Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
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Chambi Chachage
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Jun 11, 2015, 10:37:29 PM6/11/15
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to Wanazuoni, Waafrika
"The apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book by Olúfémi Táíwò, professor of Africana studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. In “Africa Must be Modern,” Táíwò explores the current problems and political climate in African countries and their progress in recent years; and compares their growth to similar countries in other regions of the world. Costa Rica, for example, preserves its forests and earns substantial revenue from ecotourism, while Liberia risks losing its forests to logging. While the two countries have similar populations, Costa Ricans can expect to live two decades longer than Liberians. “Similar comparisons can be made of, say, Chile and Zambia, Ethiopia and the Philippines, Brazil and Nigeria, and so on,” he writes. These comparisons support Táíwò’s argument that modernity is necessary for African nations’ survival: “If we would compare ourselves with others, rather than differentiate ourselves from them, we might be shamed into action that will move us forward with the rest of humanity.” - Africana professor issues call for modernity in Africa | Cornell Chronicle
TáíwòThe apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book...
"In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and social and political transformation. What has to change for Africa to be able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Táíwò insists that Africa can renew itself only by fully engaging with democracy and capitalism and by mining its untapped intellectual resources. While many may not agree with Táíwò’s positions, they will be unable to ignore what he says. This is a bold exhortation for Africa to come into the 21st century" - Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto
Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto [Olúfémi Táíwò] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and socia...
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to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, cham...@yahoo.com, wana...@yahoogroups.com
Great! I cant think of other recent works by African scholars on this theme. I will definitely have a look.
The blurb sounds rather odd. Is it true that "Africans" (which Africans?) are "reluctant" to be "modern" (whatever that might mean besides conservation - as sister Gloria noted). And this idea of "shaming" because, apparently, Costa Rica or Brazil are modern sounds a bit patronizing to my ear.
I like an older work that takes up the topic of Africa's relationship to "modernity"--Charlie Piot's Remotely Global: Modernity in West Africa. Piot looks at the Kabre ethnic group and modernity in Togo (Chicago U Press, 1999). Also, Johannes Fabian Out Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa (Univ of Calif Press, 2000).
kzs
kenneth harrow
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Jun 13, 2015, 2:26:00 PM6/13/15
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i'd add to kwame's list of books to look at Charles Ferguson's
Global Shadows, the best i know on globaliation and africa. piot's
Nostalgia for the Future is important
ken
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Anunoby, Ogugua
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Jun 13, 2015, 2:26:00 PM6/13/15
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to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, Wanazuoni
I agree. I will add exploring modernity, warts and all too.
oa
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 13, 2015, 2:39:30 PM6/13/15
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Hi Ken,
Ferguson's ("Global Shadows") author first name is James. I recall being less impressed with this book.
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It would help if people read Femi's book.
Pablo
kenneth harrow
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Jun 13, 2015, 5:02:04 PM6/13/15
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right james. funny slip
ken
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
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Jun 13, 2015, 5:02:04 PM6/13/15
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Is Taiwo calling for Africa to embrace neo-liberalism, cut-throat capitalism,
western hegemony, World Governance (unipolarity), extra-judicial drones,
a military - prison-industrial system, Big Pharma and its toxic pharmaceuticals,
corporatism and rule by corporations etc.
These features may be considered part of modernity
by some analysts, rightly or wrongly.
That is why I look forward eagerly to the definition of modernity.
Since you have read the book, Pablo, kindly shed some light on this
so that we don't jump to the wrong conclusions.
G
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net vimeo.com/user5946750/videos Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
"The apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book by Olúfémi Táíwò, professor of Africana studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. In “Africa Must be Modern,” Táíwò explores the current problems and political climate in African countries and their progress in recent years; and compares their growth to similar countries in other regions of the world. Costa Rica, for example, preserves its forests and earns substantial revenue from ecotourism, while Liberia risks losing its forests to logging. While the two countries have similar populations, Costa Ricans can expect to live two decades longer than Liberians. “Similar comparisons can be made of, say, Chile and Zambia, Ethiopia and the Philippines, Brazil and Nigeria, and so on,” he writes. These comparisons support Táíwò’s argument that modernity is necessary for African nations’ survival: “If we would compare ourselves with others, rather than differentiate ourselves from them, we might be shamed into action that will move us forward with the rest of humanity.” - Africana professor issues call for modernity in Africa | Cornell Chronicle<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/05/africana-professor-issues-call-modernity-africa>
TáíwòThe apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book...
"In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and social and political transformation. What has to change for Africa to be able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Táíwò insists that Africa can renew itself only by fully engaging with democracy and capitalism and by mining its untapped intellectual resources. While many may not agree with Táíwò’s positions, they will be unable to ignore what he says. This is a bold exhortation for Africa to come into the 21st century" - Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto<http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Must-Be-Modern-Manifesto/dp/0253012759>
Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto [Olúfémi Táíwò] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and socia...
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Agree, sister Gloria.
And when African leaders chart a path of self-determination they are assassinated, overthrown, smeared or otherwise undermined--frequently with western connivance. The most recent example being Eritrea now labeled a "brutal dictatorship" by the US govt.
I've ordered Taiwo's book and was able to read the intro and a substantial part of Chapter 1. Interestingly, the author says he identified with Marxist principles in Nigeria. He then went to Canada to school only to discover that capitalism wasn't that bad after all. Modernity is western thing (no mention of the ongoing oppression of First Nations/Indigenous Canadiens). Yes, he concedes, the west has got some things wrong, slavery, for example. However, because they have embraced individualism and the related principle of individual rights, western nations have shown the capacity to correct themselves. He correctly notes that all societies have gone through a communalistic stage. Africans, according to Taiwo, are stuck in this phase thus impeding their development.
African Americans didn't have to invent anything new in their demand for equal rights, they simply insisted that America live up to its lofty principles of modernity. I agree. But that isn't the whole story. He is unaware that communism played a key role in challenging racism in the Jim Crow South. A role that was only reluctantly taken up by the NAACP. He is critical of the conservative American right and what he see as the turn from modern ideas. He mentions specifically mass incarceration, the assault of voting rights, etc.
Taiwo believes that "Africans" haven't embraced "modernity" because they focus incessantly on its negative aspects whilst ignoring the many positive elements. He seems to miss that contemporary geopolitics have also played a significant role in what he calls Africa's "backwardsness"; that western development depends on African underdevelopment; that the principles of modernity didn't just "correct" gross injustices. Rather "modernity" America required the brutal oppression of Indigenous Americans and Africans. That oppression is less brutish but ongoing. Just as development in the west depends on Africa's raw materials presently.
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Don't uphold Eritrea as a paragon of a moral, modern African state, please. We can do better than live in Gulags and hail oppressors as patriotic leaders.
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I have met many Eritreans who have told me otherwise. What is your source for comparing Eritrea to Nazi Germany?
Folu Ogundimu
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Jun 14, 2015, 4:53:05 PM6/14/15
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I see how well informed you are. Did your Eritrean confidants also tell you what proportion of the Eritrean population is in prison, forced labor camps, and compulsory extended military service? And is it such a mystery that so many of the Africans perishing in the Sahara and the Mediterranean on the flight to Europe are Eritreans? Perhaps these facts are concocted too.
Wake up Dr. Shabazz, true Pan-Africanists don't defend evil blindly just because we are all black brothers. We cannot excuse Western imperialism and its neo-imperial agenda but turn a blind eye to the worst atrocities being perpetrated against the African people by megalomaniac leaders who have self-indulgent aspirations of grandeur.
I will say no more on this topic. You are welcome to your own views and agenda, brother.
F.
Sent from my iPhone
kenneth harrow
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Jun 14, 2015, 6:16:11 PM6/14/15
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there are two sets of refugees now flooding the boats to europe,
desperate refugees fleeing bad oppressive violent circumstances.
etritreans and syrians.
ken
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 14, 2015, 6:16:11 PM6/14/15
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Folu,
I stand my statement. Essentially what is at issue is the realpolitik of revolution. And there are just too many Eritreans challenging these hyperbolic charges that Eritrea = Nazi Germany to ignore. Yes, young people are fleeing Eritrea. But thats true in many parts of Africa. Yes, there are forced labor camps in Eritrea. But we also have them here in the USA, the bastion of "democracy." Compulsory military is not sinister. It is necessary given the history of aggression against Eritrea. Eritrea has many flaws. I agree. It seems clear to me that there are human rights abuses in Eritrea. I condemn it. But its also true that Eritrea has made remarkable strides whilst refusing western aid--education and healthcare, for example. Any African leader who makes the courageous choice of self-reliance will certainly have many difficult obstacles to overcome. Individual freedom, electoral politics and "democracy" lauded in Taiwo's book are not workable in Eritrea at present time. They are bordered by aggressors backed by AFRICOM. In such instance individual freedom must be sacrificed for national liberation. The alternative is to become puppets of US aggression like Ethiopia and Djibouti.
kzs
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 14, 2015, 6:42:06 PM6/14/15
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there are still many West African immigrants. According to reports Eritreans typically say they want to avoid the mandatory military draft.
kzs
Anunoby, Ogugua
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Jun 14, 2015, 8:12:02 PM6/14/15
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“... In such instance individual freedom must be sacrificed for national liberation.”
kzs
Is the case being made that the end justifies the means?
What national liberation? Who is it for? What is its cost including shame to Eritreans?
Is the suggestion that national liberation is not possible except individual freedom is denied? Of course it is.
It is usually autocratic political regimes that employ the bogey of national security to legitimize the denial of citizens’ personal freedom- a fundamental human right.
Samuel Johnson was right when he said that “ the flag is the refuge of a scoundrel.”
Human history is likely to repeat itself in Eritrea. A majority of Eritreans will sooner or later acknowledge the wanton waste of blood, time, and treasure they endured for the delusion of national liberation, if they do not already.
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 14, 2015, 9:06:58 PM6/14/15
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OA,
As I noted previously, I would say Taiwo gets this thing about individual rights wrong or just partially right. To my thinking, African American appeals for justice were more about collective rights than individual rights. To be clear, I'm not saying that individual rights should be abandoned. I am saying that, in some instances, collective rights are foregrounded. Wartime is one such instance. The importance of collective rights was also the point of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
And where on the planet do these vaunted "individual rights" exist? Here in the western world rights have always been unequal. Indigenous people, Black people, Brown people don't have "individual rights" in the USA. Kaleif Browder, a young African American boy, was held for three years at one of the most violent prisons in the USA, Rikers, without being charged. He committed suicide. Native Americans are at the bottom of every quality-of-life indicator.
