The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide
toyin adepoju
Ikhide,
--
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Ikhide
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
toyin adepoju
Ikhide
I am happy to have a conversation with you, as long as you do not parse my words and strip them of context. I am baffled; read my post, I never said that Nigeria has no resources. Read the sentence to the end. I said they are being systematically looted by intellectuals and politicians. I also said that when you compute what is being stolen, the cost/per student might rival that of what obtains in the West. Is that how you would describe a resource-poor nation?
And why would I need to convince you that our Nigerian education is in a dysmal state? Do you not read? Did you not read of the Minister for Education lamenting that as much as 70 percent of students failed a certain qualifying exam? Those who disparage and ruin our educational system everyday you know and I am not going to play that game with you.
On the matter of Biafra you are on your own. I am not that much older than you, so if Biafra means little to you, I should not waste my time with you. To divorce Biafra from the civil war of our country for someone your age is to be honest, disingenous. I only engage in honest conversations; and it is clear to me that from your conduct here and elsewhere that you are not interested in one. You have called me and certain others Biafra fanatics. I remain appalled by your conduct in that one forum and my estimation of you will always be measured by that, I am sorry. The passing of Dim Ojukwu was for me and many an opportunity to reflect on an era. You would not listen; it was not just about an individual alone. It was about us. That you did not, would not see that, I thought was interesting.
I still do admire you and wish you and yours all the best in the new year. This is my last word to you on these subjects. I only ask you to refrain from distorting my words. I am very careful with my words. Even when I am joking, I am serious.
toyin adepoju
Ikhide
Amatoritsero Ede
Chidi Anthony Opara
Lagos or Port Harcourt? No sir! Kaura Namoda or Avuvu would be better.
------Chidi.
From: Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 6:26 AM
Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne
Sent from my iPhone
Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda on the ashes, misery and mutilation of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly impossible, manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the war, eventually fleeing to safety in exile &nbs
G. Ugo Nwokeji
Ikhide,
Frankly, I was going to ask you to state your views on that passage, and then I read Toyin's intervention. If those were not your views, you unfortunately made it seem to be the way you stated it, as if it some neutral and sound take on the genocide that happened in our country.
Now, that you have stated where you stand, I want to move on to observe generally that I have always been amazed how so many Nigerian intellectuals seem to gloss over, rationalize or otherwise deny or tacitly condone the genocide of 1966-67 but are quick to condemn similar acts in other parts of the country and the world.
We rightly condone Odi, Zakibiam, Rwanda, Dafour and even Beghazi, but not the targeted, indiscriminate killing of Easterners (not just the Igbo; most of their murderers didn't even know or care to know the difference between the Igbo, Ibiobio, Ijaw, Ogoni, Ekoi and Efik, although the Igbo were affected most because there were more of them and they resided in greater proportions outside their region that their eastern counterparts).
Such denials, obfuscations and rationalizations are familiar virtually everywhere, including these pages, seminar rooms and beer palours. Do purveyors of these views not see the contradiction in doing this genocide and associating themselves with progressive positions on genocide elsewhere? What is the difference? I see no difference. This genocide is a fact. Denial of it should not and cannot be presented as a sound argument!
I do have my views about this very unusual attitude. The fact that the events happened so relatively long ago and before genocide in non-Western world has come to attract real sympathy of the global public (or Western public, because we tend to follow them in these matters) probably has something to do with this.
Also, in the absence of concerted scholarly attention in the first thirty years or so after the crisis and the failure to teach the Biafran crisis in schools up to now have meant that many older still approach the issue from their contemporary partisan position and many younger ones rely on on the take(s) of their primordial surroundings, which they have been unable to rise above.
Before anybody obfuscates the genocide against Easterners that occurred in 1966-67, he or she should ask himself if it was fundamentally different from the aforementioned cases of genocide. My bet is that if people ask themselves this simple question, they would realize that they cannot justify a fundamental difference without being an apologist for genocide. Such people would realize that they are not fundamentally against genocide but are simply seeking to affirm their progressive, anti-genocide credntials.
G. Ugo Nwokeji
Pl. Emmanuel Franklin, leave Toyin Adepoju alone. He did not write the passage. Ikhide did.
Ikhide
- Ikhide
toyin adepoju
toyin adepoju
--
Amatoritsero Ede
toyin adepoju
"Also, in the absence of concerted scholarly attention in the first thirty years or so after the crisis and the failure to teach the Biafran crisis in schools up to now have meant that many older still approach the issue from their contemporary partisan position and many younger ones rely on on the take(s) of their primordial surroundings, which they have been unable to rise above."
Ikhide
Kissi, Edward
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ikhide
From: "Kissi, Edward" <eki...@usf.edu>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "Kissi, Edward" <eki...@usf.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 8:56 PM
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
People,
Empirical data? Really? If you want data go and talk to those still living who suffered through the insanity. Their voices count! And, please do not tell me that narratives that are tinged with emotionality are not important. Where is empathy without the emotion. MLK, Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech or “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would have meant nothing if they did not tap into those emotions. So, let us put to rest this farce that without empirical data one cannot make a case about historical atrocities. Did Biafra happen? Yes1 Was it horrible? Yes. Even my old neighbors here tell me of the pictures they saw in the news in those days of people being massacred.
If I may ask, who provides this empirical data anway? Through whose point of view is such data gathered, constructed, and analyzed? The victors? The victims? Or those who are guilty of complicity in bringing to birth the reality that was Biafra or any such atrocity?
How about going to South Africa, Rwanda, the Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone and demanding empirical data from those who were victims of similar historical incidents or managed to survive the slaughter. I wonder what we should tell those neo-fascists and Nazis who fish out all sorts of “empirical data” to convince themselves that slavery was not bad or evil and it certainly was not genocide (an angry student told me once that her historian father has such evidence); the Holocaust could not have cost so many lives? Really? How does one get away with telling a people that what they experienced did not happen? Who really gets to determine when a genocide is a genocide? What is enough? What number or percentage would satisfy the morbid desires of those who wish to don the mask of intellectualism in the face of irrational acts of violence against any group? Should we wait till the last person standing dies before we acknowledge that a massacre or genocide has occurred? This is the problem with us. The obscenity of such denial baffles me. I suppose such academic masquerading is symptomatic of the malaise or call it the disease that has afflicted Nigerian leadership. If the so-called “enlightened” elite does not know its history and cannot sort out the mess what is to save us from the stupidity and destruction of a leadership of fools?
Maureen
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
Dear Edward,
Thanks for your comments which address some of my questions. Still, even within the context of the UN 1948 definition of genocide, the Biafran case constitutes genocide. I am not sure how we can wiggle around that. Ethnic cleansing—new term—is still genocidal massacre. It is informed by the desire to exterminate a group of people.
In the case of Biafra, the national government, supported by various regions and groups within the nation attempted to rid the nation of a specific group. Even if the response was to Agui Ironsi’s coup, he did not plan it alone and the plotters were not only Igobs! So, how did an entire ethnic group become responsible for the a failed coup attempt at a national level. The massacre of Igbos because they were Igbos was a genocide be it in the “old” language of the UN 1948 Convention or in the Ethiopian 1957 Penal Code or even in the more recent language of ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, etc. Whether the project was as mapped out from the onset or later does not detract from the reality of the experience. The massacre began before the mass exodus of Igbos to the Eastern part of Nigeria, leading to the establishment of Biafra, and escalating after that. The pre-exodus massacres were attempts to purge the northern and certain areas in the western parts of Nigeria of Igbos. Establishing Biafra simply added more fuel to an already burning fire, providing the Nigerian Federal government the excuse it needed to justify its actions further. Is this a question of defining when the Biafran or Igbo experience can be classified as genocide?
Peace.
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Amatoritsero Ede
kenneth harrow
you are right in your technical definition and understanding of genocide, but can i add, technically right? there is also a common sense understanding of genocide. it occurred at a given moment in april of 2004 when an american intelligence officer was witnessing the images of bodies floating down the river in rwanda, and gathered, with all the reports of widespread attacks on the tutsis, that it was genocide. he reported it, and clinton's adminsitration did their best to wiggle out of the u n obligation to intervene in the event it was determined to be genocide.
that tutsis were not targeted in burundi or zaire did not mean it wasn't a genocide in rwanda, any more than hitler's failure to attack jews in s africa meant it wasn't genocide. right? that would be common sense; and the larger sense of the term should be relatively simple. exactly what you said: the attempt to exterminate a group. that that attempt is framed inside the borders of a nation doesn't mean any the less that it is genocide. nor does the addition of gypsies to hitler's list mean it wasn't also genocide.
so, if ibibio were also killed in the biafran war, that didn't reduce any of the obvious centrality of the attack on the igbos as a group. and if the attacks were not meant to exterminate them, then i think common sense would argue that killing enough to beat them into submission is close enough to genocide. and as the u.n definition of genocide specifies, "destroying" a group entails more than simply killing its members.
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Tony Agbali
In the case of south-easterner, prior to the war there was the Araba scenes that targeted Igbos in northern Nigeria, and some say that they were killings in the south-west of Igbos. The incidence at various railway stations especially those chronicled in Kafanchan, Makurdi and Otukpo where train loads of Igbos were waylaid and massacred, maimed, and left for death. In fact, we know from the voicing of one forumite, Professor Assensoh, how he escaped from been massacred by those he termed "Hausa and Tiv soldiers" having been mistaken for an Igbo.
Further other covert operations that intentionally targeted the Igbo and other eastern minorities, including some of the people of Anioma area in that part of the Mid-West region, now Delta state,for elimination, torture, rape, and other inhumane and violating acts does indicate genocidal instincts directed against some Igbos within the specific settings in the prelude to and during the civil war. These events actually did precipitated the sad civil war Nigerians experienced from 1967-1970.
I think the young female writer, Chimamanda Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun somewhat captured the historical mode in her literary rendition, touching on themes that social scientists and historians relegated and anathematized. My assumptions is that given the low intellectual efforts to document these sad events, possibly because of the biases and associated inflammatory passion, such studies are assumed to likely engender, I think Chimamanda Adichie's work presumably a product of research and oral histories of survivors, fills in some of the gap- even if fictionalized.
That stated, without generating undue sentimentality, the Igbo soldiers who ventured into the Mid-West (Benin upto Auchi area during the war, entering into the Middle Belt adjoining area such as Okene, and Idoma and Igala bordering territories did committed heinous inordinate killings of civilians that can be claimed as genocidal of Nigerian citizens. People in these areas still recount the story. I think Oba Erediuwa's autobiographical memoir recounts this incidence of the Biafran intrusion into Benin City and the take over of that city lucidly. His memoir present us a certain vivid recasting and perceptive imageries also of Biafran attrocities, instigating the bold face and pro-active resistance and reactions of Benin residents both of those within Benin City, and their outside kins, especially in Lagos.
In all therefore, as Chimamanda Adichie has warned we need to be leery of single or singular stranded stories or narratives. In recasting the incidences of the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War, there were attrocities on both sides. Northerners in Eastern Nigerians were maltreated and harrassed in the prelude to the war, with some losing their lives, while others barely made it home.
Plus, there are also various stories of humane empathy shown to aliens from outside these regions, that should that even in violent or warring situations the best of the human spirit is not totally decimated, and that love can transcend hate, and courage can foster an almost "unconventional" spirit of bonded humanities among those that ordinarily would define themselves as "enemies"- either as protagonists or antagonists of differing positions and viewpoints.
On both sides, many bad things did happen, as it is sadly usual during the unusual situations of war and social upheavals and/or disruptions. Therefore, those who represent such one strand out of these multivariegated incidences, though interlinked events, and peddle it along the line of victimization, without acknowledging the victims of the actions of their own sides make me feel they should tell their stories to the Marines- while knowing that the tragedy of all sad was unfortunate and condemnable, for what it is. What is now most vital is the courage to move on, without forgetting yet without unnecessarily and overtly priviledging one-sided perspectives, where the other side have no opportunity to respond. In fact, just recently, a White male physician recounted to me, the rehatched Biafran story that a female colleague told them. She is afraid of been stopped by a police in America, because Nigerian Police officials because of their
hatred for Biafrans would rape you in plainview!
Forty-Two years after the Civil War, there are still lingering memories on all sides. Until recently able bodied Nigerians, especially those from the Middle Belt who were conscripted to the warfront died leaving some communities' gender demographic balance highly skewed. Communities still exist nurture the scar of the attrocities directly to this day. While, yet there are many merchants, profiteering and seeking cheap sympathy from westerners by rehashing and tilting the stories of the war. Some years ago, I learnt a very respectable Nigerian clergyman used video clips of imageries of victims of religious riots in some northern Nigerian town, depicting to gullible Germans that the Biafran war is still on, and Genocide was still taking place in their domain in eastern Nigeria.
The memories and stories of these sad events would continually hurt some, villify others, and of course serve entrepreneurial promo for cheap funds and popularity. I wonder if such stories and their plots are not genocidal, killing the good names of some climes, due to self-interests, even though directly physical guns, knives, Ogbunigwes, and Bazookas, and Dare Devils of the warfronts are not been used.
This is not to assume the trivilization of what happened to any group, but to bespeak to the multidimensionalities of the Nigerian storying mode and the struggle for narrative domination-- which may look innocous but remain self-servingly destructive.
--- On Mon, 1/2/12, Kissi, Edward <eki...@usf.edu> wrote:
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toyin adepoju
Okwy Okeke
The UN Convention on Genocide adopted on December 9, 1948 (ie the Article II you already referred to) defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group such as
a. Killing of members of the group
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another
Article I states that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or war is a crime under international law, and Article IV is clear that constitutional rulers, public officials, or private individuals may be held responsible.
In time of war men get killed, and as they belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious group that proviso is perhaps too wide to be practicable. It is the use of the phrase 'with intent' that separates the usual casualties inflicted during war from crime of genocide. The offending party must be shown to have had, or to have developed intent to destroy, and the victims must be a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
There are 2 other points about genocide that have become accepted in law:
1) One is that intent on behalf of the head of state of the inflicting party need not be proved. An individual general can direct his troops to commit genocide, and the head of state or supreme commander is held responsible if he cannot control his armed forces.
2) The deliberate decimation of the leadership cadres of a group, calculated to leave that group without the cream of its educated manpower, can constitute genocide even if the majority of the population is left alive as a helpless mass of semi-literate peasantry. The society may then be presumed to have been emasculated as a group
The charges against the Gowon government includes:
1) The massacres of 1966: It is unarguable that starting from 'the mutiny' in Abeokuta military cantonment that the size and scope of the killings (over 200 commissioned military officers and about 50,000 civilians of Eastern extraction) gave them genocidal proportions, and there are ample evidence to show that they were planned, directed, and organized by men who knew what they were about.
2) Benin and Asaba Massacres: The widespread killing of Igbo inhabitants of the Midwest state after the withdrawal of Biafran forces from that state in late September 1967 is incontrovertible. The argument that it was difficult to differentiate between civilians and soldiers is weak because the Biafran armed forces were withdrawn in almost every case before the 2nd Division of the Nigerian armed forces came within firing range.
