Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

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Biko Agozino

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Aug 17, 2021, 6:08:01 PM8/17/21
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It was Obama's idea to get out of Afghanistan as far back as 2010, even without a victory. He did not like the idea of fighting to protect corrupt politicians who did not have the guts to fight their own civil war. Bob Woodward wrote in Obama's War that the policy should have been to construct a Jeffersonian style democracy (as if Jefferson who enslaved hundreds and raped enslaved children was such a good role model for democracy)  but Obama insisted that it was up to the Afghans what sort of polity that they wanted to build, so long as they did not harbor terrorists or threaten human rights. If they choose to build a more perfect union, the US will be there to assist them and if they allow any group to threaten the US from their soil, the can count on being punished again, collateral damages and all.

US generals told Obama to follow their recommendation to remain because they were the ones on the ground. Obama told them that he was the Commander In Chief and that he was giving them the direct order to find an exit strategy. Although he agreed to their recommendation for more resources by sending 30,000 more troops in the surge of 2009 to bring the troop levels to nearly 100,000, he made it clear that it was a temporary measure to accomplish the goal getting Osama and getting out. He got his man in 2011 and immediately started rapid draw down of troops. 

Trump came in and said that it was a mistake to leave quickly. He wanted to stay on and 'kill terrorists'. But he ended up negotiating with the Taliban for a time-table to withdraw US troops within a year. Biden delayed Trump's arbitrary deadline by 3 months to see if the Afghans would come to a negotiated settlement on their own but their corrupt government bragged that they preferred to fight on. Biden is wrong in suggesting that getting out of there is the Trump policy, it was set by the Obama-Biden administration. It was bungled by Trump who may have demoralized Afghan troops by negotiating with the Taliban without inviting Afghan government officials. 

It is to the credit of the US that thousands are scrambling into the military cargo plane crammed like a slave ship to escape their own country. It is true that hundreds of thousands more will prefer to move to the US than live under the Taliban. Afghans can help to change that Stockholm syndrome by guaranteeing the rights of women and children to go to school. Obama already increased school enrollment by girls and brought women into the traditional ruling councils called Jirgas (reported by Wardak and Braithwaite in a two-part article in the British Journal of Criminology in 2013). Afghans should consider having a co-equal bicameral legislature with a House of Men and a House of Women and they should enforce gender parity in all offices provided that their is mass literacy. Abolish capital punishment too.

After 20 years of conquest and occupation, the average years of schooling remained 3.9 years and that is the shame of US occupation. If 26% of the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan had gone to education, as recommended by UNESCO for all countries, the country would have 100% literacy today. If all that money was spent at home on education, all the student loan debts of US students would have been paid off with some change to provide for publicly funded education at all levels and healthcare for all. The Biden-Harris administration should pursue bold policy initiatives with the savings from wars of choice that should be rightfully ended.

It was reported that the Taliban made much of their war revenues through the drugs trade. They should now join states in the US by legalizing marijuana because it is known to be medicinal and therefore should not be forbidden as Haram. Legalization of marijuana will bring in wealth and employment opportunities for many families as they recover from the war and the government can tax their profits. 

Biden-Harris should lead the world by example from home by ending the war on drugs so that educators and healthcare providers can use harm-reduction instead of punishment to deal with the public health issues of drug use. End the war against the people in the guise of the war on drugs worldwide, says the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 

Biko




Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Aug 17, 2021, 7:38:22 PM8/17/21
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Note  that legalizing drugs 
would be interpreted as legalizing the poppy 
and heroin .That is a slippery slope. Opiod Crisis
from Afghan poppies and US pharmaceuticals
is devastating enough.

Trump definitely bungled things  and may 
be responsible for the demoralization of the
Afghan army and the swift victory of the Taliban.

Good reminder that Obama/Biden
wanted out. Where Biden went wrong 
is in the flat footed response.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali


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biko...@yahoo.com

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Aug 17, 2021, 8:12:37 PM8/17/21
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Note taken. Let them make an exception for marijuana then since it has never hurt a fly and doctors recommend it to the sick.

But even with opium, the war on drugs and the war in Afghanistan allowed the trade to boom. True that opioids killed 95,000 in the US last year and half a million in the past ten years but because it is profitable, there is no war on the manufacturers. Rather, they are allowed to negotiate chicken feed fines and escape with the loot just like big tobacco and legal moonshiners for tax revenues.

Education works better to reduce harm than prohibition. Peace and love work better than war. Health care for all.

I support Biden pulling out as fast as he could to escape being trapped in a pyrrhic defeat at huge costs. The transition to the Taliban is proving more peaceful than the transition from Trump. If Trump supporters want to continue fighting against the Taliban, let them go and volunteer for the opposing war lord's over there. Let the Taliban surprise their people by pursuing development instead of militarism.

Biko

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 18, 2021, 5:53:01 AM8/18/21
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Powerful piece from Biko.
Reminds me of my developing thoughts.

What have the Taliban got to offer the average Afghan in terms of quality of life?

That is the question.

Not claims of adherence to religious codes.

Whatever our faith, some fundamentals are needed for quality of human life. If you can't build that, your religion could become a trap. 

I see Europe and North America as the most successful polities in moving beyond the trap religion often becomes and caring for their people, in spite of their imperfections.

The example of Islamic societies is uneven in this regard and without the freedom from religious constraints won by Western thinkers enabling the Scientific Revolution I'm not able to understand how any people can develop themselves into a knowledge powerhouse, the enduring core of Western global doniance in technology and it's relationship to weapons construction, other technologies and wealth creation.

Without liberalised economies that inspire innovation and wealth creation I can't see how anyone can approximate Western leadership in information technology and other sectors.

Whatever Asia is doing today in technology all comes from Western innovations.

In the past 300 years has any other body of people's advanced human knowledge, human control of nature, human comfort, human creativity, as much as the West?

Yes, they have been criminals, thieves, slavers, manipulators, colonialists, destroyers of civilisations and remain neo-colonialists while racist nationalism grows within their borders, but the complete scope of their contrbution to human well being, in terms of models of how to live with dignity and self fulfillment as a human being remain unequalled.

Anyone who claims to have a better blueprint has to prove it.

Claims of divine revelation, the core of claims of Islamic supremacy in social management can't replace lived reality in people's lives.