I am unclear as to what "human history" you are referring to. And I disagree that the Eritrean struggle for liberation was "delusional." I have not even heard Eritreans who are critical of the regime make that claim. Or perhaps you mean delusional as in a creeping disenchantment post-struggle a la Armah's "Beautyful Ones?"
Time will tell.
Presently, Eritrea's status is precarious. I think that is obvious to all--hardly "bogey." Here in the USA "we" have sacrifice supposed "individual rights" for a regime of mass surveillance cloaked as "national security" (Rand Paul made minor dent in the Patriot Act, but that was more political than principle). But surveillance has always been a fact of life for African Americans.
kenneth harrow
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Jun 15, 2015, 7:01:43 AM6/15/15
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it seems to me we need careful language and criteria to assess the
figures/movements that deploy anti-western rhetoric so as to not
qualify any and every anti-western as some kind of positive
anti-imperialist movement. a revolutionary movement can be no
different from a totalitarian or effectively imperialist one, when
it assigns to itself the position of absolute holder of truth.
one kills in the name of the revolution, but if the only authority
is one's own power, how is it not effectively an authoritarianism
that is as bad as any other.
here might be an example, from today's bbc:
Mokhtar Belmokhtar: Top Islamist
'killed' in US strike
Media
captionTom Bateman:
"The Pentagon described the air strike as successful"
Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in the eastern city of Ajdabiya,
a statement from Libya's government said.
The US says Belmokhtar was targeted and the strike was
successful, but it is assessing the operation's results and
would give details "as appropriate".
Born in Algeria, Belmokhtar was a former senior figure in
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but left to form his own
militia.
He gained notoriety with the attack on the In Amenas gas plant
in Algeria in 2013, when about 800 people were taken hostage and
40 killed, most of them foreigners, including six Britons and
three Americans.
The US has filed terror charges against him and officials said
they believed he remained a threat to Western interests.
"Belmokhtar has a long history of leading terrorist activities
as a member of AQIM, is the operational leader of the
al-Qaeda-associated al-Murabitoun organisation in north-west
Africa, and maintains his personal allegiance to al-Qaeda," said
Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren.
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agreed, there are still w afr migrants. most recently, however, the
flood seems to be the two i mentioned, probably augmented by yemenis
On 6/15/15 12:39 AM, kwame zulu shabazz
wrote:
kenneth harrow
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Jun 15, 2015, 7:01:50 AM6/15/15
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human rights watch issued a report on eritrea, of which this is the
opening paragraphs.
you can' really have something called national liberation if the
people don't support it. the flights of so many, and the force of
the state, suggests something else.
we all started out as supporting revolution in my generation of the
60s. but we also learned of the mis-turns of revolution to
totalitarian like states. it isn't all simple, but there is one real
lesson, i believe, which is to question the cause, the fight, the
methods. we don't accept a struggle on the face of it.
unless we have a real, close analysis of the situation, we can't
make anything other than a facile judgment.
anyway, here is the hrw report:
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/eritrea
Eritrea’s dismal human rights situation, exacerbated by
indefinite military conscription, is causing thousands of
Eritreans to flee their country every month. In early 2014,
President Isaias Afewerki confirmed his lack of interest in an
open society, stating: “[I]f there is anyone who thinks there will
be democracy or [a] multiparty system in this country ... then
that person can think of such things in another world.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimates that about 4,000 Eritreans flee the country each month
and that as of mid-2014, more than 313,000 Eritrean –over 5
percent of the population–have fled. More than 5,000 crossed into
Ethiopia in October alone. Many have experienced further abuses or
death at the hands of traffickers en route to Israel and Europe,
while thousands of others have been detained in Libya and Israel
in deplorable conditions.
In June, the Human Rights Council condemned Eritrea’s “continued
widespread and systematic violations of human rights and
fundamental freedoms,” and adopted a resolution establishing a
commission of inquiry to investigate abuses in the country. The
most common patterns of abuse include open-ended military
conscription; forced labor during conscription; arbitrary arrests,
detentions, and disappearances; torture and other degrading
treatment in detention; restrictions on freedoms of expression,
conscience, and movement; and repression of religious freedom.
Members of the Afar and Kunama ethnic groups flee because of land
expropriations and discrimination by the government.
In September, Eritrea acceded to the United Nations Convention
against Torture.
Indefinite Conscription and Forced Labor
The threat of indefinite military conscription compels thousands
of young Eritreans to flee their country. Among recent defections
were 11 members of the national football team, including the
coach, who fled while in Kenya in December 2013. The national
football squad has lost almost 50 members in such defections over
the past five years.
By law, each Eritrean is compelled to serve 18 months in national
service starting at age 18 but in practice conscripts serve
indefinitely, many for over a decade. One 14-year-old refugee
said, “The military does not have an end, it is for life.” While
most young Eritreans begin military training for the last year of
high school, children as young as 15 are sometimes conscripted.
Desertions and refusals to report became more common in 2014.
Conscripts receive inadequate pay to support family members, a
financial plight exacerbated by food-price inflation in 2014.
Conscripts are also subject to military discipline and are harshly
treated throughout their long service. Perceived infractions
result in incarceration and in physical abuse often amounting to
torture. The length of incarceration and type of physical abuse
inflicted is at the whim of military commanders and jailers.
Female conscripts are frequently sexually abused by commanders.
ken
--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
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Anunoby, Ogugua
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Jun 15, 2015, 7:02:03 AM6/15/15
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That individual rights are denied or unequal does not mean that the rights are not there. If they were not there, they could not be denied and described as unequal.
The national liberation you claim for Eritrea as excuse for abuses by the state is a delusion because the greater threat Eritrea faces is posed by its authoritarian government and not her neighbors. That government is a threat to its people and Eritrea’s neighbors.
oa
Pablo
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Jun 15, 2015, 10:20:35 AM6/15/15
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Ken, pithiness can be an aphoristic virtue, but can also elide
complexity.
I have a number of students doing research in Eritrea --on
fisheries, extractivism, and on peace and conflict resolution. It
is a a country that I have visited, and is a place I know a little
about. Yes, indeed, many Eritreans are, understandingly, voting with
their feet about authoritarianism and/or economic hardship. But this
is an empirical issue, not a nostrum; and the shouting out about
gulags and labour camps, is not helpful (not from you, but from one
someone else who has ceased dialogue, as a way of avoiding
discussion), and is a vast distortion of what is happening there. We
should also try to understand the various reasons as to why this
is taking place now; why it might of not happened earlier, and why
it is getting the attention it is, right now?
Remember Gaddafi? He was the only source of oil for Eritrea, a
country spurned by the so-called international community; and
country set in thrall by comparison to Ethiopia, and for easy
demonization, They are strapped; it is place with a very young
population, and very few resources, but that young, human labour.
In the future, they may be able to exploit their fisheries, and
there are some some scope for extraction near the Ethiopian border
and about which, of curse, there has been a dispute. Indeed, there
is a joint venture with a a Canadian mining company that one can be
ambivalent about, which might provide some tax revenues, but not
much in the way of employment, but it might also be the basis for
some kind of agreement with Ethiopia, which also has interests in
the other side. We can only hope. Like many other countries in
Africa, there just isn't enough work to go around. The overlapping
and desperate conduits of migrancy are little different, except
in their recentness and the attention that they have been given,
than found in many other African counties, and in some respects
encouraged by local states. Finding how they end up on the shores of
north Africa, is one of the questions, and not to attributing
everything to the simple common denominator of political violence
and/or repression. The comparison with Syria is just not helpful.
Best,
Pablo
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 15, 2015, 12:51:45 PM6/15/15
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Brother Ogugua,
You say that Eritrea is a "threat to its neighbors." Lets talk about those neighbors. Ethiopia and Kenya antagonize Somalia as a US proxies. There is also Oromo resistance movement in Ethiopia. You are also silent on how Obama's heavy-handed policies (mis) guided the bogus "war on terror" have deteriorated the stability of that region. The US has also exacerbated the Ethiopia/Eritrea border dispute. Reduces
As for individual freedoms, if I understand you correctly, "individual freedoms" are relative, not absolute. By that standard Eritreans have enjoy some positive rights a good healthcare system, for example. As for the US,
16 year-old Kalief Browder was imprisoned for three years without being charged and later committed suicide. He had no "individual rights."
In 1997 I personally witness the liberation of former Black Panther, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt. Ji Jaga spent 27 years in prison for a crime the US govt. knew he could not have committed.
There are millions of Americans who are denied individual rights by our broken prison system. A system, as you know, that locks up more people than any other nation on the planet. See, for example, the recent NYT article, 1.5 Million Missing Black Men.
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 15, 2015, 12:51:45 PM6/15/15
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Ken,
I think its a mistake to reduce Eritrea's problems to "brutal dictator." I do, however, concede that human rights abuses are taking place in Eritrea. The most recent data on immigration that I could find is cited in a NYT article. For the most recent quarter reported (Jan-April) on migrants arriving by sea to Italy, the leading country of origin is, surprisingly, Gambia, the smallest country in Africa. Apparently, many Gambians chose the treacherous sea-route after the decimation of Libya (fomented by the US govt). You may read the essay here:
GENEVA — President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea has imposed a reign of fear through
systematic and extreme abuses of the population that may amount to
crimes against humanity, a panel of United
Nations investigators said on Monday.
The harsh actions of
the government have prompted hundreds of thousands of Eritreans to
flee the country, a major driver of the migrant crisis in the
Mediterranean, the panel concluded.
“We seldom see human
rights violations of the scope and scale as we see in Eritrea
today,” Sheila B. Keetharuth, one of three members of a United
Nations commission of inquiry, told journalists in Geneva.
Torture,
extrajudicial executions, disappearances, forced labor and sexual
violence are widespread and systematic, the panel said in a report
that it will present to the United
Nations Human Rights Council this month.
President Isaias Afwerki
of Eritrea at the United Nations General Assembly in 2011.Credit Stan Honda/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
The brutal tactics
employed by the government were “the tragic product of an initial
desire to protect and ensure the survival of the young state that
very quickly degenerated into the use of totalitarian practices,”
the panel said in its report.
Ms. Keetharuth
said: “It is not surprising to us that these days a large
proportion of those crossing the Mediterranean and using other
irregular routes to reach Europe are Eritrean.”