3) The behavior of the Nigerian Air Forces in selection of targets
4) The selective killings in various captured areas of chiefs, leaders, administrators, teachers, technicians
5) The imposition of famine which was predicted in advance by foreign experts and which during 1968 led to the death of about 500,000 children between the ages of 1 and 10
The massacres were reported globally and here are excerpts;
a) New York Review, Dec 21, 1967: In some areas outside the East which were temporarily held by Biafran forces, as at Benin and the Midwestern Region, I(g)bos were killed by local people with at least the acquiescence of the Federal forces. About 1,000 I(g)bo civilians perished in Benin in this way
b) Washington Morning Post, Sept 27, 1967: ...after the Federal takeover of Benin, Northern troops killed about 500 I(g)bo civilians in Benin after a house-to-house search
c) London Observer, 21 January 1968: The greatest single massacre occurred in the I(g)bo town of Asaba where 700 I(g)bo males were lined up and shot
d) New York Times, Jan 10, 1968: The code (Gowon's code of conduct) has all but vanished except from the federal propaganda. In clearing the Midwest state of Biafra forces Federal troops were reported to have killed, or stood by while mobs killed more than 5,000 I(g)bos in Benin, Warri, Sapele, Agbor, and Asaba
e) Monsignor Creorges Rocheau sent down on a fact finding mission by the Pope visited Biafra and Nigeria, and on April 5, 1968 while speaking with Le Monde: There has been genocide, for example on the occasion of the 1966 massacres...2 areas have suffered badly, the region between the towns of Benin and Asaba where only widows and orphans remain, federal troops having for unknown reasons massacred all the men. According to eyewitnesses of that massacre, the Nigerian commander ordered the execution of every I(g)bo male over the age of ten
f) At Calabar in Biafra, more massacres took place. Mr. Alfred Friendly reported in New York Times of January 18, 1968: Recently in Calabar,...,soldiers were said to have shot at least 1,000 and perhaps 2000 I(g)bos, most of them civilians,...,some killings have included the members of the Efik tribe, one of the minority groups whose allegiance, Lagos maintains, is to federalism, not secession.
g) Dr. Ian Hyde treated one of the few survivors left of the 300 worshipers at Apostolic Church Onitsha, when the Biafran 29th battalion pursued the Nigerian 2nd division down the main road of the city
h) Feb 17, 1968: Awgwu market, an air bomber killed 103 people in less than a minute. Markets in Nigeria, especially rural markets are known to be largely the preserve of women, with their babies strapped to their backs.
i) Dec 1968: MiG17s, and Ilyushin 28s bombed Umuahia more than 10 times in the Christmas week in breach of the truce offered by Gowon, which invariably lured out civilians in the predominantly Christian town
j) July 1968, New York: Anthony Enahoro - some may say it (mass starvation) is a legitimate aspect of the war. Niamey, Niger Republic, August 1968; Anthony Enahoro - starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels
Cheers,...Okwy
We face forward,...we face neither East or West: we face forward.......Kwame Nkrumah
Cc: "Kissi, Edward" <eki...@usf.edu>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
Okwy,
Thank you, especially for the empirical data.
Maureen
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Chuma Nwokolo
Ayo Obe
Ayo
Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
Dear Amotoritsero,
Of course, I know what you meant (tongue in-cheek comments are difficult to read here). Hence, my suggestion about talking to those who experienced the trauma. And, one can expand on this further. My emphasis is for those who continue to insist that such personal narratives are not empirical (enough). Well, perhaps, Toyin, whose comments solicited the discussion about empirical evidence, might need some experiments, a test of emotions or bones to prove his theory or claims of genocide or non-genocide. Hmm!
But, as you admit, the emotional tinge is an aspect of the empirical data. Yes, we try to be clear-headed (I hope), but even the clear-headedness is charged with emotional undertones. So, I must wonder how anyone close to such experience can possibly narrate or narrativize it without emotion. Again, we cannot have empathy without emotion. I am not sure I quite understand what you mean by “the non-empirical but more emotional approach” though. Does this mean that those making the claim have not distanced themselves from the issue? What exactly do we mean by such claim (and I am not trolling for a fight)? Well, you are on your own in calling for the distilling of emotion from this issue. It aren’t going to happen, my brother. The problem is that Nigerians have never really talked about it and the Nigerian governments have not made any attempts to address this issue either through some TRC, public discussion, or educational project. It is not taught in schools (as someone noted earlier) because no educator who values her/his life will touch it without fearing a face-to-face encounter with the firing squad or guillotine. And, why haven’t our so-called academics insisted on having this part of history included in the Nigerian curriculum? There is a gap and we have helped to maintain it. So, Igbos have remained silent, been silenced, and have helped to maintain their silencing probably because they have been marginalized and are tired of the scapegoating. What excuse does the rest of the country have? What stops others from speaking out and asking why there is such silence on a historical reality? How do we correct such distortion then?
Now, as for all you have said so far, I would simply say “Amen!” May it be so! It should have happened a long time ago, but, then, there are those who are so wedded to the idea of this ugly behemoth called Nigeria that the notion of a break-up would make them sick. How painfully sad. On the one hand, living together seems untenable, yet the idea of letting the Igbos and/ or those who wish to leave the republic go seems to evoke an equally frightening nightmare or malady. What do these people really want?
Peace
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
Amatoritsero,
Wait, you cannot lump those from the Middle Belt (as it is defined)—Kaduna (southern Zaria), Plateau, Benue, etc, into Arewa. They will not have it. Why do you suppose Boko Haram has targeted Plateau all these years. May be, northern Kaduna State can join Zaria, Kano, Sokoto and the rest to form Arewa, but certainly Southern Zaria will want to break away from the stranglehold of Arewa. Of course, the fear of Igbos unites everyone and that might keep them within a larger Arewa.
Well, Boko Haram might succeed in getting the effect of “araba,’ after all.
Peace.
Maureen
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Alexander
Tony Agbali
Ede,
Point of correction: Gideon Akaluka's head was impalled on a spike (whether of Boko Haram, which does not exist I don't know) of a fundamentalist or impassioned Moslem sect in 1995 (or 1996), though I think it is the former date. That makes it over sixteen or fifteen years ago and not two or three years as you stated. This is fact point for proper historical reconstruction of that event, not giving room to any misleading representation of the historical date.
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Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Amatoritsero Ede
Tony Agbali
Prof. Eke, Yours are pertinent observations.
I want to note a few points in addition.
First, for a long time now, over a decade ago, the people of the area you refer to as Southern Zaria have cast away that appellation in preference for "Southern Kaduna," and this gained salience especially in the aftermath of the 1992 Zagon Kataf riots- the one that General Zamani Lekwot was framed and jailed by the IBB government, where he languished in the Port Harcourt jail house.
Secondly, I personally think that your point is well on target. However, while well taken "we" from the Middle Belt would definitely decide where and when it is best to cast our lot, in the event of the breakdown of Nigeria as we know it.
In spite of everything, I think the reasoning and efforts of the so-called Middle Belt, despite the monumental injustices we have faced as a people within Nigeria, have continued to glue Nigeria together. Many young men from this region were "wasted" during the sad episode of the Nigerian-Biafran civil war. Many among these died with the hope of keeping Nigeria and her people one. They believed in Nigeria, even though Nigeria hardly proved to them and their land as deserving. For the most part, even now, the Middle Belt, remain the least developed area within Nigeria, with high employment rates due to lack of Federal projects and infrastructures.
When the time comes the mind of the leaders, people, and constituent territories of the Middle Belt will know how to go---but for now, I think it is in the best interest of the Middle Belt people to keep Nigeria as we know it.
Many in the Middle Belt realize that despite the mammoth problems of Nigeria it is redeemable. The Middle Belt, have learnt from its mistakes of the past, and knows it can sound its own independent horn, without pandering to any geographical or ethnic interests, without risking their own interests.
Thirdly, my fervent prayer is that the current events would not precipitate unduly the conditions for the break-up of Nigeria but rather that it would help rational minds to think and people of all ethnic and religious stripes to come together to work for the furtherance of the goals of efficient governance, where each and all Nigerians would feel at home and secure, in any space they decide to reside and call home.
We have numerous examples of many Nigerians who have worked tirelessly, and continue to do so, for all Nigerians to feel that where they reside, work, and contribute to its economy and social progress, is recognized as their homes- where no Nigerian is an alien but freely able through dexterity of hardwork and character is able to excel and aspire toward meaningful and qualitative existence. I believe that the beauty of Nigeria is where and when a Jim Nwobodo can come to a PDP convention as he did in 1998, and though of Igbo origin can speak in flawless Hausa to the audience. I think that the hallmark of a Nigeria of our dream is where within families, the gene pool reflects a multiplicity of ethnic identity.
We, of the Middle Belt, essentially understands that through migration, conquests, interethnic marriages, trade activities that the interpenetration or compenetration of ethnic groups and diffusive cultural practices exchanged and borrowed that durably defined kinship and social relations, and are reflected in rituals and symbolic representation in such arena like masquerades, and healing practices.
Societies in these area were long in dialogue and contacts and lived peacefully, as best as possible, long before the transatlantic slavery and colonialism. Here we can talk about the modes and manners of social interactions that transcended ethnic boundaries such as we know of the Igala and Igbos, and even in a more recent publication, Nwando Achebe's work on The Female King of Eastern Nigeria- Ahebi Ughebe- expressed the extents of such cultural interweaving, compenetrated cultural fabrics, and strands of integrated exchanges that order, or even rearranges cultural configurations in novel modes.
Of course, long prior to this work, the late A.E. Afigbo revealed the trade routes linking groups like the Igala and Idoma to Igbo land and commercial activities. We also know of the Awka metalsmiths traveling extensively within and outside Igboland to such territories like Southern Edo, Igala, Idoma, and other territories, even for long time at a time.
The relationship of the Nupe and Borgu with the Hausa- including Kanem Bornu and Fulani groups- and Yoruba, the Wangara groups as well documented by historians like Paul Lovejoy.
Living in Jos in 1992 at the time of the Bauchi riots, in the immediate aftermath of the African games, how Bauchi became a ghost time when the Igbos left, that if one happens to have a flat, hardly was there a vulcanizer in town- most of such works were done by the Igbo. In the face of this dire reality, the then Military governor or administration- whatever they were called- had to make a tour of Igboland- literarily pleading for the return of the Igbo to Bauchi.
After the scare of the "Abiola war" and the emigration back to a crowded homeland in the east, many Igbo returnee to northern and southwestern Nigeria vowed to defend themselves, faced with the dire realities of lack of land for the returnee- both residential and arable. It is no secret that in the 1920s even the Colonial authorities had to investigate the phenomenon of Igbo migration into the Middle Belt areas, and quickly realized that these areas provided the avenue for nutritional subsistence and food trade back into eastern Nigeria. The land issue in south-eastern Nigeria is a pressing reality that should make the Igbo not become weaklings but defend their rights to existence in any part of Nigeria, as any other ethnic group, in the pursuit of their citizenship rights.
In the heydays of the Cocoa farmland in Southwestern Nigeria, as a kid, I remember the lorries that transversed my middle belt area transporting hordes of farm hands to "Nkurumi" or "Akoko" to work in Cocoa plantations. Many of these farmhands actually assimilated thoroughly into their host societies. In the late 1980s and 1990s, I was shown some of the houses that such farmhands built in their homeland communities, many of which were occupied by relatives.
The point of all these: we need each other and the chorus of break-up alone cannot solve our issues. I think it was Arthur Nwankwo who depicted that even if Biafra had succeeded that its own internal divisions along clan and regional lines, would have decimated its dream, imploding from within. With every new division comes new internal chorusing of marginalization and the old known ways of severance become normative. We can build our Nigerian nation even from the ashes of the proverbial phoenix bed, no matter how long and what it takes.
However, we cannot continue to believe and behave that those who will have to do this are extraneous from each one of us, as if there is a special class to whom it is imputed to solve Nigerian problems. It is such dichotomies of handing our fate and condition's control to a clique, often roguish and depraved of ethical responsibility and vision, that has become our nemesis.
Each Nigerian, in asserting his or her power, can probably achieve more than they can ever fathom as possible. These events behooves on us to shake off our lethargic state and find ways of incorporating our efforts at saying enough is enough.
In fact, there is a dearth of leadership vision in the land- whether political, social, professional, labor, religious, and ethical. For instance at the political level, in the face of these recent critical events, the President, Jonathan Goodluck, introduced a jerk-knee approach in introducing the state of emergency on local levels that seems not to be forceful enough at the dealing with the Boko Haram's threat, given the malevolving and amorphous nature of that organization, and its portability to strike intermittently outside its northeastern domain of influence. Secondly, it is at a time of such social distress that he decided to act arbitrarily in removing the fuel subsidy- for whatever it is worth, further, aggravating the social stress even more.
--- On Tue, 1/3/12, Eke, Maureen Ngozi <eke...@cmich.edu> wrote: |
Amatoritsero Ede
Tony Agbali
Amatoritsero, I do share your sense of outrage. In the face of such events, we know that certain things recede and some other things take on more significance. I lived through some of those events in Jos. In 1991, while traveling from Sokoto to Kaduna was when the so-called Bonke riots happened. People were killed, it was move on as usual. We know also of what happened in Zagon Kataf, and manipulative role of erstwhile president tyrannt IBB- who can respond to Jonathan's fuel subsidy removal and not vitally to the events in Mandalla and else, though Mandalla is close to him. Then came Bauchi, same thing, and the gale wind has been gathering and some persons have been developing wings trusting upon their own invincibility, even when obviously culpable.
We know the hypocrisy. The ghost of Gideon Akaluka continues to haunt our collective psyche, in the face of silence and the dusting under the rug. Even, more the vociferous vocality of another Gideon Orka seems to be beaming from this sealed tomb into the womb of time---such as the severence of the north from the rest of the country.
Yet, he is not even a southerner, and southerners even called him names back them in April 1990. But how prophetic such voicings are beginning to be, gaining traction, even if the idea needs sober reflection and caution.
Maybe, just maybe, we may need another Gideon to lead the coming revolution, as GEJ is such a weakling and reed in the wind, sadly blowing in all directions, trying to appease all but not containing any.
But as far as I am concerned, you remain part of the bright future of Nigeria, of the dream come true, as other concerned Nigerians I have met and interacted with cutting across diverse regions, ethnicity, gender, religion, northerners, southerners, mid-westerners (Edo, Delta), South-southerners (Ijaw, Urhobo, Itshekiri, Ogoni, Ogoja, Calabar- Ibibio, Efik, Oron, Adoni, etc), south-eastern (Igbo- Wawa, Anambra, Ezza, Alla-Ngwa, Imo, Abia, Oguta, Aro, Awka).
Our best shot today remains what Azikiwe and Awolowo did, not just talking that has no more value to those rodents in power, the trojans of decimation, but organizing and providing a frontal response to misrule. This calls for a new strategy, new approaches, and new tactics and techniques of actions. We can select doing so by investing in traditional and contemporary media forms like investment in international satellite television, radio, multimedia, that brings more cogent attentions to the Nigerian, and overall African issues, through collective mutual investment fundings of such outfits. We do recognize the impact of Radio Kudirat upon the Abacha tyranny. Yes, we may deplore facebook, twitter, myspace, whatever social media tools, but whatever, it has to be sustained and ongoing.
As Ikhide stated the other day, is there anything more that has not been stated with regards to our national and international pathetic impasse as a continent, as a nation? It is time for more direct proactive action that calls for acute sacrifices and draw upon the emergent classes of younger and more versatile Africans on the continent to direct and own these transformations.
The Arab Spring provides such an instance, but ours need to go even more further, and be thoroughly integrative of traditional and contemporary modalities and formats for social movements, if our approaches should acquire necessary far reaching and in depth ramifications for transformative social change. Such efforts need long term planning, design, mobilization, and phase implementations.
