Mali Man Quotes

Howard Wynn did not suffer boredom or mediocrity well. He felt equally dismissive of willful ignorance—his description of the modern press—and smug stupidity, his bon mot for politicians. To his mind, they were a gang of vapid and arrogant thugs all, who greedily snatched their information from one another like disappearing crumbs as society spiraled merrily toward hell. With the current crop of pundits, bureaucrats, and hired guns in charge, America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

You, perhaps, will be a king. You can do nothing about it. You, on the other hand, will be unlucky, but you can do nothing about that either. Each man finds his way already marked out for him and he can change nothing of it.

Earthquake in Sumatra. Plane crash in Russia. Man holds daughter captive in cellar for thirty years. Heidi Klum separates from Seal. Record salaries at Bank of America. Attack in Pakistan. Resignation of Mali’s president. New world record in shot put. Do you really need to know all these things? We are incredibly well informed, yet we know incredibly little. Why? Because two centuries ago, we invented a toxic form of knowledge called “news.” News is to the mind what sugar is to the body: appetizing, easy to digest—and highly destructive in the long run.

Yes, our social and economic circumstances shape decisions we make about all sorts of things in life, including sex. Sometimes they rob us of the power to make any decisions at all. But of all human activity, sex is among the least likely to fit neatly into the blueprint of rational decision making favoured by economists. To quote my friend Claire in Istanbul, sex is about 'conquest, fantasy, projection, infatuation, mood, anger, vanity, love, pissing off your parents, the risk of getting caught, the pleasure of cuddling afterwards, the thrill of having a secret, feeling desirable, feeling like a man, feeling like a woman, bragging to your mates the next day, getting to see what someone looks like naked and a million-and-one-other-things.' When sex isn't fun, it is often lucrative, or part of a bargain which gives you access to something you want or need. If HIV is spread by 'poverty and gender equality', how come countries that have plenty of both, such as Bangladesh, have virtually no HIV? How come South Africa and Botswana, which have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa, are awash with HIV, while countries that score low on both - such as Guinea, Somalia, Mali, and Sierra Leone - have epidemics that are negligible by comparison? How come in country after country across Africa itself, from Cameroon to Uganda to Zimbabwe and in a dozen other countries as well, HIV is lowest in the poorest households, and highest in the richest households? And how is it that in many countries, more educated women are more likely to be infested with HIV than women with no schooling? For all its cultural and political overtones, HIV is an infectious disease. Forgive me for thinking like an epidemiologist, but it seems to me that if we want to explain why there is more of it in one place than another, we should go back and take a look at the way it is spread.

Usimwabudu mungu mwingine isipokuwa Mungu. Usimwabudu mtu, mnyama, sanamu, samaki, au usiziabudu fikira zako kichwani. Usiitumikie kazi, mali, mila, anasa, siasa, wala usiyatumikie mamlaka au usiutumikie umaarufu au ufahari, kuliko Mungu. Ukiithamini kazi, mali, mila, anasa, siasa au ukiyathamini mamlaka, au ukiuthamini umaarufu au ufahari zaidi kuliko Mungu, au ukiyapa majukumu yako muda mwingi zaidi kuliko Mungu umeabudu miungu; wakati ulipaswa kumwabudu Mungu peke yake. Usiwe na vipaumbele vingine vyovyote vile katika maisha yako zaidi ya Mungu, kwani Mungu ni Mungu mwenye wivu.

There have been three major slave revolts in human history. The first, led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus against the Romans, occurred in 73 BC. The third was in the 1790s when the great black revolutionary Touissant L'Ouverture and his slave army wrested control of Santo Domingo from the French, only to be defeated by Napoleon in 1802. But the second fell halfway between these two, in the middle of the 9th century AD, and is less documented than either. We do know that the insurgents were black; that the Muslim 'Abbasid caliphs of Iraq had brought them from East Africa to work, in the thousands, in the salt marshes of the delta of the Tigris. These black rebels beat back the Arabs for nearly ten years. Like the escaped maroons in Brazil centuries later, they set up their own strongholds in the marshland. They seemed unconquerable and they were not, in fact, crushed by the Muslims until 883. They were known as the Zanj, and they bequeathed their name to the island of Zanzibar in the East Africa - which, by no coincidence, would become and remain the market center for slaves in the Arab world until the last quarter of the 19th century. The revolt of the Zanj eleven hundred years ago should remind us of the utter falsity of the now fashionable line of argument which tries to suggest that the enslavement of African blacks was the invention of European whites. It is true that slavery had been written into the basis of the classical world; Periclean Athens was a slave state, and so was Augustan Rome. Most of their slaves were Caucasian whites, and "In antiquity, bondage had nothing to do with physiognomy or skin color". The word "slave" meant a person of Slavic origin. By the 13th century it spread to other Caucasian peoples subjugated by armies from central Asia: Russians, Georgians, Circassians, Albanians, Armenians, all of whom found ready buyers from Venice to Sicily to Barcelona, and throughout the Muslim world. But the African slave trade as such, the black traffic, was a Muslim invention, developed by Arab traders with the enthusiastic collaboration of black African ones, institutionalized with the most unrelenting brutality centuries before the white man appeared on the African continent, and continuing long after the slave market in North America was finally crushed. Historically, this traffic between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa begins with the very civilization that Afrocentrists are so anxious to claim as black - ancient Egypt. African slavery was well in force long before that: but by the first millennium BC Pharaoh Rameses II boasts of providing the temples with more than 100,000 slaves, and indeed it is inconceivable that the monumental culture of Egypt could have been raised outside a slave economy. For the next two thousand years the basic economies of sub-Saharan Africa would be tied into the catching, use and sale of slaves. The sculptures of medieval life show slaves bound and gagged for sacrifice, and the first Portuguese explorers of Africa around 1480 found a large slave trade set up from the Congo to Benin. There were large slave plantations in the Mali empire in the 13th-14th centuries and every abuse and cruelty visited on slaves in the antebellum South, including the practice of breeding children for sale like cattle, was practised by the black rulers of those towns which the Afrocentrists now hold up as sanitized examples of high civilization, such as Timbuktu and Songhay.

