Moderator's Reminder

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Toyin Falola

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Dec 12, 2015, 10:13:55 AM12/12/15
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Contributors:

All posts are archived on a permanent basis. You are being read by many people, including students writing their projects on different events.
Essays and books have been written about the site, and expect more.

Make your arguments, and leave out personal attacks. If you feel a need to attack, send your note to the person directly and you both can take care of it as “enemies” or “friends"
TF

Abubakar Momoh

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Dec 14, 2015, 4:46:50 AM12/14/15
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Ojogbon Falola,
Well said. I have been reluctant in contributing or intervening in many of the discussions in the past two years or so, because too easily things degenerate into personal attacks and use of uncivil language. 
My view is that contributors  who indulge in such behaviour should be warned by the Moderator and after a second warning, their contributions should be banned and membership suspended. That is the only way to introduce civility to the platform.
In all, l still find some of the contributors and contributions a must and educative read. There are certain names l no longer bother myself to even open their postings. Indeed, l delete their postings without even opening to know what they have to say, this is due to their consistent track record of uncivil conduct, immodesty and superlative ignorance.
We all need to know that what we post at this site, is already recorded and cannot be taken back, and it may haunt us in future.  For example, lets take the way the discussion of the National Question in Nigeria easily degenerates into personal attack and insults, without and helpful/useful clues for its resolution. Just look at how the Biafran and Nnamdi Kanu questions are being currently discussed:  extremely shallow analyses, personal attacks and ethinicisation of the matter. This is not the way to move Nigeria forward. My view is that there are unsolved matters since Biafra and there are also concrete issues that have arisen since Biafra which therefore transcend Biafra. To use the Biafran narrative as the grand narrative then becomes reductionist and unhelpful. There are many complex issues and realities that we need to explain and understand.because they interpenetrate an understanding of the Biafran question.  Both sides of the aisle need not speak from separate tables but engage in a productive conversation from one table using various modes of interpretation. Same goes for the Niger Delta question,  etc. What does this tell us about the Nigerian state, the political elite, social policies, affirmative action, the crisis of accumulation, etc? 
Abu

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Abubakar Momoh

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Dec 14, 2015, 6:03:21 AM12/14/15
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Ojogbon Falola,
Well said. I have been reluctant in contributing or intervening in many of the discussions in the past two years or so, because too easily things degenerate into personal attacks and use of uncivil language. 
My view is that contributors  who indulge in such behaviour should be warned by the Moderator and after a second warning, their contributions should be banned and membership suspended. That is the only way to introduce civility to the platform.
In all, l still find some of the contributors and contributions a must and educative read. There are certain names l no longer bother myself to even open their postings. Indeed, l delete their postings without even opening to know what they have to say, this is due to their consistent track record of uncivil conduct, immodesty and superlative ignorance.
We all need to know that what we post at this site, is already recorded and cannot be taken back, and it may haunt us in future.  For example, lets take the way the discussion of the National Question in Nigeria easily degenerates into personal attack and insults, without and helpful/useful clues for its resolution. Just look at how the Biafran and Nnamdi Kanu questions are being currently discussed:  extremely shallow analyses, personal attacks and ethinicisation of the matter. This is not the way to move Nigeria forward. My view is that there are unsolved matters since Biafra and there are also concrete issues that have arisen since Biafra which therefore transcend Biafra. To use the Biafran narrative as the grand narrative then becomes reductionist and unhelpful. There are many complex issues and realities that we need to explain and understand.because they interpenetrate an understanding of the Biafran question.  Both sides of the aisle need not speak from separate tables but engage in a productive conversation from one table using various modes of interpretation. Same goes for the Niger Delta question,  etc. What does this tell us about the Nigerian state, the political elite, social policies, affirmative action, the crisis of accumulation, etc? 
Abu

Sent from my iPhone

On 12 Dec 2015, at 4:08 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

--

Toyin Falola

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Dec 14, 2015, 6:38:49 AM12/14/15
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Dear Prof Momoh:

Thanks for the reinforcement. I actually send private notes to our folks: some listen and some don't. My own worry is that I don't want a few to tarnish the intellectual achievements of an entire generation.

I started the site as providing an alternative to the Western media in terms of offering our own voices. Those voices were supposed to rise above narrow identities and develop greater pan Africanist vision.