Thanks

Toyin

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Biko Agozino

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Aug 18, 2021, 10:49:52 AM8/18/21
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Oluwatoyin,

Check to see that you are not suffering from Stockholm Syndrome too with your apparent Europhilism. 

There is no need for a clash of civilizations or the end of history thesis. Cultures can and do coexist and enrich one another for the better. What you call Western science is simply science and the West borrowed much of it from the Orient. Even today, we have something to learn from the Taliban and Boko Haram about the risk of alcoholism to public health. We can, however, better rely on education rather than prohibition to control this risk.

In case my first draft was misleading in any way, I have edited the post on my blog site:






Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 18, 2021, 4:35:20 PM8/18/21
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Oga Biko,

But there you are, a proud  Igboman sitting pretty in the US.

Why did you not remain in Nigeria or return to Nigeria to work at UNN?

You won't do so.

If you do, how readily will you be able keep in touch with cutting edge research in your field? 

When last did you experience a power outage in your house or office? Do you own a generator for such situations?

When last did you fear traveling interstate beceause of fear or robbers and kidnappers?

That is the situation of your fellow scholars at UNN.

Are any of your children studying in Nigeria?

Yet there you are, having voted with your feet to relocate to where the grass is clearly greener for you and you are talking about Europhilia and Stockholm Syndrome.

Africans were the first creators of mathematics. The Asians and Arabs laid the foundations of mathematics.

But we know the people who built upon these foundations to give us today's world as defined by science and technology.

We know those people were not living in Africa, Asia or the Arab world. We also know that those Asians and Arabs, such as Abdus Salam, the first Pakistani to win a Nobel Prize, in physics, to play a role in defining the modern world on those contexts, did not do it from their home countries.

Why?

Why are you and so many African scholars in the US in spite of the rigours of gaining US citizenship and the racist undercurrents of the environment, challenges absent in your home countries?

Bros, all societies are not equal.

Do you need the Taliban to learn about the negativities of excessive alcohol?

Where was the research done that specified the biological dangers of excessive alchohol? Was it in societies run by people like the Taliban? 

Is the very concept of research in relation to critical quest for knowledge not anathema to the values of those Islamic extremists?

You are enjoying the liberality and access to knowledge enabled by the US and are talking of learning from the Taliban and Boko Haram.

Perhaps you could reference what could be learned from them about cutting the throats of sleeping school children as Boko Haram did in Nigeria, machine gunning school children as they did in Nigeria and as the Taliban did in Pakistan, of kindapping female students as sex slaves as Boko Haram did in Nigeria, of shooting female schooldren in the face on their way to school as the Taliban did with Mailala, of bombing churches packed with Christimas worshippers as Boko Haram did at Madalla and running a policy of regularly machine gunning Christians in churches and bombing govt establishments as they did in their resurgence.

If you need to learn from Islamic civilisation, please place those inhuman savages in their place and dig into Islamic literature, philosophy, art and architecture. 

Make the acquaintance of such poets and thinkers as Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Ibn Sina and more.

Read the Koran, noting both  it's sublimity and it's negativities.

Savages like Taliban have been and Boko Haram are represent a debased and atavistic form of Islam, approaches other Abrahamic faiths have left behind.

Thanks

Toyin


Biko Agozino

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Aug 19, 2021, 5:00:18 AM8/19/21
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Oluwatoyin,

If or when you have children of your own, you will understand that it is not acceptable to ask a father where or how he is educating his own children unless you are contributing money to the costs. Otherwise, it is none of your business. Nigerians raise such questions about public officials because the costs are met at public expense. How or where I educate my own children does not concern you.

Your magical thinking is not logically adequate. You assume that those abroad are enjoying life and therefore have no right to seek to try and make where they live even better as expected under the philosophy of the pursuit of happiness and civic education for a more perfect union. You also assume that being stranded at home means that you are more patriotic whereas you are full of jealousy for those who never worry about lights out and you feel that your culture is inferior to the foreign culture in every sense. 

Instead of being consumed by envy, plan your own work systematically wherever you may be and write two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and two hours in the evening for a full time work as a writer. You will be amazed how productive you will be. You have told us repeatedly that you too went abroad to study and returned with multiple Master's degrees. Congratulations. The majority of the best work by African writers came while they were resident in Africa. You too can write great work even while at home. Keep it up.

You want to know what we are doing abroad but Ali Mazrui answered that question long ago - we are providing technical foreign aid abroad just as there are thousands of Europeans and North Americans in Africa doing the same.

You think that the US has nothing to learn from the Taliban? Wrong. For years to come, they will be analyzing the lessons from that war in order to make their own society better. I already pointed out a couple of lessons that we can learn from them - a public health campaign against alcoholism that Soyinka attempted in all genres, Achebe did too, and the Palm Wine Drinkerds tried to teach but some people cant be taught anything unless the lesson is coming from Kant. 

An estimated 95,000 people die from alcoholism in the US every year (68,000 men and 27, 000 women) much more than the number of US troops killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam combined. Maybe they would not binge drink so much if they haver access to recreational marijuana as adults freely choosing what to consume. Do you even know how many people die from alcoholism in Naijungle?




Another lesson that we can learn from the Taliban and Boko Haram is that they are mistaken in opposing the education of girls. I hope that the US learned this lesson enough to fund education massively and make it accessible to all tuition-free at all levels. Africans can wipe away illiteracy within four years if we prioritize it and organize for it. 

Do not agonize! Organize!

Biko



Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 19, 2021, 11:21:36 AM8/19/21
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Oga Biko,

I was informing you that your life does not reflect your claims of not being centred in relation to Europe.

I was not asking you to tell me about your family's education. I was asking a rhetorical question.

I know you have no choice g

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 19, 2021, 2:11:04 PM8/19/21
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Oga Biko,

That first response was sent by mistake.

Here is the fuller response.

You are an Igbo/African immigrant scholar in the US describing my characterization of the cultural achievements of Europe as evidence of Stockholm Syndrome and Europhilia, even as you seek to learn from Islamic terrorists who contradict your very existence.

Your entire education, from childhood to graduate school and your entire working history and even your daily life confirm what I wrote about the premier position of Europe in world history since the 17th century.

In which language are the greatest number of scholarly works written? English.

