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NEWS/OD^e Clatlattt $iMt
Thursday, April 15, 2004
PMis iMeo discourages leen speeding
Continued from page 1A
“He was killed instantly,”
she says.
During lunch, more stu
dents wandered to the court
yard to get a glimpse of the
wrecked Porsche, which wid
travel with PhUls as she vis
its other schools. South
Mecklenburg is the first of
16 Charlotte-Mecklenburg
high schools where Phills
will share her story.
“I think some students will
take the message to heart,”
said Ashley Weidner, a
junior and member of the
Students Against
Destructive Decisions, or
SADD. “It’s important to
make kids more aware of the
consequences instead of just
telling them not to do it. If
they understand the conse
quences, then they’re more
likely to listen.”
Phills hopes her video will
drive home the anti-speed
ing message and make stu
dents and adults think about
the importance of life.
“Maybe Bobby was supposed
to be an all-star, but we’ll
never know,” she says. “AH of
you have a purpose to fulfill,
and we don’t want a bad
choice to keep you from
achieving it.”
According to Captain Dave
Haggett of the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Police
Department, speed-related
accidents are the leading
cause of death among high
school students. While Phills
admits the pain from her
husband’s death is still fresh,
she also believes her candid
anti-speeding message has
the potential to save lives.
“I never saw myself as a
motivationEd speaker, but
I’m here today,” says Phills,
who hopes to make this a
national campaign. “If I can
help save one, maybe two
lives, then I know my hus
band’s death was not in
vain.”
Phills left South Meek stu
dents, who’ve experienced
several traffic-related deaths
in the last year, with three
lessons: Obey your parents;
obey traffic laws and listen
to the little voice that recog
nizes a bad decision.
Phills’ next stop is Vance
High School on April 20.
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JOHNSTON YMCA GRANT
TIT
Age, elements cause Islamic
texts to crumble in Africa
By Edward Harris
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TIMBUKTU, Mah - Lit by
a sunbeam slanting through
his broken roof, a 16-year-old
Islamic student chants vers
es from a brittle, yellowing
page - one of an estimated 1
million ancient texts that
experts say are crumbling to
dust in this once-thriving
city of Islamic learning.
Twice in the past eight
years, conservationists
working to save the manu
scripts have come to this fly-
buzzed home of sand floors
and outdoor toilets, hoping
to buy the disintegrating
pages.
But while the family earns
no income and lives on hand
outs, it refuses to part with
its sole possession of value -
about 40 volumes with
ripped bindings and tom
pages, heaped in a medical
supphes box.
'The student, AUiousseini
Quid Alfadrou, cites the
Prophet Muhammad to
explain that holy writ cannot
be sold for money.
“So we’re obliged to keep
them,” Alfadrou says. “We’re
the ones who read them. It’s
written in these books:
Those who read them must
protect them.”
But scholars say irreplace
able Islamic texts represent
ing a historic era of Muslim
culture, including West
Africa’s unique part in it, are
decaying to obhvion in swel
tering homes.
Tens of thousands have
been rescued and put in safe
storage here and abroad, but
many more are scattered
around Timbuktu - private
heirlooms handed down
from parents to children over
the centuries.
The 'Timbuktu texts “are
probably among the most
important unused scholarly
materials in the world,” said
Chris Murphy of the U.S.
Library of Congress, who
was co-curator of an exhibi
tion of 23 of the manuscripts
in Washington last year.
Timbuktu today is city of
30,000 people surviving on
foreign aid, a spotty tourist
trade and sales of bricks.
Near-naked children with
dust-caked grins fill the
streets, and homes lack elec
tricity or plumbing. There’s
only one Internet connection
in the entire town.
But in the late 1300s, the
salt, spice and slave routes
were bringing wealth - and
Islam - to West Africa’s
northern desert. Timbuktu
grew into a city of 100,000
and an international seat of
learning.
'Timbuktu scholars penned
intricate Arabic-language
manuscripts about mathe
matics, poetry, medicine,
law, astronomy, zoology, his
tory and Islamic thought.
Centers such as this
helped preserve Western
learning during Europe’s
Dark Ages.
Perhaps the texts’ most
enduring legacy is what they
ten about the underpinnings
of West African Islam, which
folds in African influences
and is less austere than Arab
Islam.
“The contents of the texts
show very well, especially in
legal and political terms, the
working out of the desire of
West Africans to be Muslims,
but to keep things that are
important to them,” Murphy
said.
“You see it aU the time, the
struggle to be Muslim - but
in the West African manner.”
By the time Mali was colo
nized by France in the late
1800s, most commerce had
moved to coastal ports. Civil
strife further impoverished
the town.
For the famihes that own
them, the texts represent a
last link to a golden past,
even though few documents
are likely to be more than
200 years old. Older ones
likely would already have
crumbled, experts say.
“These books are from my
grandfather and we must
save them. 'They’re our only
inheritance,” says 48-year-
old Fatama Bocar Sambala,
serving rice and onions to
her five children.
Benefactors from the
United States, Europe and
South Africa have tried to
move the texts to safekeep
ing, but no large-scale, uni
fied effort has been
launched.
Up to 1 million may stiU
survive around Timbuktu,
say# Murphy, and perhaps 3
million across West Africa.
Mohamed Galla Dicko,
director of 'Timbuktu’s gov
ernment-financed Ahmed
Baba Institute museum,
says the 20,000 texts he
cares for in air-conditioned
rooms are ‘just a tiny part of
what’s out there.”
In 2000-01, his institute
made digital images of about
2,000 texts with $150,000
from the U.S.-based Ford
Foundation.
“If we had the money and
the family doesn’t want to
sell their manuscripts, we
could scan them and put
them on the Web,” Dicko
says.
He says the government
runs some awareness cam
paigns. For instance, it tries
to knock down the notion
that Quranic law prevents
the texts’ sale.
Tadjir Ahmed, a local
Islamic leader, says he sold
his books to Dicko’s institute
and private collectors
because he couldn’t care for
them properly, and with the
proceeds built a roomy
Quranic school with electric
ity for 60 students.
“Now, Tm missing the
books, but my children can
go to school and the books
are still in town,” says
Ahmed, 35, who has three
wives and four children.
“Others can keep theirs
until the termites eat them.
Tlien theyll have nothing.”
Appeals for Sudan aid
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations launched an
appeal Monday for $115 million in humanitarian aid for the
troubled Darfur region of western Sudan, where the U.N.
humanitarian chief says a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic
cleansing is taking place.
■ The appeal, which replaces a $23 million drive launched in
September, includes programs to provide food, health care,
agricultural assistance, rehef supphes, water, sanitation, edu
cation and protection for more than 700,000 people displaced
since fighting erupted early last year. On April 2, the United
Nations also laimched an appeal for over $30 mUhon to aid
110,000 Sudanese refugees who fled to neighboring Chad.
'The Sudanese government denies allegations by the U.N.
and human rights groups that Arab mihtia groups, reported
ly with Sudanese government backing, are engaged in ethnic
cleansing against Africans in Darfur.
Dena Jones, director of the
Johnston YMCA arts and
humanities program,
Inspects students’ work
during a grant presentation
by Charlotte-based
Wachovia Monday. The
bank donated $2 million to
the branch for community
programs.
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