Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 4:10:51 AM4/17/23
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    Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?

                                        A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

                                                                Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                    Screenshot (1098).png

                                                The President in the film, centre, flanked by his aides


                                              Picture by Ben Mark Holzberg in Explore Entertainment


Watching on Netflix the fictional film Designated Survivor, a sheer celebration and idealization of the US Presidency through visual and performative symbolism, plot, characterization and speech projecting the Presidency as a noble institution rooted in the convergence of intimate,  heterosexual family values and humanistic personal integrity, radiating outward to pastor the American people and care for the world through personal challenges the President may face, through national and international crisis, at one point I started crying bitterly, asking myself if I could be proud of my own country's history, institutions and values the way that films like this one project those of the US, idealized projections, but demonstrating some truth, and  reflecting  how many Americans see their country, in my view.

Against the background of the recurrent quotation of words of that most iconic of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, the pervasive use of images of past US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, evoking for those informed about their symbolism, the glories they are associated with, and the recurrent showing of famous paintings dramatizing great moments in US history, I asked myself, are there any Nigerian Presidents or heads of state I can’t point to as heroic, whatever their limitations, any events in Nigerian history that I understand as collectively agreed by the nation as great moments?

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 4:11:00 AM4/17/23
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Against the background of the recurrent quotation of words of that most iconic of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, the pervasive use of images of past US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, evoking for those informed about their symbolism, the glories they are associated with, and the recurrent showing of famous paintings dramatizing great moments in US history, I asked myself, are there any Nigerian Presidents or heads of state I can point to as heroic, whatever their limitations, any events in Nigerian history that I understand as collectively agreed by the nation as great moments?

Toyin Falola

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Apr 17, 2023, 4:17:59 AM4/17/23
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Mythologies of power!

Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted slavery, racism, massive destruction of the world in several locations, the military-industrial complex and the storage of the bomb that can kill you in far-away Lagos!

TF

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, April 17, 2023 at 3:10 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

    Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?

                                        A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

                                                                Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                    

 

                                                The President in the film, centre, flanked by his aides

 

                                              Picture by Ben Mark Holzberg in Explore Entertainment

 

Watching on Netflix the fictional film Designated Survivor, a sheer celebration and idealization of the US Presidency through visual and performative symbolism, plot, characterization and speech projecting the Presidency as a noble institution rooted in the convergence of intimate,  heterosexual family values and humanistic personal integrity, radiating outward to pastor the American people and care for the world through personal challenges the President may face, through national and international crisis, at one point I started crying bitterly, asking myself if I could be proud of my own country's history, institutions and values the way that films like this one project those of the US, idealized projections, but demonstrating some truth, and  reflecting  how many Americans see their country, in my view.

Against the background of the recurrent quotation of words of that most iconic of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, the pervasive use of images of past US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, evoking for those informed about their symbolism, the glories they are associated with, and the recurrent showing of famous paintings dramatizing great moments in US history, I asked myself, are there any Nigerian Presidents or heads of state I can’t point to as heroic, whatever their limitations, any events in Nigerian history that I understand as collectively agreed by the nation as great moments?

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 17, 2023, 8:25:39 AM4/17/23
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, 


You are so specific: “Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?” 


Ours, theirs, we, them, the crash of civilizations, the clash of ignorance


Adam!


Black & Proud  - say it out loud! 


Of course,  “our “ has a much wider application  -  Sierra Leone, Ghana, Pan-Africa, let’s make it global. The tension between nightmare and reality is universal. Change of government, change of climate, climate change,  change of crying and shmiling, we are all in the same boat/ Noah’s ark /same planet 


With what justification can we say that “The government you elect is the government you deserve ”( Thomas Jefferson) may be applicable to the United States but at this stage of the nation’s evolution, perhaps not to the Federal Republic of Nigeria? 


It’s the kind of question that cropped up whilst following yesterday’s Conversation on 2023 Nigeria’s Elections, educative in the extreme, even for the indocile like me, brilliant panellists especially those two ladies ( are they married?), brilliantly moderated, brilliantly down-to-earth, accessible ( wholly intelligible) and concrete - as when we’re talking to the Almighty Himself, not a time to blow big grammar ( human arrogance) - never -  fast forward to the hour of utter humility, especially on the fast approaching “Day of Judgement” when the hubris of even a senator's or a saint’s spiritual conceit will sink to the dust beneath its knees and maybe even appeal with the pater noster, not in Latin but with the heartbeats of  the heart-felt mother tongue learnt as a suckler at his and her holy mother’s breast, so that if Joe Biden really believed in “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”, he’d stop sending billions of dollars weapons to Zelensky in order to deliver more death and destruction  - instead of turning the other cheek and actually loving his “ enemies” / fellow human beings…


It’s the kind of question that wouldn’t have to crop up if there was ( by any miraculous, even supernatural means)  the brain drain from Nigeria to the US and the UK were to be reversed overnight, then President Tinubu would hit the ground running, get cracking with his government of national competence.! Then Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju and crew would start feeling Black and Proud again, or for the very first time start feeling “ proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs” !!!!! 


On that kind of trajectory, Nigeria could soon be sending a few Nigerian astronauts to Jupiter. We have been made to understand that the rocket that just took off last week will take eight years to arrive there! When I heard this I made a note to ask my Nigerian pastor how much further is heaven and how long does he think it took Jesus to ascend all the way back, bodily? 


 My answer is: instantaneous - like the Isra and Mi'raj


By the way, in my opinion,  yesterday's conversation on Nigeria’s 2023 Elections would have been perfect if only the two missing ingredients could have been added to the sauce. The two missing ingredients: 


Alhaji Atiku  - number two,

and sour grapes number 3, 

Peter Obi. 


The very last I read about him was that he is “ the conscience of Nigeria”.   


Just in case you think that I’m in any way “ anti-Igbo or Igbophobic let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth!  On this people's planet, I can guarantee that my dear friend from way back - Bishop Titus Akanabu - can vouchsafe the contrary on behalf of yours truly. 