“They are fleeing a
country ruled not by law but by fear,” she added.
kenneth harrow
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Jun 15, 2015, 4:10:51 PM6/15/15
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hi pablo
a recent ny times editorial re eritrea was scathing. there are red
flags out there from lots of sources. but when i wrote my little
posting, i said something to the effect that we need to know more
about what is happening than simply to accept a regime's excuse for
hr abuses on the ground that it is in the name of national
liberation.
my reference to syrians and eritreans on the boat, however, was not
an attempt at either pithiness or comparison. i am in europe now;
there are reports in the past couple of weeks about who is on the
boats coming from libya, and i reported what i heard. a fellow
conference african reported that he had the same word from an
african refugee he encountered recently who said he was practically
the only black african on the boat. i agree w kwame that west
africans must still be coming, but these human cargoes might reflect
recent crises, and the pointing to syrians and eritreans signals
some more recent phenomenon.
as the stories grow about the buying and selling of these refugees,
the risks to which they are exposed, it is monstrous. i know when
senegalese constituted the cargo, in large numbers, it was not
because of really bad times in senegal, but opportunities they
believed were afforded them in europe.
i lack your first-hand knowledge of the situation, and have no
scholarly investment in it. which means, i trust what you have to
say about it. i'd want more info to explain why it would now be the
case that eritreans are coming in numbers. maybe they have
established networks; maybe things have gone more sour? don't know.
i wanted a footnote to all this, which has to do with eritrea's big
enemy, ethopia, and its politics in the horn, its intervention in
somalia at u.s. behest, and how eritrea or djibouti plays into that
regional politics. i wouldn't simply reduce it to u.s. imperialism;
on the other hand, when ethiopia unseated al shabab, it did seem
that it was entirely at the bidding of the u.s., like burundian
troops going in there.
to come back to your main point, why now? why not other very poor
places like niger or burkina etc?
ken
kenneth harrow
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Jun 15, 2015, 4:10:51 PM6/15/15
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kwame
check out this report. seems the most detailed; about a month ago.
syria and eritrea are highlighted, but along lots of others. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/world/europe/surge-in-refugees-crossing-the-mediterranean-sea-maps.html
the figures for the past few months have the eritreans as the
highest number, 5400; then somalians at 3700; the nigeria, gambia,
and syria. since then i bet the syrian numbers are way up. their
figures were2 months old.
in another posting, you cautioned me against attributing the flight
from eritrea as being due to a brutal dictatorship. i don't know
enough about eritrea to venture any guess as to why they are
fleeing. the only african country i was close enough to be able to
guess about the reasons for leaving was senegal, and that was almost
10 years ago now. things seem to change rapidly, and i think each
local situation must be quite different. the press on eritrea,
however, has not been good.
the nyt had a good editorial about it a while ago, or maybe it was
the guardian. that is, in europe's attempt to stop the flow of
people from crossing the med into their countries, they are
basically ignoring the rights of refugees. not all of those seeking
to come are refugees. but by not vetting them, by stopping the
boats, and worse, shipping them back to libya, a country in the
midst of conflict, and when these routes are controlled by criminals
who deserve to be hung and quartered, europe is violating basic
humanitarian and international law.
everyone ignores the simple current underlying this: it is poor
people trying to get into rich countries.
and in countering the immigration, the inhabitants of the rich
countries do their best to forget where their own relatives came
from. i am not speaking just about the u.s., but the rest of europe
where migrations where the rule throughout their history, including
the 20th century.
k
On 6/15/15 5:13 PM, kwame zulu shabazz
wrote:
Segun Ogungbemi
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Jun 15, 2015, 4:10:53 PM6/15/15
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oa,
A country that denies her people of their freedoms and rights is a threat to humanity. What is going on in Eritrea is indefensible. And it is shameful.
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Ken, thanks for the updated migration numbers.
You asked why not Burkina Faso or Niger. Obviously there are many factors. Geography comes to mind. Niger and Burkina Faso are landlocked, so probably more migration within the continent. Eritrea, by comparison, is bordered by an enemy whilst having a good amount of coastline.Thus it makes sense that transoceanic migration would be an option for Eritreans.
kzs
p.s. I anxiously await a "scathing" UN report on the tens of thousands of
civilians that Obama has maimed, killed, terrorized with drones.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz === THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854). === EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
Folu Ogundimu
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Jun 15, 2015, 4:55:35 PM6/15/15
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Pablo:
This is your first contribution to this debate and it is shamefully disappointing. I am insulted that you will refer to me as 'someone who has ceased dialogue as a way of avoiding discussion.'
I have a name, signed my piece, made my principled objection to the massive violation of people's rights by uncouth brutal dictators. It is OK for you to serve as an apologist for the regime because you have privileged access to the country, you do not wish to endanger your own access , you have no family members who suffer at the hands of the 'Vagabonds In Power' as our Fela of blessed memory would say.
Chill, my brother. Defend the indefensible, sell your soul to the devil.
Good luck
Folu
Sent from my iPhone
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
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Jun 15, 2015, 6:13:56 PM6/15/15
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Ken, I am not sure as to what you are celebrating here.
Is it the use of extra-judicial drones in killing someone, or the death of a human rights violator?
Since you are a human rights advocate I assume that it is the latter.
I would add 5 more groups of refugees to your list:
1.There are those who are the victims of western propaganda that paints Europe as a land of milk and honey and everywhere else sheer hell on earth. Here the West is victim of its own disinformation.
2. Victims of the war against Gadaffi.
3. Victims of Boko Haram - which has wreaked havoc in the Chad Basin. I suspect that a lot of refugees from Northeast
4. . Islamic State sleeper cells perhaps. No tangible evidence. Sheer speculation.
5. Africans in search of the New World.
I really don't know about Eritrea. My friends on the Ethiopian side say it is a place of horror but
more info is needed. The political enemy of the day is usually smeared with radioactive paint.
At one time BL was a nice man and ally, and so too Saddam Hussein,
Papa Doc, Marcos, Suharto etc.
I get worried though when Eritrea prefers to back the 1929 and 1959
colonial era treaty that gave Egypt the lion's share of Nile Waters. That must be coming from
questionable leadership.
Tales of political prisoners in Guantanamo - style setting are also unsettling.
Not sure whether he eliminates his political prisoners by a faceless robot, though. He probably disposes of them
in a sealed ship on the Red sea. More investigation needed on this one.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net vimeo.com/user5946750/videos Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
it seems to me we need careful language and criteria to assess the figures/movements that deploy anti-western rhetoric so as to not qualify any and every anti-western as some kind of positive anti-imperialist movement. a revolutionary movement can be no different from a totalitarian or effectively imperialist one, when it assigns to itself the position of absolute holder of truth.
one kills in the name of the revolution, but if the only authority is one's own power, how is it not effectively an authoritarianism that is as bad as any other.
here might be an example, from today's bbc:
Mokhtar Belmokhtar: Top Islamist 'killed' in US strike
Media caption Tom Bateman: "The Pentagon described the air strike as successful"
Libya after Gaddafi
A top Islamist militant who ordered a deadly attack on an Algerian gas plant two years ago has been killed in a US air strike in Libya, officials say.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in the eastern city of Ajdabiya, a statement from Libya's government said.
The US says Belmokhtar was targeted and the strike was successful, but it is assessing the operation's results and would give details "as appropriate".
Born in Algeria, Belmokhtar was a former senior figure in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but left to form his own militia.
He gained notoriety with the attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria in 2013, when about 800 people were taken hostage and 40 killed, most of them foreigners, including six Britons and three Americans.
The US has filed terror charges against him and officials said they believed he remained a threat to Western interests.
"Belmokhtar has a long history of leading terrorist activities as a member of AQIM, is the operational leader of the al-Qaeda-associated al-Murabitoun organisation in north-west Africa, and maintains his personal allegiance to al-Qaeda," said Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren.
On 6/15/15 12:39 AM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:
there are still many West African immigrants. According to reports Eritreans typically say they want to avoid the mandatory military draft.
there are two sets of refugees now flooding the boats to europe, desperate refugees fleeing bad oppressive violent circumstances. etritreans and syrians.
ken
On 6/14/15 2:15 PM, Folu Ogundimu wrote:
Don't uphold Eritrea as a paragon of a moral, modern African state, please. We can do better than live in Gulags and hail oppressors as patriotic leaders.
And when African leaders chart a path of self-determination they are assassinated, overthrown, smeared or otherwise undermined--frequently with western connivance. The most recent example being Eritrea now labeled a "brutal dictatorship"<https://twitter.com/kzshabazz/status/609780828080476161> by the US govt.
I've ordered Taiwo's book and was able to read the intro and a substantial part of Chapter 1. Interestingly, the author says he identified with Marxist principles in Nigeria. He then went to Canada to school only to discover that capitalism wasn't that bad after all. Modernity is western thing (no mention of the ongoing oppression of First Nations/Indigenous Canadiens). Yes, he concedes, the west has got some things wrong, slavery, for example. However, because they have embraced individualism and the related principle of individual rights, western nations have shown the capacity to correct themselves. He correctly notes that all societies have gone through a communalistic stage. Africans, according to Taiwo, are stuck in this phase thus impeding their development.
African Americans didn't have to invent anything new in their demand for equal rights, they simply insisted that America live up to its lofty principles of modernity. I agree. But that isn't the whole story. He is unaware that communism played a key role in challenging racism in the Jim Crow South<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123771194>. A role that was only reluctantly taken up by the NAACP. He is critical of the conservative American right and what he see as the turn from modern ideas. He mentions specifically mass incarceration, the assault of voting rights, etc.
Taiwo believes that "Africans" haven't embraced "modernity" because they focus incessantly on its negative aspects whilst ignoring the many positive elements. He seems to miss that contemporary geopolitics have also played a significant role in what he calls Africa's "backwardsness"; that western development depends on African underdevelopment; that the principles of modernity didn't just "correct" gross injustices. Rather "modernity" America required the brutal oppression of Indigenous Americans and Africans. That oppression is less brutish but ongoing. Just as development in the west depends on Africa's raw materials presently.