Yes, while we need the vocality of Ikhide, Pius Adesanmi, Moses Ochonu, Ugo Nwokeji, Anthony Ogugua,and the textualization of Chidi Opara, the media we need also the organizing acumen and advisory competence of folks like Mobolaji Aluko, Toyin Falola, Gloria Emeagwali, Amadi, among several others.
We are dancing in the market square while the place is burning and the looters are having their field's day. --- On Tue, 1/3/12, Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com> wrote: |
Eke, Maureen Ngozi
Dear Tony,
Of course, the Middle Belt, including Southern Kaduna (I forgot that the former appellation of Southern Zaria no longer applies) will decide where to link itself and how to weave its own narrative. That is what part of this exchange has been about. Who gets to tell what group of people that it did not experience history in a particular way. I certainly would never claim to speak for the region. Besides, it is too large and far more diverse and complex than we realize. No group is as simple as we believe it to be. And, whether or not Nigeria survives or drowns together, that is another “tory.” I for one, would simply wish it luck with all its schisms, throes of pain. complexities, and wahala. If the nation survives as a unit in the future, it would be through the efforts of all of us, or at least those who truly wish to see a unified entity. May we all live to see that national cohesion one day.
maureen
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
Chidi Anthony Opara
It is now the turn of Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw from the Niger Delta region whose kinsfolk recently prosecuted a separatist campaign.
Perhaps, if Ralph Uwazuruike and his MASSOB crowd stop mimicking Ghandhi, the "Igbo Presidency" mantra may become a reality in our life time.
Please forgive my Motor Park mentality.
Chidi.
From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 6:29 PM
toyin adepoju
The Holocaust is an example of a genocide, as this particular crime is defined in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. But not all genocides look like the Holocaust or should have all or some of the key features of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique in terms of its total intent and global scope as well as managerial efficiency. Never in the history of mass murder did a state intend to wipe out a group, in its entirety, where-ever members of that group lived. Whereas the Nazis killed all Jews they could find in Germany or Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as in North Africa, many Tutsis who lived outside of Rwanda, even in neighboring countries, were not targeted for annihilation. Thus, the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are examples of genocide, but are different kinds of genocide. A genocide does not necessarily have to have all the elements of another known genocide to make it so. Thus, any approach to the study of genocide that makes the Holocaust the criteria for determining what constitutes a genocide is a Holocaust-centric approach that betrays a lack of grasp of what genocide is, in international law.On the other hand, not all mass killings, organized or random, constitute genocide. Genocide is not the objectionable killing of human beings. To ascribe genocide to any case of mass murder, because it involved the loss of human life, is a misuse of the legal concept of genocide. There are various trypes of mass murder: ethnic cleansing, state repression, war crimes and even what have become known, in international law, as "crimes against humanity." Genocide is a particular kind of mass murder.What, then, is genocide? Most scholars who study genocide conclude that what distinguishes genocide from other mass killings is the intent to destroy a target group. The intent, if not overtly articulated by the perpetrators, has to be inferred from the extent of the perpetrators' actions. Intent to destroy the group can also be deduced from a pattern of purposeful actions undertaken by the perpetrators to put members of the target group beyond the perpetrators' unviverse of moral obligation to protect the lives of the target group.In fact, there is no unanimity among genocide scholars about what genocide is and how it should be defined. Thus, there are numerous social science definitions of genocide that have been offered to enhance the internationally-accepted definition of genocide in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. Therefore, the Biafran case, genocide or not genocide, can be examined in the context of any one of several definitions of genocide. The definitional context or framework has to be clear because there are many definitions of genocide out there.I tend to think that the best definitional framework for assessing what took place in Asaba is not the UN Genocide Convention. Under the UN Convention, the case of Biafra as an example of genocide could be open to debate. The best framework is the Ethiopian concept of genocide in Article 238 of the Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957.Note that Ethiopia was the first nation to ratify the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, in July 1949. Ethiopia's signature made the international definition of genocide legal and open the way for other ratifications. It was also the first nation to enshrine the terms of the Convention in its national laws. Ethiopia was also the first nation to redefine the concept of genocide and broaden that concept to criminalize the destruction of political enemies in conflict situations or the targeting of a politicized ethnic group. This definition of genocide is much broader and offers a better framework for examining the Biafran case than the UN definition of genocide which was framed purposely to assist the prosecution of Nazi criminals at Nuremberg.Edward KissiAuthor of Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (2006)
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:26 PM
Ikhide
Okwy Okeke
We face forward,...we face neither East or West: we face forward.......Kwame Nkrumah
From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 4 January 2012, 15:20
kenneth harrow
there are two issues being conflated in this discussion, which is why i started a new heading here to try to clarify them
technical definition of genocide:
toyin adepoju wants to continue the discussion on the technical definition of genocide, and whether it was technically intended by the federal forces during the war. of course, one could argue that food intended for civilians could be diverted to soldiers, so the intent in withholding food was to defeat the military rather than to starve the civilians. but one could respond that the consequences were obvious, etc, etc.
on the other hand, one could argue that all this bitter exchange of accusations is not simply about whether a genocide occurred on not--the millions of dead won't be silenced by a technical definition of why they died--but whether it should be called a genocide.
the one issue we can call, this historians' and legalists' task of definition of a large criminal act. that could be an impassionate discussion without the hot exchanges of victims or perpetrators.
genocide denial:
the second issue is what is going on here: not the legal definition, but whether XXXXXX occurred, and should be named. XXXXXX is the unnameable horror for which the words genocide/holocaust are the stand-ins. and refusing the name is really what hurts because it constitutes the unfeeling political position of genocide denial.
let me make it plain: when jean-marie le pen called the Holocaust a mere detail in history, a little blip as it were, he told all the jews of the world that the loss of 1/3 of the 18 million jews at the time counted for little. and that the ovens never existed.
genocide denial is really about telling the victims that their losses, and the pain of simply remembering, counts for nothing.
so, please, toyin, stop trying to account for the losses of biafrans, igbos and others, in terms that give the public the sense that the mourning and pain are misplaced. it is much much better not to turn this into a discussion over genocide denial, because the unspoken issue in genocide denial is not whether a genocide occurred but whether the losses were really losses.
and in posing that question, you cause uncountable pain to those who felt and remembered.
i want you and the others to know that our dear friend maureen eke, who has dared to enter into the flames of this discussion, cannot recall those years when she lived in fear of being bombed without trembling with emotion. DO you want to return her to that now??? please rethink the pain created by a discussion that begins with the premise of doubting the events that gave such traumatic pain to so many
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Olayinka Agbetuyi
When I first read the first part of Toyin's serialized postings on the Nigerian Civil War, my first gut reaction was to pick up the phone if I had the number and give him a brotherly advice to shelve it. There are certain topics that are just in bad taste for intellectual discussions, no matter the merits of the logic. There is a book on the Holocaust by Berel Lang called the Limits of Representations, which dwelt on the facts that certain horrors defy rational discussions. The baseline is that the Nigerian state got it wrong in its response to the Biafran issue. It committed genocide in the name of the misled Nigerian peoples and the Igbos deserve a national apology from the Nigerain state in the manner in which, after centuries, the British govt under Tony Blair tendered unreserved apology to the Irish people for the potato famine in which food was used as a weapon of war in a similar vein to the Nigerian Civil War. Attempt at self determination can never be a crime except in a dictatorship, which Gowon's regime was.
Many have commented on the role of Britain in aiding the success of the federal government. My response is, Britain is slowly going throught the same process now without the instigation of a pogrom. Scotland has asked for (and got) devolution and has vowed not to stop until full independence is secured. Why hasnt the UK rolled out the tanks to checkmate Scotland? We may argue that Biafra was motivated by the prospects of the sole control of Nigeria's oil (which was the overriding propaganda of the then FG); so what? The argument can be equally levied at Scotland's door in view of the fact that the North Sea oil is at its doorstep. Would that be sufficient reason for the UK to roll out the tanks under the slogan "to keep UK one is a task that must be done?"
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 11:17:15 -0800
From: har...@msu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - biafra genocide denial
kenneth harrow
cornelius, ole boy, your esteemed judgment is needed. sometimes it is not� a bad thing to have grey hairs and weigh in. there is something to be said about us "elders" to speak with the weight of years on our back.
we need healing now, not arguing over genocide.
ken
On 1/4/12 2:20 PM, Olayinka Agbetuyi wrote:
Thank you Ken and others with similar views on this topic.� I read Ikhides posting on the pogroms (a word introduced into Nigeria's popular lexicon by the late Ikemba of Nnewi), and I can confirm that I was led to a pit in Northern Nigeria where I�did National Service�which was the site of the mass burial of students of a Women Teachers College who were raped and buried in the mass grave (holocaust style).� Their only crime was they belonged to the same ethnic group as Nzegwu who led the coup that assassinated prominent Northern leaders including the reverred late Sardauna. I did graduate studies on the Holocaust and I have taught a course on genocides in the US� following Darfur and I included the Nigerian example as a case of genocide.��
�
When I first read the first part of Toyin's serialized postings on the Nigerian Civil War, my first gut reaction was to pick up the phone if I had the number and give him a brotherly advice to shelve it.� There are certain topics that are just in bad taste for intellectual discussions, no matter the merits of the logic.� There is a book on the Holocaust by Berel Lang called the Limits of Representations, which dwelt on the facts that certain horrors defy rational discussions.� The baseline is that the Nigerian state got it wrong in its response to the Biafran issue.� It committed genocide in the name of the misled Nigerian peoples and the Igbos deserve a national apology from the Nigerain state in the manner in which, after centuries, the British govt� under Tony Blair tendered unreserved apology to the Irish people for the potato famine in which food was used as a weapon of war in a similar vein to the Nigerian Civil War.� Attempt at self determination can never be a crime except in� a dictatorship, which Gowon's regime was.
�
Many have commented on the role of Britain in aiding the success of the federal government.� My response is, Britain is slowly going throught the same process now without the instigation�of a pogrom.� Scotland has asked for (and got) devolution and has vowed not to stop until full independence is secured.� Why hasnt the UK rolled out the tanks to checkmate Scotland?� We may argue that Biafra was motivated by the prospects of the sole control of Nigeria's oil (which was the overriding propaganda of the then FG); so what?� The argument can be equally levied at Scotland's door in view of the fact that the North Sea oil is at its doorstep.� Would that be sufficient reason for the UK� to roll out the tanks under the slogan "to keep UK one is a task that must be done?"
Olayinka Agbetuyi
�
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 11:17:15 -0800
From: har...@msu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - biafra genocide denial
dear all
there are two issues being conflated in this discussion, which is why i started a new heading here to try to clarify them
technical definition of genocide:
��� toyin adepoju wants to continue the discussion on the technical definition of genocide, and whether it was technically intended by the federal forces during the war. of course, one could argue that food intended for civilians could be diverted to soldiers, so the intent in withholding food was to defeat the military rather than to starve the civilians. but one could respond that the consequences were obvious, etc, etc.
on the other hand, one could argue that all this bitter exchange of accusations is not simply about whether a genocide occurred on not--the millions of dead won't be silenced by a technical definition of why they died--but whether it should be called a genocide.
the one issue we can call, this historians' and legalists' task of definition of a large criminal act. that could be an impassionate discussion without the hot exchanges of victims or perpetrators.
genocide denial:
��� the second issue is what is going on here: not the legal definition, but whether XXXXXX occurred, and should be named.� XXXXXX is the unnameable horror for which the words genocide/holocaust are the stand-ins. and refusing the name is really what hurts because it constitutes the unfeeling political position of genocide denial.
let me make it plain: when jean-marie le pen called the Holocaust a mere detail in history, a little blip as� it were, he told all the jews of the world that the loss of 1/3 of the 18 million jews at the time counted for little. and that the ovens never existed.
genocide denial is really about telling the victims that their losses, and the pain of simply remembering, counts for nothing.
so, please, toyin, stop trying to account for the losses of biafrans, igbos and others, in terms that give the public the sense that the mourning and pain are misplaced. it is much much better not to turn this into a discussion over genocide denial, because the unspoken issue in genocide denial is not whether a genocide occurred but whether the losses were really losses.
and in posing that question, you cause uncountable pain to those who felt and remembered.
i want you and the others to know that our dear friend maureen eke, who has dared to enter into the flames of this discussion, cannot recall those years when she lived in fear of being bombed without trembling with emotion. DO you want to return her to that now??? please rethink the pain created by a discussion that begins with the premise of doubting the events that gave such traumatic pain to so many
ken
On 1/3/12 10:05 AM, Eke, Maureen Ngozi wrote:
Dear Amotoritsero,
�
Of course, I know what you meant (tongue in-cheek comments are difficult to read here). �Hence, my suggestion about talking to those who experienced the trauma. And, one can expand on this further. My emphasis is for those who continue to insist that such personal narratives are not empirical (enough). �Well, perhaps, Toyin, whose comments solicited the discussion about empirical evidence, might need some experiments, a test of emotions or bones to prove his theory or claims of genocide or non-genocide.� Hmm! ��
�
But, as you admit, the emotional tinge is an aspect of the empirical data. Yes, we try to be clear-headed (I hope), but even the clear-headedness is charged with emotional undertones. So, I must wonder how anyone close to such experience can possibly narrate or narrativize it without emotion. Again, we cannot have empathy without emotion. I am not sure I quite understand what you mean by �the non-empirical but more emotional approach� though. Does this mean that those making the claim have not distanced themselves from the issue? What exactly do we mean by such claim (and I am not trolling for a fight)? Well, �you are on your own in calling for the distilling of emotion from this issue. It aren�t going to happen, my brother. The problem is that Nigerians have never really talked about it and the Nigerian governments have not made any attempts to address this issue either through some TRC, public discussion, or educational project. It is not taught in schools (as someone noted earlier) because no educator who values her/his life will touch it without fearing a face-to-face encounter with the firing squad or guillotine.� And, why haven�t our so-called academics insisted on having this part of history included in the Nigerian curriculum? There is a gap and we have helped to maintain it. So, Igbos have remained silent, been silenced, and have helped to maintain their silencing probably because they have been marginalized and are tired of the scapegoating. What excuse does the rest of the country have? What stops others from speaking out and asking why there is such silence on a historical reality?� How do we correct such distortion then?
�
Now, �as for all you have said so far, I would simply say �Amen!� May it be so! It should have happened a long time ago, but, then, there are those who are so wedded to the idea of this ugly behemoth called Nigeria that the notion of a break-up would make them sick.� How painfully sad. On the one hand, living together seems untenable, yet the idea of letting the Igbos and/ or those who wish to leave the republic go seems to evoke an equally frightening nightmare or malady. What do these people really want?