Should you care to answer the question, please consider what Sabine Hossenfelder says here  about that cosmic phenomenon with such far-reaching consequences:  Collective stupidity 

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 8:30:16 AM4/17/23
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Oga TF,

With all due respect, sir, a  problem with your response may be summed up as ''how should the possessor of a nine fingered hand respond to discussions of such anomalies?'' adapting a Yoruba proverb Abiodun invokes in Yoruba Art and Language.

Please allow me explicate this delicate point. 

Your response to my post about US self celebration of its Presidency, history and institutions in that film, describing it as idealized but significantly factual, wondering if i can be proud of my own country along similar lines,  is

1. '' Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted slavery'' yet, you, who as a historian are better informed than me about that inhumanity, chose to leave the motherland you and I share in that continent that provided the source of the US's dehumanizing trade in slaves across centuries, reverberations of which continue to resonate till today, to spend most of your adult life in that very country that so brutally enslaved our people.

Why?

The answer to that question will help us assess  to what degree  the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and institutions are mythologies of power.



 2. ''Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted...racism'', yet, after witnessing the recurrent unjustified killings of Black people by police in that very country, after witnessing how one of the most illustrious Black scholars in that nation, Henry Louis Gates Jr, was unfairly targeted at his home because of doubts that the home belonged to him, handcuffed and led off  by police since they were not happy with the response to their queries by the unarmed, middle aged man using a walking stick, the Black, but actually  half Black, half Caucasian President Barack Obama describing the polices' act as ridiculous but was later compelled to apologize to the police and invite Gates and the Caucasian police officer to lunch at the White House, you did not publicly respond in disgust to what some may see as that show of double standards and make a public protest, to the best of my knowledge,  talk less return to Nigeria, where such an anomaly is most unlikely to occur.

You are likely, like other Black members of the US  middle class, to have realized that your sterling achievements and social standing would not help much if you did not abide by certain unfair rules, and like one of Gates' Harvard colleagues described himself as doing, made sure that his house ownership papers are always in an easily accessible location near his door so he can show them when required, and like Nigerian immigrant scholar to the US, Sylvester Ogbechie  stated on his blog, made sure that his vehicle papers are readily accessible in his car so he could readily provide them when asked by police, and if he needed to produce anything from the car when demanded, he would ask permission first, while keeping his hands visible in full view of the police, all these to alleviate fears or claims that he could be reaching for a gun, rules Black people in particular, it seems, have learnt to follow, since following them could mean the difference between life and death.

In Nigeria, such horrors are much less likely  but you have not returned to live in Nigeria but prefer  to visit and return to the US. 

Why?

The answer to that question will help us assess  to what degree  the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and  institutions are mythologies of power.


3.  ''Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted...massive destruction of the world in several locations, the military-industrial complex and the storage of the bomb that can kill you in far-away Lagos!''

Yet, not disgusted with what seems like such an inhuman culture, such bastardization of human possibility, you take advantage of the technological power underpinning those military potencies and initiatives, of the human possibility amplifying construction of social systems of which that military power is one expression, built as it is on the contributions of a globally sourced conglomeration of immigrants, from the German WW2 rocket scientists eventually central to US rocketry after WW2 to Elon Musk from South Africa, you creating your own egalitarian research and publication near global empire within the belly of  US cultural and educational culture as part of the globally dominant Western culture and educational, social and technological system. 

Why?

Among your most recent publications in the last five years are stringent efforts to foreground non-Western and particularly African agency in the face of Western cultural imperialism, empowered as it has been by Western political, military and economic imperialism, a globally dominant force of which the US is the centre, yet these books are published by Western publishers, mainstream publishers, not rebel, fringe publishers explicitly distancing themselves from those hegemonic orientations, and yet you are likely being rewarded for those publications by the  US university you work in, an employment position greatly facilitating those productions.

Is this a contradiction or a creative integration of contraries into a unity?

The answers to these questions will help us assess  to what degree  the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and  institutions are mythologies of power.


thanks


toyin





 

Toyin Falola

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Apr 17, 2023, 8:41:06 AM4/17/23
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A proverb that applies:

 

Don’t envy a beautifully dressed woman, ask her for the tailor and buy one for your wife!!

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 17, 2023, 9:18:54 AM4/17/23
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,


I never tell you finish. 


Be honest and deny any of the following, if you can: 


You would be proud if


The naira was stronger than the dollar

the Swiss Franc, the Yen, the Ruble,

the Euro, the Israeli New Shekel and the

£Pound Sterling. 

 

You would be proud if


Boko Haram converted through a change of heart

you became best friends with the Fulani Herdsmen

You started singing about the glories of  Islamic Art 


We all said no to identity politics, tribalism & religious bigotry

there was 100% peace and love, endless big booty and we all ate

from gold plates


 it was wholly a government of the people for the people

by the people, every Nigerian citizen that was eligible to vote had an identity card 

and a social security number and you only had to spend less than a minute in the queue

like the last  fourteen times I voted in Sweden , the counting was digitalised and the results with a margin or error that’s less than 001% were announced within 48 hours, Obi and Atiku were the first to phone and congratulate Tinubu, and Nigeria's universities were at the top of the World League 


The Creator Has a Master Plan 

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 9:56:59 AM4/17/23
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Not envying you prof. Trying to emulate you instead, without having to migrate to the US.

Not envying the US, either, just aspiring to take from it what is uplifting.

Anyway, the point i was making is ''can we dismiss US self celebration as pure propaganda and mythologising?''

All the points you made against the US are well known but people keep flocking there anyway.

why?

thanks

toyin


Toyin Falola

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Apr 17, 2023, 11:32:43 AM4/17/23
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Once you release a text, you have no control over its interpretation.

I was actually saying that don’t limit yourself to mythologies, which that Series portrays, but the underbellies. But your reply took it personal, which means you are still a wonderful Nigerian afterall!!

No country has been more successful than the US in constructing the idea of the “dream”.

There are homeless people on the streets!

And African kings also created mythologies similar to what you are praising. The grandiose of the Alaafin escalated to the heavens until the system began to collapse in the last years of the 18th century.

