TRULY, FEMI FANI-KAYODE IS NOT A YORUBA
Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Baba Kadiri,
Last night I could imagine no greater contrast to this anti-Climax, after the Sabbath, sitting in the seventh row, to see a highly decadent, burlesque, sexualised Swedish Folk Opera version of the anti-capitalist The Threepenny Opera. With people like Hubert Ogunde and Fela and Ola Rotimi and Mallam Aminu Kano in mind, I’m dreaming of a Nigerian theatre production of “The Threepenny Opera” under the direction of one no less than Wole Soyinka and in that version, you can conveniently situate your brother and good friend, the wanton Kayode and his ilk….
I am presuming that I have understood you correctly and that the words you attribute as Fani-Kayode verbatim are reliable.
Olayinka Agbetuyi says that Santeria “was a syncretist survival strategy of the Brazilian and Cuban Yoruba.” This was survival in a culturally hostile environment. Today, the rest of the Yoruba diaspora only has to maintain a connection, touch base with Yoruba wherever they are. And if those in the motherland not only deny but also vilify their heritage, an appropriate response is to not take it lying down…
Some say “Variety”, after more than half a century in Europe, I say “diversity” is the spice of life. So, if someone says that he is a kangaroo, or quite literally or poetically or philosophically, or theologically or plain physical and biologically that God is his dad and he just arrived from heaven or from Mars or some other planet in this solar system we should let him say so without arguing with him or imputing some psychic maladjustment or incurable mental aberration. Isn’t “live and let live” your motto?
Attack being a good form of defence, some arguments are best started with a nice string of ad hominems as the opportunistic David Oluwafemi Adewunmi Abdulateef Fani-Kayode has done. He does strike me as being frequently opportunistic, depending on which way the wind is blowing. The fact is, once Yoruba, always Yoruba. There’s nothing that you can do if you are born into it. He is probably thinking or praying that his circumstances ( the corruption charges he is facing in court) will be slightly ameliorated and that he may even stop dangling like a worm on the hook if he denies his paternity or denies that he is Yoruba - maybe rightly so, since a an Honourable Yoruba man cannot stoop so low. I am curious as to what Hon. Mobolaji E. Aluko would have to say about the turn-coat for some final guidance on this matter.
Since circa, 2007 I have also been following Femi Fani-Kayode’s meandering, sometimes in utter disbelief, his spectacular twists and turns, his blowing hot and cold, spontaneously, yet to master the art of the double-speak, occasionally, like Roland Kirk, blowing from both sides of his mouth simultaneously, but not as melodiously.
Since you are conversant with the term “self-hating Jew” and when it comes to mankind perhaps the Yoruba are no exception, so, I believe that you’ll agree with me that “Self-hating Yoruba” can be safely coined and applied to whom the cap fits and in that regard, Mister Femi Kayode may proudly or ignominiously wear it, even if he denies being one. As long as it’s not a case of the kettle calling the pot black, on our side, a good attitude would be one of,” So he doesn’t want to be one of us? Good riddance!” – or - as the good Creole people dem say, “bad bush no dey for throw away bad pikin”, so out of compassion you ( the wise guys – wise like Akintola Wyse ) could re-educate him, and induct him back into the fold, with a new sense of belonging, induce hi to return like the prodigal son
It/ he reminds me of the thirds verse of our school song:
“As on her walls we read the names renowned in former days,
With beating hearts, we vow to match their daring and their praise;
For who would care through time to drift with dull and drowsy face,
Unworthy of his faith and name, his father and his race.”?
Who knows? The opportunistic self-loathing probably has the disintegration of Nigeria and certainly the disparagement and fragmentation of what is for others, a cohesive and substantive Yoruba identity - for all we know genuflecting to some imaginary foreign power that would like to herald the dismemberment of Nigeria by first undermining the country’s name – maybe would like to change it to something else , something more acceptable to his “ First White hairs.” This is all speculation of course.
For now, we can only speculate that according to his “theory of everything” - his “string theory” every name has to have a meaning; I suppose that’s how the non-existent came into existence (man gave names to all the animals” etc). AS to the birth and naming of Nigeria, Michael Crowder’s “The Story of Nigeria” is quite clear. Maybe, he has read that story and still disagrees with what Mr Crowder says about Nigeria and more especially what he says about the Yoruba and Yorubaland.
Still, in denial, I should request that he read the second to last chapter of Norman O Brown’s seminal “Love’s Body”, the chapter entitled “Freedom” (pp. 243-255) from which I’ll just quote these two excerpts:
“Meaning is not in things but in between; in the iridescence, the interplay; in the interconnections; at the intersections, at the crossroads. Meaning is transitional as it is transitory; in the puns or bridges, the correspondence.”
This message from Professor Stephen Akintoye is particularly addressed to guys like Kayode and those of his ilk:
“Ultimately, what is important about a nation is not its name but its record of contributions to human civilization. On such a basis, the Yoruba nation has a very great deal to be proud of, and the name Yoruba deserves to ring out proudly on the earth. My message to every Yoruba person: Your nation's Yoruba name is a great and noble name in the world; bear it proudly everywhere, and, by your conduct, always strive to enhance its greatness and nobility."