�
Peace
�
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
�
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Amatoritsero Ede
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 11:37 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
�
Hello Maureen,
�
Empirical data as i meant it is just a 'shorthand' for all kinds of narratives, and experiences of an event, of �which witnessing is part and parcel. We know in scholarship that witnessing is very very important. Georgio Agamben's work, "The Remnants of Auschwitz: The witness and the Archive," �has established that in no uncertain terms. And John Beverly's "Subalternity and Representation" underscored the importance and epistemological validity of personal narratives in questions of history and (self) representation. So i dont want to be misunderstood. Those "who lived and still live through the insanity" are part of the empirical process. Their emotional pulses are units of that empirical gradation of what actually happened. The problem with the non-empirical but more emotional approach is that over the years since the civil war, it has clouded judgement and reason and has not allowed for clear cut resolves to address issues because emotion clutters things up. The result? Now Nigeria is on the brink of secession again. And truly i say unto you, i think it needs to break apart. Anyone who saw Gideon Akaluka's head stuck on a Boko Haram spike about two/three years ago will know it is more healthy for that colonial contraption called nigeria to beak into its pre-colonial constitutents. But it will not happen if we use passion and emotion alone to address the matter...There is religion, borrowed, foreign, alien, which people have introjected and because of which the north is still doing what they did in 1966 - killing igbo and christians: this past xmas there was a genocide! The slave is not those who are chained. The slave are those whose minds are in chains due to foreign religion, alien gods, mythologies that has no 'empirical' base. No one met God or Allah. People are simply enslaved. But thats a matter for another day. Nigeria's problems is a complex of foreign religion, alienation in subject peoples, which lead to these hate, internal strife, wars etc. Did a genocide happen in the past in nigeria?. I am not doubting that at all. It happens everyday. Must it be a lot of people killed before a genocide occurs. No. What is the difference in a mass of people or one soul one being cut down in blind, (ir)religious and animal rage? The same depravity and insanity underlies both acts. In my own definition one person killed in hate is genocide. So let this country seprate now. I wish Ojukwu had succeeded. It would be a better country for it. Let us have Biafra, and Oduduwa Republic and one more country for the South-South. If we cant get along, let us go our separate ways and live in peace.
�
�
Amatoritsero
�
�
On 2 January 2012 21:37, Eke, Maureen Ngozi <eke...@cmich.edu> wrote:
People,
�
Empirical data? Really? �If you want data go and talk to those still living who suffered through the insanity. Their voices count! And, please do not tell me that narratives that are tinged with emotionality are not important. Where is empathy without the emotion. MLK, Jr�s ��I have a Dream� speech or �Letter from Birmingham Jail� would have meant nothing if they did not tap into those emotions. So, let us put to rest this farce that without empirical data one cannot make a case about historical atrocities. �Did Biafra happen? Yes1 Was it horrible? Yes. Even my old neighbors here tell me of the pictures they saw in the news in those days of people being massacred.
�
If I may ask, who provides this empirical data anway? Through whose point of view is such data gathered, constructed, and analyzed?� The victors? The victims? Or those who are guilty of complicity in bringing to birth the reality that was Biafra or any such atrocity?
�
How about going to South Africa, Rwanda, the Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone and demanding empirical data from those who were victims of similar historical incidents or managed to survive the slaughter. I wonder what we should tell those neo-fascists and Nazis who fish out all sorts of �empirical data� to convince themselves �that slavery was not bad or evil and it certainly was not genocide (an angry student told me once that her historian father has such evidence); the Holocaust could not have cost so many lives? Really?� How does one get away with telling a people that what they experienced did not happen? �Who really gets to determine when a genocide is a� genocide? What is enough? What number or percentage would satisfy the morbid desires of those who wish to don the mask of intellectualism in the face of irrational acts of violence against any group?� Should we wait till the last person standing dies before we acknowledge that a massacre or genocide has occurred? �This is the problem with us. The obscenity of such denial baffles me. I suppose such academic masquerading is symptomatic of the malaise or call it the disease that has afflicted Nigerian leadership. If the so-called �enlightened� elite does not know its history and cannot sort out the mess what is to save us from the stupidity and destruction of a leadership of fools?
Maureen
�
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
AN 240
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Direct: 989-774-1087
Main: 989-774-3171
Fax: 989-773-1271
Email: eke...@cmich.edu or Maure...@cmich.edu
�
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:27 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
�
Amatoritsero,
�
I have said it, and I will say it again, Toyin may try to back-pedal all he wants, but he clearly believes that the genocide in Biafra was a hoax. He is about 50 years old; he should know one way or the other what happened in Nigeria during the civil war. And what is this new nonsense about empirical data, analysis, etc, etc, each time someone sneezes around here? Is this a classroom and are we children who would spout off without any resource? And let's listen to ourselves for a second, what are we saying, are the songs of the women of Asaba not enough to make us ask: Why is a mass murderer's name adorning our international airport? Is it a genocide only if and when the white man says so? Sometimes man, sometimes you just want to holler!
�
- Ikhide
�
From: Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Folks,
�
�
I think you might be misunderstanding Toyin Adepoju's demands for empirical analysis and evidence in the matter of whether Biafra was actually a genocide. He does not say there was no genocide but he is asking you to treat the matter as a scientific, fact-based analysis, rather with the blind emotion, which usually circumscribe talk about the Nigerian civil war. Toyin then goes on to produce facts, empirical evidence and logical arguments why the Jewish holocaust was a genocide. This reminds �me of the fact that apart from holocaust deniers, the history of the 'black holocaust has never been given the prominence of the jewish holocaust, no were reparations made, nor are proper and visible commemoration of that bestial history. So it is usually dealt with in the abstract. Perhaps is it also because the Mediterranean and the transatlantic slavery trade, involving black humanity, was always treaded with emotion in public discussions, that is beyond the seminar rooms.�
�
Amatoritsero
On 2 January 2012 15:24, toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> wrote:
Emmanuel,
�
Can you provide evidence of the existence of an anti-Biafra genocide?
�
The idea is repeated in various sources without any effort at justification.
�
It would be useful to first define the meaning of the term "genocide" and describe how it applies to the Biafran experience.
�
While its important to acknowledge the devastation suffered by Biafra for a number of reasons, ranging from poor strategy on the part of her leaders to war crimes directed against her citizens, it is vital to place that suffering in context.
�
I await evidence of genocide against Biafrans and Igbos, not all of whom were within Biafra proper during the war.�
�
All Ikhide has done is��picked up some idea on the anti-Jewish Holocaust and flung it indiscriminately �at the Biafra story. His claim to � outrage then works as a means of � shielding �himself from the more demanding �task of proving his point.�
�
I am yet to find evidence that justifies the idea of an anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo genocide
�
The anti-Jewish Holocaust might not be particularly useful as a template for comparison in proving the occurrence of an anti-Biafra/anti-Igbo genocide because there is a world of difference between the�Jewish Holocaust�and the Biafran experience.�
�
The occurrence of the anti-Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is indisputable on account of the incontrovertible, concrete �historical evidence of the planning and execution of a policy of exterminating Jews carried out with horrific efficiency in Germany and Eastern Europe.
�
The extermination program was an official, openly declared policy of the Nazi regime, the official designation of the policy being � �"The Final Solution of the Jewish Question".
It operated in three major stages carried out �from the 1930s to war's end in the 1940s :
�
1. Identification and isolation of Jews
�
2. Rounding up and transporting Jews to�extermination �camps. These camps are well known and have become historical monuments:�Auschwitz,�Treblinka,�Buchenwald,�Majdanek,�Sobibor, among others.The people who ran these camps are known and some have been brought to trial, particularly notorious among them being�Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, who decided which prisoners were to be gassed to death immediately and those whose �deaths were to be delayed.He is also described as using �the prisoners, including children, �for horrible scientific experiments.�
�
3. The prisoners were stripped of their valuables, either killed immediately or saved for later death. This death could come through random selection at the whims of the camp commandant, through a precise process of selecting people for gassing, or through starvation, exhuastion, illness or overwork.�
�
The gas chambers still exist as part of the historical monuments the concentration camps have become.
�
Can anyone point to anything comparable to justify the claims of an anti-Biafra genocide?�
�
Even if it is argued that Nigeria did not operate at the Nazi level of efficiency, can anyone point to a policy consistently executed or carried out at random but constantly directed at the extermination of Biafrans and particularly Igbos?
�
The historical records and the scholarship on the war are often not consulted, it seems, by a significant number of those who make pronouncements about it. This has led to a proliferation of myth over history.
�
thanks
�
toyin
�
�
On 2 January 2012 11:06, Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne <Ogbun...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ikhide,
�
You have said it all. Toyin Adepoju and other closet Nazis like him are still in denial. Biafra would forever remain Nigeria's albatross. The ghosts of Biafra are yet to be propitiated. And the wicked denials of the Toyin Adepoju's of this world are reasons why Nigeria will remain the graveyard of progress; a country that murders its best and canonizes its rogues.�
Sent from my iPhone
On 01.01.2012, at 18:47, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war �is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda �on the ashes, misery and mutilation �of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed �to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly �impossible, �manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the �war, eventually �fleeing to safety in exile �even though he had promised not to leave his people, leaving them at a desperate time, �with no options, �leaving �Efiong to negotiate �surrender without any initiative from Ojukwu, who was now incommunicado?'
�
- Toyin Adepoju
�
Wow. And there are Nazis who claim the holocaust never happened. You won't see me engaging them in "intellectual dialogue." Nonsense. You are on you own here, Toyin; I totally and irrevocably dissociate myself from any and all hateful views like the above. Please keep my name out of it.
�
- Ikhide
�
�
�
�
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 1, 2012 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide,
�
In the name of God, what have I done to deserve being described so : "I only engage in honest conversations; and it is clear to me that from your conduct here and elsewhere that you are not interested in one."
�
In this discussion on this group, I have called you out to defend your views on Nigerian education and Biafra.�
�
You wrote �of Nigerian education and Biafra in the following words:
�
"Upon the death of Dim Ojukwu, many of us donned the flag of Biafra. One young Nigerian reached out to me on chat and asked what the flag was about. I told him. He asked me to tell him more about Biafra. I asked him how old he was. 35 years old. A man born in Nigeria in the 70's told me that very very little of Biafra was taught him in school. How can that be, I asked? Then he told me about the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary. I have the entire transcript and one day when I have the time I shall fictionalize it and share with the world the war that our intellectuals have wreaked on our children."
�
In those words, you do the following
�
1. You describe the idea that "very little of Biafra" was taught to your 35 year old interlocutor, born in Nigeria in the 70s, as indication of what you describe as "the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
�
You thereby imply that Nigerian education from the 70s, when your interlocutor was born, to the present, is best understood in terms of ""the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
�
Have I misquoted you? No.
�
Everyone here can read and judge for themselves.�
�
I am asking you to justify this assertion.�
�
To justify this assertion, you need to demonstrate why you think the kind of education about Biafra you espouse should be a touchstone for assessing Nigerian education.�
�
Does everyone of your age group share that opinion, making it unnecessary to defend and justify it?�
�
Did you yourself not argue that history is perceived from various perspectives? Is it not vital that holders of these perspectives need to defend their views by presenting their rationale for holding those views?�
�
It is salutary, that, for you, like many others " The passing of Dim Ojukwu was for me and many an opportunity to reflect on an era."
�
What are your reflections?
�
Various people have expressed theirs. Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian Head of State during the war, whose differences with Ojukwu played a key role in the crises before and during the war �has expressed his, motivated by �Ojukwu's transition. �Max Siollun, Nigerian history scholar, has done the same, which one can see if one Googles his name.�
�
Over the years, Ojukwu reappraisals �have been prominent on Nigerian centred online communities and in books on the war. �The names of people like Ikenna Anokute on Nigerian and Igbo centred groups and Edruezzi on Nairaland are significant in this debate. �Chief Ralph Uwechue, President of Ohanaeze, the �Pan-Igbo organisation, a person who describes himself as at the centre of events in Biafra �as events unfolded in those fateful days, not to talk of Philip Efiong, Alexander Madiebo, Ojukwu's fellow Biafran commanders, have all written books on the subject.�
�
�Joseph �Achuzia, one of the most �prominent �figures in the Biafran military,�who was part of events from the gestation to the dissolution of Biafra,�has �expressed his views on the meaning of Biafra, �before and recently. Some other Igbos have expressed disagreement with Achuzia �on the meaning of Biafra. Interestingly and ironically, Oguchi Nwocha's �article critical of the �perspective on Biafra of Achuzia,�a war scarred veteran of that war, who was in Biafra from the beginning to the end with his Caucasian wife and their son, describing himself as using desperate methods to mobilize his men to fight in the face of apathy arising from the awareness of imminent collapse in the midst of horrific suffering, a stance contributing to his war time nickname as " Hannibal Air-Raid Achiuzia" described as serving seven years in prison at war's end for his role in the war, � is titled "Educating Achuzie on the Biafran Dream."�
�
Biafra means �different things to different people, even among �Igbos, who are the centre of its legacy.
�
What does it mean to you?�
�
In the discussions on Biafra on Ederi, which you allude to, you lamented the failure �of people to claim and own the Biafra story.�
�
What is the character �of your own ownership and claim on Biafra?
�
Is Biafra of such questionable value that you cannot stand up and present your views in this marketplace of opinions?
�
��Dont you want to counter those, including Igbos in Biafra and Igbos after Biafra, who see Biafra as �a misadventure �and a power hungry venture driven largely by Ojukwu?�
�
Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war �is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda �on the ashes, misery and mutilation �of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed �to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly �impossible, �manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the �war, eventually �fleeing to safety in exile &nbs
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toyin adepoju
kenneth harrow
please consider the issue i raised in my last posting. what might you accomplish in setting the record straight on the issue of starving the biafrans into submission? if this were a graduate class on nigerian history, we would examine the context and meaning of the eventsin 1967-70 in all their complexity. but this is a discussion list of people from different worlds/perspectives, exchanging ideas and feelings. a human exchange that hopefully enriches us.
i fear your attempts to set the record straight, as you see it, will only embitter the participants and poison the waters, no matter how well-intentioned. what would you hope to accomplish?
if you were to play the role of peace-maker, how might you frame your comments differently?
maureen speaks of seeking a future where nigerians might come together.
renan speaks of the nation that can find itself only through forgetting, agreeing to forget.
because if you insist on remembering, your memories, your history, will always be at the expense of those of others.
i can't think that's what is needed now
ken
On 1/4/12 5:41 PM, toyin adepoju wrote:
I will address, in another post, �why I am convinced Biafran starvation is rooted in the � tactical inadequacies of the war strategy of Biafran commanders.�
These inadequacies are themselves grounded �in the geo-political construction of Biafra by Biafran leaders and the role of the Nigerian government �in this process, the processes this construction underwent from 1966 to 1970, and the various camps within Biafra in response to the geo-political construction of the nascent nation and its implications for war strategy. �
Meanwhile, Iklhide has presented a central issue of that war, an issue central to its global image: Biafran starvation and the claim of Nigerian responsibility for that starvation.�
Ikhide invokes the "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war" speech attributed to Enahoro and it seems, to Obafemi Awolowo, in the spirit of uncritical revulsion in which it is often presented by pro-Biafra critics.
The reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that starvation has been a �weapon of war, �from the earliest periods to the present.�
�The ability to disrupt one's opponent's food supply is a central plank of strategy.�
Rather than preempt anyone's opinions, I would like us to look this issue �squarely in the eye, and keeping in mind the exigencies of warfare, �the history of warfare, and the morality/ties of warfare, with �particular reference to the Nigerian Civil War, ask ourselves why this statement : "starvation is a weapon of war",�should be treated with uncritical revulsion.�
The manner in which it came into effect in the Nigerian Civil War in relation to �Biafra further complicates its moral implications.
Since Ikhide is fond of making uncritical correlations between my comments and the Nazi party in relation to the Jewish Holocaust, we also need to ask "Were � the Biafran civilians and the Jews in WWII in identical situations, having the same status in the wars they were involved in and treated the same way by the states in question-Nigeria for the Biafrans, Germany for the Jews?"
It seems a central lever �for the Biafran, pro-Biafran and other critics �of Nigerian strategy in the war and claims of anti-Biafra genocide, is the claim of what Harrow describes as "starving the Biafrans into submission".
