Thought For Today

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

I listened to an Igbo Christian song in which the female singer praised God as "oji obara akpu nwa na afo"(meaning the one that uses blood to mould children in the womb). 

That aspect of the song is poetry.

I have always marvelled at the miracle of forming babies with just a drop of body fluid and egg.

I am still marvelling at that level of creativity.

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Chidi

For you to marvel some more 

The 96th chapter of the Quran 

popularly known as Surah al-Alaq

which every Muslim knows by heart

along with Surah Ikhlas 

Maurice Bucaille on the embryo - according to the Quran

Maurice Bucaille on Surah 96

Maurice Bucaille: The Bible, The Quran and Science

Wishing you & yours a  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance,

Cornelius 

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

The convention is for masquerade groups to brandish machetes in the name of culture during displays at festivities.

These machetes often come in handy when fights break out amongst these masquerade groups. These fights are common occurences.

Culture is dynamic, its contents, contexts and concepts must be in tandem with the present while celebrating the past.

Truly, our forebears carried machetes and that was because they had to continually defend themselves against intervillage agressors. Machetes to them was a defence tool and a paraphernalia of manliness.

In this age, there are no intervillage aggressors to fight off, there is a more efficient law enforcement system. In any case, would be aggressors wouldn't come with machetes.

If we are desirous of reenacting how our forebears defended themselves and their paraphernalia of manliness in the context of culture, we should do that with carved wooden machetes as symbols.

Thanks.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Chidi

There’s such beauty, dignity, and utility in the ceremonial !

Consider: Ardah

 Al-Ardah

The Saudi Ardha Dance

The penultimate time I came across the word machete was in the first sentence of this book and then it was ACTION! In the name of Ogun, your attention caught  - pin-pointed - riveted, and thus begins the story, I mean the history, like the beginning of some cinema reel - the film version of Counting the Tiger's Teeth - under the direction of Tunde Kelani

I suppose that your dream would be better realised by another ceremonial or spectacle not necessarily commercial  or highly cultural  - as in the culture of war - warmongers - inter-tribal  - inter-national etc….metaphorically speaking some more sword-brandishing and sabre-rattling known as the military parade of the regular type of show put on by – well, here are a few examples, to showcase for the domestic national audience ( our greatness ) when it comes to military might, to bring this military might  to the attention of enemies and  potential enemies,  you don’t mess with us  - so that perish the thought of their ever entertaining the suicidal idea of a frontal attack on a nation that can display such weapons of mass destruction, most spectacular of all  (and impressive too) 👍you be the judge :

Military parades in China

Military parades at the Red Square 

North Korean military parades

Military parades in the United States

Some of the above explain why Uncle Sam can’t just drive into Moscow the way he did in Baghdad with Comical Ali or Bloodymyr- I -want-more-weapons Zelenskiy the clown of the year telling us another story…

With the situation in Nigeria in mind, you say that “ In this age, there are no intervillage aggressors to fight off, there is a more efficient law enforcement system” 

Really? Seriously,  Chidi, are you kidding? Do you mean Operation Python Dance, 1, 2,3 4. 5, 6, 7? 

BTW, it’s clear to see that we were all better off in the good old days when we were all limited to mere machetes,  bows and arrows.

You also say that these days “ In any case, would be aggressors wouldn't come with machetes.”

Well, today we have e.g. Operation Amotekun and according to the latest reports they are not doing too badly…

I am reliably informed that both Russia and Ukraine have lost approximately 100, 000 people each - in the case of Ukraine that includes civilians…

It’s a pity that Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal in exchange for assurances that they wouldn’t ever be attacked.

BTW, if Saddam had indeed had  the alleged “ weapons of mass destruction” Baby Bush would have never invaded Iraq 

 From doom & gloom to this kind of diversion: The ‘Senior Service’ of Sierra Leone, 1885

[Olasupo Laosebikan]

The miracle of it all: a "drop," "body fluid" and the "egg!"

The sheer improbability of it all.   

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[Ogedi Ohajekwe]

Machetes in Nigeria (even if ceremonial) and guns (open carry) in America. 

The debate goes on.

On Dec 26, 2022, at 8:54 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Bunmi fatoye-matory]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

What a world we live in.

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Nigeria: Machete

Rwanda : Machete

Rwanda: 500,000 machetes were imported and the devil, up to no good said to his disciples, ”These machetes are for cutting down the trees, and the Tutsi are the trees” 

America ( US): Guns. A different story.  

Even the most pious paster is quoting the 2nd Amendment and singing, “They can't take that away from me” 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Nigeria: Machete 

The last time, a machete was raised over my head was during the rainy season back in July 1969; we arrived at Robertsfield Airport in Monrovia, by Air; ten days later on our trip back from Monrovia by road, we ( Better Half & I ) stayed overnight at a Government Rest House in  Kenema and later that night - the air was humid  - damp, hot, mosquitoes buzzing,  I thought that I would stretch my legs a little, went for a walk and when I got to the outskirts of the compound, to the shadows, beyond which no street lights were cast, I mean just a few feet beyonf+d which the lights could not reach, suddenly I heard a rustle in the bushes, and suddenly, out came about four of five men, like popped out of nowhere, their machetes raised over my head. I thought,  "! Borfima ! " and my heart pounding like never before and never before or after that have I run as fast as my legs could carry me - back to safety. 

Nigeria: Machete 

We’ve got to do something about this. 