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 17, 2023, 11:33:25 AM4/17/23
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Not to address reasons why a successful academic historian would want to live in the u.s. instead of nigeria, it has been historically the case that people from poorer countries have sought employment in richer countries, period. At times nigeria was that richer country, when ghanaians or niger-ians, or burkinabe or cameroonians sought work there. There are few places in the world where this hasn’t been true. Even in the cases of israelis migrating to the u.s.
I have an -inlaw younger man now living in germany, rather than chicago. For periods of my life i lived in france or senegal or cameroon, and in all cases considered living them. Family and job kept me returning to east lansing.
I would not take a hollywood depiction of american greatness seriously for anything. As toyin f remarked, the flaws and abuses that great power states have committed are commensurate with their power and wealth, and the wars, including ukraine today, remind us of that ugly side of humanity, wealth, and power. 

The real issue i think, besides this obvious appeal of wealth, is quality of life, and for many life in africa has its human compensations
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 9:55:47 AM

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 11:33:37 AM4/17/23
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may we get there

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Toyin Falola

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Apr 17, 2023, 11:43:43 AM4/17/23
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Ken:

Nigeria remains a magnet for people in the Sahel. Many more people enter Nigeria than those who leave!

The dream of Tuaregs is to live in Nigeria, just as a young man's dream near Adepoju’s house is to live in the US.

One myth is that Africans migrate in large numbers to the West. Nothing can be further from the truth. Internal movement is far greater.

Those in the southern parts of Nigeria have more mouths (to use a popular Nigerian word which is not approved in British English) than those in the north, and they drown others in their representations of reality

Bunmi fatoye-matory

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Apr 17, 2023, 12:18:39 PM4/17/23
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Indeed, Professor Falola.  Here is a heart-wrenching story we all woke up to this morning, the kind conveniently ignored by American myth-makers, the murderous underside of white Americans and the complete disregard for black lives and humanity.

Ralph, 16, is described as a music scholar who plays many instruments.  His family describes him as a very responsible and kind boy.  He's planning to take a gap year in West Africa before going to Texas A&M to study chemical engineering.  He was helping his parents to pick up his two little twin brothers and rang the wrong doorbell.  He was shot in the head twice by the homeowner and when he ran to seek help from his neighbors, they did not help him.  He's lying in the hospital.  Let's pray for his full recovery.




Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Apr 17, 2023, 2:43:38 PM4/17/23
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Five reasons why migrants flock to 
the US:

1. The multiplying /multiplier effects
 of the US Dollar,  when remittances
are sent to relatives in regions of
origin- a feature that is not necessarily 
permanent,  with the looming demise
of the petrodollar.

2.  To escape the effects of US
militaristic activities and interference,
 outside of the US. Western 
countries are often doves at home,
 relatively speaking,  and tigers 
and crocs abroad.
This is particularly applicable 
to Central/South America.

3.  In response to hyper -successful 
marketing and soft power activities,
through a number of agents and
agencies that underplay prevalent
massive suicides, mass incarceration,
homelessness of about half a 
million people, and mass shootings,
in the US- on a daily basis.

mass-shootings-days-2023-database-
shows/story?id=96609874


2022/01/07/pandemic-pressure-
doctors-highest-rates-suicide/


homelessness-in-america/
homelessness-statistics/
state-of-homelessness/

The  demonstration effects,
exuberance and triumphalism 
of the small minority who made 
it on the backs of other 🦀 
crabs in the barrel, or by
means of extraordinary prowess,
good and bad, should be 
noted as well.

4. Perceptions of political 
stability, now shaken by Jan 6 
invasion of the US Congress by 
weaponized mobs.

5.  Poor governance in the original 
home countries - sometimes
related to #2.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 9:55 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
 

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 2:44:18 PM4/17/23
to Emeagwali, Gloria (History), usaafricadialogue
African scholars are migrating in large nos  to the US inspite of all its negativities, and yet it is bejng claimed that glorifications of the US are largely myth.

Really?

Harrow is exclusively  referencing the pull of richer countries.

Why are economic giant China and oil rich Saudi Arabia not choice immigration destinations for many as the US is? 

There is a Nigerian pidgin saying that goes "when person senior you, e senior you".

We should give credit where credit is due.

Thats why I asked Falola those questions in response to his focus on US negativities while neglecting the positives that led him and others like him  there and are keeping them there.

If Elon Musk had migrated from SA to England he is not likely to be the technology pioneer he is today. 

Europe does not seem to have the ecosystem for that kind of achievement.

The differences in social, economic, political and technological development across time that led to those differences might not be difficult to trace.

Just as the differences in those comparative histories that led to the Industrial Revolution occurring in England and Germany and later the US becoming modern pioneers in rocketry, instead of China  where rocketry first emerged might not be difficult to trace.

I described the film as celebrating the US Presidency and the country's history and institutions in ways that are significantly idealistic but also significantly factual,in both the idealizations and facts projecting an image that resonates with many Americans.

The film bases itself on echoes of the broad outlines of US history and an idealized image of the US Presidency, the image often projected by the US govt to the world, the image of itself as "leader of the free world" an expression invoked without qualification twice at least in the first season yet the informed watcher knows that is a highly qualifued understanding of the US, but one its interesting to compare with the film's navigation between fiction and history.

Central  to the film is the depiction of the deep humanity of the President, centred in his life as a father and husband, that tight intimacy constituting his moral and emotional core, from which centre he engages the myriad, unanticipatable crises of the world.

That depiction of marital intimacy at its best develops the ideal of heterosexual union central to the contemporary construction of the US Presidency.

There was once a bachelor President, I understand but such a possibility is remote now it seems, for reasons im only able to guess at.

A same sex couple in the White House or a transgender President are also not likely in the near future.

How does the ideal of heterosexual union embodied by the image of the Presidency and amplified by this film resonate with the idea of harmony between couples generally that ideal has as its core and why is this ideal not more broadly embraced across all kinds of unions  in the ideology of the Presidency?

Radiating from this central social reflection and idealization is the films dramatization of a post-Cold War and post 9/11 US film  universe, in which,unlike in Cold War era films perhaps, the enemy other is no more a foreign govt such as the Soviet Union but rogue forces within the US itself or even within its govt.