This issue needs careful examination.�
The debates on the subject seem to gloss over its complexities and substitute compassion for and outrage at the Biafran's immense suffering, particularly of civilians, and particularly children, �for a need to question what the balance of morality and responsibility was in relation to that suffering.
I express appreciation for responses on this subject. Responses are vital for one's learning processes. Apologies for not addressing �other responses yet. I will do so soon since it is my responsibility to address responses �to my position on such a controversial topic
thanks
toyin�
On 4 January 2012 14:20, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
" In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra"�such and the New York Review of Books which has�a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, �and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on�10/12/2011�describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort �to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders �that was not representative �of the war against Biafra as a whole.�
I also hold that the experience of starvation �in Biafra might be attributable �more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than �efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation."- Toyin Adepoju
�
Haba!!! These statements above must spring from a very dark place. here is what Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian Commissioner for Information said at a press conference in New York, July 1968: "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels"�
I hope all of you are now beginning to see how bad things are in Nigeria. When a 50 year old "intellectual" writes like this about Biafra, what do you expect our youth to do?�
Let me remind you all, the mother of odium, Joseph Goebbels was an intellectual. This is what he said and I quote it with disgust: �If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.�
I am actually embarrassed that I am engaged in this lunacy. Shaking my head...
- Ikhide
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Thank you very much for this robust contribution, Kissi. Your lucid and pithy summation makes it clear that reading your book will be a most satisfying and cognitively enriching experience.�
I had to examine the case of the Nazi perpetrated genocide because of Ikhide's uncritical invocation of the Jewish Holocaust in this context.
As I mentioned in that analysis, a case for describing the Biafran experience as genocide could mobilise a template different from the massive efficiency of the Germans.
As you rightly put it, there are various definitions of genocide and a discussion on the subject has to clarify the framework of discourse in terms of the definition �being used. Reading the Wikipedia essay on genocide is a very helpful beginning for non-specialists on this subject, from what I can see, showing that genocide is �a broad subject of its own with a rich intellectual history.
The definition of genocide I am using is the idea of an attempt to exterminate an ethnicity, in this case the Igbo of Nigeria.
I derive this definition �from the descriptions by Igbos after the war of how they perceived the intentions of Nigeria against them as well as from my reading about Biafran propaganda.�
This conception of genocide understands genocide as the effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group.�
In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra"�such and the New York Review of Books which has�a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, �and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on�10/12/2011�describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort �to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders �that was not representative �of the war against Biafra as a whole.�
I also hold that the experience of starvation �in Biafra might be attributable �more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than �efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation. �
I also hold that even if the Federal troops did prevent food from �reaching Biafra, that prevention may be described as a war strategy �of making sure that sustenance does not reach the open armies so they are compelled to surrender, rather than an effort to starve as many Igbos as possible to death. The challenge of impacting combatants by blocking supply lines to troops is complicated in a situation like that of Biafra where the military and the civilian population are closely intertwined, with children being described as conscripted into the Biafran army and war not being fought in picked battles of theatres distant from the civilian �locations but often being fought within urban centres and other locations of �significant population �density. The war was fought in terms of securing and holding geographical territory represented by population centres, meaning that the cities of Port-Harcourt, Calabar, Enugu, Umuahia and other population centres were the theatres �of war and progress in the war was defined in terms of securing and holding such territory.
In sum, I hold that the logistical imperatives of the war and the actual experience of the war do not justify the idea of the war against Biafra as an effort to exterminate the Igbo ethnic group as is sometimes �claimed. The logistical imperatives of the war relate to the level of contact and access the Federal troops had with Biafrans. The Biafrans fought fiercely �and held on to territory in the Igbo heartland for �two years and more, making it difficult �for federal �troops to penetrate the Igbo heartland �until the last decisive push �that led to the capitulation of Biafra.
�So there was no access to enable such an extermination.�
�Secondly, while one notes �the experiences �of Asaba and Benin, across �other Biafran other locations fell to federal troops of which there is no report of massacres. These include � Calabar and Enugu earlier in the war, leading the Biafran command to withdraw �to Umuahia, and towards the �end, Umuhaia itself fell, before the final securing of the Ulli airstrip, Biafra's last remaining airstrip.
The reports from the treatment of Biafrans at these and other locations indicate that the Asaba and Benin �massacres were isolated incidents in terms of the scope of the barbarism they represent.�
� I would hold that such examples are significantly localised and cannot be extended to cover the Biafran experience �as a whole.
How should the air attacks on civilians be characterised?�
That is clearly evil and inhuman but I would hesitate to describe them as genocidal because I doubt if they demonstrate the consistency and scope of genocidal actions.
I will continue to examine the issue.
thanks
toyin
On 3 January 2012 01:56, Kissi, Edward <eki...@usf.edu> wrote:
The Holocaust is an example of a genocide, as this particular crime is defined in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. But not all genocides look like the Holocaust or should have�all or some of the�key features of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique in terms of its total intent and global scope as well as managerial efficiency. Never in the history of mass murder did a state intend to wipe out a group, in its entirety, where-ever members of that group lived. Whereas the Nazis killed all Jews they could find in Germany or Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as in North Africa, many Tutsis who lived outside of Rwanda, even in neighboring countries, were not targeted for annihilation. Thus, the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are examples of genocide, but are different kinds of genocide. A genocide does not necessarily have to have all the elements of another known genocide to make it so. Thus, any approach to the study of genocide that makes the Holocaust the�criteria for determining what constitutes a genocide is a Holocaust-centric approach that betrays a�lack of grasp of what genocide is, in international law.�On the other hand, not all mass killings, organized or random, constitute genocide. Genocide is not the objectionable killing of human beings. To ascribe genocide to any case of mass murder, because it involved the loss of human life, �is a misuse of the legal concept of genocide. There are various trypes of mass murder: ethnic cleansing, state repression, war crimes and even what have become known, in international law, as "crimes against humanity." Genocide is a particular kind of mass murder.�What, then, is genocide? Most scholars who study genocide conclude that what distinguishes genocide from other mass killings is the intent to destroy a target group. The intent, if not overtly articulated by the perpetrators, has to be inferred from�the extent of the perpetrators' actions. Intent to destroy the group can also be deduced from a pattern of purposeful actions undertaken by the perpetrators to put members of the target group beyond the perpetrators'�unviverse of moral obligation to protect the lives of the target group.�
In fact, there is no unanimity among genocide scholars about what genocide is and how it should be defined. Thus, there are numerous social science definitions of genocide that have been offered to enhance the internationally-accepted definition of genocide in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. Therefore, the Biafran case, genocide or not genocide, can be examined in the context of any one of several definitions of genocide. The definitional context or framework has to be clear because there are many definitions of genocide out there.
�I tend to think that the best definitional framework for assessing�what took place in Asaba is not the UN Genocide Convention. Under the UN Convention, the case of Biafra as an example of genocide could be open to debate. The best framework is the Ethiopian concept of genocide in Article 238 of the Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957.�Note that Ethiopia was the first nation to ratify the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, in July 1949. Ethiopia's signature made the international definition of genocide legal and open the way for other ratifications. It was also the first nation to enshrine the terms of the Convention in its national laws. Ethiopia was also the first nation to redefine the concept of genocide and broaden that concept to�criminalize the destruction of political enemies in conflict situations or the targeting of a politicized ethnic group. This definition of genocide is much broader and offers a better framework for examining the Biafran case than the UN definition of genocide which was framed purposely to assist the prosecution of Nazi criminals at Nuremberg.�
Edward KissiAuthor of Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (2006)
��
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Amatoritsero,
I have said it, and I will say it again, Toyin may try to back-pedal all he wants, but he clearly believes that the genocide in Biafra was a hoax. He is about 50 years old; he should know one way or the other what happened in Nigeria during the civil war. And what is this new nonsense about empirical data, analysis, etc, etc, each time someone sneezes around here? Is this a classroom and are we children who would spout off without any resource? And let's listen to ourselves for a second, what are we saying, are the songs of the women of Asaba not enough to make us ask: Why is a mass murderer's name adorning our international airport? Is it a genocide only if and when the white man says so? Sometimes man, sometimes you just want to holler!
- Ikhide
From: Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Folks,
I think you might be misunderstanding Toyin Adepoju's demands for empirical analysis and evidence in the matter of whether Biafra was actually a genocide. He does not say there was no genocide but he is asking you to treat the matter as a scientific, fact-based analysis, rather with the blind emotion, which usually circumscribe talk about the Nigerian civil war. Toyin then goes on to produce facts, empirical evidence and logical arguments why the Jewish holocaust was a genocide. This reminds �me of the fact that apart from holocaust deniers, the history of the 'black holocaust has never been given the prominence of the jewish holocaust, no were reparations made, nor are proper and visible commemoration of that bestial history. So it is usually dealt with in the abstract. Perhaps is it also because the Mediterranean and the transatlantic slavery trade, involving black humanity, was always treaded with emotion in public discussions, that is beyond the seminar rooms.�
Amatoritsero
On 2 January 2012 15:24, toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> wrote:
Emmanuel,
Can you provide evidence of the existence of an anti-Biafra genocide?
The idea is repeated in various sources without any effort at justification.
It would be useful to first define the meaning of the term "genocide" and describe how it applies to the Biafran experience.
While its important to acknowledge the devastation suffered by Biafra for a number of reasons, ranging from poor strategy on the part of her leaders to war crimes directed against her citizens, it is vital to place that suffering in context.
I await evidence of genocide against Biafrans and Igbos, not all of whom were within Biafra proper during the war.�
All Ikhide has done is��picked up some idea on the anti-Jewish Holocaust and flung it indiscriminately �at the Biafra story. His claim to � outrage then works as a means of � shielding �himself from the more demanding �task of proving his point.�
I am yet to find evidence that justifies the idea of an anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo genocide
The anti-Jewish Holocaust might not be particularly useful as a template for comparison in proving the occurrence of an anti-Biafra/anti-Igbo genocide because there is a world of difference between the�Jewish Holocaust�and the Biafran experience.�
The occurrence of the anti-Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is indisputable on account of the incontrovertible, concrete �historical evidence of the planning and execution of a policy of exterminating Jews carried out with horrific efficiency in Germany and Eastern Europe.
The extermination program was an official, openly declared policy of the Nazi regime, the official designation of the policy being � �"The Final Solution of the Jewish Question".
It operated in three major stages carried out �from the 1930s to war's end in the 1940s :
1. Identification and isolation of Jews
2. Rounding up and transporting Jews to�extermination �camps. These camps are well known and have become historical monuments:�Auschwitz,�Treblinka,�Buchenwald,�Majdanek,�Sobibor, among others.The people who ran these camps are known and some have been brought to trial, particularly notorious among them being�Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, who decided which prisoners were to be gassed to death immediately and those whose �deaths were to be delayed.He is also described as using �the prisoners, including children, �for horrible scientific experiments.�
3. The prisoners were stripped of their valuables, either killed immediately or saved for later death. This death could come through random selection at the whims of the camp commandant, through a precise process of selecting people for gassing, or through starvation, exhuastion, illness or overwork.�
The gas chambers still exist as part of the historical monuments the concentration camps have become.
Can anyone point to anything comparable to justify the claims of an anti-Biafra genocide?�
Even if it is argued that Nigeria did not operate at the Nazi level of efficiency, can anyone point to a policy consistently executed or carried out at random but constantly directed at the extermination of Biafrans and particularly Igbos?
The historical records and the scholarship on the war are often not consulted, it seems, by a significant number of those who make pronouncements about it. This has led to a proliferation of myth over history.
thanks
toyin
On 2 January 2012 11:06, Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne <Ogbun...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ikhide,
You have said it all. Toyin Adepoju and other closet Nazis like him are still in denial. Biafra would forever remain Nigeria's albatross. The ghosts of Biafra are yet to be propitiated. And the wicked denials of the Toyin Adepoju's of this world are reasons why Nigeria will remain the graveyard of progress; a country that murders its best and canonizes its rogues.�
Sent from my iPhone
"Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war �is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda �on the ashes, misery and mutilation �of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed �to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly �impossible, �manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the �war, eventually �fleeing to safety in exile �even though he had promised not to leave his people, leaving them at a desperate time, �with no options, �leaving �Efiong to negotiate �surrender without any initiative from Ojukwu, who was now incommunicado?'
- Toyin Adepoju
Wow. And there are Nazis who claim the holocaust never happened. You won't see me engaging them in "intellectual dialogue." Nonsense. You are on you own here, Toyin; I totally and irrevocably dissociate myself from any and all hateful views like the above. Please keep my name out of it.
- Ikhide
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 1, 2012 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide,
In the name of God, what have I done to deserve being described so : "I only engage in honest conversations; and it is clear to me that from your conduct here and elsewhere that you are not interested in one."
In this discussion on this group, I have called you out to defend your views on Nigerian education and Biafra.�
You wrote �of Nigerian education and Biafra in the following words:
"Upon the death of Dim Ojukwu, many of us donned the flag of Biafra. One young Nigerian reached out to me on chat and asked what the flag was about. I told him. He asked me to tell him more about Biafra. I asked him how old he was. 35 years old. A man born in Nigeria in the 70's told me that very very little of Biafra was taught him in school. How can that be, I asked? Then he told me about the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary. I have the entire transcript and one day when I have the time I shall fictionalize it and share with the world the war that our intellectuals have wreaked on our children."
In those words, you do the following
1. You describe the idea that "very little of Biafra" was taught to your 35 year old interlocutor, born in Nigeria in the 70s, as indication of what you describe as "the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
You thereby imply that Nigerian education from the 70s, when your interlocutor was born, to the present, is best understood in terms of ""the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
Have I misquoted you? No.
Everyone here can read and judge for themselves.�
I am asking you to justify this assertion.�
To justify this assertion, you need to demonstrate why you think the kind of education about Biafra you espouse should be a touchstone for assessing Nigerian education.�
Does everyone of your age group share that opinion, making it unnecessary to defend and justify it?�
Did you yourself not argue that history is perceived from various perspectives? Is it not vital that holders of these perspectives need to defend their views by presenting their rationale for holding those views?�
It is salutary, that, for you, like many others " The passing of Dim Ojukwu was for me and many an opportunity to reflect on an era."
What are your reflections?
Various people have expressed theirs. Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian Head of State during the war, whose differences with Ojukwu played a key role in the crises before and during the war �has expressed his, motivated by �Ojukwu's transition. �Max Siollun, Nigerian history scholar, has done the same, which one can see if one Googles his name.�
Over the years, Ojukwu reappraisals �have been prominent on Nigerian centred online communities and in books on the war. �The names of people like Ikenna Anokute on Nigerian and Igbo centred groups and Edruezzi on Nairaland are significant in this debate. �Chief Ralph Uwechue, President of Ohanaeze, the �Pan-Igbo organisation, a person who describes himself as at the centre of events in Biafra �as events unfolded in those fateful days, not to talk of Philip Efiong, Alexander Madiebo, Ojukwu's fellow Biafran commanders, have all written books on the subject.�
�Joseph �Achuzia, one of the most �prominent �figures in the Biafran military,�who was part of events from the gestation to the dissolution of Biafra,�has �expressed his views on the meaning of Biafra, �before and recently. Some other Igbos have expressed disagreement with Achuzia �on the meaning of Biafra. Interestingly and ironically, Oguchi Nwocha's �article critical of the �perspective on Biafra of Achuzia,�a war scarred veteran of that war, who was in Biafra from the beginning to the end with his Caucasian wife and their son, describing himself as using desperate methods to mobilize his men to fight in the face of apathy arising from the awareness of imminent collapse in the midst of horrific suffering, a stance contributing to his war time nickname as " Hannibal Air-Raid Achiuzia" described as serving seven years in prison at war's end for his role in the war, � is titled "Educating Achuzie on the Biafran Dream."�
Biafra means �different things to different people, even among �Igbos, who are the centre of its legacy.
