Tuesday, December 31, 2013

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Happy New Year

Dear All,
Happy New Year from Nigeria. I want to congratulate everyone who contributed to this blog last year 2013 because your debates on social, political, religious, academic etc were robust and intellectually challenging. I gained a lot from all of you and I look forward for more this year.
I wish you all a prosperous year.
Segun Ogungbemi.

Sent from my iPhone

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

Ken:


There is a critical mass of Cameroonians who were educated in Kamerun & Germany (1884-1914) and in Cameroun and France (1916-??) who actually became quite attracted to the cultures of these European countries. Whether you can call them assimilationists or not is subject to further analysis. However, many of them "preached," primarily but not exclusively, through their writings, the benefits of European civilization to their fellow Cameroonians/Kamerunians. All of these Cameroonians/Kamerunians were educated at missions schools and then sent to Europe for further education by the colonial authorities. Many of them, however, eventually became disillusioned with European civilization or the so-called "European cultural ideal" when they realized its opportunistic application in the colony. For example, Rudolph Douala Manga Bell, who took over from his father as King of the Duala in 1908 in what was then the Germany colony of Kamerun, read law in Germany and returned home to govern Duala using a similar approach as that existing then in Germany. Given his sound understanding of the German legal system, he believed that the law was on his side and that of his people when the colonial government attempted to expropriate their lands and make them available for various activities associated with occupation. In fact, the land expropriation was illegal under the terms of the annexation treaty of 1884 between Germany and the Duala peoples. Unfortunately, his legal protests to the Reichstag in Berlin were unsuccessful and he was subsequently executed by the colonial government in 1913 for treason.


On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 10:30 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
thanks john
i had to look Pouka up. can we say he is now mostly forgotten? how rare it is to come across assimilationists, though before the 1950s, before the dream of independence started to become a reality, there was, unquestionably, accommodationism, if not total assimilationism. in the 1930s and 1940s how many of the great figures to emerge, like birago diop, not to mention senghor etc, married french women after getting their educations in france and joining the colonial service. and yet, to think of birago diop, one of the great figures in my mind of 20th century letters, as an assimilé seems far too reductive.
anyway, thanks for the response
ken


On 12/31/13 11:46 AM, John Mbaku wrote:
Louis-Marie Pouka

--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
3807 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

thanks john
i had to look Pouka up. can we say he is now mostly forgotten? how rare
it is to come across assimilationists, though before the 1950s, before
the dream of independence started to become a reality, there was,
unquestionably, accommodationism, if not total assimilationism. in the
1930s and 1940s how many of the great figures to emerge, like birago
diop, not to mention senghor etc, married french women after getting
their educations in france and joining the colonial service. and yet, to
think of birago diop, one of the great figures in my mind of 20th
century letters, as an assimilé seems far too reductive.
anyway, thanks for the response
ken


On 12/31/13 11:46 AM, John Mbaku wrote:
> Louis-Marie Pouka

--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sudan Update, Dec. 31st, 2013

South Sudan rivals to open peace talks

A South Sudan army soldier mans a machine gun - 30 December 2013 Talks in South Sudan's history have often been preceded by renewed fighting

Talks between South Sudan's government and rebels are due to start later on Tuesday in Ethiopia, mediators say.

The two sides are expected to reach an agreement on the cessation of hostilities, they said.


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December 31, 2013

South Sudan Government, Rebels to Hold Talks

by VOA News

Representatives for South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have arrived in Ethiopia for talks on ending deadly civil unrest, but violence continues in a key city in South Sudan.

Kiir and former vice president Machar sent delegates to Addis Ababa on Tuesday to begin negotiations on ending the violence that began earlier this month.

The tribal bloodshed erupted when President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, accused Machar, an ethnic Nuer, of attempting a coup.

The U.N. says the fighting has left more than 1,000 people dead and displaced tens of thousands.

In spite of an agreement on talks, fighting continues in Bor, the main town in the Jonglei state. Machar and his supporters say fighters loyal to him have recaptured the town.  Rebels briefly seized control of Bor earlier this month.

There was no immediate word from the government on whether rebels have overrun the town.

Earlier, Kiir and Machar agreed in principle to hold talks. However, the government rejected Machar's conditions, including the release of his political allies who were jailed in the early days of the crisis.

Hussein Mar Nyuot is part of Machar's delegation for the peace talks. At a Tuesday news conference in Kenya, he again urged the government to free the detainees.

