MYTHOLOGY OF LOVE SECTION

Woman stoned
to death in
Somalia for
Adultry
see story
below




Beyond Myth

Myth is all there is, like air, without myth we cannot breathe, therefore we die. Myth is the essence of religion. There are no rituals without myth--myth is the story, the word, hence the foundation of ritual. We take the myth and create the drama as in the original Osirian drama of resurrection, first the story then the enactment of the story, followed by the absorption of myth into the social-psychology of a people. Myth then becomes the foundation of culture, the purpose of existence and the goal of after-life.

Yes, culture is all that we do but all that we do is based on the myths we live by. When we suggest transcending myth it is an awesome challenge to the psyche and thus to the society. What white person wants to give up the myth of white supremacy. It is the essence of their being. Shall they become black? But black is not simply a color, it is a culture that is bound by myth as well. When we suggest giving up myth, we realize the task is daunting, for what shall a person stand upon, what rock, what reality?

We want the schools to change but again it shall involve dismantling the American mythology, all the lies, stories, dreams, holidays, statues, images, symbols that abound the society--in short, a decolonialization must occur—or call it detoxification. The teachers cannot teach a different way because they are victims of myth as well, trapped in their madness which is the essence of all they have been taught and certified to teach.

The black American psychologists are grappling with the problem of myth as I write. At their last national conference in Oakland they spoke about casting out Eurocentric psychology and returning to the ancient African healing philosophy. They want to transcend European psychotherapy for a more holistic approach that will embrace the entire being of the spiritually ill person, for sure, the mental is related to the physical to the social to the political to the economic. But as with education, how shall the mental health workers get certified to teach African healing when they have been trained in Eurocentric psychology? And what is the mythological foundation of African healing?

Imagine throwing out white education, but the question is can they heal the black mind with white psychology? As much as we applaud the psychotherapeutic peer group approach, prescribed in my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, even the peer group is not sufficient unless the group bonds together in a holistic manner to overcome the myriad ills due to oppression.

The myth of love is an example of how we are entrapped in mythology. Love becomes an ever changing illusion based on materialism and economic security, thus it is a physical thing that in the end causes us to cry, "What does love have to do with it?" But in reality love is all there is. God is Love! Yet we spend a lifetime seeking that which is our essence. Surely we must be on the wrong path or in the wrong house of love. And after a lifetime with the beloved, we wonder was it in vain, a waste of energy, a pitiful existence with a beloved who hated our guts, was jealous, envious, greedy, yet this was our mate, this was us.

And so detoxification is in order to begin our recovery from sick mythology. We resist and deny anything is amiss but we must summon the strength to make a change, to jump out the box toward a brighter day. We fight leaving the comfort zone for it is all we know, like the slaves upon emancipation: where shall we go, what shall we do without the master? He was our everything, our god, our lover, our enforcer, our rapist even. But deconstructing alien mythology is the only way out, just as the dope fiend must stop using dope upon the pain of death. Now some choose death, the die-hards who claim dope is the best thing that ever happened to them. So they are not satisfied until they fall into the pit. The society addicted to sick mythology is no better than the common dope fiend. It is determined to commit mass suicide. America is not alone in this manner. It is the same with Israel, North Korea, Iran and elsewhere. Mythology (call it ideology if you wish) will be the final determinant of the political actions in the above nations.

Will they transcend their mythology and live or persist in their inordinacy until they die? The sooner we get beyond myth into a progressive, radical and revolutionary state of mind, the better we shall all be. But it would be a step forward if we simply stopped believing in the superiority of myth. This notion of superiority is probably worse than the myth itself. The myth of white supremacy is no better or worse than other myths, but the problem is when whites want to spread their myth and force it upon others who have their own mythology.

As far as I am concerned, let the whites in the American south keep their confederate flag, just don’t subject it upon me and my people. Keep that shit in yo house, your church or wherever you dwell and I don’t. And if I fly the Star and Crescent, leave me the hell alone. But let’s go deeper into the world of myth for a story is composed of words, thus we must consider linguistics or language when attempting to transcend myth, for the devil is in the language. We may therefore find ourselves in need of a new language in order to transcend myth, for we speak a mythical language, and just as we do not understand the mythology, we do not understand the language. To have a common language suggests we have agreed upon definitions, but again, what do you mean by love, and are you prepared to love your enemy? Can you love yourself, and who or what is yourself? Who is the black self, what is it?