In which language do you do your scholarship and most of your daily communication?

How many papers or books have you written in Igbo, your native language?

How developed is the conceptual and analytical range of criminology, a major discipline of yours, in Igbo thought and how well developed is its institutional context?

How many texts written in non-European languages have you consulted in your entire educational and academic career?

I know the answers to all these questions, in general terms. We both do. 

We also know that in studying many highly specialized disciplines anywhere in the world, failure to study  texts in Western languages is tantamount to cognitive suicide.

One may study Indian philosophy, for example, purely in terms of the classical texts in Indian languages, but one cannot do that in most science disciplines, including mathematics, a field in which India made significant contributions even before Europe.

The same goes for Arabic, another highly literate culture, as well as Chinese, another such culture.

Even more, beyond a particular point, the study of various non-Western cultures is inadequately grasped without studying texts in Western languages. 

Without a study of the work of such Western scholars as Mark Dyzkowski, Alexis Sanderson, Andre Padoux, Douglas Renfrew Brooks, it's impossible, for example,  to gain depth of scholarly understanding of such Hindu schools as Kashmir Shaivism and Sri Vidya because those figures are among the foremost masters of the literature in the original language they were written, Sanskrit, a language no longer in general use in India.

No other people has  penetrated so extensively into the knowledges of diverse parts of the world, integrating this knowledge within its own institutional contexts. Such a scope of cognitive penetration and assembly was not achieved by any others at the height of their achievements, whether Arabs or Chinese.

This means one cannot achieve comprehensive knowledge in most fields of knowledge even about non-Western cultures if you don't read texts written by Western scholars in Western languages, a situation made even more significant  when one adds texts written in Western languages by non-Western scholars.

Even more fundamental, the dominant investigative paradigms in the world of knowledge are Western. The focus on intellect, possibly complemented by other faculties, has been developed in other cultures, such as the achievements of Arab scholars, but the West has developed this in the most sustained, widespread and institutionalized  manner, breaking free of religious and other ideological  constraints to critical thought more effectively than other cultures have done.

The currently dominant map of knowledge is Western. Most scholarly disciplines were created by the West. 

The West has also developed the most powerful social systems for human self expression. Freedom of expression, economic dynamism and division of labour enabling a diversity of means of earning a living have been developed in the West ahead of all other cultures at any point in history. 

Even without colonialism and slavery, from which the West greatly benefited, this centrality might still be feasible because of the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, in tandem with the Reformation, a primary break with the tyranny of the Church. I am not aware of any other continent and culture that has been able to combine this scope of social, cognitive and technological transformation.

All these are central reasons why you and many African scholars are in the US. 

You are also there because your native countries are lagging behind in these frameworks of self actualization for a scholar. Abiola Irele in ''The African Scholar,'' Biodun Jeyifo in ''One Year in the First Instance,'' and other scholars describe this situation eloquently.

You are not there just because you want a change of environment. You are there because you want something better than your countries can give you. You are there because you want to be at the centre of the global knowledge system. A system created by Europe and its cultural satellites.

That's why I describe your entire life, from childhood education to university education, graduate school and even your professional life as a demonstration of my thesis. 

In asking about your children's education I was asking a rhetorical question to which you, I and everyone reading this know the likely answer and the reasons for that answer, reasons that corroborate my point. 

As for myself, operating from a geographical  periphery of the global knowledge system, does my productivity, evident from my work visible to anyone, suggest I am handicapped in any way?

You first stated one can learn about the dangers of alcohol from the Taliban. I asked you where the research was conducted that specified the biological damage of excessive alcohol, scientific research as different from general knowledge about drunkenness which all cultures and all peoples have. 

Was this scientific research conducted in systems run by people like the Taliban? Is the culture they are known for not inimical to the critical thinking  represented by research?

I wont pretend to fully grasp your views on how the US can learn from the Taliban in improving US society, a rather tortuous argument. Its the Taliban that needs to learn from the US, as they seem to be doing according to the reports that they will now  allow women to work and go to school. 

Thus, your ''Another lesson that we can learn from the Taliban and Boko Haram is that they are mistaken in opposing the education of girls. I hope that the US learned this lesson enough to fund education massively and make it accessible to all tuition-free at all levels. Africans can wipe away illiteracy within four years if we prioritize it and organize for it '' is puzzling.

Does the US oppose education of girls?

So, for you, a central tenent of Taliban identity is opposition to alcohol. Does that exemplify their brand of Sharia law?

Your ideas on social engineering are more relevant when you don't hitch them to culturally confused and murderous extremists like the Taliban have been.

thanks

toyin











Biko Agozino

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Aug 19, 2021, 6:04:09 PM8/19/21
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Toyin,

English language is a vehicle for expression and anyone can acquire that vehicle and use to express thoughts. It has been reported that 95% of scientific papers are published in English to the disadvantage of other European languages but all Europeans and most Asians try to learn science in their own languages even if they publish more in English. Africans will benefit from learning more in their own languages even if they translate more publications into European languages for communication with the wider world of science, as Ngugi has been calling for. Hardly any country has industrialized by relying on the language of colonizers because language is a factor of production of equal importance to land, labour, and capital, as i observed elsewhere.

Are you not critical of some aspects of European culture? Even Europeans are critical of the short-comings of their culture and struggle to make their society better by learning from other cultures. You seem to think that Europe is perfect and does not need to be improved or that Europe has nothing to learn from Africa or Asia or Arabs. No scientist would be ready to dismiss any community of interpretation a-priori. But even if Africans have invented nothing at all (a big if), we should still join Aime Cessaire and proclaim, Hurray to those who invented nothing, because they remain fully human, deserving equal dignity and opportunity.

The oldest university in the world was established by an African woman in a mosque in Morocco. The US may have invented the idea of the university independently of Africans but they started by excluding women and people of African descent from university education for centuries. There were laws made applying the death penalty to any person of African descent found with a book during hundreds of years of enslavement in the US. Funding for education is still uneven in the US to the disadvantage of girls and people of color, hence the civil rights provisions of Title VII and Title IX to try to increase diversity especially in higher education. If the US prioritizes education more than war, the country will be a lot better in the interest of all. Do you disagree?