"The apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book by Olúfémi Táíwò, professor of Africana studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. In “Africa Must be Modern,” Táíwò explores the current problems and political climate in African countries and their progress in recent years; and compares their growth to similar countries in other regions of the world. Costa Rica, for example, preserves its forests and earns substantial revenue from ecotourism, while Liberia risks losing its forests to logging. While the two countries have similar populations, Costa Ricans can expect to live two decades longer than Liberians. “Similar comparisons can be made of, say, Chile and Zambia, Ethiopia and the Philippines, Brazil and Nigeria, and so on,” he writes. These comparisons support Táíwò’s argument that modernity is necessary for African nations’ survival: “If we would compare ourselves with others, rather than differentiate ourselves from them, we might be shamed into action that will move us forward with the rest of humanity.” - Africana professor issues call for modernity in Africa | Cornell Chronicle<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/05/africana-professor-issues-call-modernity-africa>
"In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and social and political transformation. What has to change for Africa to be able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Táíwò insists that Africa can renew itself only by fully engaging with democracy and capitalism and by mining its untapped intellectual resources. While many may not agree with Táíwò’s positions, they will be unable to ignore what he says. This is a bold exhortation for Africa to come into the 21st century" - Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto<http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Must-Be-Modern-Manifesto/dp/0253012759>
Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto [Olúfémi Táíwò] on Amazon.com<http://amazon.com/>. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and socia...
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
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kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
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to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, anthony...@yahoo.co.uk, Afoaku, Osita, szalan...@msn.com, eob...@gmail.com, stephen...@gmail.com, os...@iupui.edu
Well said, Brother Folu!
I thought that President-for-Life Kamuzu Banda was the last shameless African Dictator, who sold his soul to the devil (including his Malawian fiefdom trading with apartheid South Africa) in order to have the leverage to remain in power for life!
Your eloquent words about brutal dictators reminded me of when some Ghanaian diplomats paid thousands of dollars for NEW YORK TIMES and other major newspaper advertisements in praise of I.K. Achempong's illiterate and brutal military dictatorship. That was
the very time, in 1972, that Acheampong's military regime had forcibly arrested and detained our Business Manager (Mr. Ofori) and me (A.B.) as the Deputy Editor of THE ASHANTI PIONEER newspaper in Kumasi, Ghana solely because of a published editorial questioning
massive corruption in and brutal dictatorship of the relatively young military regime.
Speaking of brutality and torture? In Acheampong's military detention, our hairs were forcibly shaved and some prisoners (including Mr. Ofori) had soldiers stepping on their private parts (to show them where power lies), whereby some of us came out of military
detention with swollen private parts.
Mr. Ofori (with his swollen private parts) eventually died from the brutal and tortuous wounds after our release from Acheampong's National Redemption Council (NRC) military detention. Thanks to Amnesty International, Ghana Journalists Association, International
P.E.N. and other international agencies, which campaigned for our release. I left Ghana there after, and I never went back to live in Ghana, hence Professors Achebe, Soyinka and several other International P.E.N. writers' association members often referred
to me as "Ancient Exile".
Well, some scholars, who researched in Ghana, also praised Acheampong's regime and what they saw as the wisdom in its so-called "Union Government" proposal for Acheampong to foist himself on Ghanaians as a civilian President. That was also in spite of the
regime's brutality! Therefore, it was no wonder that, in WEST AFRICA Magazine of London, I openly and heartily wrote to welcome the military regime that swiftly unseated the Acheamong/Akuffo military leadership and paid them back in their own deserving political
coin!
Most certainly, brutality or torture of citizens in any fashion and anywhere in Africa is unacceptable!
A.B. Assensoh, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
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"a revolutionary movement can be no different from a totalitarian or effectively imperialist one, when it assigns to itself the position of absolute holder of truth.
one kills in the name of the revolution, but if the only authority is one's own power, how is it not effectively an authoritarianism that is as bad as any other." Ken.
I agree. In the scenario Ken describes, the public interest either morphs into the authoritarian leaders' personal interest, or is surreptitiously supplanted by it.
My guess is that Eritrea (Afwerki) "prefers to back the 1929 and 1959 colonial era treaty that gave Egypt the lion's share of Nile Waters" because they disadvantage Eritrea's neighbors (Ethiopia and the Sudan) who believed they are short-changed by them.
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This conversation seems to me to have become more ideological than fact based. That individual rights are abused or denied by the state in any country including the U.S. neither explains nor justifies similar or other abuse or denial of individual rights in another country in my opinion. U.S. citizens are not risking limb, life, and treasure in their search for better lives abroad. Eritreans are.
Isaias Afwerki is Eritrea’s only post-independence ruler. He has had an unbridled stranglehold on power. He is the law. All the above are rightly matters of grave concern for many Eritreans. They should be to all true friends of Eritrea too. Thank goodness that is so.
Is there anyone who believed that Eritreans undertook their long and brutal liberation struggle to extricate their country from the Ethiopian Empire in order to replace a foreign Dictator with a domestic one- albeit a former freedom fighter? Many Eritreans voted with their feet during Ethiopian rule. They continue to do the same under Afwerki’s rule. The question for many Eritreans must be whether their long and bitter struggle for independence from Ethiopia, has been worth it.
oa
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 16, 2015, 12:13:01 AM6/16/15
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Ogugua,
This convo was actually about arguments made in Taiwo's book. One claim being that oppressed African Americans simply demanded that America live up to its modernist principles of individual rights. I replied by pointing out that, even today, millions of people are denied their individual rights in the USA (Taiwo concurs on this point). I think I also noted that when Obama kills innocent men, women, children with drones. That is also a clear violation of rights--in fact its a war crime. But the American oligarchy is never smeared as "brutal" by international bodies. None of that is "ideological", it's fact.
US belligerence abroad is connected to the challenges in Eritrea that we are debating. US foreign policy in the Horn contributes to instability in that region thus helping to create the very problem that the US reduces to "brutal dictator." I offered Eritrea as an example of the difficulty of an African leader choosing the path of self-determination. I contrasted that effort with Taiwo's enthusiastic embrace of western modernity.
People aren't leaving America because America has wrecked havoc on the non-western world. Imperialism is America's "strength," but its cloaked as "freedom" and "democracy." Thus, immigrants come for opportunity and freedom, but American power is built on its ability to exploit Latin America and other regions of the world.
America is the only home that most African Americans know. We have fought and died here for generations. Most of us aren't going anywhere. And where would we go? America and their Euro cousins have made much of the non-western world hardly live-able. I do plan on returning to Africa at some point. But I might as well fight whilst I'm here.
Pablo
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Jun 16, 2015, 12:13:52 AM6/16/15
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Dear Folu,
I did not mean to insult you, I went from memory, and could not
scroll down on my Ipad, which initially wrote this on, as I did not
have access to all of the thread, and it was not my intention to
make you appear anonymous, but for which I apologise.
As to selling my soul, that's a quaint Promethean allusion that I do
not subscribe to, not least of all because, if that's for
theologians to decide, they have no sense of my independence from
the needs and demands of others' compromises, which I do not need to
make. I hold no tuck with, nor, I would like you and others to
know, am I defending anything; rather, I'm asking people to widen
their lens. I do not have privileged access to the country. I have
been there twice; and have been have been to Ethiopia more often.
For the record, I had to apply for a visa like everyone else. I
have had the good and misfortune to have been to numerous African
countries; and in many, despite my passports, have to apply for
visas there.
To be sure, whether on a cursory extensive trip, we can only go to
so many places, and my own my case it really was not much beyond
80 kilometers out of Asmara. We see and bear witness to only so many
things. If I have seem some things, I have not seen many that others
have borne witness to that it would be naive and dishonest for me to
claim otherwise, even if I believe, though, there are a number of
errors of or in reportage. Still, I have no delusions that I can
only get to see so many things, but when I was there, my traveling
was not circumscribed. Do I believe in dictatorship and the the one
party state? No, no more than I believe in the multi party states
that are effectively one party states, like Ethiopia, and like many
other African states that are de facto one party states that I do
not see the complaints about. I would like to know what you have
read or seen beyond the three sources that most people cite-- the
NYT, the Amnesty Report and the BBC documentary. I have seen and/or
read all three plus many of other sources, which is why I do not
go in for one liners about about gulags.
There are are many reasons why Eritrea has come into focus; not
least of all because of the Eritreans fleeing. It is an
authoritarian one party state that has also thumbed its nose at
some very important regional and global players, and was, of course,
a supporter of ( with many caveats) , and was supported by,
Gaddafi. One of their major partners, even before 1993, were the
Chinese, who along with some smaller Canadian companies, are
major, and in many ways deeply problematical, players in Eritrea's
resource extraction that thus far as excluded the US. The exodus of
Eritreans is complex, and has been under way for a number of years,
but it is getting the attention now because of that migratory crisis
in North African, but also its role in one peculiarities of regional
geopolitics in part caused, yes, by people unwilling to live under
circumstances of what they consider to be political and economic
privation/repression. The sources of this flight have also, in
part, to do with the multilayered relationships to the Eritrean
diaspora across thee continents-- US/Canada, Europe and the gulf,
amongst other places, many of whom have financed their families' and
friends flight.
However, I reiterate evocations can be grand and simple, but your
one liner about gulags, as I said, Folu, is not helpful
intellectually or morally. Evocatory condemnation suppresses too
many complexities that speak through moralism and righteous
indignation that mask more difficult moral questions and political
realities.
Peace,
Pablo
kenneth harrow
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Jun 16, 2015, 2:54:26 AM6/16/15
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hi gloria
your message is a bit obscure to me, but if the core is that western
imperialist actions are deplorable, we share the same views. on the
other hand, whatever criticisms might be leveled against the west, say
with the use of drones or guantanamo abuses, that doesn't legitimize al
qaeda in the maghreb with its own deplorable actions and politics.
let's make it simple; during the war in algeria in the 80s you had the
fln and fis. both sides acted in deplorable ways; neither deserved
anyone's support. belmokhtar is an example i was offering of someone
whose own anti-western actions did not earn him any praises.
i want to arrive at revisions of revolutionary thought that allow us to
ask questions of movements we might otherwise totally support. having
read about how che ordered killings during the revolution, i want to ask
about how the ethics of the movement marked it, how they affected the
long term outcome in cuba, its own intolerances. despite its gains.
when the anc was discovered to have been torturing opponents in the
camps it maintained outside s africa, i want to ask the same questions,
not simply say anything goes.
i am questioning kwame's rhetoric here in the name of a more open-minded
radical thought whose examplars i've cited earlier with people like
mouffe and laclau. our list discusses more than nigerian politics, at
times; we get into broader african or world politics. what is the basis
for our political claims?
ken
Folu Ogundimu
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Jun 16, 2015, 9:42:56 AM6/16/15
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Thank you, Brother A. B. for the eloquent testimony. It is only those who have not tasted the nastiness and the brutish excesses of the Neanderthals we call leaders that can afford to stay in their ivory towers and preach to the masses about the valor of 'self-reliance, national liberation, and the need to sacrifice individual freedoms for the. collective good.