What does it mean to you?�
In the discussions on Biafra on Ederi, which you allude to, you lamented the failure �of people to claim and own the Biafra story.�
What is the character �of your own ownership and claim on Biafra?
Is Biafra of such questionable value that you cannot stand up and present your views in this marketplace of opinions?
��Dont you want to counter those, including Igbos in Biafra and Igbos after Biafra, who see Biafra as �a misadventure �and a power hungry venture driven largely by Ojukwu?�
Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war �is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda �on the ashes, misery and mutilation �of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed �to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly �impossible, �manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the �war, eventually �fleeing to safety in exile &nbs
-- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Amatoritsero Ede
dear toyin
please consider the issue i raised in my last posting. what might you accomplish in setting the record straight on the issue of starving the biafrans into submission? if this were a graduate class on nigerian history, we would examine the context and meaning of the eventsin 1967-70 in all their complexity. but this is a discussion list of people from different worlds/perspectives, exchanging ideas and feelings. a human exchange that hopefully enriches us.
i fear your attempts to set the record straight, as you see it, will only embitter the participants and poison the waters, no matter how well-intentioned. what would you hope to accomplish?
if you were to play the role of peace-maker, how might you frame your comments differently?
maureen speaks of seeking a future where nigerians might come together.
renan speaks of the nation that can find itself only through forgetting, agreeing to forget.
because if you insist on remembering, your memories, your history, will always be at the expense of those of others.
i can't think that's what is needed now
ken
On 1/4/12 5:41 PM, toyin adepoju wrote:
I will address, in another post, why I am convinced Biafran starvation is rooted in the tactical inadequacies of the war strategy of Biafran commanders.
These inadequacies are themselves grounded in the geo-political construction of Biafra by Biafran leaders and the role of the Nigerian government in this process, the processes this construction underwent from 1966 to 1970, and the various camps within Biafra in response to the geo-political construction of the nascent nation and its implications for war strategy.
Meanwhile, Iklhide has presented a central issue of that war, an issue central to its global image: Biafran starvation and the claim of Nigerian responsibility for that starvation.
Ikhide invokes the "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war" speech attributed to Enahoro and it seems, to Obafemi Awolowo, in the spirit of uncritical revulsion in which it is often presented by pro-Biafra critics.
The reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that starvation has been a weapon of war, from the earliest periods to the present.
The ability to disrupt one's opponent's food supply is a central plank of strategy.
Rather than preempt anyone's opinions, I would like us to look this issue squarely in the eye, and keeping in mind the exigencies of warfare, the history of warfare, and the morality/ties of warfare, with particular reference to the Nigerian Civil War, ask ourselves why this statement : "starvation is a weapon of war", should be treated with uncritical revulsion.
The manner in which it came into effect in the Nigerian Civil War in relation to Biafra further complicates its moral implications.
Since Ikhide is fond of making uncritical correlations between my comments and the Nazi party in relation to the Jewish Holocaust, we also need to ask "Were the Biafran civilians and the Jews in WWII in identical situations, having the same status in the wars they were involved in and treated the same way by the states in question-Nigeria for the Biafrans, Germany for the Jews?"
It seems a central lever for the Biafran, pro-Biafran and other critics of Nigerian strategy in the war and claims of anti-Biafra genocide, is the claim of what Harrow describes as "starving the Biafrans into submission".
This issue needs careful examination.
The debates on the subject seem to gloss over its complexities and substitute compassion for and outrage at the Biafran's immense suffering, particularly of civilians, and particularly children, for a need to question what the balance of morality and responsibility was in relation to that suffering.
I express appreciation for responses on this subject. Responses are vital for one's learning processes. Apologies for not addressing other responses yet. I will do so soon since it is my responsibility to address responses to my position on such a controversial topic
thanks
toyin
On 4 January 2012 14:20, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
" In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra" such and the New York Review of Books which has a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on 10/12/2011 describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders that was not representative of the war against Biafra as a whole.
I also hold that the experience of starvation in Biafra might be attributable more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation."- Toyin Adepoju
Haba!!! These statements above must spring from a very dark place. here is what Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian Commissioner for Information said at a press conference in New York, July 1968: "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels"
I hope all of you are now beginning to see how bad things are in Nigeria. When a 50 year old "intellectual" writes like this about Biafra, what do you expect our youth to do?
Let me remind you all, the mother of odium, Joseph Goebbels was an intellectual. This is what he said and I quote it with disgust: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
I am actually embarrassed that I am engaged in this lunacy. Shaking my head...
- Ikhide
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Thank you very much for this robust contribution, Kissi. Your lucid and pithy summation makes it clear that reading your book will be a most satisfying and cognitively enriching experience.
I had to examine the case of the Nazi perpetrated genocide because of Ikhide's uncritical invocation of the Jewish Holocaust in this context.
As I mentioned in that analysis, a case for describing the Biafran experience as genocide could mobilise a template different from the massive efficiency of the Germans.
As you rightly put it, there are various definitions of genocide and a discussion on the subject has to clarify the framework of discourse in terms of the definition being used. Reading the Wikipedia essay on genocide is a very helpful beginning for non-specialists on this subject, from what I can see, showing that genocide is a broad subject of its own with a rich intellectual history.
The definition of genocide I am using is the idea of an attempt to exterminate an ethnicity, in this case the Igbo of Nigeria.
I derive this definition from the descriptions by Igbos after the war of how they perceived the intentions of Nigeria against them as well as from my reading about Biafran propaganda.
This conception of genocide understands genocide as the effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group.
In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra" such and the New York Review of Books which has a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on 10/12/2011 describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders that was not representative of the war against Biafra as a whole.
I also hold that the experience of starvation in Biafra might be attributable more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation.
I also hold that even if the Federal troops did prevent food from reaching Biafra, that prevention may be described as a war strategy of making sure that sustenance does not reach the open armies so they are compelled to surrender, rather than an effort to starve as many Igbos as possible to death. The challenge of impacting combatants by blocking supply lines to troops is complicated in a situation like that of Biafra where the military and the civilian population are closely intertwined, with children being described as conscripted into the Biafran army and war not being fought in picked battles of theatres distant from the civilian locations but often being fought within urban centres and other locations of significant population density. The war was fought in terms of securing and holding geographical territory represented by population centres, meaning that the cities of Port-Harcourt, Calabar, Enugu, Umuahia and other population centres were the theatres of war and progress in the war was defined in terms of securing and holding such territory.
In sum, I hold that the logistical imperatives of the war and the actual experience of the war do not justify the idea of the war against Biafra as an effort to exterminate the Igbo ethnic group as is sometimes claimed. The logistical imperatives of the war relate to the level of contact and access the Federal troops had with Biafrans. The Biafrans fought fiercely and held on to territory in the Igbo heartland for two years and more, making it difficult for federal troops to penetrate the Igbo heartland until the last decisive push that led to the capitulation of Biafra.
So there was no access to enable such an extermination.
Secondly, while one notes the experiences of Asaba and Benin, across other Biafran other locations fell to federal troops of which there is no report of massacres. These include Calabar and Enugu earlier in the war, leading the Biafran command to withdraw to Umuahia, and towards the end, Umuhaia itself fell, before the final securing of the Ulli airstrip, Biafra's last remaining airstrip.
The reports from the treatment of Biafrans at these and other locations indicate that the Asaba and Benin massacres were isolated incidents in terms of the scope of the barbarism they represent.
I would hold that such examples are significantly localised and cannot be extended to cover the Biafran experience as a whole.
How should the air attacks on civilians be characterised?
That is clearly evil and inhuman but I would hesitate to describe them as genocidal because I doubt if they demonstrate the consistency and scope of genocidal actions.
I will continue to examine the issue.
thanks
toyin
On 3 January 2012 01:56, Kissi, Edward <eki...@usf.edu> wrote:
The Holocaust is an example of a genocide, as this particular crime is defined in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. But not all genocides look like the Holocaust or should have all or some of the key features of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique in terms of its total intent and global scope as well as managerial efficiency. Never in the history of mass murder did a state intend to wipe out a group, in its entirety, where-ever members of that group lived. Whereas the Nazis killed all Jews they could find in Germany or Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as in North Africa, many Tutsis who lived outside of Rwanda, even in neighboring countries, were not targeted for annihilation. Thus, the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are examples of genocide, but are different kinds of genocide. A genocide does not necessarily have to have all the elements of another known genocide to make it so. Thus, any approach to the study of genocide that makes the Holocaust the criteria for determining what constitutes a genocide is a Holocaust-centric approach that betrays a lack of grasp of what genocide is, in international law.On the other hand, not all mass killings, organized or random, constitute genocide. Genocide is not the objectionable killing of human beings. To ascribe genocide to any case of mass murder, because it involved the loss of human life, is a misuse of the legal concept of genocide. There are various trypes of mass murder: ethnic cleansing, state repression, war crimes and even what have become known, in international law, as "crimes against humanity." Genocide is a particular kind of mass murder.What, then, is genocide? Most scholars who study genocide conclude that what distinguishes genocide from other mass killings is the intent to destroy a target group. The intent, if not overtly articulated by the perpetrators, has to be inferred from the extent of the perpetrators' actions. Intent to destroy the group can also be deduced from a pattern of purposeful actions undertaken by the perpetrators to put members of the target group beyond the perpetrators' unviverse of moral obligation to protect the lives of the target group.
In fact, there is no unanimity among genocide scholars about what genocide is and how it should be defined. Thus, there are numerous social science definitions of genocide that have been offered to enhance the internationally-accepted definition of genocide in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. Therefore, the Biafran case, genocide or not genocide, can be examined in the context of any one of several definitions of genocide. The definitional context or framework has to be clear because there are many definitions of genocide out there.
I tend to think that the best definitional framework for assessing what took place in Asaba is not the UN Genocide Convention. Under the UN Convention, the case of Biafra as an example of genocide could be open to debate. The best framework is the Ethiopian concept of genocide in Article 238 of the Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957.Note that Ethiopia was the first nation to ratify the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, in July 1949. Ethiopia's signature made the international definition of genocide legal and open the way for other ratifications. It was also the first nation to enshrine the terms of the Convention in its national laws. Ethiopia was also the first nation to redefine the concept of genocide and broaden that concept to criminalize the destruction of political enemies in conflict situations or the targeting of a politicized ethnic group. This definition of genocide is much broader and offers a better framework for examining the Biafran case than the UN definition of genocide which was framed purposely to assist the prosecution of Nazi criminals at Nuremberg.
Edward KissiAuthor of Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (2006)
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Amatoritsero,
I have said it, and I will say it again, Toyin may try to back-pedal all he wants, but he clearly believes that the genocide in Biafra was a hoax. He is about 50 years old; he should know one way or the other what happened in Nigeria during the civil war. And what is this new nonsense about empirical data, analysis, etc, etc, each time someone sneezes around here? Is this a classroom and are we children who would spout off without any resource? And let's listen to ourselves for a second, what are we saying, are the songs of the women of Asaba not enough to make us ask: Why is a mass murderer's name adorning our international airport? Is it a genocide only if and when the white man says so? Sometimes man, sometimes you just want to holler!
- Ikhide
From: Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Folks,
I think you might be misunderstanding Toyin Adepoju's demands for empirical analysis and evidence in the matter of whether Biafra was actually a genocide. He does not say there was no genocide but he is asking you to treat the matter as a scientific, fact-based analysis, rather with the blind emotion, which usually circumscribe talk about the Nigerian civil war. Toyin then goes on to produce facts, empirical evidence and logical arguments why the Jewish holocaust was a genocide. This reminds me of the fact that apart from holocaust deniers, the history of the 'black holocaust has never been given the prominence of the jewish holocaust, no were reparations made, nor are proper and visible commemoration of that bestial history. So it is usually dealt with in the abstract. Perhaps is it also because the Mediterranean and the transatlantic slavery trade, involving black humanity, was always treaded with emotion in public discussions, that is beyond the seminar rooms.
Amatoritsero
On 2 January 2012 15:24, toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> wrote:
Emmanuel,
Can you provide evidence of the existence of an anti-Biafra genocide?
The idea is repeated in various sources without any effort at justification.
It would be useful to first define the meaning of the term "genocide" and describe how it applies to the Biafran experience.
While its important to acknowledge the devastation suffered by Biafra for a number of reasons, ranging from poor strategy on the part of her leaders to war crimes directed against her citizens, it is vital to place that suffering in context.
I await evidence of genocide against Biafrans and Igbos, not all of whom were within Biafra proper during the war.
All Ikhide has done is picked up some idea on the anti-Jewish Holocaust and flung it indiscriminately at the Biafra story. His claim to outrage then works as a means of shielding himself from the more demanding task of proving his point.
I am yet to find evidence that justifies the idea of an anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo genocide
The anti-Jewish Holocaust might not be particularly useful as a template for comparison in proving the occurrence of an anti-Biafra/anti-Igbo genocide because there is a world of difference between the Jewish Holocaust and the Biafran experience.
The occurrence of the anti-Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is indisputable on account of the incontrovertible, concrete historical evidence of the planning and execution of a policy of exterminating Jews carried out with horrific efficiency in Germany and Eastern Europe.
The extermination program was an official, openly declared policy of the Nazi regime, the official designation of the policy being "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question".
It operated in three major stages carried out from the 1930s to war's end in the 1940s :
1. Identification and isolation of Jews
2. Rounding up and transporting Jews to extermination camps. These camps are well known and have become historical monuments: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Majdanek, Sobibor, among others.The people who ran these camps are known and some have been brought to trial, particularly notorious among them being Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, who decided which prisoners were to be gassed to death immediately and those whose deaths were to be delayed.He is also described as using the prisoners, including children, for horrible scientific experiments.
3. The prisoners were stripped of their valuables, either killed immediately or saved for later death. This death could come through random selection at the whims of the camp commandant, through a precise process of selecting people for gassing, or through starvation, exhuastion, illness or overwork.
The gas chambers still exist as part of the historical monuments the concentration camps have become.
Can anyone point to anything comparable to justify the claims of an anti-Biafra genocide?
Even if it is argued that Nigeria did not operate at the Nazi level of efficiency, can anyone point to a policy consistently executed or carried out at random but constantly directed at the extermination of Biafrans and particularly Igbos?
The historical records and the scholarship on the war are often not consulted, it seems, by a significant number of those who make pronouncements about it. This has led to a proliferation of myth over history.
thanks
toyin
On 2 January 2012 11:06, Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne <Ogbun...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ikhide,
You have said it all. Toyin Adepoju and other closet Nazis like him are still in denial. Biafra would forever remain Nigeria's albatross. The ghosts of Biafra are yet to be propitiated. And the wicked denials of the Toyin Adepoju's of this world are reasons why Nigeria will remain the graveyard of progress; a country that murders its best and canonizes its rogues.
Sent from my iPhone
"Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda on the ashes, misery and mutilation of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly impossible, manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the war, eventually fleeing to safety in exile even though he had promised not to leave his people, leaving them at a desperate time, with no options, leaving Efiong to negotiate surrender without any initiative from Ojukwu, who was now incommunicado?'