Alas! Nigerians began to dominate. And as they dominate they migrate their "tribalism" into the site. Today, once you see a name, Olorun or Chukwu (they mean the same thing!) you already know what to expect. If Olorun says something, Chukwu attacks! If Chukwu says something Olorun attacks!!

For us to elevate ourselves, Olorun and Chuku must realize that they are the same, that we all want our people to live well and in peace, that there are common grounds.

The overriding theory in the literature is that those in the diaspora elevate and preserve things they left behind, keep positive memories, and seek to contribute positively to the nations, and are so aggressively defendants. 

No, our own diaspora is to divide, create more problems, abuse those who mud their legs in the country, and write as if consequences do not matter, as if conflicts and loss of lives do not bother us.

Please, contribute as we need to learn.
TF

Sent from my iPhone

Ikhide

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Dec 14, 2015, 10:31:29 AM12/14/15
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, Toyin Falola
 Dear Professor Falola,

Well, you did a good thing; I must admit that this site has become a painful legacy for the ineptitude, mediocrity, lack of vision and all-round laziness of this generation of African intellectuals. There are quite a few bright spots but they are drowned out by an overwhelming crush of people who just want to get paid. Many years from now, scholars will come to your site and harvest reams of evidence of what I am talking about. It is a failure of leadership and my judgment is that we have all failed.

I like to say that we need structures and processes to define (good) morality, but then talk is cheap; we need people to force the structures and processes to be built. That in my view is/was our role. Personal and regional considerations and agenda have wreaked havoc on any attempt at a shared vision. We wink at injustices when it suits us, it is disgraceful really. To your point, it is not really "Nigerians" that "dominate" this forum; it is dominated by Yoruba intellectuals, overwhelmingly, with a smattering of Igbo intellectuals. Well, the active voices on the forum. I am data driven, take the past month and look at the participants. And I will say this; outside of a few refreshing examples (you, Michael Afolayan and Adeshina Afolayan and a couple of others), these Yoruba are virtually all ethnic warlords, they will stand logic on its head to defend the indefensible. They were the ones that stayed here every day to convince us that Buhari is reformed. They and many Yoruba intellectuals out there bought into a warped strategy; that the Southwest would "partner" with the North for what is left of Nigeria. You see now how that has helped us. They are still trying to sell us the idea that the ongoing witch hunt is an anti-corruption war. Their behavior is despicable and they need to be called upon it. What is really maddening is that they are so blatant in their bias; whereas the Igbo intellectuals here deploy robust intellectual analysis to defend their own positions and agenda, they always stop when logic becomes a road block. I respect that about every one of them. I cannot say the same about my Yoruba brethren. Their behavior is offensive.   

And by the way, there are many silly assumptions implicit in trial by party affiliation; one is that the trail will avoid your own. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is being snared by Buhari's witch hunt. We shall see where all of this will lead.


Now, Professor Falola, you know I think the world of you, you are a good man, but I would not worry about moderation that overwhelms your time. If you notice, I no longer engage over here. People are afraid of difficult conversations and they get busy with brick bats. There are a handful here, lizards who want to be crocodiles; they see an argument and they start jumping up and down asking to be noticed. If you are going to moderate, I request that you share rules and guidelines with all of us so that it is clear what they are. I am never quite sure what is acceptable around here. Last week, I tried to post the below and it did not go past the moderator. When stuff like that happens, it would help to get feedback from you as to why.

Have a great week, sir. Abo mi re o!

I am your boy, always loyal!!!

- Ikhide

=============================================================
"The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice are not only shaky, but pitifully naive.  History matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future. Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evident suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.

Buhari – need one remind anyone - was one of the generals who treated a Commission of Enquiry, the Oputa Panel, with unconcealed disdain. Like Babangida and Abdusalami, he refused to put in appearance even though complaints that were tabled against him involved a career of gross abuses of power and blatant assault on the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian citizenry.  

            Prominent against these charges was an act that amounted to nothing less than judicial murder, the execution of a citizen under a retroactive decree. Does Decree 20 ring a bell? If not, then, perhaps the names of three youths - Lawal  Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26) do. To put it quite plainly, one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. This was an unconscionable crime, carried out in defiance of the pleas and protests of nearly every sector of the Nigerian and international community – religious, civil rights, political, trade unions etc. Buhari and his sidekick and his partner-in-crime, Tunde Idiagbon persisted in this inhuman act for one reason and one reason only: to place Nigerians on notice that they were now under an iron, inflexible rule, under governance by fear."