Scholars like Pablo have no moral compass to face up to fascists and apostles of Stalinist terror. I had much respect for his erudite contributions to this list until his gutless attack on my integrity in defense of one of Africa's most reprehensible regimes. For such people, I have nothing but contempt.
Cheers. Enjoy China, brother
F.
Sent from my iPhone
Anunoby, Ogugua
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Jun 16, 2015, 11:19:38 AM6/16/15
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“It is only those who have not tasted the nastiness and the brutish excesses of the Neanderthals we call leaders that can afford to stay in their ivory towers and preach to the masses about the valor of 'self-reliance, national liberation, and the need to sacrifice individual freedoms for the. collective good.” FO
I agree.
I will add that there is scholarship and there is scholarship. What use though is scholarship that is apparently oblivious of the value and quality of all human life, and uncritical and undiscerning of the injustice, pain, suffering, and in some cases death, that so-called leaders unconscionably visit on a majority of their fellow citizens ( especially the poor and the weak) in the pursuit of lofty, spurious, self-serving goals and objectives. Such leaders mostly destroy their country while claiming to be building it up.
A leader in my opinion loses their legitimacy and utility as leader when they become their country’s single most important problem. Isaias Afwerki (IA) has become such a problem for Eritrea. That country will take decades to find her way back to enlightened shared purpose even after IA is gone.
oa
oa
Chika Onyeani
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Jun 16, 2015, 1:07:29 PM6/16/15
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"...... whatever criticisms might be leveled against the west, say
with the use of drones or guantanamo abuses, that doesn't legitimize al
qaeda in the maghreb with its own deplorable actions and politics."
This statement is quite true. I never said I endorsed AQIM and their war of terror.
But I found your silent endorsement of the use of extra-judicial drones a bit worrisome.
I looked at the headline and wondered whether you were celebrating the use
of the drones or the death of the man or both. I am still puzzled.
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I read the article on the continuing saga of compensation packages for Nigerian senators and House reps. If the data are correct they show that business continues as usual in Nigeria. That is the business of exploiting the masses with no impunity. if this continues it will be most unfortunate as the country's foreign reserves have essentially dwindled to zilch and Nigeria now has an external debt of about $9.5 billions and a domestic debt of $54.6 billions as of May 2015. In addition, oil revenues which account for over 75 % of the country's revenues are still being battered by low crude oil prices.
Leadership that does not understand the gravity of the current economic situation of the country has no business managing the hopes and welfare of millions of poor Nigerians who subsist on less than $2 per day. Such exhibition of brazen and callous greed, will make it more difficult to attract significant investments from honest and realistic investors which the country sorely needs at this time. I also suspect that joint oil producing partners are likely to continue to sell off their equities in light of the uncertainties and total disregard of the nation's economic realities by the senatorial leadership while also not passing the much awaited PIB over the past 5 to 6 years.
We suggest that the senators practice due diligence and use the necessary salary to average per Gross Domestic Product per person ratio for setting their compensation packages. They should use this opportunity in the nation's history to set a new vital tone of commitment to true leadership for the benefit of current and future Nigerian generations.
Soni Oyekan
--
kenneth harrow
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Jun 16, 2015, 5:01:37 PM6/16/15
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hi gloria
you are mistaken in stating i was silently endorsing the use of drones.
my point was to identify belmokhtar as an example of someone who was not
to be admired, despite his anti-western stance. i have opposed the use
of drones, on this list, zillions of times, and haven't change a whit on
this.
in fact, the line i wrote, which you cite, merely reiterates my
criticisms, and my criticism of belmokhtar doesn't mean i approve of the
use of drones, or any other extrajudicial means of killing him. in the
larger scheme of things, i am completely opposed to the "war on
terrorism." obama, who campaigned against that ideological framing of
u.s. policy turned out to be its biggest supporter, which is the basis
for my deepest disappointment in him.
ken
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
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Jun 16, 2015, 5:06:55 PM6/16/15
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OK,. Ken Thanks for the clarification.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net vimeo.com/user5946750/videos Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
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Folu ,
Pablo simply questioned the extent to which
Eritrea was being smeared, or not. Political scientists are very cautious these days
to follow the party line, so to speak.
I am sure that Pablo would agree with you, if you provided the evidence
of Eritrean terror. He left the door open for reassessment, as far as I recall.
G
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net vimeo.com/user5946750/videos Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
Thank you, Brother A. B. for the eloquent testimony. It is only those who have not tasted the nastiness and the brutish excesses of the Neanderthals we call leaders that can afford to stay in their ivory towers and preach to the masses about the valor of 'self-reliance, national liberation, and the need to sacrifice individual freedoms for the. collective good.
Scholars like Pablo have no moral compass to face up to fascists and apostles of Stalinist terror. I had much respect for his erudite contributions to this list until his gutless attack on my integrity in defense of one of Africa's most reprehensible regimes. For such people, I have nothing but contempt.
I thought that President-for-Life Kamuzu Banda was the last shameless African Dictator, who sold his soul to the devil (including his Malawian fiefdom trading with apartheid South Africa) in order to have the leverage to remain in power for life!
Your eloquent words about brutal dictators reminded me of when some Ghanaian diplomats paid thousands of dollars for NEW YORK TIMES and other major newspaper advertisements in praise of I.K. Achempong's illiterate and brutal military dictatorship. That was the very time, in 1972, that Acheampong's military regime had forcibly arrested and detained our Business Manager (Mr. Ofori) and me (A.B.) as the Deputy Editor of THE ASHANTI PIONEER newspaper in Kumasi, Ghana solely because of a published editorial questioning massive corruption in and brutal dictatorship of the relatively young military regime.
Speaking of brutality and torture? In Acheampong's military detention, our hairs were forcibly shaved and some prisoners (including Mr. Ofori) had soldiers stepping on their private parts (to show them where power lies), whereby some of us came out of military detention with swollen private parts.
Mr. Ofori (with his swollen private parts) eventually died from the brutal and tortuous wounds after our release from Acheampong's National Redemption Council (NRC) military detention. Thanks to Amnesty International, Ghana Journalists Association, International P.E.N. and other international agencies, which campaigned for our release. I left Ghana there after, and I never went back to live in Ghana, hence Professors Achebe, Soyinka and several other International P.E.N. writers' association members often referred to me as "Ancient Exile".
Well, some scholars, who researched in Ghana, also praised Acheampong's regime and what they saw as the wisdom in its so-called "Union Government" proposal for Acheampong to foist himself on Ghanaians as a civilian President. That was also in spite of the regime's brutality! Therefore, it was no wonder that, in WEST AFRICA Magazine of London, I openly and heartily wrote to welcome the military regime that swiftly unseated the Acheamong/Akuffo military leadership and paid them back in their own deserving political coin!
Most certainly, brutality or torture of citizens in any fashion and anywhere in Africa is unacceptable!
A.B. Assensoh, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
Pablo:
This is your first contribution to this debate and it is shamefully disappointing. I am insulted that you will refer to me as 'someone who has ceased dialogue as a way of avoiding discussion.'
I have a name, signed my piece, made my principled objection to the massive violation of people's rights by uncouth brutal dictators. It is OK for you to serve as an apologist for the regime because you have privileged access to the country, you do not wish to endanger your own access , you have no family members who suffer at the hands of the 'Vagabonds In Power' as our Fela of blessed memory would say.
Chill, my brother. Defend the indefensible, sell your soul to the devil.
oa,
A country that denies her people of their freedoms and rights is a threat to humanity. What is going on in Eritrea is indefensible. And it is shameful.
That individual rights are denied or unequal does not mean that the rights are not there. If they were not there, they could not be denied and described as unequal.
The case you make for the denial of individual rights in Eritrea was made in Mao’s China, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain, and the Soviet Union to name a few countries. It is now recognized in the countries that the denial was wrong. It served little good purpose at the end of the day in the sense that same or even better outcomes could have been achieved without the denial.
The national liberation you claim for Eritrea as excuse for abuses by the state is a delusion because the greater threat Eritrea faces is posed by its authoritarian government and not her neighbors. That government is a threat to its people and Eritrea’s neighbors.
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
OA,
As I noted previously, I would say Taiwo gets this thing about individual rights wrong or just partially right. To my thinking, African American appeals for justice were more about collective rights than individual rights. To be clear, I'm not saying that individual rights should be abandoned. I am saying that, in some instances, collective rights are foregrounded. Wartime is one such instance. The importance of collective rights was also the point of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
I am unclear as to what "human history" you are referring to. And I disagree that the Eritrean struggle for liberation was "delusional." I have not even heard Eritreans who are critical of the regime make that claim. Or perhaps you mean delusional as in a creeping disenchantment post-struggle a la Armah's "Beautyful Ones?"
Time will tell.
Presently, Eritrea's status is precarious. I think that is obvious to all--hardly "bogey." Here in the USA "we" have sacrifice supposed "individual rights" for a regime of mass surveillance cloaked as "national security" (Rand Paul made minor dent in the Patriot Act, but that was more political than principle). But surveillance has always been a fact of life for African Americans.
“... In such instance individual freedom must be sacrificed for national liberation.”
kzs
Is the case being made that the end justifies the means?
What national liberation? Who is it for? What is its cost including shame to Eritreans?
Is the suggestion that national liberation is not possible except individual freedom is denied? Of course it is.
It is usually autocratic political regimes that employ the bogey of national security to legitimize the denial of citizens’ personal freedom- a fundamental human right.
Samuel Johnson was right when he said that “ the flag is the refuge of a scoundrel.”
Human history is likely to repeat itself in Eritrea. A majority of Eritreans will sooner or later acknowledge the wanton waste of blood, time, and treasure they endured for the delusion of national liberation, if they do not already.