Boko Haram probably did not copy opposition to the education of girls from the US but the US was not always a promoter of equal education for women and African Americans until the civil rights movement helped to teach them that equal opportunities in education would make for a more perfect union in the interest of all. Religious fundamentalism originated in the US in the form of the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, according to Derrida. The US did not go to war against a religion but against those who attacked the US. Today, domestic terrorists are still attacking the US at home and hundreds of thousands of citizens go missing yearly in the US just like under Boko Haram. Do you think that militarism will be able to defeat terrorism at home when it could not do so abroad?

The Taliban were not always the enemies of the US, you know. They used to be allies trained, armed, and funded by the US against the Soviet Union. The US, under Trump, made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw US forces from Afghanistan where they went to fight al Kadir, not the Taliban. Not all the beliefs of the Taliban are terroristic and some of the acts of the US are also terroristic, according to Noam Chomsky. If you look at the official language of the anti-terrorism law in Nigeria, probably plagiarized from the US, it defines terrorism as the use of force or threat of force to achieve political goals. Chomsky says that almost every government is self-defined as terroristic in those terms. But some states are more terroristic by sponsoring terrorists and treating them with impunity while terrorizing innocent citizens with genocidal policies.

Alcoholism may be seen as a terroristic weapon that kills more people in the US every year than have ever been killed by terrorists. The US knows this and prohibited alcohol for decades just like the Taliban but they soon found out that education works better than prohibition. Just because the Taliban opposes alcoholism does not mean that those opposed to terrorism must promote alcoholism. Southern Baptists in the US also prohibit alcohol consumption just like the Taliban even if they do not use corporal punishment to enforce it. Alcoholism is a problem that the US could learn to take more seriously from the Taliban with better funding for health education.

Does Nigeria have a public health education program against alcoholism? My village saw the lethal effects of ogogoro and banned the moonshine by themselves. You should not confuse opposition to terrorism with total opposition to any religion even when the religion teaches something that you can learn from. Sometimes, you may share a concern but learn from the error of terrorism what to avoid in trying to solve the common problem. How do you think that Africa should address the terroristic problem of alcoholism?

Ending the war on drugs may be the policy option to allow drug users and alcoholics to reduce harm and seek help from health services when necessary while education will help to reduce demand for drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Prohibition does not work. Now, what are your policy proposals? Would you like the US to stay in Afghanistan until every Taliban has been killed, until every alcoholic is dead, until every Boko Haram child fighter has been killed or 'reformed'? 

Non-violence and the forgiveness of the unforgivable is the African preferred way of addressing huge crimes against humanity like centuries of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, according to Derrida. Do you prefer militarism as the only solution when even the mighty US military has admitted that there is no military solution to the problem? The US has learned that lesson from 20 years of fighting the Taliban, as Moses itemized. What lessons have you learned from the war against terrorism?

Biko

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Aug 19, 2021, 6:04:36 PM8/19/21
to Oluwatoyin Adepoju, usaafricadialogue
Biko,
Every six months or thereabouts, Toyin Adepoju
regurgitates these identical arguments. There is
nothing you can say or do that would change the
Eurocentric mindset behind these claims.

 So why bother to respond?
Doing so is an exercise in futility. He jumps from
Islamophobia to Europhilia - to hero 
worship  of Kant and back again. These excursions
impede and contradict  the positive aspects of his earlier                                                                                                                                                                                                  research ie his work on IFA.

I certainly agree with Ken about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Social welfare for the Muslim community was a major 
preoccupation of pioneers such as al-Banna in Egypt.





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:48 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy
 

Biko Agozino

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Aug 20, 2021, 4:51:28 AM8/20/21
to 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
You are perfectly right Sister Glo, sometimes we need to follow Eric Williams and put on our ear plugs and let the donkey bray, as he used to say to the 'mad scientist'.

Biko

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 20, 2021, 7:40:25 AM8/20/21
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That's a fine piece, Biko, a clear historical contextualization of strategic issues in social engineering.

It would make a fine blog post.

I don't agree with  how you chracterise my position but the general orientation and suggestions are motivational for thinking the issues through.

Thanks

Toyin

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 21, 2021, 9:18:50 AM8/21/21
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Biko:


The US did not invent the idea of University independent of Africans.

On the contrary, American hegemonic forebears, the English  transplanted the idea of Oxford the third University in the world, which was copied from the Moroccan initiative you cited to the Americas as part of their colonial conquest.

Aime Cesaire has been roundly critiqued by those of us in Literature for his glib idea that Africa invented nothing, which seems to his pandering to the limited European conception of the word ' invention.'  But many who critique Casaire out of context do not often clarify that Cesaire's position is a trope and not an essay, and could be read as parody and demonstrates poetic licence

Yes, you are right about the importance of language in the organogram of production forces. I would rank language the most important pedestal on which the other three (labour, land and capital) are erected, and without which they will be meaningless in their various applications and deployments.

OAA


Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023



Sent from my Galaxy

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Date: 19/08/2021 23:06 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

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Toyin,

English language is a vehicle for expression and anyone can acquire that vehicle and use to express thoughts. It has been reported that 95% of scientific papers are published in English to the disadvantage of other European languages but all Europeans and most Asians try to learn science in their own languages even if they publish more in English. Africans will benefit from learning more in their own languages even if they translate more publications into European languages for communication with the wider world of science, as Ngugi has been calling for. Hardly any country has industrialized by relying on the language of colonizers because language is a factor of production of equal importance to land, labour, and capital, as i observed elsewhere.

Are you not critical of some aspects of European culture? Even Europeans are critical of the short-comings of their culture and struggle to make their society better by learning from other cultures. You seem to think that Europe is perfect and does not need to be improved or that Europe has nothing to learn from Africa or Asia or Arabs. No scientist would be ready to dismiss any community of interpretation a-priori. But even if Africans have invented nothing at all (a big if), we should still join Aime Cessaire and proclaim, Hurray to those who invented nothing, because they remain fully human, deserving equal dignity and opportunity.

The oldest university in the world was established by an African woman in a mosque in Morocco. The US may have invented the idea of the university independently of Africans but they started by excluding women and people of African descent from university education for centuries. There were laws made applying the death penalty to any person of African descent found with a book during hundreds of years of enslavement in the US. Funding for education is still uneven in the US to the disadvantage of girls and people of color, hence the civil rights provisions of Title VII and Title IX to try to increase diversity especially in higher education. If the US prioritizes education more than war, the country will be a lot better in the interest of all. Do you disagree?

