2nd September, 2023
By Nehru Odeh
Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has again demanded the release of Mubarak Bala, a humanist who has been in prison for more than three years, after he was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment because he dumped Islam, the religion into which he was born, for atheism.
Mubarak was put behind bars eight months after he wedded his wife and six weeks after the birth of his son.
Soyinka also demanded the release of other prisoners of conscience, incarcerated in various prisons across the country, even though he mentioned Mubarak in particular because, according to him, he was the beginning of the struggle to free other prisoners of conscience.
“We know there are numerous others. We are just isolating one as the beginning of the struggle for the freedom of these individuals. Even before the Ilorin person, there are others in prisons, especially in the north, who have been put there by their relatives.
“Mubarak was declared to be insane because he said he no longer believed in the religion into which he was born. We are not isolating Mubarak. We are using him, just as we are using Deborah as an example of the martyred individual, just one among hundreds of others who were murdered and their murderers have not been punished.
Soyinka made the demands, with Isese traditional religion as the discourse, in a public exchange which held on Friday 1 September 2023 at Freedom Park in Lagos. The topic of the discourse was “Isese, Samarkand and other Markets of the Mind.
While referencing Mubarak, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, and the many others who have had their freedoms abridged, Soyinka threw more light on the universality and humanity of Isese religion, the annual festival of which was celebrated on 20 August 2023, and which led some governors in the South-west to declare the day a public holiday.
According to Soyinka, Isese is more than just a mere religion, as not only does it defined the well being of the individual in a community, it has always been with humanity from the beginning of time and was built on the principles of justice and tolerance.
Soyinka said Isese is not defined by mere observance of its festival, as the religion, which is a culture as well a philosophy (a term which Soyinka never wanted to use) is more than just mere observance.
Some of the salient features of Isese religion are its its universalist principles, its humanism and pursuit of the happiness of the individual components of society, which, according to him, makes the continued incarceration of Mubarak an aberration and calls for concern.
“Preoccupied with the larger, imponderable questions of existence, ISESE does not thereby neglect the particularized. Thus, it concerns itself with the fate of every unit that makes up community, and is innately bound to engage in questions such as: “What is a youth, by name MUBARAK BALA doing in prison?
“Recall, ISESE upholds the right to believe or not believe, thus the question is not trite, it is not academic, but is instantly catapulted from the particularized to the universal podium of Justice. How does a nation define itself, when a youth can be sentenced to waste his years of mental prowess in prison, for no crime beyond the right to believe or not believe.
“ISESE speaks to individual and collective conscience. ISESE calls on those misguided forgers of human chains to respond to a plain question: why is that youth, and undoubtedly numerous others, wasting away in hidden dungeons, for crimes that the very protocols of nation definition, known as the Constitution do not recognize. ISESE asks, WHEN is Justice? And what is that ensign worth, if it fails to fulfill the primary condition of social accreditation which is – Justice!” Soyinka maintained, adding that not only is justice the first condition of humanity, it walks hand in hand with tolerance.
The Nobel laureate quoted some verses from the Koran to buttress the fact that, like Isese, other religions are heavy on tolerance.
“Justice, for which another name is Equity, walks hand in hand with Tolerance. Tolerance is simply according others the right that we exercise on our own behalf. Do we need to seek far and wide to embrace the position of ISESE on the elementary virtue of Tolerance? Not in the least.
“In any neighbouring household to nearly every other dwelling in this nation, we shall encounter those whose Scriptures extol this very virtue. Listen to the following from the Quran.
“The first, from Chapter 2 Verse 256, commands: ‘Let there be no compulsion In religion: ‘ Permit me to repeat that, to drum it into the calcified eardrums of the incorrigible: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion.’
“Thus declared the Prophet Mohammed in his own person. Even further, from Chapter 10 Verses 99–100: ‘If it had been the Lord’s Will, they would all have believed—All who are on earth – Wilt thou compel mankind, against their will, to believe?’ That latter part once more, an unambiguous exhortation, even though couched rhetorically: “
Soyinka also used the opportunity to shed more light on Isese traditional religion as it relates to its universality, its humanity, the freedom it allows believers and non-believers alike to practice their faith, which it shares with other religions.
“ISESE has always been with humanity, and will remain for all eternity. The celebration of ISESE is not defined by an annual observance only, but as a presiding awareness, a daily companion that offers its essence for humanity’s harmonized co-existence.
“It transcends religion, since it calls to what is innate to all sentient beings, those strange advocates of Freedom who, paradoxically, nonetheless persist in fashioning chains for themselves and for their fellow beings.
“ISESE liberates. It is an expression of the collective human spirit, its enveloping, compassionate accommodation of human experience, yet one that strives towards the seemingly inaccessible, intuitively felt as an elevating dimension of one’s material estate.
“ISESE is a Path, not a destination, a seizure yet a pursuit of what we experience as the inner quest for ultimate illumination. ISESE does not conclude. neither does it exclude. It does not diminish, rather, it enlarges. It teaches community to embrace, explore, and adjust. It defends the right to believe or not believe, acknowledges the limitless variety of phenomena, both what is provable and non-provable.
“ISESE promotes, as foundational consciousness, gratitude for, and sanctity of human life. It repudiates the supremacist claim of any structure of spirituality over another. Content with the pursuit of inner serenity, which is the climax of, and extraction from celebration, ISESE does not seek to exercise power. All true religions know that celebration is prelude to community equilibrium.
Soyinka also said Isese traditional religion not only treads the path of peace, pursues peaceful causes, but also leaves its doors open to others.
“ISESE is not, has never been at war with any other commonwealth of beliefs – it is content to leave its doors open to the curious, the intrigued, and even the hostile. ISESE does not dictate, it does not maim or kill. We can only commiserate with those who confuse true religions with sinister cults that have sprung, ironically, from schisms within their own doctrinal certitudes.
“Cults, let us continue to instruct, are the malignant outgrowths of spiritual malformations. Symbols, such as religious statues are deployed to focus the mind on the ineffable.
“The genuine Path seekers must remain unwavering, and patiently await their detractors’ day of illumination. The Paths that lead to wisdom will survive them all, and continue to beckon to others as seekers after Truth, dedicated to the creation of the elevated community of man, woman and child.
“These constitute mere glimpses, albeit basic, into the heart of ISESE, and its abiding articles of faith. Because its precepts are humanistic and universal, ISESE can never be diminished. It is here for all eternity, Soyinka averred.
Soyinka said though Isese has come, it has not gone. He also used the occasion to express his appreciation to “human rights activists, community leaders, affronted citizens, advocates of equity and all – but the state governors most especially – who have taken history to task and boldly formalized a level playing ground for the exploration of the infinite, the realm of intuitions which exists across pedigree, borders, class, politics, social mechanisms and cultures.
“The battle is not over,” Soyinka noted. “There are those who feel compelled to indulge their obsessions through the co-option of public symbols and educational institutions. We must never weary of instructing them, of offering them gleanings from the threshing floor of millennia old and new transformative ideas, rescue them from centuries of false historicism, baseless fears, and will to dominate and/or flaunt an inglorious past of enslavement.