I stand my statement. Essentially what is at issue is the realpolitik of revolution. And there are just too many Eritreans challenging these hyperbolic charges that Eritrea = Nazi Germany to ignore. Yes, young people are fleeing Eritrea. But thats true in many parts of Africa. Yes, there are forced labor camps in Eritrea. But we also have them here in the USA, the bastion of "democracy." Compulsory military is not sinister. It is necessary given the history of aggression against Eritrea. Eritrea has many flaws. I agree. It seems clear to me that there are human rights abuses in Eritrea. I condemn it. But its also true that Eritrea has made remarkable strides whilst refusing western aid--education and healthcare, for example. Any African leader who makes the courageous choice of self-reliance will certainly have many difficult obstacles to overcome. Individual freedom, electoral politics and "democracy" lauded in Taiwo's book are not workable in Eritrea at present time. They are bordered by aggressors backed by AFRICOM. In such instance individual freedom must be sacrificed for national liberation. The alternative is to become puppets of US aggression like Ethiopia and Djibouti.
I see how well informed you are. Did your Eritrean confidants also tell you what proportion of the Eritrean population is in prison, forced labor camps, and compulsory extended military service? And is it such a mystery that so many of the Africans perishing in the Sahara and the Mediterranean on the flight to Europe are Eritreans? Perhaps these facts are concocted too.
Wake up Dr. Shabazz, true Pan-Africanists don't defend evil blindly just because we are all black brothers. We cannot excuse Western imperialism and its neo-imperial agenda but turn a blind eye to the worst atrocities being perpetrated against the African people by megalomaniac leaders who have self-indulgent aspirations of grandeur.
I will say no more on this topic. You are welcome to your own views and agenda, brother.
F.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 14, 2015, at 8:59 AM, kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com<mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I have met many Eritreans who have told me otherwise. What is your source for comparing Eritrea to Nazi Germany?
Don't uphold Eritrea as a paragon of a moral, modern African state, please. We can do better than live in Gulags and hail oppressors as patriotic leaders.
And when African leaders chart a path of self-determination they are assassinated, overthrown, smeared or otherwise undermined--frequently with western connivance. The most recent example being Eritrea now labeled a "brutal dictatorship"<https://twitter.com/kzshabazz/status/609780828080476161> by the US govt.
I've ordered Taiwo's book and was able to read the intro and a substantial part of Chapter 1. Interestingly, the author says he identified with Marxist principles in Nigeria. He then went to Canada to school only to discover that capitalism wasn't that bad after all. Modernity is western thing (no mention of the ongoing oppression of First Nations/Indigenous Canadiens). Yes, he concedes, the west has got some things wrong, slavery, for example. However, because they have embraced individualism and the related principle of individual rights, western nations have shown the capacity to correct themselves. He correctly notes that all societies have gone through a communalistic stage. Africans, according to Taiwo, are stuck in this phase thus impeding their development.
African Americans didn't have to invent anything new in their demand for equal rights, they simply insisted that America live up to its lofty principles of modernity. I agree. But that isn't the whole story. He is unaware that communism played a key role in challenging racism in the Jim Crow South<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123771194>. A role that was only reluctantly taken up by the NAACP. He is critical of the conservative American right and what he see as the turn from modern ideas. He mentions specifically mass incarceration, the assault of voting rights, etc.
Taiwo believes that "Africans" haven't embraced "modernity" because they focus incessantly on its negative aspects whilst ignoring the many positive elements. He seems to miss that contemporary geopolitics have also played a significant role in what he calls Africa's "backwardsness"; that western development depends on African underdevelopment; that the principles of modernity didn't just "correct" gross injustices. Rather "modernity" America required the brutal oppression of Indigenous Americans and Africans. That oppression is less brutish but ongoing. Just as development in the west depends on Africa's raw materials presently.
"The apprehension that African nations feel about embracing modernity, which has hindered their economic and political development, is the focus of a new book by Olúfémi Táíwò, professor of Africana studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. In “Africa Must be Modern,” Táíwò explores the current problems and political climate in African countries and their progress in recent years; and compares their growth to similar countries in other regions of the world. Costa Rica, for example, preserves its forests and earns substantial revenue from ecotourism, while Liberia risks losing its forests to logging. While the two countries have similar populations, Costa Ricans can expect to live two decades longer than Liberians. “Similar comparisons can be made of, say, Chile and Zambia, Ethiopia and the Philippines, Brazil and Nigeria, and so on,” he writes. These comparisons support Táíwò’s argument that modernity is necessary for African nations’ survival: “If we would compare ourselves with others, rather than differentiate ourselves from them, we might be shamed into action that will move us forward with the rest of humanity.” - Africana professor issues call for modernity in Africa | Cornell Chronicle<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/05/africana-professor-issues-call-modernity-africa>
"In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and social and political transformation. What has to change for Africa to be able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Táíwò insists that Africa can renew itself only by fully engaging with democracy and capitalism and by mining its untapped intellectual resources. While many may not agree with Táíwò’s positions, they will be unable to ignore what he says. This is a bold exhortation for Africa to come into the 21st century" - Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto<http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Must-Be-Modern-Manifesto/dp/0253012759>
Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto [Olúfémi Táíwò] on Amazon.com<http://amazon.com/>. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and socia...
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Brother OA,
You could not have clarified the issues anymore elegantly. Thank you for your wisdom and the force of your conviction.
FO.
Sent from my iPhone
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 16, 2015, 5:54:50 PM6/16/15
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The "Ivory Tower" is over-rated. I've lived in American ghettos all of my life. I live in one now--West Jackson, Mississippi. Lots of crime, staggering poverty, and violence. White people avoid this part of Mississippi. Its much safer in Accra, Ghana. And I have definitely been impacted by the "brutish excesses" of American police who are instruments of the State and white power.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz === THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854). === EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
Assensoh, Akwasi B.
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Jun 16, 2015, 7:47:56 PM6/16/15
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Brother KZS {Kwame):
Today in America, it is a matter of choice to live anywhere one likes, either in a ghetto or in an elite section of Jackson, Mississippi. In the 1960s, when Dr. King and Brother Malcolm X were fighting hard for semblance of civil and human rights for Blacks
and other minorities, there was no choice for black brothers and sisters. Imagine a Ghanaian cabinet member (Mr. K.A. Gbedemah), on a visit to Delaware, being denied service at an American gas station (because he was Black) for the White House to right the
wrong by inviting him to the U.S. seat of power (the White House) to drink as much soda as he wished! Do you remember that sad scenario, Brother?
In terms of the ghetto analogy, Brother Malcolm X, the subject of my co-authored 2014 biography, was quoted as saying that living in the ghetto was similar to a dog, in labor, rushing into an oven for privacy in delivering its babies, which are still called
puppies but not biscuits. So, Brother Kwame, remember that you can live in an American ghetto today by choice, but you need not let the ghetto live in you. Is that philosophical assertion by Brother Malcolm X clear to black brothers and sisters in today's
America, who choose to live in U.S. ghettos while still wobbling in wealth?
Yes, Accra should be better than the West Jackson ghetto, in which you choose to live, because Accra -- in spite of its shortcomings -- is the glorious capital of a historic nation. PERIOD!
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz === THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854). === EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jun 16, 2015, 8:53:39 PM6/16/15
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Ni hao, Brother Akwasi.
I, too, am an expert on Omowale Malcolm X. And, like Malcolm, I'm a Black Nationalist/Pan Africanist. I'm working on a Malcolm X project. I have had several long convos with Malcolm's nephew, Rodnell Collins in Boston (adopted son of Malcolm's senior half-sister, Ella Collins) so I would be happy to exchange ideas on Malcolm's ideology (feel free to email me: kwames...@gmail.com). I've also done a few interviews in Ghana for the project. For example, I've talked to Kofi Awoonor. Awoonor knew Brother Malcolm and admired him. He had consented to do an interview for my topic prior to his untimely death in Ghana.
Yes, I know the Gbedemah story. Nkrumah leveraged it to get the Volta Dam Project going. What you might not be aware of is that it still goes on today. There are a good number a towns/areas where black people are not welcome, especially here in the Deep South (note that Malcolm spent very little time in the South), but also in the North. American public schools are more segregated today than they were forty years ago. And it is just not true that Americans simply choose where they want to live today. Starting back in the 1970s when we started integrating schools, many whites fled to suburbs and pulled their children out of public schools. Poor Americans are stuck in ghettos or rural areas. They cannot leave because American institutions are still fundamentally racist and/or classist and keeps them impoverished. Yes, I have made a personal choice to live in ghettos because there is so much work to be done here. But, to be clear, many in my community don't have a choice. My family members in Inglewood, California don't have a choice.
You said Malcolm X:
"was quoted as saying that living in the ghetto was similar to a dog, in
labor, rushing into an oven for privacy in delivering its babies, which
are still called
puppies but not biscuits."
Sounds like you might be conflating several different quotes. The puppies/biscuits analogy was about identity. He was saying that being in America doesn't make us American--that we are still fundamentally an African people. You seem to be invoking the quote to suggest that Malcolm had a negative view of ghettos. His strongest following was in urban ghettos like Harlem, NY. Yes, he certainly spoke strongly against the conditions in ghettos and how the Nation of Islam was "cleaning up the Black Man."
However, the whole point of his work was not to abandon ghettos, but, rather, to try to change the conditions in ghettos. As Malcolm articulated, those conditions were created by white people and what he called the "White Power Structure." As for Accra, I think "glorious" might be too strong. Like West Jackson the infrastructure is extremely bad. There is lots of poverty in Accra and there is huge gap between the lifestyles of the wealthy and the poor in that city.
You also said that Malcolm and Martin fought for civil and human rights. I disagree. Malcolm rejected civil rights because he didn't believe that African people would ever get justice in the American legal system (I agree). Thus his appeal for a human rights agenda. It also important to note that unlike King, Malcolm never embraced integration. He advocated self-determination.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz === THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854). === EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
Assensoh, Akwasi B.
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Jun 17, 2015, 5:43:00 AM6/17/15
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Brother Kwame (kzs):
We are not far apart in our views about Brother Malcolm X. In fact, on my return from "Ni hao" kingdom (China) in July, I will later in the year make efforts to visit with you in Mississippi, after visiting some family members and in-laws in Greensburg,
Louisiana, and McComb, MS, respectively.
Please, the reported quote in your response, about Malcolm's puppies/biscuits/oven analogy, seemed to distort what I was implying: that one can live in the ghetto without necessarily being "ghettoish"! Of course, I also saw the other side (from Malcolm's
perspective) that an African (or a black person) being in America for "donkey" years does not make the person anything else but still an African, and those classic words need no reinterpretation!
