omo-orisa are in fact worshipping Ifa. I disagree wholeheartedly with such an expansive view of Ifa as I disagree with it in other religions.
As a Pan-Africanist it would also be against my political philosophy given that Africans, and everybody else on earth have their own belief system.
2)
Are you saying all people of African-descent should follow non-Abrahamic African spiritual path (Ifa, Kemetic, etc.)?
Two answers to this:
A) I question the validity of the claim of "Abrahamic" spiritual paths based on my study of Khemet. But I won't go into that here as it may be irrelevant. For sake of argument I'll let Abrahamic stand.
b) I think those persons previously under the oppression of those who claim adherance to Abrahamic faiths should for thier own mental fitness at least take an extremely critical view of them AND take an extreme critical view of the religions of their ancestors. If after such critical analysis they freely choose to follow such faiths then they should be free to do so. that is thier right.
3)I guess I would agree if you are saying that Saul Williams probably isn't really deep into the orishas. They are subject to name dropping (see e.g. Brother to the night)
no doubt I'm saying that. I'm also saying that as a person of African descent who is critiquing religious ideology, he should IMHO, at least be able to speak from a position taken by Africans ( be they Yoruba or Kikuyu) even if it is not one he personally adheres to. For example in Facing Mt. Kenya Jomo Kenyatta claims that women used to run Gikuyuland, and with that power they became abusive. let's assume that to be true. If it is true then having a female godhead is not neccessarily any different from having a male one, if the basis of that critique is that women are inherently more loving or less oppressive than men (which is something Saul claims).
So really I guess I'm saying that relative to the general population Saul's statements are deep. However,i think when further scrutiny is put on him, he falls short of the potential he has, at least to me.
Adupe
I realize that I misspoke in an earlier comment and had meant to say:
"But briefly, my basic answer to that kind of Afro-centric criticism of Islam is that there is A LOT of cultural, geographic and historical overlap between Africa and the Black world on one hand, and the Muslim world on the other. So it doesn't make sense to say Islam is somehow incompatible with being Black."
Just given things like the existence of Swahili, the African Muslim Empires, the people of Ethiopian descent who lived in Arabia at the time of the prophet, given how early Muslims went to Ethiopia for refuge and other things which could be mentioned, Islam isn't exactly an "unAfrican" religion.
But about your other comments. what do you mean by saying " I question the validity of the claim of "Abrahamic" spiritual paths based on my study of Khemet."
well. I think the proper answer to that may be better served in a proper blog post, I think you may agree. but as a short answer:
ON Swahili (for readers unfamiliar Swahili is a combination of Arabic and local languages such a Kikuyu), I see it as a product of trade that would have occured regardless of whether Arabs had embraced Islam or not.
i think the examples of Songhai and Mali are very good examples of peaceful co-existance of Islam and traditional African religions/cultures which I would hope those in Northern Nigeria would meditate on.
However, it is arguable that Islam in some cases in Africa had a detrimental or deleterous effect on local populations. I recall speaking to a Senegalese national who have told me that the Islam had imposed and superceded the native culture and they had to remove themselves from Islam in order to recapture his culture.
Similarly in Nigeria currently Fulani Muslims (who were converted)among others would tear apart Nigeria in order to impose Sharia, which is historically foreign to that area.
So my point is that while a short view of African empires can mke it seem that Islam is an original part of African cultures the longer view (such as that discussed by Chacellor Williams, Alfred Butler and others) muddies that assertion. I say muddies because it depends on how you view the origins of Islam (in the historic rather than definitive sense) began.
As for the Abrahamic issue. THAT is definitely a blog post. But briefly, if one agrees with the evidence that the Khemetic Mystery System is the origins of Judaism and those religions flowing from it, including Islam, then there is no such thing as an Abrahamic religion.
In my experience it is the rare Jew, Christian or Muslim that is willing to concede this point. Rare, but I do know of members who do.
hope this clears up my issues some. Again I think it better to have a dedicated posting where a full airing of the issue can be done for the benefit of all.
Then maybe it would be better if you wrote an entry on some of these things on your blog.
But in terms of Swahili, yes its a product of trade, and it may have even happened independently of Islam. But I mention it because folks like Karenga are willing to consider it an "African" language even though it incorporates Arab elements. And so what it shows is that elements of Arab/Islamic culture can be genuinely African.
In other words I would question how one could simply dismiss Islam as a foreign religion when Muslims have been in Africa for centuries, long enough to come up with at least one new language, and produce several civilizations. At some point it has been genuinely internalized.
Well by that logic If we move say 1,000 years hence, can we say that Christianity is not foreign to Africa?
Do you reject Malcolm X's assertion that a kitten born in a oven is still a kitten?
Can't speak for karenga but if I recall his assertion with Swahili is that it is non-tribal (Which is something I think you would approve of). I think it is considered African by him because that is where it was created, much as I think he would say Creol e as spoken in Haiti is African (Again I can't speak for him on that but I think that is the logic).
I tend to see "Christianity" as too big an umbrella to consider because there are many different kinds. The Klan is Christian but so was Martin Luther King. Pat Robertson is Christian but so was Nat Turner.
If you look at something like Rastafarianism which is basically a form of Christianity with a Garveyite foundation, which started in Jamaica and believes that a black African, Halie Selassie, is God Incarnate, I think it would be really really silly to argue that Rastafarianism is merely the white slavemaster's religion.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is among the oldest forms of Christianity in the world.
There are definitely African Christians who are merely following a faith given to them by white missionaries, but there are also African Christians who said "to hell with the missionaries
" and founded independent indigenous forms of Christianity which weren't just subservient to European denominations and even incorporate pre-existing African practices in their worship.
I would also point out that this issue isn't just an issue of integration and assimilation. I mean, if the Jews went into Kemet as a largish family and left Kemet as a landless nation of millions, they must have intermarried and become African even by blood (In the Bible, Joseph married an Egyptian woman and had children with her. And Moses married a Cushite) If the Jews themselves come out of Africa, it seems bizzare to exclude the Semetic religions as being unAfrican.
good points, which is why, in part i said that the isssue could not be dealt with in a comment section of a blog and needed an extended discussion to fill out the logic.
but as a partial retort, I could say that since Islam includes individuals such as yourself AND the Taliban and Al-Q,then...
It is easy to pick out religious F-up's as signs of faultiness of a religion and it is equally easy to say that certain extremes aren't Authentic (Christianity or Islam or Judaism, or whatever).
gotta go to work.
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