We grappled with this problem in the 60s in trying to define a black esthetic. What is beauty and truth to us? Suddenly the Negro was ugly and black was beautiful, and for a moment there was a consensus and a people moved forward. And then came the breakdown and the consensus was gone. The natural hair style was no longer en vogue. Ugly became beautiful. Ugly was freedom, although we never got a consensus on what freedom meant, nor do we have one today. What is freedom to you is not freedom to me. You say freedom is a job, and that’s the totality of your freedom. Other people fight for land, natural resources, self determination, but you say just give you a job and you are satisfied. So how can we unite?

You say freedom is having sex between persons of the same sex. Nothing else matters to you in life. But we ask what does sex have to do with it? Were you put aboard the slave ships so you could have sex with the same gender loving persons, is this why your ancestors suffered in the cotton and cane fields, was it for sexual freedom, or what is possibly something that went far beyond pussy and dick, getting a nut in the dark or in some alley, bathroom, park? Again, we need to define some terms before we can move forward into the new era. Let’s list some terms and define them—and how can we do this when terms are ever shifting, for language is dynamic and fluid, Negro, Colored, black, African, Bilalian, Moorish, et al. We are forever changing our identity because we cannot come to a consensus as a people. At least the white people know they are white, they may not know anything else, but they know they are white.

You don’t know if you are black or white, man or woman—for the sands are constantly shifting under your feet—the result of your insecurity, personal and communal. It is an identity crisis of the most profound degree imaginable. So myth is composed with language, from myth to ritual, from ritual to reality, but language is the foundation. The child’s world only becomes real when it takes command of its “mother tongue.” Within the mother tongue is myth which is composed of surface and deep structure terminology and meaning, the said and the unsaid, the seen and the unseen.

We are that child that has yet to master language, hence our world is chaos without solid, safe and secure definitions, leading us not to know what is real and unreal, a confusion of self and kind. We are not certain our brother is a friend or foe. We are not sure if our mate is friend or foe, lover or hater. In a moment of passion we may hear words we never thought was in the heart of our lover, or we may use such words ourselves. Now there is more doubt and insecurity in an already fragile relationship, that more than likely originated in lust rather than anything that can be called love. And so we see the task before us, a psycho-linguistic mythological conundrum that will take centuries to resolve since in the global village our mythology is bound with other mythological tribes and nations, some of which seek our life blood.

We may be forced out of our slumber to shed the old raggedy clothes of worn out mythology, whether religious or political, sexual or social. Elijah told us the wisdom of this world is exhausted—one need only look around and listen to the language, the babble blowing in the wind, in spite of all the technology, all the human advancement. Surely, in spite of it all, reverse evolution has set in, a kind of atrophy, a freezing of the mental apparatus, a paralysis of thought while the very hour challenges us with the need for grand vision to make that great leap forward into the new millennium. --Marvin X

Enjoy the Holy Days, No Wars!