Anyway, try to find a copy of our Greenwood Press published 2014 biography of Brother Malcolm, which is deliberately slim for campus use, unlike the massive Manning Marable biography ("Reinvention"). Of course, my co-author and I avoided sensationalism in
our much slimmer but still scholarly volume (with copious notations), again unlike the Marable insinuations about Brother Malcolm X's sexuality, etc. However, just bear in mind as well that we had nothing personal against Professor Marable, who was the Chairman
of the Black Studies Department at The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio in the mid-1980s. I held my one-year postdoc in that Department and also in the OSU Political Science Department.
In his own published autobiography (written with Alex Haley's help), Brother Malcolm X was proud of his "new" Yoruba name that you used below (Omowale), and we did edify it in our biography of him, just as we would have done for your own amalgamated adopted
historic full name: Kwame+Zulu+Shabazz! Of course, you also did not need to preach to the choir about Brother Malcolm X's differences with his Brother Martin, who did complement each other in a variety of ways!
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Gloria,
Thanks for covering for me while I watched the the Super Falcons go
down against a 10-women U.S. What is it, though, about the distance
between ability and coaching. Ah well, we can only hope for Cameroon.
Gloria got it right, Folu. I thought I was providing windows for
evidence to come through. Instead, I got rehashes of armchair opinion
buttressed by the views of others whom you appear to endorse. Without
yourself providing a scintilla of information or insight, you give the
appearance of being parasitical upon others' views whom you then
congratulate yourself about. I do no think that I am either an ideologue
or dogmatic, but open to a second and third view when people provide me
with supporting information.
To ask bluntly, do you know of what you speak? Opinion, like throwing
accusations around, is cheap; cogently contextualized, historically
informed evidence, however, requires work. Thus far, you have only
presented the former.
Best,
Pablo
Pablo
Chika Onyeani
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Jun 17, 2015, 8:48:32 AM6/17/15
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Nua, Akwasi
Ha! Ok, now I understand your usage of the Malcolm X quote. Look forward to seeing you this summer. In the meantime, I'll do what I can to avoid ghetto behavior.
cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The
Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854).
===
EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no
alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle
invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson,
speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 6:29 PM, Assensoh, Akwasi B.
<aass...@indiana.edu> wrote:
Brother KZS {Kwame):
Today in America, it is a matter of choice to live anywhere one likes, either in a ghetto or in an elite section of Jackson, Mississippi. In the 1960s, when Dr. King and Brother Malcolm X were fighting hard for semblance of civil and human rights for Blacks
and other minorities, there was no choice for black brothers and sisters. Imagine a Ghanaian cabinet member (Mr. K.A. Gbedemah), on a visit to Delaware, being denied service at an American gas station (because he was Black) for the White House to right the
wrong by inviting him to the U.S. seat of power (the White House) to drink as much soda as he wished! Do you remember that sad scenario, Brother?
In terms of the ghetto analogy, Brother Malcolm X, the subject of my co-authored 2014 biography, was quoted as saying that living in the ghetto was similar to a dog, in labor, rushing into an oven for privacy in delivering its babies, which are still called
puppies but not biscuits. So, Brother Kwame, remember that you can live in an American ghetto today by choice, but you need not let the ghetto live in you. Is that philosophical assertion by Brother Malcolm X clear to black brothers and sisters in today's
America, who choose to live in U.S. ghettos while still wobbling in wealth?
Yes, Accra should be better than the West Jackson ghetto, in which you choose to live, because Accra -- in spite of its shortcomings -- is the glorious capital of a historic nation. PERIOD!
To:usaafric...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
The "Ivory Tower" is over-rated. I've lived in American ghettos all of my life. I live in one now--West Jackson, Mississippi. Lots of crime, staggering poverty, and violence. White people
avoid this part of Mississippi. Its much safer in Accra, Ghana. And I have definitely been impacted by the "brutish excesses" of American police who are instruments of the State and white power.
Many thanks for your understanding! Also, kindly note that there are several brothers and sisters, who live in ghetto surroundings out of solidarity with the really down-trodden and the underclass, Fanon's wretched of the earth type! Therefore, you may not
have any particular ghetto behavior that you should promise to avoid. I for example, now appreciate what the late Dr. Tunji Otegbeye, a socialist leader of Nigeria and a Physician, used to tell some us when we teased him about his Ireti Group of Hospitals
and his obvious opulent home surroundings:" Socialism does not ask for anyone to be poor. Rich socialists will always have something to share with the poor."
As a fellow historian, when I had the privilege to study from Brother Walter Rodney of blessed memory (on a visit to Georgetown, Guyana), he took some of us to break bread with some ghetto folks. It was a similar experience when I visited Jamaica to honor
the memory of Bob Marley (whom I first met as a crusading Journalist in Sweden, thanks to Comrade Uche Chukumerije's AFRISCOPE Magazine). In both instances, I enjoyed breaking bread in the ghetto of Georgetown and also in the ghetto of Kingston, but I politely
declined to try Gonja, smoked in a form of black communion in long and very tempting pipes! That might be deemed a ghetto behavior, but Western nations are rushing today to legalize
Gonja! There is, therefore, no need for an apology from anyone, who smoked
Gonja at the time!
Therefore, Brother Kwame, we will break bread as well as kolanuts when I visit with you in Jackson, MS. Sister Dorothy, a worthy graduate of Jackson State University and now a Dean in Louisiana, has promised to accompany me from McComb to see you,
no matter where you are living. "Dr." Dorothy (who will wear African beads (bebedi of the Yoruba type) and I will try to bring along a gallon of palm wine in memory of Amos Tutuola and his book, THE PALM WINE DRINKARD. Can we also bring legalized
Gonja from Oregon, where I originally live?
Yes, forward ever, backward never! Just as the great Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah (your name sake) and Brother Tajudeen of blessed memory would shout at the top of their voices to frighten colonialists and neo-colonialistst!
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What exactly is ghetto behavior? I remember Philip Curtin, the historian, a few years ago , speaking about the ghettoization of African history.
By that he simply meant that African history was now in the hands of Black historians. We were all flaming mad at that sentiment.
How are you using the term? Is it about survivalism, 'bad' manners, poverty- OR WHAT?
Pretoria via Addis Ababa
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net vimeo.com/user5946750/videos Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
Nua, Akwasi
Ha! Ok, now I understand your usage of the Malcolm X quote. Look forward to seeing you this summer. In the meantime, I'll do what I can to avoid ghetto behavior.
Forward ever,
kzs
On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 at 4:43:00 AM UTC-5, Assensoh, Akwasi B. wrote:
Brother Kwame (kzs):
We are not far apart in our views about Brother Malcolm X. In fact, on my return from "Ni hao" kingdom (China) in July, I will later in the year make efforts to visit with you in Mississippi, after visiting some family members and in-laws in Greensburg, Louisiana, and McComb, MS, respectively.
Please, the reported quote in your response, about Malcolm's puppies/biscuits/oven analogy, seemed to distort what I was implying: that one can live in the ghetto without necessarily being "ghettoish"! Of course, I also saw the other side (from Malcolm's perspective) that an African (or a black person) being in America for "donkey" years does not make the person anything else but still an African, and those classic words need no reinterpretation!
Anyway, try to find a copy of our Greenwood Press published 2014 biography of Brother Malcolm, which is deliberately slim for campus use, unlike the massive Manning Marable biography ("Reinvention"). Of course, my co-author and I avoided sensationalism in our much slimmer but still scholarly volume (with copious notations), again unlike the Marable insinuations about Brother Malcolm X's sexuality, etc. However, just bear in mind as well that we had nothing personal against Professor Marable, who was the Chairman of the Black Studies Department at The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio in the mid-1980s. I held my one-year postdoc in that Department and also in the OSU Political Science Department.
In his own published autobiography (written with Alex Haley's help), Brother Malcolm X was proud of his "new" Yoruba name that you used below (Omowale), and we did edify it in our biography of him, just as we would have done for your own amalgamated adopted historic full name: Kwame+Zulu+Shabazz! Of course, you also did not need to preach to the choir about Brother Malcolm X's differences with his Brother Martin, who did complement each other in a variety of ways!
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
Ni hao, Brother Akwasi.
I, too, am an expert on Omowale Malcolm X. And, like Malcolm, I'm a Black Nationalist/Pan Africanist. I'm working on a Malcolm X project. I have had several long convos with Malcolm's nephew, Rodnell Collins in Boston (adopted son of Malcolm's senior half-sister, Ella Collins) so I would be happy to exchange ideas on Malcolm's ideology (feel free to email me: kwames...@gmail.com<javascript:>). I've also done a few interviews in Ghana for the project. For example, I've talked to Kofi Awoonor. Awoonor knew Brother Malcolm and admired him. He had consented to do an interview for my topic prior to his untimely death in Ghana.
Yes, I know the Gbedemah story. Nkrumah leveraged it to get the Volta Dam Project going. What you might not be aware of is that it still goes on today. There are a good number a towns/areas where black people are not welcome, especially here in the Deep South (note that Malcolm spent very little time in the South), but also in the North. American public schools are more segregated today<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/separate-and-unequal/> than they were forty years ago. And it is just not true that Americans simply choose where they want to live today. Starting back in the 1970s when we started integrating schools, many whites fled to suburbs and pulled their children out of public schools. Poor Americans are stuck in ghettos or rural areas. They cannot leave because American institutions are still fundamentally racist and/or classist and keeps them impoverished. Yes, I have made a personal choice to live in ghettos because there is so much work to be done here. But, to be clear, many in my community don't have a choice. My family members in Inglewood, California don't have a choice.
You said Malcolm X:
"was quoted as saying that living in the ghetto was similar to a dog, in labor, rushing into an oven for privacy in delivering its babies, which are still called puppies but not biscuits."
Sounds like you might be conflating several different quotes. The puppies/biscuits analogy was about identity. He was saying that being in America doesn't make us American--that we are still fundamentally an African people. You seem to be invoking the quote to suggest that Malcolm had a negative view of ghettos. His strongest following was in urban ghettos like Harlem, NY. Yes, he certainly spoke strongly against the conditions in ghettos and how the Nation of Islam was "cleaning up the Black Man."
However, the whole point of his work was not to abandon ghettos, but, rather, to try to change the conditions in ghettos. As Malcolm articulated, those conditions were created by white people and what he called the "White Power Structure." As for Accra, I think "glorious" might be too strong. Like West Jackson the infrastructure is extremely bad. There is lots of poverty in Accra and there is huge gap between the lifestyles of the wealthy and the poor in that city.