One  can watch the TV series, as Im doing on Netflix, with a critical eye, enjoying the balance between history and fiction, between historical and idealogical interpretations in various contexts while thrilling to the sheer exciting action of the film, domestic espionage, domestic terrorism, national and international political intrigues resonating with the poetry of combat,  the beauty of guns in their deadliness, of killing and saving, criminal wits pitted against the minds of FBI justice warriors, fun, fun, fun!

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Apr 17, 2023, 2:44:56 PM4/17/23
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“you take advantage of the 
technological power underpinning 
those military potencies and 
initiatives….. as 
part of the globally dominant 
Western culture”.



 The simplistic version
of this is -why do you 
criticize the West, if you
live there? By implication,
sycophancy and “obedience”
(that could lead to fascism 
according to Biko) are 
prerequisites for living in
a region.

 Really?I totally disagree.

Interestingly, the series”Designated
Survivor” is a favorite of mine,
but for opposite reasons, namely,
the exposure of the intrigues, 
guile and deceit
underlying “ the mythologies
of power,” as TF states it.





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 5:59 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

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Oga TF,

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 17, 2023, 3:58:05 PM4/17/23
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im also puzzled when at times reading the way African scholars working in the West address the subject of decolonization of the Western academy.

Im yet to see recognition of the growth of that system as the primary enabler of its own decolonization, by giving room for such scholarship to exist and thrive within it. 




On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 20:16, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:
''I asked Falola those questions in response to his focus on US negativities while neglecting the positives that led him and others like him  there and are keeping them there.'''



David Agogo

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Apr 17, 2023, 4:27:03 PM4/17/23
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When I was in university, navigating the hard parts of male female interactions, me and my male friends, which are happily married today, had an appellation for a certain class of woman. Fine from far, but far from fine. 

Any office must be evaluated from its net impact on societal progress, not only their self presentation in media they control. 

Dr Agogo


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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 17, 2023, 7:35:07 PM4/17/23
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Another aside: 


In my view, it’s time to call for a halt/ceasefire / put a stop to this neo-colonial inferiority complex: 


“Why Can’t  I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?” ( Toyin Adepoju)


How would Brother Molefi Asante and the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan respond to such a question from a twenty-first-century African? 


If it’s to beat all tolerated as serious, then it’s a very painful question from someone who celebrates the Benin bronzes, to be asking any great cultural chauvinist whether Yourba, Creole, Igbo, African-American, Caribbean, Hausa, Fulani, Kalabari, Idoma, Efik, Ibibio, Bariba or even a proud barbarian from “ No Man’s Land” 


Surely there’s much in Nigeria’s history to admire, great people such as Usman dan Fodio and King Jaja of Opobo for instance, and as for great & vibrant cultural institutions among the Yoruba for example, we could glorify them all day long. 


What good could come out of Nazareth? - sounds dangerously close to  “What good can come out of Africa ?” - and of course OLuwatoyin V. Adepoju is not the kind of African that could possibly be asking that kind of question, not even in jest, for the simple reason that everything an everyone - you name him or her, originally came from Africa ( including Alexander  Hamilton) 


BTW; for me, it would be enough if Nigeria won the FIFA World Cup, for example…


With regard to the monetary incentive   - the search for greener pastures etc, sadly this is the current state of affairs many would-be migrants find themselves in a watery grave known as the Mediterranean Sea; Europe's migration policies in chaos as arrivals surge...


In this presentation ( Eye of Africa) Dr. Ousmane Sangho addresses the problem of some people  who have a penchant for awarding titles  such as “the Kant”  and “the Shakespeare of Africa “,” the Picasso of Madagascar”  etc etc 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Apr 17, 2023, 7:35:07 PM4/17/23
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This is a version of the claim
often made by  colonial apologists
 that  Africans should 
thank  the colonizers for 
independence since African 
nationalists made use
of tools acquired from
colonial rule and agents,
such as missionaries -
a rather twisted, convoluted, 
circular argumentation. Since 
Africans have “agency,” Ochonu’s 
pet term, wouldn’t Africans not be
sensible, rational, and normal
 enough, to resist and fight against 
forms of oppression, 
 including the toxic legacies of 
colonization, through
decolonization processes
and methodologies.

In any case, a system should not
be congratulated for unwittingly 
sowing the seeds of its own 
destruction.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way is that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
 

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Apr 17, 2023, 9:49:48 PM4/17/23
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The American dream is both a myth and a reality. It is a mythologized reality. It's a reality because the US, for all its problems and flaws, offers, in our world today, the greatest aggregate set of opportunities for human flourishing, individual self-actualization, and professional and financial ascendancy. The distribution of such opportunities is of course not entirely equitable or meritorious, but the US is arguably one of the few countries that have come closest to a meritocracy. It's not because it the US is the fairest or most humane society but because giving room to immigrants and lower-class citizens to climb the socioeconomic ladder, no matter how constrained that room may be, is the raison d'etre of the US, a self-interest gesture, the myth of its founding, the anchor for its claimed greatness. 

Which brings me to the mythical element in the idea of the American dream. America is held together not so much by the much-vaunted social contract as by the illusory and, for most people, elusive promissory claim that if one works hard and plays by the rule one can become rich, successful, and that one can exit one's current lowly station and join the ranks of the American elite. 

The truth is that this is rarely true. The other truth is that many people do and will continue to do all of the above and will never attain the promised socioeconomic mobility because they do not possess the advantages that others possess and because there is a structure--largely unacknowledged--that, some exceptions aside, keeps the most consequential advantages and privileges contained within a small circle. Another factor is a skewed reward system that disproportionately rewards white collar labor while exploiting blue collar labor.

Nonetheless, America exists in relative inter-class harmony because most Americans from the Middle and lower classes are comforted and quieted by the belief that their time may come and that it is possible to climb up, and they largely accept the foundational axiom that America is by and large fair and recognizes and rewards hard work, excellence, and merit.