Boko Haram probably did not copy opposition to the education of girls from the US but the US was not always a promoter of equal education for women and African Americans until the civil rights movement helped to teach them that equal opportunities in education would make for a more perfect union in the interest of all. Religious fundamentalism originated in the US in the form of the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, according to Derrida. The US did not go to war against a religion but against those who attacked the US. Today, domestic terrorists are still attacking the US at home and hundreds of thousands of citizens go missing yearly in the US just like under Boko Haram. Do you think that militarism will be able to defeat terrorism at home when it could not do so abroad?

The Taliban were not always the enemies of the US, you know. They used to be allies trained, armed, and funded by the US against the Soviet Union. The US, under Trump, made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw US forces from Afghanistan where they went to fight al Kadir, not the Taliban. Not all the beliefs of the Taliban are terroristic and some of the acts of the US are also terroristic, according to Noam Chomsky. If you look at the official language of the anti-terrorism law in Nigeria, probably plagiarized from the US, it defines terrorism as the use of force or threat of force to achieve political goals. Chomsky says that almost every government is self-defined as terroristic in those terms. But some states are more terroristic by sponsoring terrorists and treating them with impunity while terrorizing innocent citizens with genocidal policies.

Alcoholism may be seen as a terroristic weapon that kills more people in the US every year than have ever been killed by terrorists. The US knows this and prohibited alcohol for decades just like the Taliban but they soon found out that education works better than prohibition. Just because the Taliban opposes alcoholism does not mean that those opposed to terrorism must promote alcoholism. Southern Baptists in the US also prohibit alcohol consumption just like the Taliban even if they do not use corporal punishment to enforce it. Alcoholism is a problem that the US could learn to take more seriously from the Taliban with better funding for health education.

Does Nigeria have a public health education program against alcoholism? My village saw the lethal effects of ogogoro and banned the moonshine by themselves. You should not confuse opposition to terrorism with total opposition to any religion even when the religion teaches something that you can learn from. Sometimes, you may share a concern but learn from the error of terrorism what to avoid in trying to solve the common problem. How do you think that Africa should address the terroristic problem of alcoholism?

Ending the war on drugs may be the policy option to allow drug users and alcoholics to reduce harm and seek help from health services when necessary while education will help to reduce demand for drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Prohibition does not work. Now, what are your policy proposals? Would you like the US to stay in Afghanistan until every Taliban has been killed, until every alcoholic is dead, until every Boko Haram child fighter has been killed or 'reformed'? 

Non-violence and the forgiveness of the unforgivable is the African preferred way of addressing huge crimes against humanity like centuries of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, according to Derrida. Do you prefer militarism as the only solution when even the mighty US military has admitted that there is no military solution to the problem? The US has learned that lesson from 20 years of fighting the Taliban, as Moses itemized. What lessons have you learned from the war against terrorism?

Biko

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 21, 2021, 9:18:50 AM8/21/21
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Toyin Adepoju.

Your response, as usual conflates many issues and reeks of Islamophobia.

Biko Agozino does not represent all of African scholars, so his stayiin in the US cannot be an argumentative whipping trope, relative to your station in Africa, exceot as disguised envy.

You gentrify European rape of other cultures to develop theirs, and if other cultures as some strain of Islam ( by no means all) attempt this, you hamner them on the head.  Yes, Islam generally needs rehabilitation, but all religions are irrational, and so is Christianity after the Reformation, yet you are proud of European ' achievements on this score.

Yes, African diasporans benefit from the extortion by Europe of their others, which produced the paragons you laud so much; that precisely is why efforts of those like Biko Agozino at self critical awareness be lauded by you.  Biko cannot be made to feel ashamed of consuming products of Western advancement in the US any more than you devouring the crumbs from your station in Lagos!

These products of' the West' and paradigms are but expropriation and reification of their others as I have demonstrated on this forum and calling them ' Western' is just a matter of speech in describing hegemonies.  Freud did not develop psychoanalysis before Ifa priests, but he only gave a western oriented name to a global practice and refined it for a western ( and westernised ) audience. He acknowledged these antecedents in his preface to his landmark ' Interpretations of Dreams. 

There are many clinics of Chinese acupuncture in London, even as we write.  Dominance of European medicine cannot extinguish it in Europe let alone in the vast spaces of China where it luxuriates.

OAA

Let those who believe in majoriry rule, ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.





Sent from my Galaxy

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Date: 19/08/2021 19:18 (GMT+00:00)
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 21, 2021, 4:36:56 PM8/21/21
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ERRATA:

Oga Biko:

It was actually not Cesaire who proclaimed ' Hurrah to those who invented nothing'; it was his Negritude sibling practitioner, and poet Leopold Sedar Senghor.


OAA


Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice in Nigeria come 2023



Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------
From: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Date: 21/08/2021 14:30 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

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Biko:


The US did not invent the idea of University independent of Africans.

On the contrary, American hegemonic forebears, the English  transplanted the idea of Oxford the third University in the world, which was copied from the Moroccan initiative you cited to the Americas as part of their colonial conquest.

Aime Cesaire has been roundly critiqued by those of us in Literature for his glib idea that Africa invented nothing, which seems to his pandering to the limited European conception of the word ' invention.'  But many who critique Casaire out of context do not often clarify that Cesaire's position is a trope and not an essay, and could be read as parody and demonstrates poetic licence

Yes, you are right about the importance of language in the organogram of production forces. I would rank language the most important pedestal on which the other three (labour, land and capital) are erected, and without which they will be meaningless in their various applications and deployments.

OAA


Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023



Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 19/08/2021 23:06 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

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Toyin,

English language is a vehicle for expression and anyone can acquire that vehicle and use to express thoughts. It has been reported that 95% of scientific papers are published in English to the disadvantage of other European languages but all Europeans and most Asians try to learn science in their own languages even if they publish more in English. Africans will benefit from learning more in their own languages even if they translate more publications into European languages for communication with the wider world of science, as Ngugi has been calling for. Hardly any country has industrialized by relying on the language of colonizers because language is a factor of production of equal importance to land, labour, and capital, as i observed elsewhere.