By Dr. Mohja Kahf

As a Muslim, I can get behind Christmas, if I think of it as a remembrance of Sayyidna ‘Esa ("Our Master Jesus"), peace be upon him, and his mother Sitna Maryam ("Our Lady Mary"), peace be upon her. The birth of Esa, who spoke wisdom even as a babe in his mother’s arms, as the Quran says (Maryam, 19:29-33) is a source of joy and wonder for us too. I can even appreciate the historical St. Nicholas—not the fat Coca Cola icon hanging around Macy’s, but the fourth-century Turkish bishop—a thin, sad-faced cleric who embodied charity for the needy, concern for poor children (redeeming them from the Roman slave market), and quiet intervention against the sexual slavery of women, practiced out of poverty in his Christian land. All of what the original St. Nicholas stood for, his Trinitarian creed aside, are Islamic values too.Unlike Easter, where there are sharp Islamic differences with the crucifixion theology the holiday celebrates, there’s little for a Muslim to object to theologically in the spiritual side of Christmas—even if there is much to object to in the materialistic gluttony with which the holiday has come to be practiced in global capitalism. Many Western Christians forget that long before imperialist invasions and triumphalist missionaries, Yeshu’ (Esa) and Mary were ours too, baby. Minus the part about Jesus being God, of course. The miraculous virgin birth, the holy uniqueness of this particular mother and son, we share reverence for that, even if the Quran has a different, and far more Mary-centered, account of the Messiah’s delivery. (And yes, I know December 25th wasn’t really Christ’s birthday, but it’s traditional to commemorate it on that day.)I even like public crèches. What I don’t get is how the nativity displays are seen by many American Christians as symbols of what separates them from Muslims, instead of what we share with them. It’s odd and ironic that many US Christians put up these very middle easterny-looking figurines, with hijabs and camels and Arab male headgear and such, and then look askance at actual middle easterners who dress and look the same way today.In Jordan, where there is a 12% Arab Christian population and many magnificent churches in the Orthodox rite, stores sell mosque-shaped Christmas tree ornaments, bought by those Jordanian Muslims who put up trees in celebration of Christmas. The ornaments are also popular with Jordanian Christians and with interfaith families. I love the interfaith syncretism of that, even though it’s not a custom in my family to do the tree thing. (A Jewish colleague made me laugh this Christmas eve when she blurted, “A Hannukah bush—the very phrase is just, well, kinky!” – but this isn’t the Sex & the Ummah column, so I won’t go there.)And may I gently add, interfaith holiday recognition goes both ways. I rarely ever get Eid cards from People of the Book, Christians and Jews, except from one rabbi friend.While I wish “merry Christmas” to my friends who are Christian, and send Hannukah cards to Jewish friends, I steer my kids away from “What is Santa bringing you?” conversations during their vulnerable early years in US public schools, and our celebrations at home are richly Muslim. We had a Hajj-themed party for Eid al-Adha this year. My kids made a 3-D model of the Ka’ba and each guest got to go on “Tawaf” by sticking their name on a toothpick around the black-construction-paper cube. Kiddies made glitter-Ka’bas as a craft activity, while teens watched the Hajj scene from Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, and grown-ups poured themselves (halal!) beverages at the “Zamzam Table” and socialized under paper-chain decorations of Ka’bas strung on gold tinsel. More importantly, I clicked an online donation to sacrifice an animal for the poor, which is what the “sacrifice” part of this Sacrifice Holiday is about (and, if Brigitte Bardot with her anti-udhiya campaign is listening, it’s a highly ecological, humane, and moral Muslim ritual, our animal sacrifice, with every bit of meat put to use).Family customs can evolve. My middle child decided we must celebrate Kwanzaa this year. “But do we have a claim to it?” I asked the Kwanzaa advocate. I’m not as eclectic as you may think; I do need to feel an authentic connection before I celebrate an occasion. Otherwse, I’m perfectly happy watching you celebrate your holiday, without making it mine. My kid reminds me that I am one-sixteenth Algerian and so YES, I too am African, I can do Kwanzaa! And how could I forget, anyway, that Muslims are all symbolically descended from Hajar, a black woman of Africa, who is buried in the heart of Islam, next to the Ka’ba? So I say to Black nationalists such as Dr. Maulana Karenga, who invented Kwanzaa: “Don’t you go anti-Arab on me; we in this too.” We are scurrying to find seven candles in the house for a last-minute start to tomorrow’s first day of Kwanzaa, what with stores being closed for Christmas day.Plus, I’m getting into the Shia holidays, based on an epiphany of “Ich Bin Eine Shia!” I had while reading Moojan Momen’s Introduction to Shiism this summer at the Muslim Public Service Network in DC, where I served as scholar-in-residence for a week. So I’m making the family mourn Ashura this year, man. A Shia friend thinks I’m nuts, and relates traumatized anecdotes of growing up Shia to prove it: Once, she got scolded for chewing gum on Ashura. “Yazid chews gum on Ashura!” her shocked grannie said. You can’t do anything happy on Ashura, obviously, since you’re remembering the Prophet’s grandson and all his kin being gruesomely massacred by Yazid. Not sure how to commemorate such a tragedy with the kids, but we’ll think of something. Who knows, self-flagellation might turn out to be fun.Also, I’m rediscovering my grandmother’s north Syrian roots this spring and reinstituting the celebration of Nowruz that she used to do as a girl in Aleppo. Picnic at the town Botanical Gardens! We’re going to share that holiday with our local Azerbaijani-Iranian Shia friends, who seem to think Nowruz is this exclusively Shia thing—hey you guys, it’s not just yours!Then there’s solstice. I feel connected to that one simply on a visceral, physical level—I hate the long nights, I sink into what may be borderline Seasonal Affective Disorder feelings from the short winter days, so I could totally go for Shabe Yalda, the Iranian holiday celebrating the birth of light after the December 21st solstice. “Yalda” comes from an Aramaic root from which the Arabic word for birth, “milad, yaledu” also stems, so there’s already syncretism in the name of the holiday, which seems to combine Syriac Christian, Zoroastrian, and ancient nature religion elements.Purists in every faith may wince at cross-religious blending. Listen, wherever practicing another religion’s holiday actually violates a theology of your own, by all means, make distinctions. I’m not saying make everything a big mush. I’m just pointing out a few places where our holiday beliefs do intersect—let’s at least enjoy those!So, I wish you principled joy, folks, and heightened consciousness, and overlapping blessings, for the season and beyond. Merry Hajj! Christmas mubarak! Kwanzaa sa’eed! Hannukah kareem! Solstice bi-khair, and a sunny, not-just-Iranian Shabe Yalda to you!