The story of Ralph Yarl posted by Bunmi is heartbreaking and scary. It made me think of when, as a twenty something year old migrant to this country, I knocked on many wrong doors and strangers' doors to get emergency help, use the phone, ask for directions, or because I missed an address. I could have been shot. What a country!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC76%2B8vz%2B%3D6vGeUTCdej%2BRS5HA6k3Q7qvkTG3LuroyZEV%3DXafw%40mail.gmail.com.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 17, 2023, 9:50:02 PM4/17/23
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To whom it may concern :  The Tragedy Of White Injustice by Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 18, 2023, 3:30:11 AM4/18/23
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I’ve learned somewhere or other than climbing the social-economic ladder in france—and probably in europe—is actually easier, more common, than in the u.s. the gulf of privilege moses alludes to in the u.s. keeps social and economic classes much more rigidly apart than elsewhere.
The myth of the american dream…. 
Ken
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Toyin Falola

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Apr 18, 2023, 3:42:05 AM4/18/23
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Ken:

From my observations in various Western countries, including France (especially north of Paris where you see Africans selling tomatoes by the street side), Peckham in London (a slum similar to Agege in Lagos) [apologies to Agege as it is one of my favorite places to understand Nigerian politics and relate to “Area Boys” where I collect street language], African immigrants may be better off in the US than in Europe:

  1. Poverty and low income are usually homogenized but not so in practice. The poor/low class in the US is better than in other locations. They are still poor in the context of where they live, but the representation may move them to the lower middle-class/middle class in other locations.
  2. Educational opportunities provided by trade centers and community colleges allow the acquisition of skills that translate to social mobility.

My two points above are based on quantitative data I have collected but will write about in the future.

 

TF

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 18, 2023, 7:57:11 AM4/18/23
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'' Black issues may be seen as  addressed through showing Blacks competently active in prominent positions.''

im not suggesting that is adequate, from what ive seen so far, in the first season. i'm only trying to interpret the ideology of a film  most of whose characters are Caucasian or have skin like those of Caucasians, that term being the best i know.  


On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 11:45, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:
I was subconsciously hoping for an effort at a balanced analysis  like that one from Ochonu.

Responding to Cornelius, the history of Nigeria's various ethnic groups is not identical with the history of Nigeria.

I was asking about Nigeria as a nation constituted by those ethnic groups.

There are a good no of inspiring aspects of Nigerian history.

To what degree are these aspects achieved in spite of the system or because of it and to what degree have they been sustained, demonstrating socio-economic and historical continuity?

That film does not celebrate isolated achievements in US history. It celebrates the country as a system that works through the efforts of various people working to advance the nation.

I'm yet to see any reference to Native Americans and the dispossession of their land that has made the US possible. Black issues may be seen as  addressed through showing Blacks competently active in prominent positions. 

One may argue that mythology and nationalistic ideology are central to making a nation.

The cinematography of that film, its use of visual elements, of images of landscape, architecture and painting, in particular, dramatize a running embedding of the film's action in symbols of US history, in visual evocations of great moments and iconic figures and locations in that history,  symbols that I expect many Americans identify with.

A recurrent image is that of Lincoln, a portrait of him permanently located in the Oval Office, if i recall correctly, and the President in the film often shown positioned in relation to that painting, a visual centering reinforced by at least two quotes from Lincoln in the films first season, where i am at the moment.

Im asking myself, is there any Nigerian head of state or President I can relate to the way i expect a good no of Amerians or those of them who know US history relate to Lincoln, who has become such a mythic figure that he ranks with such American folkloristic characters  as Brer Rabbit, various imagined adventures constructed  for him in US folklore, as one article puts it if i recall correctly?

Can I point to any nation defining vision by any Nigerian leader at that level akin to even if not identical with Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address declaration, if i have the name right, ''Government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the Earth''?

IBB once used a term that struck me ''realistic visionaries.'' Does IBB's political trajectory inspire me?

Can Buhari, for example, and I have the same  or similar or correlative heroes in Nigerian history? To what degree  are such founding figures of Nigeria as the Sardauna, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and Zik nationalistic or ethnic heroes?

The film also celebrates the FBI. 

I expect a significant part of that celebration is factual.

To what degree can I be proud of Nigeria's DSS, given clear state complicity in the persistence of Boko Haram Islamic terrorism and Fulani imperialist terrorism? 

Im reading on this thread about social mobility. I hope its realized that many people in Nigeria do not have water provided by the state and often have to generate their own electricity? 


thanks

toyin


 







Toyin Falola

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Apr 18, 2023, 8:07:56 AM4/18/23
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Adepoju:

The questions you pose lead you to a certain set of answers.

                                    Error! Filename not specified.

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 18, 2023, 4:11:18 PM4/18/23
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Toyin, african immigrantsa in the u.s. constitute a relatively highly educated, not to say motivated class. They did not come over on leaky deadly boats from libya.
K
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Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 7:59:39 AM

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 18, 2023, 8:20:41 PM4/18/23
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''african immigrants in the u.s. constitute a relatively highly educated, not to say motivated class. They did not come over on leaky deadly boats from libya.''

how do you relate that to this context, Ken?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR12MB84362952FA6DBA242E228694DA9D9%40SN7PR12MB8436.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 18, 2023, 8:20:56 PM4/18/23
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Among the G7 economies, Germany is the most socially mobile, ranking 11th with 78 points followed by France in 12th position. Canada ranks 14th followed by Japan (15th), the United Kingdom (21st), the United States (27th) and Italy (34th).

Among the world’s large emerging economies, the Russian Federation is the most socially mobile of the BRICS grouping, ranking 39th with a score of 64 points. Next is China, which ranks 45th, followed by Brazil (60th), India (76th) and South Africa (77th).




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Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 3:54:33 PM

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 18, 2023, 9:32:46 PM4/18/23
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One Phone Call/Street Scenes (2022 Remaster) - YouTube

Two choir boys: Simon and Garfunkel: AMERICA


Jefferson Airplane - Good Shepherd


All the people in this thread are invited to think about what JFK once said ;


 “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country"


No big grammar Malcolm X put it so succinctly for those concerned to understand: 


 “We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us.”