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Baba Kadiri,
Good morning!
Cornelius Ignoramus asked Dr Google, “ Is Fani-Kayode a Muslim?” The answer I received is still inconclusive, maybe I should have asked, “ Yes or no, is Fani-Kayode a Muslim?”
I thought that he might be because one of his names is Abdulateef, which is as Islamic and as non-violent as they come, however, since his first name is David, I suppose that he may be Christian, possibly, even Jewish, in which case Pirkei Avot : Ethics of the Fathers could be of the essence and it could also account for his searching for a common ancestor ( like Aba Abraham) that should unite the Yoruba people in the person of Oduduwa, just as the twelve tribes of Israel trace their origin to a common ancestor Jacob , who was re-named Israel and hence we have the term, “ the children of Israel” and as Fani-Kayode himself would like to have it, not Yoruba or Yorubalites but “ the children of Oduduwa” – two sides of the same coin ( except that as you say, squirming like a worm on the hook, because of the legal sword of Damocles hanging over his head, for which reason his enemies have been lambasting him as an errant Yoruba, therefore the unsavoury epithets that Jesus must have been writing on the dust, such as, “ usurper, deceitful, shady, treacherous, cheating usurer and double-dealing bastard, characters that have no connection with either YARIBA or YORUBA.”
I also suppose that the Letter of James (the brother of Jesus) contains some of the humble moral guidance that the more spiritually elevated and the humble sinners among the Christianised Yoruba /children of Oduduwa, would need.
Recently, I read the New Revised Version Bible Translation of the Letter of James 1- 5 which is the version featured in “ The Jewish Annotated New Testament”. The notes are a Godsend, the contents of absolute relevance to the matter at hand, since it’s primarily a matter of attitude…
For those that you say have a foreign missionary background, the foundational myths or tribal histories are of the essence – so when it comes to names and their origins, well, names vary from place to place and if we are to go by the Bible (Bereshit/Genesis 2: 19-20) it was the great grandfather of the Yoruba people / the Children of Oduduwa that appointed the various names to what God had created: “And the Lord God formed from the earth every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens, and He brought [it] to man to see what he would call it, and whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name.”
Then there’s this famous song by the2016 Nobel Laureate for Literature:
Man gave names to all the animals.
I’m now going to push the send button, and then I’m going to phone you, but before I do so, these few lines from Shakespeare, dear Baba Kadiri,
“What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…”
Btw, maybe, you shouldn't be so hard on him. What about relating to him as an errant but beloved son, soon to be prodigal?
On Sunday, 27 October 2019 01:21:38 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Salimonu Kadiri
Skickat: den 28 oktober 2019 12:12
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: TRULY, FEMI FANI-KAYODE IS NOT A YORUBA
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Baba Kadiri,
I told my dear Moroccan friend “Sierra Leone”
He said, “wrong!”
I asked him, “What do you mean?”
He answered, “You should say, “ Israeleone!”
The nationality question was not meant to be easy, especially in a multi-faceted nation like Nigeria which boasts and hosts 250 ethnic nations within the greater nation and a couple of major religions and much religious fervour within her borders. Even Ancient Israel which only had twelve tribes and a common ancestor in the person of Aba Abraham ( the first Jew) had its own share of tribal problems resulting in a first civil war and the country being split into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Of course, the dynamics in contemporary democratic Nigeria with the winner-takes-all, after each presidential election is much more complicated and it wouldn’t be a lot easier if the 250 ethnicities only had to crown a King (one king) to rule over the 190 million Nigerian subjects...
I think that “pollution is far too strong, too hostile and demeaning, when you yab about the “pollution” of anyone’s blood.
My own gut feeling / reflex understanding when I first read Fani-Kayode boasting about the Fulani blood running in his veins, was that he is a politically astute dude who by such a public declaration was already positioning himself for the presidential position and his confession was primarily aimed at garnering the Northern vote.
You might think, “bullocks!”, but after listening to him for a good 59 minutes on The challenge of Islamic fundamentalism in Nigeria , I thought, here’s presidential quality - or at least your next Nigerian Ambassador to the. United Nations.
Joseph Brodsky was once asked about his roots and he replied that he was not a tree. I would say that that applies to you and to me too, no matter how stable or even how evanescent we may be in our identities.
As Derek Walcott once expressed it ( in The Schooner Flight)
“I’m just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation”
Fani- Kayode, was relatively still young man in 2013 when he wrote what you quote, like early Marx or early Shakespeare, or early Soyinka, or early David Horowitz, you could give him some more time to grow, and as you know, some people grow from left to right ( some from left to right) and there are others yet who are perfectly grew to from Yoruba to Fulani ( or to die as a Yoruba and (gilgul) re-incarnate as a Fulani herdsman ( I sense that one Toyin Adepoju saying under his breath “ God forbid!” )
It was not too tall and order for Rumi to jive
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived”
Seriously…
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