Somali woman stoned for adultery

A 20-year-old woman divorcee accused of committing adultery in Somalia has been stoned to death by Islamists in front of a crowd of about 200 people. A judge working for the militant group al-Shabab said she had had an affair with an unmarried 29-year-old man. He said she gave birth to a still-born baby and was found guilty of adultery. Her boyfriend was given 100 lashes. It is thought to be the second time a woman has been stoned to death for adultery by al-Shabab. The group controls large swathes of southern Somalia where they have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law which has been unpopular with many Somalis. 'Lenient' According to reports from a small village near the town of Wajid, 250 miles (400km) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, the woman was taken to the public grounds where she was buried up to her waist. The Islamists want to impose a strict version of Sharia on Somalia. She was then stoned to death in front of the crowds on Tuesday afternoon. The judge, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, said her unmarried boyfriend was given 100 lashes at the same venue. Under al-Shabab's interpretation of Sharia law, anyone who has ever been married - even a divorcee - who has an affair is liable to be found guilty of adultery, punishable by stoning to death. An unmarried person who has sex before marriage is liable to be given 100 lashes. BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the stoning is at least the fourth for adultery in Somalia over the last year. Earlier this month, a man was stoned to death for adultery in the port town of Merka, south of Mogadishu. His pregnant girlfriend was spared, until she gives birth. A girl was stoned to death for adultery in the southern town of Kismayo last year. Human rights groups said she was 13 years old and had been raped, but the Islamists said she was older and had been married. Last month, two men were stoned to death in Merka after being accused of spying. President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was sworn in as president after UN-brokered peace talks in January. Although he says he also wants to implement Sharia, al-Shabab says his version of Islamic law would be too lenient. The country has not had a functioning national government for 18 years.

Comment

by Marvin X

Imagine all the people likely to be stoned to death in America if Islamic Sharia law were imposed. Because of the many backward notions in religions due to primitive mythology, I wrote Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality. Religion has outlived any usefulness in today's world. It is the cause of violence in the home, in the street and numerous wars across the planet, e.g., Christian Crusaders occupying Muslim lands throughout the Middle East and Africa. The Christians are as backward, dogmatic and narrow minded as Muslims. What right do they have to impose democracy or any part of their warped, hypocritical moral vision on people when they have yet come to terms with the cross and the lynching tree. Can religion be summed up as man's attempt to control women? She outsmarted, fooled and deceived Adam in the Garden and has suffered ever since.So her body, mind and soul must be guarded against, watched over and never allowed an iota of freedom. She is thus the property of men who "maintain" her even though today women are often quite able to maintain themselves and men, yet the man "pays the cost to be the boss," though this may be an illusion, a figment of his imagination from times past. Whether it is gang rape, partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse, the woman suffers greatly from the men she loves--again, the concept of honor killings reveal that even her father, brothers, husband, uncle, cousins, may seek her life if she steps outside the door of primitive patriarchal mythology found in the various religions. In the church she is condemned for being a "church ho" but her preacher is forgiven--even rewarded for "pimping in the name of the Lord."