He was definitely not talking about the big kahunas, the Falolas, the Waribokos, and the Okeke-Agulus who arrived by air several centuries after the original Pilgrim Fathers arrived on the Mayflower, and the kidnapped Africans who survived The Middle Passage, arrived as human cargoes on other kinds of ships, whereas the aforementioned 20th - 21st century academic Nigerians who voluntarily arrived by air, each with a bag full of PhDs and other degrees as hand luggage, are consequently at least aware of their own personal histories and have their own unique perspectives and trajectories. For a surety, some of the Johnny Just Come will insist that in their circumstances, much better than shuffering and shmiling, leaving Africa for America was the coolest thing to do, because the situation at home was so hopeless, and in the name of self-interest, maybe, also in the name of the national interest, Pan-Africanism, etc, Moses Ochonu using some Big English would like to assure us all that Uncle Sam, after all, offers “ the greatest aggregate set of opportunities for human flourishing, individual self-actualization, and professional and financial ascendancy.”


What I’m about to say here is nothing new, it’s common knowledge, I’m not on the path of disagreement or direct confrontation, it’s just another aside that can be conveniently brushed aside, a reflective response/ commentary on what Don Ochonu has been telling us about “The American Dream”, and his is an honest, straightforward take, not a reinvention of the wheel,  an argumentum ad misericordiam or a rehashing and recharging of the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King’s wishful thinking so famously expressed back in 1963, his  I Have  Dream reported as “ a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States”


Home remittances to Africa which contribute in no small measure to the economic betterment of many African countries is a big plus. Otherwise, a main reservation about the mass emigration from Africa to North America ( “ Bigger and Better”)  is also the usual opposition to the idea of people not staying home to help build their counties but wanting to go to the US and Canada, etc to enjoy some of the ready-mades and to help build the already developed, in defiance of “ charity begins at home.”


Despite Hiroshima, tribalism, racial tensions, and anti-semitism. gun laws, the various assassinations of Malcolm, Dr. King, John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedtý, the prison-industrial complex, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, the Black Panthers, COINTELPRO, Hurricane Katrina, 911,¨the US has surged ahead, and I can’t complain or blame them for making Barack Hussein Obama a two-term president


Racism, Rodney King, George Floyd, well,  I just viewed the BBC reporting the very latest incident: Andrew Lester charged with shooting boy who rang wrong doorbell and as Don Ochonu just told us (unquestionable first-person testimony),  “ I knocked on many wrong doors and strangers' doors to get emergency help, use the phone, ask for directions, or because I missed an address. I could have been shot. What a country!” Lucky bugger! 


We have been given to understand that psychological hedonism is consistent with human nature and that for even “folks without souls,'' it's something like a religious principle that awakens a tremendous longing within, hence we have the song “ Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” and from Ochonu’s definition the nearest to heaven down here on mother earth is to be found in the United States, hell is to be found in some other place - so it’s logical that in the name of self-preservation, the realization of dreams, mythologies. a man sets out to look for what he cannot find at home, armed with the unshakeable belief that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” -  which explains why, given just half a chance, everybody, all of poor Africa from each and every b and s-hole country - no mythology -  would like to emigrate to the land of milk and honey, the promised land, and you, therefore, need to look no further for an explanation for economic migrants, economic refugees, the brain-drain - after all, it’s written at the feet of the statue of liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor,  your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


And, of course, for African folks like Ochonu, it’s not Nigeria, but the United States of America that is the Promised Land, even though it’s being claimed by some of the Pentecostal Pastors that it’s Jerusalem and not Washington DC that has a direct phone line to the Almighty, and that that’s where THE LIGHT is going to spread from JERUSALEM!


So why is everybody not heading to Jerusalem by any means necessary, camel backpack, boat, Musk Rocket, or by Air the way the crow flies?  


Slavery has long since been over, and while a whole lotta Africans are all set for trying their luck through the Green Card Lottery, the good news is that the Back-to -Africa movement is still very much alive, and a whole lot of born and bred African-Americans are returning to Africa….



Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 19, 2023, 5:30:32 PM4/19/23
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if i wasn't clear enough before, i'll try to say this more directly. the position of africans in the united states is pretty strong—especially with education and the accoutrements that come with it, opportunities, economic advancements etc. the situation is much worse for african americans, as a whole, who are much more victims of systemic racism, which translates into poorer housing, education, wealth, opportunities for advancement etc.
it shouldn't be this way, but the designation "black" misleads one into thinking these two communities are the same. not so.  perhaps this is less so in europe where many many recent immigrants are coming under much more desperate circumstances than those who come to the u.s.
let's put it this way: taking a rickety boat to europe is one thing; getting a visa to come to the u.s. is altogether another.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 5:15 PM

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 19, 2023, 5:31:00 PM4/19/23
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“ America” and  “If I Had a Hammer” by Trini Lopez. 


Amiri Baraka : The X Is Black


Some of the matters arising from the starter candle, the header of this thread.


I imagine that in some people’s minds being appointed a tenured professor at some backwater college or other is enough to make them giddy ( “ Just see how far I have cone!!!”)  believing themselves to be elevated far above the scum and the vermin distantly known as fellow human beings from S-hole countries not to mention those who they despise as not wanting to avail themselves of all the opportunities to pursue a higher education in the land of milk, booty, and honey…


I would have guessed that once you’re committed to being a good American, isn’t it enough to espouse “The Protestant Ethic”


All this talk about ”lower-class citizens”, “ upward mobility”, “ financial ascendancy.”, and if I may so add, creative living - in my view a very good reason for relocating to the United States (hit the tarmac running on day one) you’d have thought that the African Diaspora in North America would be visibly united by colour, tribe, race, anti-racism , just as ( think of Joe Biden currently in Ireland, hustling the Irish vote in the US)  - the Irish-American, and there’s, of course, the NATIVE AMERICANS, various  Anglo-Saxon clans,  the I-talian Americans, German-Americans, the Hispanics, the various tribes the John Birch Society and of course the various shades and strands of Africa-America including the recently naturalised Johnnys Just Come Lately from Nigeria who salute the flag and all that, some of whom  I suppose remain Nigerian ( Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Igbo) at heart…


To begin with I’d like to disentangle/deconstruct these lyrical lines from Bob Dylan’s INFIDELS album ( song no 6, “ Sweetheart like you”)


“They say that patriotism is the last refuge

To which a scoundrel clings

Steal a little and they throw you in jail

Steal a lot and they make you king” 


“They say”?  Who says? Well, it was nobody less than Samuel Johnson who said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”and it’s the kind of statement that should make not only treasonous and bonehard Nigerian nationalists feel uncomfortable. The late Leonard Cohen already exculpated and extricated himself from any posthumous charge of treason when he declared in “ Democracy” 👍


“I'm sentimental if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight

Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

That time cannot decay

I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet

Democracy is coming to the USA

To the USA”


And please don’t forget - and it’s very important to note that just like Oscar Peterson, Joni Mitchell, and Madagascar Slim, Leonard Cohen is/was Canadian, not US-American.