"If you keep them in detention and you say you are going for peace, you are not giving a good gesture," he said. "So, we urge President Kiir and we are also asking the international community and members of IGAD to put pressure for the release of these detainees so that they can actually attend these reconciliation meetings in Addis Ababa or Nairobi."

The African Union also urged Kiir's government to release detained political leaders, and threatened to impose sanctions on those who continue to incite violence.

Nyuot also said Machar's delegation is willing to negotiate in good faith.

"We don't want our country to degenerate into ethnic fighting," he said. "We want it to be handled as a political issue to be handled by the government and by the opposition that is fighting. We sit down."

The East African bloc IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development)  had set a Tuesday deadline for the two sides to hold face-to-face talks. Reuters news reports IGAD said Tuesday both sides had agreed to a "cessation of hostilities." There was no immediate word on when the cease-fire would take effect.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni visited Kiir on Monday, and warned Machar to sign a cease-fire deal or face action from its neighbors.  

The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said Monday tens of thousands of South Sudanese have fled Bor since violence broke out there last week between government troops and the Machar-backed force - the so called "White Army."

White Army youths are known for the white powder they use to cover their skin as an insect repellant. Like Machar, they are ethnic Nuers.

The talks are the first since conflict erupted two weeks ago between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy, Riek Machar.

At least 1,000 people have died and more than 121,600 are believed to have fled their homes.

Analysis

By sending a delegation to Addis Ababa, Riek Machar has agreed to one of the mediation's key demands - but not the other. The rebel leader told me he would not order his troops to stop fighting. This is something, he said, that can be discussed in Ethiopia.

Regional leaders had wanted a cessation of hostilities and talks to begin by 31 December. The attack on Bor was a clear attempt by Mr Machar to show his military power, which will strengthen his hand in any negotiations.

He also said his delegation will be led by Rebecca Nyandeng, the widow of the South Sudanese hero John Garang. As a Dinka, she may help Mr Machar challenge the allegation that his rebellion is primarily from his Nuer ethnic group.

It is interesting that Mr Machar is now admitting that the "white army" - an ethnic militia - is "part of" his army. This will not do much for his popularity in many parts of South Sudan.

East African leaders have been leading mediation efforts to end the crisis.

On Monday, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni threatened the rebels with military action if they failed to agree to a ceasefire by the end of Tuesday, and begin talks.

'Rebel gains'

Representatives of Mr Kiir and Mr Machar would meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to defuse tensions in South Sudan, the Ethiopian government said in a statement.

"The two sides are expected to reach an agreement on the cessation of hostilities and peaceful resolution of the current political crisis," the statement added.

Earlier, Mr Machar told the BBC he would send a delegation to the talks, claiming his forces had captured the key town of Bor.

But while he had agreed to negotiate, he said he would not order his troops to stop fighting.

He had previously demanded 11 detainees accused of being co-conspirators in a coup plan be freed before negotiations.

Mr Machar, who was deputy president until he was sacked in July, denies there was a plot - alleged by Mr Kiir.

The fighting initially broke out in South Sudan's capital, Juba, and has now spread to many parts of the country.

The situation in Bor is fast-moving, but a government minister confirmed that the town had fallen to Mr Machar's forces, reports the the BBC's James Copnall from Juba.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir told James Copnall a peaceful solution was still possible

A UN spokesman said Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, had come under attack at day break, not far from the town's UN compound.

Mr Machar said his delegation to talks would be headed by Rebecca Nyandeng, the widow of John Garang, who led South Sudanese rebel forces against Khartoum for many years.

Our reporter says as a Dinka she may help Mr Machar challenge the allegation that his rebellion is primarily from his Nuer ethnic group.

Mr Machar's forces are a mix of mutinous soldiers loyal to him and an ethnic militia called the "white army", known for putting white ash onto their bodies as a kind of war-paint.

Observers say the talks are likely to be complicated, as the two sides will have to agree on a mechanism to monitor a ceasefire.

South Sudan is the world's newest state. It was formed in 2011, gaining independence from Sudan after decades of conflict.

BBC map Fighting erupted in the South Sudan capital, Juba, in mid-December. It followed a political power struggle between President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and his Nuer ex-deputy Riek Machar. The fear is that their rivalry which has turned violent will exacerbate ethnic tensions. 

Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

thanks again kwabena for this enjoyable travel back. you are right to
evoke the earlier black thinkers.
my question is, what about those who were not authors, did not write in
european languages, but inspired resistance? what of the memories of
such figures? where would you look, and in your earlier education was
there any content concerning them? i suppose that usman dan fodio might
be an important nigerian name. were their any included in your education
while eustace palmer and norman shapiro were giving us all the
anglophone or francophonic lits?
ken

On 12/31/13 10:06 AM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
> Oga Ken:
>
> I have not put chronology before causality. My simple point is that with regard to political conscientization, mine came of age in the late 1970s when I had great opportunities to read and study several works of literature in English mostly written by Africans. This does not dislodge the Negrutudian movement from the radar of anticolonialism, not its periodizing or holistic significance.
> Absolutely, we may even peel back the reels of anti-colonial literature beyond the timing of Negritude. What about the works of W.E. B Du Bois, Kobina Sekyi, J. E. Casely Hayford, etc. that parodied Westernism and empowered the globalizing pan-African project? Anyone like me who had his secondary school education in West Africa and took literature in English at both the Ordinary and Advanced Levels can attest to the fact that we rigorously studied the ideas of Negritudian scholars in the works of Wole Soyinka's Poems of Black Africa and Norman Shapiro's Negritude: Black Poetry from Africa and the Caribbean. Also we applied some of the earliest commentaries on Africa literature by Eustace Palmer, Adrian Roscoe, etc. that deal with such anticolonial themes framed around the efflorescence of Negritude. Our secondary education then was broader and pointed to the world of great challenges as well as possibilities of moments of excellence. This is not to say that I am a specialist in African literature, etc. In the end, I married history cum sociology, call me an academic polygamist, not to forget that literature in English was my first love affair. Certainly, I may have to defer to your conclusions regarding Negritude, etc. since it is your field. Then again, I have not put the caravan before the camels; my riddle is about when and where I joined the caravan. Thanks for these wonderful discussions, if not reminiscing, that gives me the latitude to recall my formative boyhood years.
>
> Kwabena
>
> ________________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 12:15 AM
> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>
> yes, kwabena, but for 99% of those who consider african-european
> ideological relations, the psychology of eurocentric denigration is
> usually attributed to colonial domination, and it is resistance to that
> in the literature, from negritude on, that is taught.
> how rare it is to find those who can appeal to something prior to
> senghor! and in a location other than in europhonic literature.
> that's why i evoked lat dior, someone elevated in senegal to the status
> of an anti-french hero in the 19th century.
> i think what you cited as shaping your consciousness was true for many
> many of us, when the names fanon and cabral etc were evoked in analyzing
> the literature you described. it was as though that was the starting point.
> even if it was, in the sense of the anticolonial struggle for
> liberation, it was just one point on a much longer continuum, as you
> state. but that longer view is rarely provided.
> ken
>
> On 12/30/13 8:17 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
>> Oga Ken:
>>
>> Great points, but you moved the goal-posts: no one is imagining that anti-hegemonic worldviews began in the 1970s! I was only narrating what shaped my consciousness as a high school student in the late 1970s, not writing about the watersheds and cresting points of all the anti-hegemonic constructions and proponents in world history. Absolutely, anti-hegemonic, etc. structures go back to human beginnings, and one could go as far back as the Neolithic Era when surplus production sustained social, gender, and state formations.
>>
>> Kwabena
>> ________________________________________
>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 7:56 PM
>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>>
>> thanks kwabena
>> this is wonderful to hear, your experiences. from the novels you cite,
>> it was the 1970s, post-independence period. if on the one hand we want
>> to imagine that no one was really able to conceptualize an
>> anti-hegemonic, anti=eurocentric set of understandings that early, i
>> have to go back to the 1930s and 40s for negritude to find that indeed
>> there was such thinking, in extraordinary terms, by cesaire and senghor
>> and late many many others--beginning first, i would say, with the
>> radical thinkers and creators in the caribbean whose look back was at
>> slavery, unlike in africa where the look back was at colonialism.
>> anyway, a more encompassing look back would have to go to people like
>> lat dior or others celebrated in resistance to european conquest. you
>> can tell me their names in ghana or nigeria, but surely there was an
>> influence on people like nkrumah from links to resistance within ghana?
>> i know nkrumah was also influenced by american black thought, but what
>> about african?
>> sembene likes to celebrate that notion of an african based resistance as
>> we see in his films like emitai and ceddo, and even where he
>> romanticizes, he is reaching for another thread that has to be known,