Are you not critical of some aspects of European culture? Even Europeans are critical of the short-comings of their culture and struggle to make their society better by learning from other cultures. You seem to think that Europe is perfect and does not need to be improved or that Europe has nothing to learn from Africa or Asia or Arabs. No scientist would be ready to dismiss any community of interpretation a-priori. But even if Africans have invented nothing at all (a big if), we should still join Aime Cessaire and proclaim, Hurray to those who invented nothing, because they remain fully human, deserving equal dignity and opportunity.

The oldest university in the world was established by an African woman in a mosque in Morocco. The US may have invented the idea of the university independently of Africans but they started by excluding women and people of African descent from university education for centuries. There were laws made applying the death penalty to any person of African descent found with a book during hundreds of years of enslavement in the US. Funding for education is still uneven in the US to the disadvantage of girls and people of color, hence the civil rights provisions of Title VII and Title IX to try to increase diversity especially in higher education. If the US prioritizes education more than war, the country will be a lot better in the interest of all. Do you disagree?

Boko Haram probably did not copy opposition to the education of girls from the US but the US was not always a promoter of equal education for women and African Americans until the civil rights movement helped to teach them that equal opportunities in education would make for a more perfect union in the interest of all. Religious fundamentalism originated in the US in the form of the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, according to Derrida. The US did not go to war against a religion but against those who attacked the US. Today, domestic terrorists are still attacking the US at home and hundreds of thousands of citizens go missing yearly in the US just like under Boko Haram. Do you think that militarism will be able to defeat terrorism at home when it could not do so abroad?

The Taliban were not always the enemies of the US, you know. They used to be allies trained, armed, and funded by the US against the Soviet Union. The US, under Trump, made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw US forces from Afghanistan where they went to fight al Kadir, not the Taliban. Not all the beliefs of the Taliban are terroristic and some of the acts of the US are also terroristic, according to Noam Chomsky. If you look at the official language of the anti-terrorism law in Nigeria, probably plagiarized from the US, it defines terrorism as the use of force or threat of force to achieve political goals. Chomsky says that almost every government is self-defined as terroristic in those terms. But some states are more terroristic by sponsoring terrorists and treating them with impunity while terrorizing innocent citizens with genocidal policies.

Alcoholism may be seen as a terroristic weapon that kills more people in the US every year than have ever been killed by terrorists. The US knows this and prohibited alcohol for decades just like the Taliban but they soon found out that education works better than prohibition. Just because the Taliban opposes alcoholism does not mean that those opposed to terrorism must promote alcoholism. Southern Baptists in the US also prohibit alcohol consumption just like the Taliban even if they do not use corporal punishment to enforce it. Alcoholism is a problem that the US could learn to take more seriously from the Taliban with better funding for health education.

Does Nigeria have a public health education program against alcoholism? My village saw the lethal effects of ogogoro and banned the moonshine by themselves. You should not confuse opposition to terrorism with total opposition to any religion even when the religion teaches something that you can learn from. Sometimes, you may share a concern but learn from the error of terrorism what to avoid in trying to solve the common problem. How do you think that Africa should address the terroristic problem of alcoholism?

Ending the war on drugs may be the policy option to allow drug users and alcoholics to reduce harm and seek help from health services when necessary while education will help to reduce demand for drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Prohibition does not work. Now, what are your policy proposals? Would you like the US to stay in Afghanistan until every Taliban has been killed, until every alcoholic is dead, until every Boko Haram child fighter has been killed or 'reformed'? 

Non-violence and the forgiveness of the unforgivable is the African preferred way of addressing huge crimes against humanity like centuries of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, according to Derrida. Do you prefer militarism as the only solution when even the mighty US military has admitted that there is no military solution to the problem? The US has learned that lesson from 20 years of fighting the Taliban, as Moses itemized. What lessons have you learned from the war against terrorism?

Biko

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 21, 2021, 5:50:33 PM8/21/21
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no, it was cesaire, in cahier d'un retour au pays natal.
quite sure about that.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 4:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Biko Agozino

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Aug 21, 2021, 5:52:51 PM8/21/21
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I get you bros,

Henry Ford also said that he invented nothing new.

Cesaire put it this way: 'Ela for those who never invented anything.' He was making a joke because he was also saying in that long poem, Notebook of a return to Native Land', that Africa invented human beings, Africans invented  language and writing, Africans invented human civilization. If that is regarded as the invention of nothing by those who borrowed gunpowder from China and weaponized it and uprooted Africans for enslavement, then so be it. But they must still respect the humanity of Africans because the vast majority of human beings, mostly children and the aged, the poor workers and farmers, even the rich and highly educated, have never invented anything but still deserve ultimate respect as human beings.Not surprised to hear Senghor say something similar in Negritude with French.

Du Bois answered the challenge in a different way. They keep asking us to show them our Newton, Shakespeare, Kant, Einstein, or Mozart if we think that we are equal. Calmly, Du Bois asked them to show us their own Jesus H. Christ, or the Holy Virgin Mary, or Prophet Muhammed, if they think that they are superior. And yet we who have these 'prodigious ancestors' in our ancestry do not claim to be superior, we only assert our human equality. But even some of us protest and claim that they must have come from a different kind of monkey, angels in fact - polygenesis, they claimed. Diop said that there is only one authentic anthropology - monogenesis.

On the African origin of language, when it became clear that language did not originate anywhere else and that all human languages are traceable to one African mother tongue, the French banned the subject, Philology, for 100 years. The ban was only broken by Chomsky who reemphasized the consensus that language emerged in Africa about 150,000 years ago among early men and women who appeared to be naturally wired with the ability to learn and speak language. It spread from Africa to the rest of the world through migration about 50,000 years ago. No linguist would argue today that there is a language that is not related to any other language in the world nor that it has no trace of African origins just as no biologist would claim no genetic trace to Africa. We are all Africans.

The significance of the view of language as a technology or vehicle for communication is that, like land, labor, and capital, it is not tied to culture. You can acquire a language and be fluent in it without sharing the culture that predominantly uses that language. As a medium of communication, McLuhan may be right that the language of expression may massage the message but it does not determine the decoding of the encoded messages. According to Stuart Hall, the Encoding/Decoding is done in ideologically contested struggles either to support the hegemonic status quo, seek minor reforms or compromise, or to seek to restructure society in revolutionary ways.