- Toyin Adepoju
Wow. And there are Nazis who claim the holocaust never happened. You won't see me engaging them in "intellectual dialogue." Nonsense. You are on you own here, Toyin; I totally and irrevocably dissociate myself from any and all hateful views like the above. Please keep my name out of it.
- Ikhide
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 1, 2012 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide,
In the name of God, what have I done to deserve being described so : "I only engage in honest conversations; and it is clear to me that from your conduct here and elsewhere that you are not interested in one."
In this discussion on this group, I have called you out to defend your views on Nigerian education and Biafra.
You wrote of Nigerian education and Biafra in the following words:
"Upon the death of Dim Ojukwu, many of us donned the flag of Biafra. One young Nigerian reached out to me on chat and asked what the flag was about. I told him. He asked me to tell him more about Biafra. I asked him how old he was. 35 years old. A man born in Nigeria in the 70's told me that very very little of Biafra was taught him in school. How can that be, I asked? Then he told me about the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary. I have the entire transcript and one day when I have the time I shall fictionalize it and share with the world the war that our intellectuals have wreaked on our children."
In those words, you do the following
1. You describe the idea that "very little of Biafra" was taught to your 35 year old interlocutor, born in Nigeria in the 70s, as indication of what you describe as "the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
You thereby imply that Nigerian education from the 70s, when your interlocutor was born, to the present, is best understood in terms of ""the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
Have I misquoted you? No.
Everyone here can read and judge for themselves.
I am asking you to justify this assertion.
To justify this assertion, you need to demonstrate why you think the kind of education about Biafra you espouse should be a touchstone for assessing Nigerian education.
Does everyone of your age group share that opinion, making it unnecessary to defend and justify it?
Did you yourself not argue that history is perceived from various perspectives? Is it not vital that holders of these perspectives need to defend their views by presenting their rationale for holding those views?
It is salutary, that, for you, like many others " The passing of Dim Ojukwu was for me and many an opportunity to reflect on an era."
What are your reflections?
Various people have expressed theirs. Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian Head of State during the war, whose differences with Ojukwu played a key role in the crises before and during the war has expressed his, motivated by Ojukwu's transition. Max Siollun, Nigerian history scholar, has done the same, which one can see if one Googles his name.
Over the years, Ojukwu reappraisals have been prominent on Nigerian centred online communities and in books on the war. The names of people like Ikenna Anokute on Nigerian and Igbo centred groups and Edruezzi on Nairaland are significant in this debate. Chief Ralph Uwechue, President of Ohanaeze, the Pan-Igbo organisation, a person who describes himself as at the centre of events in Biafra as events unfolded in those fateful days, not to talk of Philip Efiong, Alexander Madiebo, Ojukwu's fellow Biafran commanders, have all written books on the subject.
Joseph Achuzia, one of the most prominent figures in the Biafran military, who was part of events from the gestation to the dissolution of Biafra, has expressed his views on the meaning of Biafra, before and recently. Some other Igbos have expressed disagreement with Achuzia on the meaning of Biafra. Interestingly and ironically, Oguchi Nwocha's article critical of the perspective on Biafra of Achuzia, a war scarred veteran of that war, who was in Biafra from the beginning to the end with his Caucasian wife and their son, describing himself as using desperate methods to mobilize his men to fight in the face of apathy arising from the awareness of imminent collapse in the midst of horrific suffering, a stance contributing to his war time nickname as " Hannibal Air-Raid Achiuzia" described as serving seven years in prison at war's end for his role in the war, is titled "Educating Achuzie on the Biafran Dream."
Biafra means different things to different people, even among Igbos, who are the centre of its legacy.
What does it mean to you?
In the discussions on Biafra on Ederi, which you allude to, you lamented the failure of people to claim and own the Biafra story.
What is the character of your own ownership and claim on Biafra?
Is Biafra of such questionable value that you cannot stand up and present your views in this marketplace of opinions?
Dont you want to counter those, including Igbos in Biafra and Igbos after Biafra, who see Biafra as a misadventure and a power hungry venture driven largely by Ojukwu?
Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda on the ashes, misery and mutilation of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly impossible, manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the war, eventually fleeing to safety in exile &nbs
Pius Adesanmi
Chidi Anthony Opara
please consider the issue i raised in my last posting. what might you accomplish in setting the record straight on the issue of starving the biafrans into submission? if this were a graduate class on nigerian history, we would examine the context and meaning of the eventsin 1967-70 in all their complexity. but this is a discussion list of people from different worlds/perspectives, exchanging ideas and feelings. a human exchange that hopefully enriches us.
i fear your attempts to set the record straight, as you see it, will only embitter the participants and poison the waters, no matter how well-intentioned. what would you hope to accomplish?
if you were to play the role of peace-maker, how might you frame your comments differently?
maureen speaks of seeking a future where nigerians might come together.
renan speaks of the nation that can find itself only through forgetting, agreeing to forget.
because if you insist on remembering, your memories, your history, will always be at the expense of those of others.
i can't think that's what is needed now
From: kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, January 5, 2012 3:06 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
dear toyin
please consider the issue i raised in my last posting. what might you accomplish in setting the record straight on the issue of starving the biafrans into submission? if this were a graduate class on nigerian history, we would examine the context and meaning of the eventsin 1967-70 in all their complexity. but this is a discussion list of people from different worlds/perspectives, exchanging ideas and feelings. a human exchange that hopefully enriches us.
i fear your attempts to set the record straight, as you see it, will only embitter the participants and poison the waters, no matter how well-intentioned. what would you hope to accomplish?
if you were to play the role of peace-maker, how might you frame your comments differently?
maureen speaks of seeking a future where nigerians might come together.
renan speaks of the nation that can find itself only through forgetting, agreeing to forget.
because if you insist on remembering, your memories, your history, will always be at the expense of those of others.
i can't think that's what is needed now
ken
On 1/4/12 5:41 PM, toyin adepoju wrote:
I will address, in another post, why I am convinced Biafran starvation is rooted in the tactical inadequacies of the war strategy of Biafran commanders.
These inadequacies are themselves grounded in the geo-political construction of Biafra by Biafran leaders and the role of the Nigerian government in this process, the processes this construction underwent from 1966 to 1970, and the various camps within Biafra in response to the geo-political construction of the nascent nation and its implications for war strategy.
Meanwhile, Iklhide has presented a central issue of that war, an issue central to its global image: Biafran starvation and the claim of Nigerian responsibility for that starvation.
Ikhide invokes the "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war" speech attributed to Enahoro and it seems, to Obafemi Awolowo, in the spirit of uncritical revulsion in which it is often presented by pro-Biafra critics.
The reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that starvation has been a weapon of war, from the earliest periods to the present.
The ability to disrupt one's opponent's food supply is a central plank of strategy.
Rather than preempt anyone's opinions, I would like us to look this issue squarely in the eye, and keeping in mind the exigencies of warfare, the history of warfare, and the morality/ties of warfare, with particular reference to the Nigerian Civil War, ask ourselves why this statement : "starvation is a weapon of war", should be treated with uncritical revulsion.
The manner in which it came into effect in the Nigerian Civil War in relation to Biafra further complicates its moral implications.
Since Ikhide is fond of making uncritical correlations between my comments and the Nazi party in relation to the Jewish Holocaust, we also need to ask "Were the Biafran civilians and the Jews in WWII in identical situations, having the same status in the wars they were involved in and treated the same way by the states in question-Nigeria for the Biafrans, Germany for the Jews?"
It seems a central lever for the Biafran, pro-Biafran and other critics of Nigerian strategy in the war and claims of anti-Biafra genocide, is the claim of what Harrow describes as "starving the Biafrans into submission".
This issue needs careful examination.
The debates on the subject seem to gloss over its complexities and substitute compassion for and outrage at the Biafran's immense suffering, particularly of civilians, and particularly children, for a need to question what the balance of morality and responsibility was in relation to that suffering.
I express appreciation for responses on this subject. Responses are vital for one's learning processes. Apologies for not addressing other responses yet. I will do so soon since it is my responsibility to address responses to my position on such a controversial topic
thanks
toyin
On 4 January 2012 14:20, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
" In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra" such and the New York Review of Books which has a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on 10/12/2011 describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders that was not representative of the war against Biafra as a whole.
I also hold that the experience of starvation in Biafra might be attributable more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation."- Toyin Adepoju
Haba!!! These statements above must spring from a very dark place. here is what Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian Commissioner for Information said at a press conference in New York, July 1968: "Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels"
I hope all of you are now beginning to see how bad things are in Nigeria. When a 50 year old "intellectual" writes like this about Biafra, what do you expect our youth to do?
Let me remind you all, the mother of odium, Joseph Goebbels was an intellectual. This is what he said and I quote it with disgust: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
I am actually embarrassed that I am engaged in this lunacy. Shaking my head...
- Ikhide
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Thank you very much for this robust contribution, Kissi. Your lucid and pithy summation makes it clear that reading your book will be a most satisfying and cognitively enriching experience.
I had to examine the case of the Nazi perpetrated genocide because of Ikhide's uncritical invocation of the Jewish Holocaust in this context.
As I mentioned in that analysis, a case for describing the Biafran experience as genocide could mobilise a template different from the massive efficiency of the Germans.
As you rightly put it, there are various definitions of genocide and a discussion on the subject has to clarify the framework of discourse in terms of the definition being used. Reading the Wikipedia essay on genocide is a very helpful beginning for non-specialists on this subject, from what I can see, showing that genocide is a broad subject of its own with a rich intellectual history.
The definition of genocide I am using is the idea of an attempt to exterminate an ethnicity, in this case the Igbo of Nigeria.
I derive this definition from the descriptions by Igbos after the war of how they perceived the intentions of Nigeria against them as well as from my reading about Biafran propaganda.
This conception of genocide understands genocide as the effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group.
In the light of this definition, I hold that the Asaba and Benin massacres[ Nwankamma does not mention Benin this but Mark Curtis in "Nigeria's War Over Biafra" such and the New York Review of Books which has a rich Biafra archive dating from 1967, and John Ebohon on the Nigerian centred online group Naija Intellects Google group on 10/12/2011 describes himself as witnessing these organised massacres of Igbo civilians in Benin when they occurred] , and the war crimes against Biafrans and Igbos in particular, such as bombing civilian centres and Red Cross installations, , do not constitute an effort to wipe out the Igbo ethnic group but the sporadic behaviour of war commanders that was not representative of the war against Biafra as a whole.
I also hold that the experience of starvation in Biafra might be attributable more to tactical inadequacies of the Biafran command than efforts to kill as many Biafrans as possible through starvation.
I also hold that even if the Federal troops did prevent food from reaching Biafra, that prevention may be described as a war strategy of making sure that sustenance does not reach the open armies so they are compelled to surrender, rather than an effort to starve as many Igbos as possible to death. The challenge of impacting combatants by blocking supply lines to troops is complicated in a situation like that of Biafra where the military and the civilian population are closely intertwined, with children being described as conscripted into the Biafran army and war not being fought in picked battles of theatres distant from the civilian locations but often being fought within urban centres and other locations of significant population density. The war was fought in terms of securing and holding geographical territory represented by population centres, meaning that the cities of Port-Harcourt, Calabar, Enugu, Umuahia and other population centres were the theatres of war and progress in the war was defined in terms of securing and holding such territory.
In sum, I hold that the logistical imperatives of the war and the actual experience of the war do not justify the idea of the war against Biafra as an effort to exterminate the Igbo ethnic group as is sometimes claimed. The logistical imperatives of the war relate to the level of contact and access the Federal troops had with Biafrans. The Biafrans fought fiercely and held on to territory in the Igbo heartland for two years and more, making it difficult for federal troops to penetrate the Igbo heartland until the last decisive push that led to the capitulation of Biafra.
So there was no access to enable such an extermination.
Secondly, while one notes the experiences of Asaba and Benin, across other Biafran other locations fell to federal troops of which there is no report of massacres. These include Calabar and Enugu earlier in the war, leading the Biafran command to withdraw to Umuahia, and towards the end, Umuhaia itself fell, before the final securing of the Ulli airstrip, Biafra's last remaining airstrip.
The reports from the treatment of Biafrans at these and other locations indicate that the Asaba and Benin massacres were isolated incidents in terms of the scope of the barbarism they represent.
I would hold that such examples are significantly localised and cannot be extended to cover the Biafran experience as a whole.
How should the air attacks on civilians be characterised?
That is clearly evil and inhuman but I would hesitate to describe them as genocidal because I doubt if they demonstrate the consistency and scope of genocidal actions.
I will continue to examine the issue.
thanks
toyin
On 3 January 2012 01:56, Kissi, Edward <eki...@usf.edu> wrote:
The Holocaust is an example of a genocide, as this particular crime is defined in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. But not all genocides look like the Holocaust or should have all or some of the key features of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique in terms of its total intent and global scope as well as managerial efficiency. Never in the history of mass murder did a state intend to wipe out a group, in its entirety, where-ever members of that group lived. Whereas the Nazis killed all Jews they could find in Germany or Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as in North Africa, many Tutsis who lived outside of Rwanda, even in neighboring countries, were not targeted for annihilation. Thus, the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are examples of genocide, but are different kinds of genocide. A genocide does not necessarily have to have all the elements of another known genocide to make it so. Thus, any approach to the study of genocide that makes the Holocaust the criteria for determining what constitutes a genocide is a Holocaust-centric approach that betrays a lack of grasp of what genocide is, in international law.On the other hand, not all mass killings, organized or random, constitute genocide. Genocide is not the objectionable killing of human beings. To ascribe genocide to any case of mass murder, because it involved the loss of human life, is a misuse of the legal concept of genocide. There are various trypes of mass murder: ethnic cleansing, state repression, war crimes and even what have become known, in international law, as "crimes against humanity." Genocide is a particular kind of mass murder.What, then, is genocide? Most scholars who study genocide conclude that what distinguishes genocide from other mass killings is the intent to destroy a target group. The intent, if not overtly articulated by the perpetrators, has to be inferred from the extent of the perpetrators' actions. Intent to destroy the group can also be deduced from a pattern of purposeful actions undertaken by the perpetrators to put members of the target group beyond the perpetrators' unviverse of moral obligation to protect the lives of the target group.
In fact, there is no unanimity among genocide scholars about what genocide is and how it should be defined. Thus, there are numerous social science definitions of genocide that have been offered to enhance the internationally-accepted definition of genocide in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. Therefore, the Biafran case, genocide or not genocide, can be examined in the context of any one of several definitions of genocide. The definitional context or framework has to be clear because there are many definitions of genocide out there.
I tend to think that the best definitional framework for assessing what took place in Asaba is not the UN Genocide Convention. Under the UN Convention, the case of Biafra as an example of genocide could be open to debate. The best framework is the Ethiopian concept of genocide in Article 238 of the Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957.Note that Ethiopia was the first nation to ratify the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, in July 1949. Ethiopia's signature made the international definition of genocide legal and open the way for other ratifications. It was also the first nation to enshrine the terms of the Convention in its national laws. Ethiopia was also the first nation to redefine the concept of genocide and broaden that concept to criminalize the destruction of political enemies in conflict situations or the targeting of a politicized ethnic group. This definition of genocide is much broader and offers a better framework for examining the Biafran case than the UN definition of genocide which was framed purposely to assist the prosecution of Nazi criminals at Nuremberg.