And, talking about countries, best countries, happiest countries - such as Finland, most racist countries, promised land,  promised lands, “occupied territories”  - the competing interpretations of Resolution 242 ( and if Mr. Netanyahu messes with the Palestinian Nation after this 2023 Ramadan, to begin with,  it’s doubtful that his premiership will survive) just as, once upon a time, according to one Chinua Achebe, once upon a time “There was a country” and then there’s the no man’s land debacle almost bordering on treason when we have distinguished Lady Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing to her Big Daddy Joe Biden, her imagined Chief of Staff of the World’s Military Police, begging him to annul his Mazel Tov to our President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, popularly embraced as the JAGABAN of the people! 


I have to exercise superhuman restraint, lest I make some unregrettable comparisons that  inevitably spring to mind, more vicious than the BACKLASH  - some of the comments lashing Wole Soyinka for poking his nose into British Affairs: Wole Soyinka: Commonwealth should investigate UK over Brexit ( Check it out ) 


 But to the main issue:  These poignant words from Moses Ochonu, the proverbial Good Samaritan: “ I knocked on many wrong doors and strangers' doors to get emergency help, use the phone, ask for directions, or because I missed an address.” and then he adds, “ I could have been shot. What a country!”


This takes me back to “ A Closed Utopia?”  -  the opening Chapter of “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' by Israel Shahak  - the incident in question in Shahak’s own words, in the very first paragraph of the aforementioned tome:


“ I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone  to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew  who had happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood”  - that of course has to be left to God’s judgement,,,


Furthermore, when it comes to competing orthodoxies, usually self-proclaimed or self-confessed,  we ought not to forget  the idea of America as the Promised Land  - and  - if that part of the Middle East all goes up in smoke, the not-so-remote prospect of erecting the third temple, maybe somewhere in New York (Williamsburg?) and going back to an even earlier date, nor should we forget Blake’s The New Jerusalem


So what about Africa as the Promised Land? 


Last night I listened to The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 19, 2023, 6:31:12 PM4/19/23
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beautiful contributions.

Cornelius' unique style shines. 

Ken, since African immigrants are also Black, would they not suffer the same discriminations as african-Americans?

i have a clue to a response to the qs from your last comment but i would like your further input.

thanks

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/b25f7de2-179c-47f4-b45d-050af3a3a152n%40googlegroups.com.

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 19, 2023, 9:03:22 PM4/19/23
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this is a huge topic, the disparity between the two black communities. the short answer is no, and here's why. the differences that separate the whites and blacks in america are overlaid by class differences. even if henry louis gates gets harassed by the police, in the end he gets an apology and invited to the white house. if he had been poor, he might have gotten much much much worse. the africans who immigrate to the u.s. are very often highly educated, and their experiences and lives often lead them to successful careers. the american black community is very much divided between a poor, or poor working class community and a middle class or upper middle class. the former is often comprised of young people who have had poor educations, live in poor communities, etc., and whose opportunities are limited. even severely limited. the middle class or upper middle class have enormous opportunities in contrast. simply, if you don't have a high school education, your future is compromised; if you have a college education, your future is bright.

african immigrants are much more likely to be in that second category. worlds apart from inner city black communities.

that's why i said it isn't simply race; it's class that shapes this difference.
not that middle class blacks are immune from racism. but to return to gates, he lives in a mansion and enjoys tremendous privilege. if you walk on down to harvard yard or central square in cambridge, not too too far from the mansions, there are poor people begging on the street, and a good number are black.
two worlds apart.
and if you carry on walking through harvard yard long enough, you will see highly expensive clothing on fashionable black  people who often happen to speak with an accent. that's the african side.
you could read the story  of this upturn in manthia diawara's wonderful autobiographies where he spoke of first coming to america with nothing, washing dishes, getting into college, making his chances work, and becoming, now, one of the most prestigious scholars of and creator of african cinema, a distinguished prof at nyu. the story of toyin falola is another. these are african success stories that explain something of how these men --like moses ochonu,--were able to ascend the ladder in the u.s. it's not because our country is great and that most people can do this. it is exceptional people who can, and the odds of this happening for  poor african americans are often stacked against them. enormously stacked.
it's that stacking—a function of class, or wealth and neoighborhoods and their schools—that is continually being replicated as youths grow up within theses constraints and find their lives either constrained or opened to opportunity. other countries afford their populations, and minorities, chances for social advancement we lack in this country, which explains why we are below so many other countries.
our country has long since grounded its deceptive ideology of the American Dream in a system that insures capitalist privilege, often linked to race, is inherited. but as class factors in, race becomes only one factor, and not necessarily the determining one.
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 6:24 PM

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 20, 2023, 5:10:09 AM4/20/23
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,


What we all understand: African Culture and what Patrick Wilmot referred to as “Mathematical rhythms” ( and he wasn’t necessarily talking about Bach)  is our most prized possession…


On the whole, Nigerians are proud of the various ethnicities by which they self-identify, and their cultural institutions, even though the impact of Westernisation and some of the so-called Modernisation, means that, lamentably, to some extent, things are not what they used to be, or could be. 


The sine qua non is that we put an end to all the impunity and injustice that results in our poverty, our shuffering & Shmiling, and our fright and flight  - like Fulani Cattle, forever looking for new grazing grounds, luscious foliage, greener pastures even if we have to drown in the Mediterranean Sea, on our way to heaven. 