Biko

Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 21, 2021, 6:25:19 PM8/21/21
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the difference here between senghor and cesaire is enormous. i can't imagine senghor making such a sarcastic ironic comment. cesaire wrote the unforgettable work that attacks european colonialism and postcolonial, Discourse on COlonialism, in which he likens colonialism to fascism. right after the war. he was really dead-on, and walked the walk with other caribbean negritude poets--like damas.
they were communist or fellow travelers. then cesaire broke ranks, and voted to accept affiliation with france, despite the diatribe against europe. at that time senghor was extremely pro-french, and his opponent in senegal dia, was jailed, and sembene mocked him in Xala.

the two schools of negritude were miles apart, and i always thought that the impact of slavery in the caribbean accounted for the vast difference.
so when cesasire wrote that line, hurray for those who invented nothing, it was, like, in your face, european bigots. it had the ring of violence we could associate later w the black power movement, with writers like baraka whose poetry was even more violent in rejecting western civilization.
like damas, where that word, civilization, was like a knife used to castrate black men,,,,
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 5:20 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Toyin Falola

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Aug 21, 2021, 6:33:39 PM8/21/21
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O friendly light
O pristine source of light
those who invented neither gunpowder nor compass
those who have never tamed steam or electricity
those who have not explored either seas or sky
but without whom the earth would not be the earth
excrescence growing more benign even as the earth continues to desert
the earth
grain silo where there germinates and ripens what is most earth upon
the earth

My negritude is not a stone, its deafness heaved
against the clamor of day
my negritude is not a film of dead water on the dead eye
of earth
my negritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral
it delves into the red flesh of the soil
it delves into the burning flesh of the sky
it digs through the dark accretions that weigh down its righteous
patience.

Hurray for the majestic Cedrate!
Hurray for those who have never invented anything
for those who have never explored anything
for those who have never vanquished anything
but they surrender, possessed, to the essence of every thing
ignorant of surfaces but possessed by the movement
of every thing
unconcerned to vanquish, but playing the game of the world

truly the elder sons of the world
permeable to all the breaths of the world
fraternal compass points for all the breaths of the world
deep lake bed for all the waters of the world
spark of the sacred fire of the world
flesh of the very flesh of the world, palpitating with the very
movement of the world!
Foreday morning warm with ancestral values

 Aimé Césaire’s Journal of a Homecoming ⁄ Cahier d′un retour au pays natal, translated by N. Gregson Davis. Originally published in 1939, Cahier d′un retour au pays natal is a landmark of modern French poetry and a founding text of the Negritude movement

Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 21, 2021, 11:10:21 PM8/21/21
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the french is truly inspiring, inspirational, uplifting

ô lumière amicale
ô fraîche source de la lumière
ceux qui n'ont inventé ni la poudre ni la boussole
ceux qui n'ont jamais su dompter la vapeur ni l'électricité
ceux qui n'ont exploré ni les mers ni le ciel
mais ceux sans qui la terre ne serait pas la terre
gibbosité d'autant plus bienfaisant que la terre déserte
davantage la terre
silo où se préserve et mûrit ce que la terre a de plus terre
ma négritude n'est pas une pierre, sa surdité ruée
contre la clameur du jour
ma négritude n'est pas une taie d'eau morte sur l'oeil mort de la terre
ma négritude n'est ni une tour ni une cathédrale

elle plonge dans la chair rouge du sol
elle plonge dans la chair ardente du ciel
elle troue l'accablement opaque de sa droite patience.

Eia pour le Kaïlcédrat royal !
Eia pour ceux qui n'ont jamais rien inventé
pour ceux qui n'ont jamais rien exploré
pour ceux qui n'ont jamais rien dompté

mais ils s'abandonnent, saisis, à l'essence de toute chose
ignorants des surfaces mais saisis par le mouvement de toute chose
insoucieux de dompter, mais jouant le jeu du monde

véritablement les fils aînés du monde
poreux à tous les souffles du monde
aire fraternelle de tous les souffles du monde
lit sans drain de toutes les eaux du monde
étincelle du feu sacré du monde
chair de la chair du monde palpitant du mouvement même du monde !

Tiède petit matin de vertus ancestrales

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 6:32 PM

Biko Agozino

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Aug 21, 2021, 11:11:26 PM8/21/21
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truly the elder sons of the world
permeable to all the breaths of the world
fraternal compass points for all the breaths of the world
deep lake bed for all the waters of the world
spark of the sacred fire of the world
flesh of the very flesh of the world, palpitating with the very
movement of the world!
Foreday morning warm with ancestral values

Hurray to us! We are the world. Thanks to Toyin for sharing this extract.

Ken, you may be a little too hard on ancestor Cesaire. It was not his vote that brought about 'la association' with France. That association was already there in the childhood of Fanon when he was warned not to act like an African, by his mother, and he went on to write about the longing for a white man by a specific Black woman in Black Skin White Masks. What should Odogwu Aime do if the majority voted to remain French while he wanted to remain the Igbo man he was? 

If you ask Nigerians to vote today on association with the UK so that they can travel there without visas, no amount of writings on self-ownership by the Zikists would persuade them to vote against association with Eze Nwanyi Eliza. Ghanaians will still vote for Obroni despite all that jazz about Consciencism by Nkrumah.

Look how Afghans are scrambling to escape with those who invaded their country, and quite rightly so, because the new masters of the land have a record of screwing things up for everyone. In the case of Martinique, what did they lose by voting for the right to be a department of France? Negritude? They still have Negritude. Even if they voted for independence, neocolonialism and imperialism will still ensure French domination. The West Indian Federation could have offered a better hope but when Jamaica left because my island is bigger than yours, Eric Williams said that 10 - 1 = 0. 

The University of the West Indies, the West Indian Cricket Team, and CARICOM show what was lost by dissolving the federation especially in the administration of criminal justice: They finally started the Caribbean Court of Justice as the court of highest jurisdiction to get out from the embarrassment that the House of Lords started the precedent of ruling against the death penalty if the detainee had spent too long on death row. Most African countries still retain the death penalty long after the European colonizers who imposed such barbaric forms of punishment had abolished them in Europe.