Edward KissiAuthor of Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (2006)
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 7:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Amatoritsero,
I have said it, and I will say it again, Toyin may try to back-pedal all he wants, but he clearly believes that the genocide in Biafra was a hoax. He is about 50 years old; he should know one way or the other what happened in Nigeria during the civil war. And what is this new nonsense about empirical data, analysis, etc, etc, each time someone sneezes around here? Is this a classroom and are we children who would spout off without any resource? And let's listen to ourselves for a second, what are we saying, are the songs of the women of Asaba not enough to make us ask: Why is a mass murderer's name adorning our international airport? Is it a genocide only if and when the white man says so? Sometimes man, sometimes you just want to holler!
- Ikhide
From: Amatoritsero Ede <esul...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2012 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Folks,
I think you might be misunderstanding Toyin Adepoju's demands for empirical analysis and evidence in the matter of whether Biafra was actually a genocide. He does not say there was no genocide but he is asking you to treat the matter as a scientific, fact-based analysis, rather with the blind emotion, which usually circumscribe talk about the Nigerian civil war. Toyin then goes on to produce facts, empirical evidence and logical arguments why the Jewish holocaust was a genocide. This reminds me of the fact that apart from holocaust deniers, the history of the 'black holocaust has never been given the prominence of the jewish holocaust, no were reparations made, nor are proper and visible commemoration of that bestial history. So it is usually dealt with in the abstract. Perhaps is it also because the Mediterranean and the transatlantic slavery trade, involving black humanity, was always treaded with emotion in public discussions, that is beyond the seminar rooms.
Amatoritsero
On 2 January 2012 15:24, toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> wrote:
Emmanuel,
Can you provide evidence of the existence of an anti-Biafra genocide?
The idea is repeated in various sources without any effort at justification.
It would be useful to first define the meaning of the term "genocide" and describe how it applies to the Biafran experience.
While its important to acknowledge the devastation suffered by Biafra for a number of reasons, ranging from poor strategy on the part of her leaders to war crimes directed against her citizens, it is vital to place that suffering in context.
I await evidence of genocide against Biafrans and Igbos, not all of whom were within Biafra proper during the war.
All Ikhide has done is picked up some idea on the anti-Jewish Holocaust and flung it indiscriminately at the Biafra story. His claim to outrage then works as a means of shielding himself from the more demanding task of proving his point.
I am yet to find evidence that justifies the idea of an anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo genocide
The anti-Jewish Holocaust might not be particularly useful as a template for comparison in proving the occurrence of an anti-Biafra/anti-Igbo genocide because there is a world of difference between the Jewish Holocaust and the Biafran experience.
The occurrence of the anti-Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is indisputable on account of the incontrovertible, concrete historical evidence of the planning and execution of a policy of exterminating Jews carried out with horrific efficiency in Germany and Eastern Europe.
The extermination program was an official, openly declared policy of the Nazi regime, the official designation of the policy being "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question".
It operated in three major stages carried out from the 1930s to war's end in the 1940s :
1. Identification and isolation of Jews
2. Rounding up and transporting Jews to extermination camps. These camps are well known and have become historical monuments: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Majdanek, Sobibor, among others.The people who ran these camps are known and some have been brought to trial, particularly notorious among them being Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, who decided which prisoners were to be gassed to death immediately and those whose deaths were to be delayed.He is also described as using the prisoners, including children, for horrible scientific experiments.
3. The prisoners were stripped of their valuables, either killed immediately or saved for later death. This death could come through random selection at the whims of the camp commandant, through a precise process of selecting people for gassing, or through starvation, exhuastion, illness or overwork.
The gas chambers still exist as part of the historical monuments the concentration camps have become.
Can anyone point to anything comparable to justify the claims of an anti-Biafra genocide?
Even if it is argued that Nigeria did not operate at the Nazi level of efficiency, can anyone point to a policy consistently executed or carried out at random but constantly directed at the extermination of Biafrans and particularly Igbos?
The historical records and the scholarship on the war are often not consulted, it seems, by a significant number of those who make pronouncements about it. This has led to a proliferation of myth over history.
thanks
toyin
On 2 January 2012 11:06, Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne <Ogbun...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ikhide,
You have said it all. Toyin Adepoju and other closet Nazis like him are still in denial. Biafra would forever remain Nigeria's albatross. The ghosts of Biafra are yet to be propitiated. And the wicked denials of the Toyin Adepoju's of this world are reasons why Nigeria will remain the graveyard of progress; a country that murders its best and canonizes its rogues.
Sent from my iPhone
"Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda on the ashes, misery and mutilation of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly impossible, manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the war, eventually fleeing to safety in exile even though he had promised not to leave his people, leaving them at a desperate time, with no options, leaving Efiong to negotiate surrender without any initiative from Ojukwu, who was now incommunicado?'
- Toyin Adepoju
Wow. And there are Nazis who claim the holocaust never happened. You won't see me engaging them in "intellectual dialogue." Nonsense. You are on you own here, Toyin; I totally and irrevocably dissociate myself from any and all hateful views like the above. Please keep my name out of it.
- Ikhide
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 1, 2012 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Economist: The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Ikhide,
In the name of God, what have I done to deserve being described so : "I only engage in honest conversations; and it is clear to me that from your conduct here and elsewhere that you are not interested in one."
In this discussion on this group, I have called you out to defend your views on Nigerian education and Biafra.
You wrote of Nigerian education and Biafra in the following words:
"Upon the death of Dim Ojukwu, many of us donned the flag of Biafra. One young Nigerian reached out to me on chat and asked what the flag was about. I told him. He asked me to tell him more about Biafra. I asked him how old he was. 35 years old. A man born in Nigeria in the 70's told me that very very little of Biafra was taught him in school. How can that be, I asked? Then he told me about the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary. I have the entire transcript and one day when I have the time I shall fictionalize it and share with the world the war that our intellectuals have wreaked on our children."
In those words, you do the following
1. You describe the idea that "very little of Biafra" was taught to your 35 year old interlocutor, born in Nigeria in the 70s, as indication of what you describe as "the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
You thereby imply that Nigerian education from the 70s, when your interlocutor was born, to the present, is best understood in terms of ""the horrors of life as a "student" in the pretend classrooms of Nigeria from primary to tertiary".
Have I misquoted you? No.
Everyone here can read and judge for themselves.
I am asking you to justify this assertion.
To justify this assertion, you need to demonstrate why you think the kind of education about Biafra you espouse should be a touchstone for assessing Nigerian education.
Does everyone of your age group share that opinion, making it unnecessary to defend and justify it?
Did you yourself not argue that history is perceived from various perspectives? Is it not vital that holders of these perspectives need to defend their views by presenting their rationale for holding those views?
It is salutary, that, for you, like many others " The passing of Dim Ojukwu was for me and many an opportunity to reflect on an era."
What are your reflections?
Various people have expressed theirs. Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian Head of State during the war, whose differences with Ojukwu played a key role in the crises before and during the war has expressed his, motivated by Ojukwu's transition. Max Siollun, Nigerian history scholar, has done the same, which one can see if one Googles his name.
Over the years, Ojukwu reappraisals have been prominent on Nigerian centred online communities and in books on the war. The names of people like Ikenna Anokute on Nigerian and Igbo centred groups and Edruezzi on Nairaland are significant in this debate. Chief Ralph Uwechue, President of Ohanaeze, the Pan-Igbo organisation, a person who describes himself as at the centre of events in Biafra as events unfolded in those fateful days, not to talk of Philip Efiong, Alexander Madiebo, Ojukwu's fellow Biafran commanders, have all written books on the subject.
Joseph Achuzia, one of the most prominent figures in the Biafran military, who was part of events from the gestation to the dissolution of Biafra, has expressed his views on the meaning of Biafra, before and recently. Some other Igbos have expressed disagreement with Achuzia on the meaning of Biafra. Interestingly and ironically, Oguchi Nwocha's article critical of the perspective on Biafra of Achuzia, a war scarred veteran of that war, who was in Biafra from the beginning to the end with his Caucasian wife and their son, describing himself as using desperate methods to mobilize his men to fight in the face of apathy arising from the awareness of imminent collapse in the midst of horrific suffering, a stance contributing to his war time nickname as " Hannibal Air-Raid Achiuzia" described as serving seven years in prison at war's end for his role in the war, is titled "Educating Achuzie on the Biafran Dream."
Biafra means different things to different people, even among Igbos, who are the centre of its legacy.
What does it mean to you?
In the discussions on Biafra on Ederi, which you allude to, you lamented the failure of people to claim and own the Biafra story.
What is the character of your own ownership and claim on Biafra?
Is Biafra of such questionable value that you cannot stand up and present your views in this marketplace of opinions?
Dont you want to counter those, including Igbos in Biafra and Igbos after Biafra, who see Biafra as a misadventure and a power hungry venture driven largely by Ojukwu?
Dont you want to adress the opinion that the much quoted notion of anti-Igbo genocide before and during the war is a farce concoted by Biafran propaganda on the ashes, misery and mutilation of Biafrans and particularly Igbos, whom the Biafran leadership and Ojukwu, in particular, sacrificed to an unnecessary and unwinnable war, sustaining that war even when victory was clearly impossible, manufacturing the genocide fear to keep Biafrans in the war, eventually fleeing to safety in exile &nbs
toyin adepoju
toyin adepoju
toyin adepoju
toyin adepoju
Amatoritsero Ede
toyin adepoju
You would do well to be careful of how you present yourself.
All your strident calls to Ikhide as to whether or not he was willing to relocate to Nigeria to address the education problem
Your argument on the need to examine the Nigerian Civil War in a critical spirit
You forceful admonishing of Ikhide to avoid being combative in the face of a discussion, avoid categorical statements without justifications and bolster his points with verification
The following words from you in the course of this debate:
1. [Toyin] does not say there was no genocide but he is asking you to treat the matter as a scientific, fact-based analysis, rather with the blind emotion, which usually circumscribe talk about the Nigerian civil war. Toyin then goes on to produce facts, empirical evidence and logical arguments why the Jewish holocaust was a genocide.
2. Ikhide,
3. Hello Maureen,
All these wise sounding comments from your very self, in just a few days, are now dismissed by you as
"Toyin,
"When you thanked me earlier for insisting that you air you views or that you were merely being technical i just smiled in bemusement."
As a poet, you will understand something the English person calls "shooting oneself in the foot" which is what I think you have just done very well. The image of your consistency of character and quality of moral fibre provided by your gymnastics, I leave you to judge. Others will make up their minds.
I still thank you, though.
You made some very important points.
thanks
toyin
Amatoritsero Ede
kenneth harrow
ken
Face Me, I book you: Writing Africa�s agency in the age of the Netizen (I)
By Pius Adesanmi
WORDS BIGGER THAN THE MOUTH
�
(Poetic Variations on Matters of the Moment)
�By Pius Adesanmi�To the accompaniment of Ebenezer Obey�s �Esu ma se mi, omo elomi ni o se��I�
Orunmila, grant us words bigger than the mouthWords tougher than the belly of a lizardTo confront Ofo - the rampaging farmer- who plants corpses in our land
�
Let them rain, words bigger than the mouthWords coarser than the insides of a gizzardTo repair the ill-luck chosen long ago
At the crossroads whence we became Lugard�s pawn�
Let them sprout, words bigger than the mouthLet them fill the air like an angry blizzardThat our land may shed its crimson cargoThat Arun's raging flames may be doused
�II�
Orunmila, when our future undressed before youLike a fowl's anus at the mercy of the evening breezeYou saw a Nigerian woman blow pepper into her child's eyeTo remove a grain of sand
�
When our future undressed before youLike corn pap disgraced in the assembly of banana leavesYou saw a Nigerian man scratch his son's back with thornsTo soothe a transient itch
�
When our future undressed before youLike a child's mischief, not meant for his father's ears
You saw that the ants devouring my brother�s spinach
Reside in the stalk of the leaves they destroy
�III�
Ah, Orunmila! You saw it all!You spotted the lizard with the bellyacheSmiling among its prostrate kind;You saw it all!Saw the treacherous cracks in the wallToll gate for adventurous geckosYou saw it all!Saw the rotten toothBasking in the company of resplendent molarsYou saw it all!Saw the rivers of bloodAnd the harvest of bonesYou saw tragedies mammoth enoughTo eclipse Ogunpa
�IV�
Your vision became WordYour word became FleshYour flesh became ForceYour force became Eji OgbeAnd dwelt among us, screamed among us
�
But your Word entered through the right earExited through the leftWe shat in the farmWe pissed in the marketYee, Orunmila!We were the overzealous dogDeaf to the hunter's whistleWe were the impertinent SigidiWho insisted on a splash in the stream
�V�
Where then I approach the crossroadsI, Adesanmi, poet-bearer of the sacrificeTo straighten paths bentBy a people's prodigal propensities
�
Reveal yourself, reveal yourself OrunmilaThat dogs may end their wanton feastOf kolanuts in Nigeria
�
Reveal yourself, reveal yourselfThat Esu may pack his bag of tricksGrant us reprieve
And do other people�s children
�
--
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-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate distinguished 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 har...@msu.edu
Pius Adesanmi
http://xokigbo.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/guest-blog-professor-pius-adesanmi-face-me-i-book-you-writing-africas-agency-in-the-age-of-the-netizen/
Pius
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - WORDS BIGGER THAN THE MOUTH
ken
WORDS BIGGER THAN THE MOUTH
(Poetic Variations on Matters of the Moment)
By Pius AdesanmiTo the accompaniment of Ebenezer Obey’s “Esu ma se mi, omo elomi ni o se”I
Orunmila, grant us words bigger than the mouthWords tougher than the belly of a lizardTo confront Ofo - the rampaging farmer- who plants corpses in our land
Let them rain, words bigger than the mouthWords coarser than the insides of a gizzardTo repair the ill-luck chosen long ago
At the crossroads whence we became Lugard’s pawn
Let them sprout, words bigger than the mouthLet them fill the air like an angry blizzardThat our land may shed its crimson cargoThat Arun's raging flames may be doused
II
Orunmila, when our future undressed before youLike a fowl's anus at the mercy of the evening breezeYou saw a Nigerian woman blow pepper into her child's eyeTo remove a grain of sand
When our future undressed before youLike corn pap disgraced in the assembly of banana leavesYou saw a Nigerian man scratch his son's back with thornsTo soothe a transient itch
When our future undressed before youLike a child's mischief, not meant for his father's ears
You saw that the ants devouring my brother’s spinach
Reside in the stalk of the leaves they destroy
III
Ah, Orunmila! You saw it all!You spotted the lizard with the bellyacheSmiling among its prostrate kind;You saw it all!Saw the treacherous cracks in the wallToll gate for adventurous geckosYou saw it all!Saw the rotten toothBasking in the company of resplendent molarsYou saw it all!Saw the rivers of bloodAnd the harvest of bonesYou saw tragedies mammoth enoughTo eclipse Ogunpa
IV
Your vision became WordYour word became FleshYour flesh became ForceYour force became Eji OgbeAnd dwelt among us, screamed among us
But your Word entered through the right earExited through the leftWe shat in the farmWe pissed in the marketYee, Orunmila!We were the overzealous dogDeaf to the hunter's whistleWe were the impertinent SigidiWho insisted on a splash in the stream
V
Where then I approach the crossroadsI, Adesanmi, poet-bearer of the sacrificeTo straighten paths bentBy a people's prodigal propensities
Reveal yourself, reveal yourself OrunmilaThat dogs may end their wanton feastOf kolanuts in Nigeria
Reveal yourself, reveal yourselfThat Esu may pack his bag of tricksGrant us reprieve
And do other people’s children
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsub...@googlegroups.com
-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate distinguished 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 har...@msu.edu