Nigerians are proud of their God-given traditional religions, their Islam, and their Christianity. 


As a matter of fact isn’t Nigeria currently exporting missionaries to the United States of America, among other things to hold their feet to the fire about what they understand and believe to be African Traditional Religion's , the real Islam’s and original Christianity’s non-negotiable views about same-sex marriage, for example, “ LGBTQ Rights” etc. 


And, of course, Islam and African Traditions do not frown on what the Christian missionaries frown on as heathen polygamy. Are the Nigerians who are faithfully violating the Western principle of “ one man, one wife” not proud of the Institution of marriage as practised by the ancestors? 


The Heathen 


My impression is that you would be proud of the Nigerian Constitution the way that Americans are proud of their own Holy Constitution to the extent that the separation of powers is a reality in both theory and practice. 


In addition to that I suppose that you’d like to develop a few US type of cultural institutions such as The Smithsonian Institution , and of course a few educational establishments such as the best of what they have to offer in the United States 


Today, I’m looking more closely at Libertarianism


Yesterday, listened to the amazing George Galloway going on about THE NEW WORLD ORDER 


Let us pray for peace and tranquillity 

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 20, 2023, 11:27:33 AM4/20/23
to USA Africa Dialogue Series

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, 


And what a succinct summation from Don Harrow! I should like to know what proportion of Nigerian/ African immigrants are highly educated on arrival and climbing Jacob's ladder. Re- "men --like moses ochonu,--were able to ascend the ladder in the u.s", in case you haven't read it Moses Ascending, by Sam Selvon, a humourous story about West Indian immigrants in London, climbing all kinds of ladders, stairways to heaven in the late 50s early 60s of the last century, written in Patois...


I was referring to this Patrick Wilmot who back in 1981 in that Nigerian Guardian newspaper article was pleading for a sane approach to Apartheid South Africa. This was at the height of when the Ivory Coast’s President Houphouët-Boigny was perceived to have been playing the role of an old uncle tom by advocating dialogue with South Africa. 


Jamaicans are by nature radical, so, Patrick Wilmot, by nature a radical Jahmaican was of the opinion that it would always be an unequal dialogue between a lion and lamb and that’s why he was advocating that Nigeria develop a nuclear bomb or two/ a couple of nuclear before such a dialogue should take place and that Nigeria could do that rapidly if only we could also start dancing to what he called “Mathematical rhythms'' by which he meant that we should do our utmost in developing science and technology, and of course as we all know, mathematic is the language, the big grammar of Science. 


Needless to say, perhaps it was orders from above - maybe abroad - that a warrant for Wilomot’s arrest was issued on the same day that this article appeared in the Nigerian Guardian. Luckily,  he went underground spontaneously - disappeared completely  - with the help of his students.


The story is well known; I followed up on the story on a daily basis, from Port Harcourt, wishing him the best, and sending him all my love and sympathy.

 

That’s how it is in some African countries and one of the things we can’t be proud of: You get arrested for expressing an honest opinion or teaching some eye-opening sociology. 


Of relevance, is this home truth that Fela Kuti told us: 


“African man we no dey carry shit. Na European man teach us to carry shit.”


Thank the Almighty that we now have freedom of speech in cyberspace and in Nigeria.


 BTW, I hope that INEC sues the billionaire labour leader Peter Obi, the way that Dominion sued Fox News and that in Obi’s case, he should have to pay a mere $800 million in damages,  that he apologise and wish himself and Atiku better luck next time.


I also wish that some other people - they know who they are, should also be taken to court, for defamation of charter, libel, and slander.


Would we then not be proud of the separation of powers, and an even-handed judiciary that teaches the wayward some lessons on crime and punishment?


Of possible interest? : Public Schools Through the Ages





On Thursday, 20 April 2023 at 00:31:12 UTC+2 Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:

ugo...@gmail.com

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Oct 21, 2023, 11:48:27 AM10/21/23
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

That might not happen in this our lifetime! May be because we are reactive not proactive. Imagine how far ahead you must think to come up with a “Designated Survivor”?

 

When you her ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country applies to them because America has already done its bit and will keep its promise to its citizen.

 

The day a Nigerian president helps Nigeria to keep that promise is the start of a new beginning.

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 7:53 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

 

    Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?

                                        A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor

                                                                Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                    

 

                                                The President in the film, centre, flanked by his aides

 

                                              Picture by Ben Mark Holzberg in Explore Entertainment

 

Watching on Netflix the fictional film Designated Survivor, a sheer celebration and idealization of the US Presidency through visual and performative symbolism, plot, characterization and speech projecting the Presidency as a noble institution rooted in the convergence of intimate,  heterosexual family values and humanistic personal integrity, radiating outward to pastor the American people and care for the world through personal challenges the President may face, through national and international crisis, at one point I started crying bitterly, asking myself if I could be proud of my own country's history, institutions and values the way that films like this one project those of the US, idealized projections, but demonstrating some truth, and  reflecting  how many Americans see their country, in my view.

Against the background of the recurrent quotation of words of that most iconic of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, the pervasive use of images of past US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, evoking for those informed about their symbolism, the glories they are associated with, and the recurrent showing of famous paintings dramatizing great moments in US history, I asked myself, are there any Nigerian Presidents or heads of state I can’t point to as heroic, whatever their limitations, any events in Nigerian history that I understand as collectively agreed by the nation as great moments?

image001.png

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Oct 26, 2023, 1:26:24 PM10/26/23
to ugo...@gmail.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com
All that glitters is not gold.

Right now the Republicans and the U.S
Congress cannot get a “designated “
Speaker for almost  a month😁.
I wouldn’t mention the $33 trillion 
debt and the oversized prison
population of over 20 percent of the 
world’s prisoners - for a country that
is about 4% of the world population.
Questions remain about the
penal and financial institutions.

But you are right about the need
for positive change in Nigeria.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of ugo...@gmail.com <ugo...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 11:44 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
 
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That might not happen in this our lifetime! May be because we are reactive not proactive. Imagine how far ahead you must think to come up with a “Designated Survivor”?

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