- Professor Wole Soyinka




- Ikhide
 
Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide



From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 6:35 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Moderator's Reminder

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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Dec 14, 2015, 11:21:25 AM12/14/15
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"My view is that contributors  who indulge in such behaviour should be warned by the Moderator and after a second warning, their contributions should be banned and membership suspended. That is the only way to introduce civility to the platform."--Abubkar Momoh.

Professor Momoh,

What you are suggesting here is plain and unvarnished censorship. I am disappointed that a scholar-activist of your stature and pedigree would advocate this sort of barefaced suffocation of the discursive space. It is true that discussions here sometimes get animated, passions are inflamed, and conversational civilities take the back seat, but that's no excuse for constricting the deliberative space.

Those of us who study, research, and teach online sociability for a living know that the invisibility, asynchronicity, dissociative anonymity, de-individuation, disinhibition, and the pseudonymic cover that online interaction enables can instigate otherwise rational and polite people to be rough-cut. But that's no big deal. Nor is it a reason to muzzle anyone.

Communicative and procedural rationality in discourse, of the kind Habermas theorized and which you seem to be advocating although in an astonishingly dictatorial fashion, is problematic in online discursive arenas. While I see the wisdom in, and in fact encourage, civility and restraint in discursive engagements here and elsewhere, I resent the reification of "rational-critical" debate (as Habernas calls  it) and the villification of expressive spontaneity as the sole basis for dialogic engagements. Bakhtin is right that, contrary to Habermas' deadpan, ossified valorization of "formal unities" in the discursive enterprise, it is inevitable that we will sometimes inscribe our personal signatures and "emotional-volitional tones" in our everyday dialogic encounters.

But more than anything, I am a Miltonian. In Areopatigica, Milton said the "truth" needs no protection from self-appointed moral custodians. We inflict injury on it, he said, by doubting its capacity to rise superior to falsehood."Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter," he wrote. This is one of the philosophical foundations of Wikipedia, the most thorough-going, consistently user-generated, mass-intelligence-driven system on the Internet. It repudiates elite-centered censorship and gate-keeping, and allows the "truth" to emerge through the unremitting push and pull of contending discursive forces.

Plus, as you said, you can always delete contributions and contributors that grate on your squeamish, hypersensitive nerves. In fact, you can block email addresses outright so they don't even appear in your inbox. If you have all this latitude, why advocate censorship?

Farooq Kperogi




Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207 
Social Science Building 22 Room 5092
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperog
Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

Funmi Tofowomo Okelola

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Dec 17, 2015, 1:48:45 PM12/17/15
to USAAfrica Dialogue
"My own worry is that I don't want a few to tarnish the intellectual achievements of an entire generation.

Alas! Nigerians began to dominate." Prof. Toyin Falola

Dear Prof. Falola, 

It's always a privilege to post on USAAfricaDialogueSeries and thank you for the listserv and the privilege. When the Late (egin) Valentine Ojo was spewing hatred and insulting people left, right and center, many people complained and eventually his postings stopped. 

The art of moderating a listserv is quite different from censorship.  From my point of view, moderating hate speech, death threats, insults, and despicable postings by deletion is not censorship. It's obvious that some people and their postings are becoming problematic on the listserv, and diligently moderating their postings is apt and necessary. 


This is USA Africa Dialogue Series and the postings should reflect the meaning of the listserv.  It's discomforting to read some postings on the listserv, and the negativity emanating from some members is disconcerting. 

Seriously, (myself) (we) (all) (participants) on the listserv must be mindful of our postings. Mindfulness in sharing/posting is very, very important. 

I'm sending positive energy to everyone. 

Happy Holidays! Ase si samodun o. Ire o. 

Cheers.


Funmi Tofowomo Okelola

-In the absence of greatness, mediocrity thrives. 

http://www.cafeafricana.com






kenneth harrow

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Dec 17, 2015, 2:26:04 PM12/17/15
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thanks to funmi for the wise and gentle words
ken
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-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
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room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
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Nkolika Ebele

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Dec 18, 2015, 5:15:23 AM12/18/15
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I agree with the opinions expressed by Funmi. I joined this listserve because of the quality of information and discussions presented by the members, but today it has been turned to into  a Nigerian dialogue series where very few argue and abuse. Can we return it to what it used to be? Prof Falola, please do something.
Nkolika 

From: 'Funmi Tofowomo Okelola' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2015 6:39 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Moderator's Reminder

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