Must not misuse it. 

Machito means male ( like Mongo Santamaria )

Machito Orchestra

Bayete ( meaning of

Ebrahim "Brian" Isaacs: Bayete

Sabu Martinez  : Afro Temple : 

Amen 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Re -  suddenly I heard a rustle in the bushes, and equally suddenly, out came about four or five men, like popped out of nowhere, their machetes raised over my head. 

Reminds me of this joke, except that on that rainy season night, the air hot and wet back then at the edge of the jungle on the outskirts of the Government Rest House at Kenema, in the middle of nowhere - I mean at the precipice of darkness just where the electric lights cease to cast their light and shadows take over as an entire world of its own - at the heart of darkness,  it was not a  joke but the reaction was the same as that which the very imaginative Private Caplin planned with such foresight. You’ve heard it before:

“During the Vietnam War, an officer was training a group of recruits

in the tactics of attack and defence. After discussing different types

of emergency situations in which they might find themselves, the

officer asked Private Caplin, “ Suppose you are alone in the jungle

and a VietCong guerilla jumps out of hiding with a huge knife in his

hand. What steps would you take?”

He replied, “ Huge steps, Sir – very huge steps!”

So, as my grandmother used to say to me when I was being haughty and snubbing this and that ( mostly food), “ despise not the day of little things” ( little did I realise back then that she was quoting the Bible) so too, with the machete as a weapon of war in mind, and considering what the Vietcong did to Uncle Sam and the likes of Private Caplin,  we should maintain the machete as a useful instrument, not only as an agricultural tool (for example of the palm wine tapper)  knowing as we do that it could come in useful for jungle combat - some Nigerian style Vietcong. You never know when the likes of Private Caplin would like to subdue our country…

I’m still mulling over “ Torah Government and Deterrence”

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

If one is Chinese, German, English or French, there would be no COMPELLING need to teach one's children or wards a foreign language because unlike in Africa, those children and wards can pursue their academic and professional training to the highest level using their native languages.

So in Africa, it makes more sense allowing these children and wards to get fluent in the(foreign)languages of professional and academic instructions in their locations.

I was brought up in an Igbo enclave and so learned English as a second language. 

As a child I wasn't fluent in English and had to suffer immensely during further academic and professional pursuits (which are only in English language)

I wonder why native languages activists in Africa do not take this pertinent perspective into consideration.

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

"......In other words, he(Peter Obi)has people who can pull his ears, if and when necessary"-Olusegun Obasonjo.

Remark: .....and you(the people)still think that he is your candidate?

[Tobe Nneli]

What is your point Mr Chidi?

Does being the "people's" candidate preclude listening to (wise) counsel especially from those who can provide it?

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[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Chidi,

They do. In 1964 it was a development imperative for Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere to reach his teeming millions in kiSwahili. At the University if Dar es Salam you can study any subject to Ph.d level in kiSwahili.

He later explained that he could not wait to first teach a crop of English teachers delaying the education of his teeming citizenry. He instructed that all textbooks should be translated into kiSwahili to enable his citizens learn and develop.

He himself being a trained teacher (Mwalimu means teacher in kiSwahili) did a translation of one of Shakespeare's works into kiSwahili.

Profs. Babs Fafunwa  Wande Babalola and others pioneered it in OAU by teaching students from primary school to Ph.d in Yoruba. 

It is not a matter of language activism or the intellectual storm in a teacup between Chinua Achebe and N'guigi wa Thi'ongo about African Literature or Literature in English. N'guigi actually published his novels in Kikuyu and urged those who wanted to read him to either learn Kikuyu or seek translation into English. 

The colonial experiments differ from one colonial enclave to another. In Nigeria freed slaves had gained the facility of reading in English and the likes of Samuel Ajayi Crowther translated the Bible into Yoruba and Igbo. 

It is not a language activism issue, it is the different trajectories that the medium of education took in different areas. A case in point is Wole Soyinka who speaks and writes English at the highest levels but advocated in 1977 at the FESTAC-77 Colloquium that kiSwahili should be adopted as an African Lingua Franca. 

The early Igbo and Yoruba elite saw English as superior to their own languages to the extent that they adopted it as an exclusive education medium and they often denigrated their own languages. A big pity indeed. 

Cheers. 

IBK

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

As we all know, “Language shapes cultures and peoples, it means identity, it is a “social bond” and central for any relationship.” ( From this curiously interesting article “ In the beginning was the word” from which one deduces the absolute necessity (imperative) of sustaining, studying, developing, utilising, and promoting our ( the world’s) African indigenous languages

[Harrow, Kenneth]

chidi, this is a topic we've heard about for so many years. with it the belief, as far as i know, that children of an early age learn better in their native tongues, their family tongues. foreign language instruction should come later, like high school. i think in at least parts of senegal and elsewhere that is the practice.

i'm part of the generation who believes the more languages we acquire, the better

unlike american firsters whose insularity and ignorance drive their thinking.

but it is a mistake to think of the u.s. as insularly encompassed by english. there are vast swathes of many places where spanish is the current language. i invite you to walk through queens some day; or even the bronx or harlem where you'll hear more spanish than english, where the shops are all in spanish, the goods are sold to the taste of the dominicans and equadorians etc, like the puerto ricans of my youth

and southwest united states is similar; california is similar.

it is a fight to resist the dominance of supremacists at every level, including language and culture.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 7, 2023 12:02 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Thought For Today

 

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