Quan­do in­fi­ne re­cu­pe­rò il fia­to fece usci­re tut­ti per par­la­re da solo col suo me­di­co. «Non mi im­ma­gi­na­vo che que­sta stron­za­ta fos­se così gra­ve da far pen­sa­re all'olio san­to» gli dis­se. «Io, che non ho la gio­ia di cre­de­re nel­la vita dell'al­tro mon­do.» «Non si trat­ta di que­sto» dis­se Ré­vé­rend. «E' noto che si­ste­ma­re le fac­cen­de del­la co­scien­za in­fon­de all'am­ma­la­to uno sta­to d'ani­mo che fa­ci­li­ta mol­to l'in­com­ben­za del me­di­co.» Il ge­ne­ra­le non pre­stò at­ten­zio­ne alla mae­stria del­la ri­spo­sta, per­ché lo fece rab­bri­vi­di­re la ri­ve­la­zio­ne ac­ce­can­te che la fol­le cor­sa fra i suoi mali e i suoi so­gni ar­ri­va­va in quel mo­men­to alla meta fi­na­le. Il re­sto era­no te­ne­bre. «Caz­zo» so­spi­rò. «Come farò a usci­re da que­sto la­bi­rin­to?» Esa­mi­nò il lo­ca­le con la chia­ro­veg­gen­za del­le sue in­son­nie, e per la pri­ma vol­ta vide la ve­ri­tà: l'ul­ti­mo let­to pre­sta­to, la toe­let­ta di pie­tà il cui fo­sco spec­chio di pa­zien­za non l'avreb­be più ri­pe­tu­to, il ba­ci­le di por­cel­la­na scro­sta­ta con l'ac­qua e l'asciu­ga­ma­no e il sa­po­ne per al­tre mani, la fret­ta sen­za cuo­re dell'oro­lo­gio ot­ta­go­na­le sfre­na­to ver­so l'ap­pun­ta­men­to ine­lut­ta­bi­le del 17 di­cem­bre all'una e set­te mi­nu­ti del suo po­me­rig­gio ul­ti­mo. Al­lo­ra in­cro­ciò le brac­cia sul pet­to e co­min­ciò a udi­re le voci rag­gian­ti de­gli schia­vi che can­ta­va­no il sal­ve del­le sei nei fran­toi, e vide dal­la fi­ne­stra il dia­man­te di Ve­ne­re nel cie­lo che se ne an­da­va per sem­pre, le nevi eter­ne, il ram­pi­can­te le cui nuo­ve cam­pa­nu­le gial­le non avreb­be vi­sto fio­ri­re il sa­ba­to suc­ces­si­vo nel­la casa sbar­ra­ta dal lut­to, gli ul­ti­mi ful­go­ri del­la vita che mai più, per i se­co­li dei se­co­li, si sa­reb­be ri­pe­tu­ta.

America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

Song of the Turtle” is a poem that dates back to the Ghanaian period: We lived in freedom Before man appeared: Our world was undisturbed, One day followed the other joyfully. Dissent was never heard. Then man broke into our forest, With cunning and belligerence. He pursued us With greed and envy: Our freedom vanished.

During his travels in the Malian empire, Ibn Battuta wrote about his observations of the people, their ruler, their customs and beliefs. He gave one of the highest compliments to a nation of people about justice: Of all peoples the Negroes are those who most abhor injustice. The Sultan pardons no one who is guilty of it. There is complete and general safety throughout the land. The traveler here has no more reason than the man who stays at home to fear brigands, thieves or ravishers … The blacks do not confiscate the goods of any North Africans who may die in their country, not even when these consist of large treasures. On the contrary, they deposit these goods with a man of confidence … until those who have a right to the goods present themselves and take possession.

Once I heard an old woman in Mali utter words that I've treasured like rare pearls: "Never trust a guide to the Sahara. He is like Satan, cursed forever, because the Sahara doesn't like arrogance. Those who claim to know it must expect the inevitable punishment, death from thirst. Modesty is the only language the Sahara understands." A few years ago I met an Icelandic tourist who told me something extraordinary: that fishermen in the region where he lives don't know how to swim, because the safety of a shipwrecked man depends not on knowing how to swim but on obedience, submission, total resignation to the sea. There is no difference between the sea and the Sahara.