You also said that Malcolm and Martin fought for civil and human rights. I disagree. Malcolm rejected civil rights because he didn't believe that African people would ever get justice in the American legal system (I agree). Thus his appeal for a human rights agenda. It also important to note that unlike King, Malcolm never embraced integration. He advocated self-determination.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz ===
THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854).
===
EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no
alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 6:29 PM, Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aass...@indiana.edu<javascript:>> wrote:
Brother KZS {Kwame):
Today in America, it is a matter of choice to live anywhere one likes, either in a ghetto or in an elite section of Jackson, Mississippi. In the 1960s, when Dr. King and Brother Malcolm X were fighting hard for semblance of civil and human rights for Blacks and other minorities, there was no choice for black brothers and sisters. Imagine a Ghanaian cabinet member (Mr. K.A. Gbedemah), on a visit to Delaware, being denied service at an American gas station (because he was Black) for the White House to right the wrong by inviting him to the U.S. seat of power (the White House) to drink as much soda as he wished! Do you remember that sad scenario, Brother?
In terms of the ghetto analogy, Brother Malcolm X, the subject of my co-authored 2014 biography, was quoted as saying that living in the ghetto was similar to a dog, in labor, rushing into an oven for privacy in delivering its babies, which are still called puppies but not biscuits. So, Brother Kwame, remember that you can live in an American ghetto today by choice, but you need not let the ghetto live in you. Is that philosophical assertion by Brother Malcolm X clear to black brothers and sisters in today's America, who choose to live in U.S. ghettos while still wobbling in wealth?
Yes, Accra should be better than the West Jackson ghetto, in which you choose to live, because Accra -- in spite of its shortcomings -- is the glorious capital of a historic nation. PERIOD!
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
The "Ivory Tower" is over-rated. I've lived in American ghettos all of my life. I live in one now--West Jackson, Mississippi. Lots of crime, staggering poverty, and violence. White people avoid this part of Mississippi. Its much safer in Accra, Ghana. And I have definitely been impacted by the "brutish excesses" of American police who are instruments of the State and white power.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz ===
THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854).
===
EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no
alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 9:34 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <Anun...@lincolnu.edu<javascript:>> wrote:
“It is only those who have not tasted the nastiness and the brutish excesses of the Neanderthals we call leaders that can afford to stay in their ivory towers and preach to the masses about the valor of 'self-reliance, national liberation, and the need to sacrifice individual freedoms for the. collective good.” FO
I agree.
I will add that there is scholarship and there is scholarship. What use though is scholarship that is apparently oblivious of the value and quality of all human life, and uncritical and undiscerning of the injustice, pain, suffering, and in some cases death, that so-called leaders unconscionably visit on a majority of their fellow citizens ( especially the poor and the weak) in the pursuit of lofty, spurious, self-serving goals and objectives. Such leaders mostly destroy their country while claiming to be building it up.
A leader in my opinion loses their legitimacy and utility as leader when they become their country’s single most important problem. Isaias Afwerki (IA) has become such a problem for Eritrea. That country will take decades to find her way back to enlightened shared purpose even after IA is gone.
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Professor Olufemi Taiwo: "Africa Must be Modern” ?
Thank you, Brother A. B. for the eloquent testimony. It is only those who have not tasted the nastiness and the brutish excesses of the Neanderthals we call leaders that can afford to stay in their ivory towers and preach to the masses about the valor of 'self-reliance, national liberation, and the need to sacrifice individual freedoms for the. collective good.
Scholars like Pablo have no moral compass to face up to fascists and apostles of Stalinist terror. I had much respect for his erudite contributions to this list until his gutless attack on my integrity in defense of one of Africa's most reprehensible regimes. For such people, I have nothing but contempt.
Cheers. Enjoy China, brother
F.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 15, 2015, at 11:35 PM, Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aass...@indiana.edu<javascript:>> wrote:
Well said, Brother Folu!
I thought that President-for-Life Kamuzu Banda was the last shameless African Dictator, who sold his soul to the devil (including his Malawian fiefdom trading with apartheid South Africa) in order to have the leverage to remain in power for life!
Your eloquent words about brutal dictators reminded me of when some Ghanaian diplomats paid thousands of dollars for NEW YORK TIMES and other major newspaper advertisements in praise of I.K. Achempong's illiterate and brutal military dictatorship. That was the very time, in 1972, that Acheampong's military regime had forcibly arrested and detained our Business Manager (Mr. Ofori) and me (A.B.) as the Deputy Editor of THE ASHANTI PIONEER newspaper in Kumasi, Ghana solely because of a published editorial questioning massive corruption in and brutal dictatorship of the relatively young military regime.
Speaking of brutality and torture? In Acheampong's military detention, our hairs were forcibly shaved and some prisoners (including Mr. Ofori) had soldiers stepping on their private parts (to show them where power lies), whereby some of us came out of military detention with swollen private parts.
Mr. Ofori (with his swollen private parts) eventually died from the brutal and tortuous wounds after our release from Acheampong's National Redemption Council (NRC) military detention. Thanks to Amnesty International, Ghana Journalists Association, International P.E.N. and other international agencies, which campaigned for our release. I left Ghana there after, and I never went back to live in Ghana, hence Professors Achebe, Soyinka and several other International P.E.N. writers' association members often referred to me as "Ancient Exile".
Well, some scholars, who researched in Ghana, also praised Acheampong's regime and what they saw as the wisdom in its so-called "Union Government" proposal for Acheampong to foist himself on Ghanaians as a civilian President. That was also in spite of the regime's brutality! Therefore, it was no wonder that, in WEST AFRICA Magazine of London, I openly and heartily wrote to welcome the military regime that swiftly unseated the Acheamong/Akuffo military leadership and paid them back in their own deserving political coin!
Most certainly, brutality or torture of citizens in any fashion and anywhere in Africa is unacceptable!
A.B. Assensoh, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
This is your first contribution to this debate and it is shamefully disappointing. I am insulted that you will refer to me as 'someone who has ceased dialogue as a way of avoiding discussion.'
I have a name, signed my piece, made my principled objection to the massive violation of people's rights by uncouth brutal dictators. It is OK for you to serve as an apologist for the regime because you have privileged access to the country, you do not wish to endanger your own access , you have no family members who suffer at the hands of the 'Vagabonds In Power' as our Fela of blessed memory would say.
Chill, my brother. Defend the indefensible, sell your soul to the devil.
Good luck
Folu
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 15, 2015, at 3:12 PM, Segun Ogungbemi <segun...@gmail.com<javascript:>> wrote:
oa,
A country that denies her people of their freedoms and rights is a threat to humanity. What is going on in Eritrea is indefensible. And it is shameful.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi
On Jun 15, 2015, at 4:28 AM, "Anunoby, Ogugua" <Anun...@lincolnu.edu<javascript:>> wrote:
That individual rights are denied or unequal does not mean that the rights are not there. If they were not there, they could not be denied and described as unequal.
The case you make for the denial of individual rights in Eritrea was made in Mao’s China, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain, and the Soviet Union to name a few countries. It is now recognized in the countries that the denial was wrong. It served little good purpose at the end of the day in the sense that same or even better outcomes could have been achieved without the denial.
The national liberation you claim for Eritrea as excuse for abuses by the state is a delusion because the greater threat Eritrea faces is posed by its authoritarian government and not her neighbors. That government is a threat to its people and Eritrea’s neighbors.
As I noted previously, I would say Taiwo gets this thing about individual rights wrong or just partially right. To my thinking, African American appeals for justice were more about collective rights than individual rights. To be clear, I'm not saying that individual rights should be abandoned. I am saying that, in some instances, collective rights are foregrounded. Wartime is one such instance. The importance of collective rights was also the point of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
I am unclear as to what "human history" you are referring to. And I disagree that the Eritrean struggle for liberation was "delusional." I have not even heard Eritreans who are critical of the regime make that claim. Or perhaps you mean delusional as in a creeping disenchantment post-struggle a la Armah's "Beautyful Ones?"
Time will tell.
Presently, Eritrea's status is precarious. I think that is obvious to all--hardly "bogey." Here in the USA "we" have sacrifice supposed "individual rights" for a regime of mass surveillance cloaked as "national security" (Rand Paul made minor dent in the Patriot Act, but that was more political than principle). But surveillance has always been a fact of life for African Americans.
On Jun 14, 2015, at 6:54 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <Anun...@lincolnu.edu<javascript:>> wrote:
“... In such instance individual freedom must be sacrificed for national liberation.”
kzs
Is the case being made that the end justifies the means?
What national liberation? Who is it for? What is its cost including shame to Eritreans?
Is the suggestion that national liberation is not possible except individual freedom is denied? Of course it is.
It is usually autocratic political regimes that employ the bogey of national security to legitimize the denial of citizens’ personal freedom- a fundamental human right.
Samuel Johnson was right when he said that “ the flag is the refuge of a scoundrel.”
Human history is likely to repeat itself in Eritrea. A majority of Eritreans will sooner or later acknowledge the wanton waste of blood, time, and treasure they endured for the delusion of national liberation, if they do not already.
I stand my statement. Essentially what is at issue is the realpolitik of revolution. And there are just too many Eritreans challenging these hyperbolic charges that Eritrea = Nazi Germany to ignore. Yes, young people are fleeing Eritrea. But thats true in many parts of Africa. Yes, there are for
...
kwame zulu shabazz
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Jul 1, 2015, 7:40:51 PM7/1/15
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Sister Gloria,
Not sure if you followed the entire exchange."Acting ghetto" was my humorous response to Akwasi's post. I took his reference to Malcolm X's metaphorical biscuits-in-the-oven to mean that one can have dignity and pride despite living in an impoverished environment.
African Americans use "ghetto" to mean a range of things from mildly pejorative to positive affirmation. Some African Americans aspire to get out of ghettos never to return. Others, like me, have made the conscious decision to stay and attempt to make things better. I self-identify as a son of the ghetto because for most of my life I have lived in poor, high crime areas. I identify with the ghetto to make the point that positive things are going on in those communities--its not all doom and gloom.
I currently reside in Jackson, MS. As you know Mississippi is the poorest state in America. Jackson is ranked as a high crime city, in the top 20 nationally for violent crimes. And my wife says the infrastructure in her village in central Nigeria is superior to Jackson's infrastructure. In fact its so bad here that the mayor declared an infrastructure emergency.
cell: 336-422-9577 skype: kwame zulu shabazz twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz === THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854). === EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937
