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R e v i e w
b y H u g h F o x
Eleishi's Tikitian
Imprints is fiction that reads like a blend of the Maya Popul Vuh,
Freud and St. Paul to the Corinthians: "Being limited at accurate
perception, humans were thus limited at sure knowledge and being limited
at knowledge they were thus limited at wisdom....They could not even
understand the reasons why they were brought to that planet in the first
place. They needed the Manual. They could not do it without the Manual,
the Manual of the earth." (p.158).
There is a plot, Habi
and Sheeba transported back to the Kenyan Tikitian valley in
Africa to see how man first started his existence on Planet Earth,
but plot is nicely submerged in vision, and the book emerges as a
classic overview of human limitations faced with the immense reality of
the world that surrounds him. I could see it become a kind of new bible
for a whole new humanistic religion.
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R e v i e w b y B o o k r e v i e w . c o
m 
In this thoughtful, if didactic treatise
Tikitian
Imprints,
author Hatem H. Eleishi contemplates the human struggle between our
innate impulses and the behavioral codes of human society, focusing on
the moral implications of that struggle, and the real reasons why we
behave in the ways we do. Central to his purpose is the desire to
demonstrate to the reader that much of our ostensibly positive social
behavior is based on compromises, a set of "give and take" social
contracts, not pure moral purposes. In pursuit of these goals, Mr.
Eleishi explores the turbulent feelings behind friendship, jealousy,
social contracts, sex, and beyond sex--the relationships between men and
women in society, and the responsibilities of each.
To convey these lessons, the author employs a
series of short portraits of individuals tormented by the internal
conflicts between their innate inner feelings and societal demands, and
the need to strike a moral balance in a confusing universe. Ultimately
he focuses on a fable-like tale of a man who is miraculously (and
perhaps mistakenly) placed, in Tikita, an area of ancient eastern Africa
by an angel called Halabai. This man, Habi, is fully grown when he
arrives on the planet, but he has no memory and his experience is a
blank slate. He leads a primitive, Adam-like existence in this African
landscape (complete with an Eve-like counterpart, Sheeba), until his
valley is invaded by members of a sophisticated and numerous society,
the Hikandans.
Eventually Habi and Sheeba join the newly
encountered Hikandans and make the difficult transition from their
original isolated Eden into the socially complex if still primitive
society of the Hikandans. In the process, the narrative begins to shift
from an illustrative Eden-like fable to a series of Socratic dialogs (a
little like those of Plato's Republic) in which some of Habi's Hikandan
male friends serve as mentors, delivering complex answers to his
questions about his inner feelings, the ramifications of those feelings,
the behaviors they produce in his relationships with others, and the
reasons for them as defined by nature and, ultimately, the creator.
Although Tikitian Imprints addresses many
subjects that have been explored for centuries by a host of writers,
prophets and philosophers, Eleishi's particular focus is a quest to
discover the moral truths that lie beneath the surface of "good" human
behavior and make them transparent to the reader, revealing the
compromises within. As Habi's mentor Auna observes: "To be pure is to
recognize our impurities." Mr. Eleishi believes that achieving this
understanding is vital if we are to come to terms with our mortality,
ensure the future our children will inhabit, and understand the bounty
of our creator. The author is aware that initially, not everyone will
appreciate his point of view.
Read more...
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