Mubarak Bala was born in Nigeria's Kano State, on the southern coasts of the Sahara Desert, in 1984. He was schooled in both the Islamic and modern education system. This makes him an outlier, since most families believe the two school systems are mutually exclusive. Boko, Western Education, is Haram, or unIslamic.
When Mubarak started doubting the existence of demons, he was told that displaying any doubt was denying the word of the prophet. When his beliefs evolved to atheism, he paid an enormous price for saying so publicly. We talk about his experiences and also about Nigerian society, the Humanist Association of Nigeria, and Mubarak’s plans for the future.
Read Mubarak’s essay, Resolve of a Right-Thinking Nation: https://www.thehuman.team/the-almajiri
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So what is to be done?
ReplyDeleteForeign outsiders should help with resources, if they can, and by offering platforms/megaphones, because an international presence is one of the few things keeping activists safe on the ground, as it's hard to disappear renowned people...
But it's the highly-accomplished, brilliant Nigerian diaspora that needs to work to change hearts and minds back home. Sociophysics is a powerful thing, and a refusal to go along to get along in as many nodes as possible can spread good ideas and change norms quickly. Foreign outsiders are less useful here, because they have fewer, if any, key connections, and the last thing African nations need is for them to stick their noses in...