Hurray to Cesaire who never invented anything, except for Negritude!

Biko


Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 21, 2021, 11:12:19 PM8/21/21
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although i am not 100% crazy about this translation, i want to note irele's input. i read the annotated version of the Cahier, with irele's annotations. in my view it is the best work he produced. it was maybe a shame he didn't do a translation himself, but someone with even a modicum of french could profit from his brilliant annotations. and anyone teaching it should definitely use it as a scholarly source.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 6:32 PM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Aug 22, 2021, 8:33:39 AM8/22/21
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I see the portion you refer to in Notebook.  The critique of Senghor's take on the issue is more widespread, perhaps because its more repetitive in Senghor as trope.

I recall my learned Senior's (WS) critique of Senghor in Burden of Memory where he contrasted Cesaire's take on Negritude with Senghor's.

Suffice it to say there is a deliberate mutually reinforcing overlap in both apostles of Negritude to advance their mutual goal.

When it comes to language your points on the oneness of language and its African origins leads us in a pincer like double articulation to Saussurean linguistics and its development into Semiotics by Barthes, as well as the psychoanalytical roots of language as that which is first and foremost inscribed into the template of the mind before the differentiation of language as presence  (orality) and the written text, with its differentiated orthographies.


OAA


Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.



Sent from my Galaxy



-------- Original message --------
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 21/08/2021 23:06 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

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I get you bros,

Henry Ford also said that he invented nothing new.

Cesaire put it this way: 'Ela for those who never invented anything.' He was making a joke because he was also saying in that long poem, Notebook of a return to Native Land', that Africa invented human beings, Africans invented  language and writing, Africans invented human civilization. If that is regarded as the invention of nothing by those who borrowed gunpowder from China and weaponized it and uprooted Africans for enslavement, then so be it. But they must still respect the humanity of Africans because the vast majority of human beings, mostly children and the aged, the poor workers and farmers, even the rich and highly educated, have never invented anything but still deserve ultimate respect as human beings.Not surprised to hear Senghor say something similar in Negritude with French.

Du Bois answered the challenge in a different way. They keep asking us to show them our Newton, Shakespeare, Kant, Einstein, or Mozart if we think that we are equal. Calmly, Du Bois asked them to show us their own Jesus H. Christ, or the Holy Virgin Mary, or Prophet Muhammed, if they think that they are superior. And yet we who have these 'prodigious ancestors' in our ancestry do not claim to be superior, we only assert our human equality. But even some of us protest and claim that they must have come from a different kind of monkey, angels in fact - polygenesis, they claimed. Diop said that there is only one authentic anthropology - monogenesis.

On the African origin of language, when it became clear that language did not originate anywhere else and that all human languages are traceable to one African mother tongue, the French banned the subject, Philology, for 100 years. The ban was only broken by Chomsky who reemphasized the consensus that language emerged in Africa about 150,000 years ago among early men and women who appeared to be naturally wired with the ability to learn and speak language. It spread from Africa to the rest of the world through migration about 50,000 years ago. No linguist would argue today that there is a language that is not related to any other language in the world nor that it has no trace of African origins just as no biologist would claim no genetic trace to Africa. We are all Africans.

The significance of the view of language as a technology or vehicle for communication is that, like land, labor, and capital, it is not tied to culture. You can acquire a language and be fluent in it without sharing the culture that predominantly uses that language. As a medium of communication, McLuhan may be right that the language of expression may massage the message but it does not determine the decoding of the encoded messages. According to Stuart Hall, the Encoding/Decoding is done in ideologically contested struggles either to support the hegemonic status quo, seek minor reforms or compromise, or to seek to restructure society in revolutionary ways.

Biko

On Saturday, 21 August 2021, 16:36:56 GMT-4, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:


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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Well,  Eze Nwanyi Eliza's government ( a Conservative one for that matter!)  has rewarded Commonwealth Ghanaians by appointing one of their own ( Kwarteng) as the first fully negroid ever to occupy a Cabinet rank of Business Secretary, ( following Kofi Anan in the United Nations) and the rest is now history.  ( Nigerians can continue their megalomaniac, Hobbesian violent, political noise making across the globe)


OAA


Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.





Sent from my Galaxy



-------- Original message --------
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 22/08/2021 04:25 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

Boxbe This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafric...@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
truly the elder sons of the world
permeable to all the breaths of the world
fraternal compass points for all the breaths of the world
deep lake bed for all the waters of the world
spark of the sacred fire of the world
flesh of the very flesh of the world, palpitating with the very
movement of the world!
Foreday morning warm with ancestral values

Hurray to us! We are the world. Thanks to Toyin for sharing this extract.

Ken, you may be a little too hard on ancestor Cesaire. It was not his vote that brought about 'la association' with France. That association was already there in the childhood of Fanon when he was warned not to act like an African, by his mother, and he went on to write about the longing for a white man by a specific Black woman in Black Skin White Masks. What should Odogwu Aime do if the majority voted to remain French while he wanted to remain the Igbo man he was? 

If you ask Nigerians to vote today on association with the UK so that they can travel there without visas, no amount of writings on self-ownership by the Zikists would persuade them to vote against association with Eze Nwanyi Eliza. Ghanaians will still vote for Obroni despite all that jazz about Consciencism by Nkrumah.

Look how Afghans are scrambling to escape with those who invaded their country, and quite rightly so, because the new masters of the land have a record of screwing things up for everyone. In the case of Martinique, what did they lose by voting for the right to be a department of France? Negritude? They still have Negritude. Even if they voted for independence, neocolonialism and imperialism will still ensure French domination. The West Indian Federation could have offered a better hope but when Jamaica left because my island is bigger than yours, Eric Williams said that 10 - 1 = 0. 

The University of the West Indies, the West Indian Cricket Team, and CARICOM show what was lost by dissolving the federation especially in the administration of criminal justice: They finally started the Caribbean Court of Justice as the court of highest jurisdiction to get out from the embarrassment that the House of Lords started the precedent of ruling against the death penalty if the detainee had spent too long on death row. Most African countries still retain the death penalty long after the European colonizers who imposed such barbaric forms of punishment had abolished them in Europe.

Hurray to Cesaire who never invented anything, except for Negritude!

Biko


On Saturday, 21 August 2021, 18:40:18 GMT-4, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:


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