Rape and Mythology

The recent rape of the young lady at Richmond High School reveals the urgency of my monograph The Mythology of Pussy. Yes, the title may be abhorrent and offensive to many, but the content is essential manhood and womanhood training that speaks directly to how youth can become socialized beyond the patriarchal mythology that is totally dysfunctional in the global village—a socialization that breeds animal and savage behavior in men and often women who are taught values of domination, ownership,violence, emotional and verbal abuse. Rape is the ultimate expression of the patriarchal or male dominated society wherein the female has no value other than as a sexual animal that must serve men at every turn, willingly or unwillingly. So how can we be shocked when we know this society was founded upon rape, kidnapping, murder—the total exploitation of human beings. America is the place where women had their bellies cut open and lynched along with men during our enslavement. Even as we speak, America is raping, torturing, murdering and exploiting poor people around the world, from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. She is endorsing such behavior throughout the Americas, in Mexico, Guatemala, and Columbia. All for the profit motive, for the glories of capitalism. Yet, little Johnny is supposed to behave peacefully in the hood—he is supposed to act civilized in spite of his poverty, ignorance and disease. His ghetto life is the culture of violence—and it is merely a reflection of the larger society of violence—violence in the news, movies, books, sports, and yes, sex. America cannot tell little Johnny not to rape when she goes around the world raping! But we cannot only blame America because such animal behavior is worldwide—even as I write, women, men and children are being raped in the Congo, Sudan and South Africa. They were raped in the Balkans, Iraq and all wars throughout history. Women are called “the spoils of war” or “booty.” Every soldier knows women are the prize they get for killing “the enemy.” The youth in Richmond were acting out the same behavior we did as teenagers when I grew up in Fresno. As teenagers, my friends used to gang rape every Sunday at the show—every Sunday girls were taken behind the movie screen while we sat eating popcorn and watched the white man kill Indians—and in our ignorance, some of us cheered the slaughter of the Native Americans, even while many of us had Native American blood in our veins. And if the girls were not gang raped behind the screen, they were raped on the train yard as we crossed the tracks going home to the projects. We called gang rape “pulling a train” on the girl. The boys lined up to wait their turn—just as in the Richmond case, nobody said stop, this is wrong, this is criminal, this is somebody’s sister. This was our culture, thus normal behavior. If you didn’t engage in this behavior you were considered a “punk.” Gang rape was thus part of expressing manhood—it was the only mythology we knew. Violence was not only toward women, but toward other men as well. We went to the show to fight Mexicans because few whites came to our theatre—we wanted to fight the whites but the Mexicans were a reasonable facsimile. We went to the dance and concerts to fight Mexicans and brothers from “the country,” since we considered ourselves “city nigguhs.” Yes, we were city nigguhs who picked cotton, cut grapes and pitched watermelons almost as much as the so-called country nigguhs. Violence against woman and men will not end until we deconstruct the mythology of the patriarchal or male dominated culture globally—rape is happening worldwide—it is an epidemic in South Africa. Even before the Richmond incident, a brother told me how the young women are raped in hotel rooms downtown Oakland. He pointed out to me the girls walking pass my outdoor classroom at 14th and Broadway—he said all of them have been given drugs in drinks and then raped. As long as the mythology of world culture (including the religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, African traditional religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, et al) promotes the domination of women, rape shall the ultimate expression. As long as men are taught women are chattel or personal property, rape will persist, along with domestic and partner violence, verbal and emotional violence. We must understand rape has nothing to do with sex—rape is an act of violence! It is an expression of power, control, authority, domination. Religion perpetuates such violence by promoting male authority and ownership. The religious community must be prepared to make radical and revolutionary changes in its theology, mythology and ritual. It must rid its theology of women as chattel or personal property of men. We are descendants of slaves, yet our relationships are the embodiment of slavery with the resulting partner violence, verbal and emotional abuse. The sad truth is that the religious community or leadership cannot advocate changing traditional values because to do so would decrease the power of leadership, a leadership that is often guilty of the same said violence, rape, domination and exploitation of females—and often males! The only solution is radical and revolutionary manhood and womanhood rites of passage, wherein young men and women evolve to see themselves as spiritual beings in human form. I will end with a quote from a poem by Phavia Kujichagulia, “If you think I am just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring.” I encourage the reader to obtain a copy of my Mythology of Pussy: A Manual for Manhood and Womanhood Rites of Passage. Go to www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com. I just returned from a national tour promoting this monograph—I dropped seeds in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Newark, NJ, and Harlem, NY. It is indeed sad to return home to the Bay Area and learn of the incident in Richmond. We must stand up from animal to divine—from bestiality to spirituality.