>> and you historians need to provide us with the details.
>> people like me are versed in euro-language texts, so the depth of our
>> historical knowledge is limited to what has been translated or mediated
>> to us.
>> (your reference to wright is also fascinating)
>> ken
>>
>> On 12/30/13 7:22 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
>>> Oga Ken,
>>>
>>> This topic is getting interesting. And this is why I have urged Opanyin AB Assensoh to write his memoir!
>>>
>>> As a young teenager in a missionary-based secondary (high) school in the late 1970s, to be precise, the Presbyterian Boys' Boarding School at Legon, established in 1938, we were taught to see the world through the tinted lens of rigid Euro-Christian worldview that debased Africanity and extolled Western traditions.
>>>
>>> Based on what you said about Mariama Ba and Nwapa's accounts, I too idealized, if not romanticized the "Christian missionary" education I had as the best in the world. Let me make clear that there were no white missionaries; in fact, African agents of Mission Christianity were in charge. Again, the type of education we had was no less secular than what "public" (non-missionary) schools experienced.
>>> The difference was the rigidity of the Euro-Christian worldview that informed our education on the campus. But even then, by time we completed high school (advanced level) some of us had already began to ask new questions about the nature of Euro-Christianity, colonialism, the postcolonial projects of nation-building, etc., especially after devouring the works of Beti, Oyono, Ngugi, Achebe, Laye, Abrahams, Aidoo, Armah, etc.
>>>
>>> Let me add that one book that truly re/shaped our consciousness was Richard Wright's Black Boy, his Bildungsroman, or a story of his coming of age in America. And it was not as if our childhood mirrored that of Wright's racist and poverty-ridden environment. Of course, one can allude to the strict religious traditions in the Wright's household and his quest for knowledge beyond the confines of family and school as some of the influences we harvested from his Bildungsroman. And thanks to Adu Boahen's Topics in West African History, we were able to rethink our histories even as some of our great teachers wove their Eurocentric webs.
>>>
>>> In sum, this may be a personal journey: I think the education we had even in the 1970s was rooted in Western epistemological traditions that stressed the greatness and indispensability of the West and white institutions. Of course, others have used African "agency" to explain the ways that Africans have come to unlearn the brainwashing that underscored missionary education in Africa. But the question is how many Africans have had the chance to use that agency to discard white supremacy - the nursery rhyme of the best comes from the West? It is written all over the African psyche, indeed, what Adu Boahen cauterized as the worst effect of colonial rule.
>>>
>>>
>>> Kwabena
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
>>> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 3:26 PM
>>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>>>
>>> when i read about missionaries in novels like une vie de boy or mongo
>>> beti, le pauvre christ, etc, going back to the 1950s, they are presented
>>> as naive dupes at best, usually not too mean, but ineffectual and out of it.
>>> when i lived in cameroon in the 1970s, those who had been educated in
>>> the high school run by the irish in western cameroonian believed it was
>>> the best school in the country (anglophone). before i could pass
>>> judgments on something like that, all i would want to know is what those
>>> who actually had been to those schools would say.
>>> and if i remember nwapa and mariama ba's accounts of their lives as
>>> schoolgirls in an earlier period at missionary schools for girls, they
>>> were extraordinarily loving in their memories of their teachers.
>>> i wouldn't dare generalize from these few examples of novelists, but
>>> they are rich portraitures of figures important in the lives of major
>>> novelists, and their memoirs count in the whole picture.
>>> let's see--the image is much worse in ngugi's the river between; more
>>> mixed in dangarembga's nervous conditions, etc
>>> ken
>>>
>>> On 12/30/13 1:49 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
>>>> Fellow scholars who have been debating the pros and cons of missionary education may use the attachment as a minor footnote to illuminate the ways that the European predatory presence couched in Christian missionary interventionist meta-narratives damaged the African psyche! Did Africans need Euro-Christianity to come into their own and considering the massive weight of Christianity in Africa, have Africans come into their own? It is time to ask new questions.
>>>>
>>>> Kwabena
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: Kwame Opoku [k.opoku@sil.at]
>>>> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 1:02 PM
>>>> Subject: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>>>>
>>>> I THOUGHT THE ATTACHED MIGHT INTEREST YOU, BEST WISHES,
>>>> KWAME.
>>>>
>>> --
>>> kenneth w. harrow
>>> faculty excellence advocate
>>> professor of english
>>> michigan state university
>>> department of english
>>> 619 red cedar road
>>> room C-614 wells hall
>>> east lansing, mi 48824
>>> ph. 517 803 8839
>>> harrow@msu.edu
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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
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>> --
>> kenneth w. harrow
>> faculty excellence advocate
>> professor of english
>> michigan state university
>> department of english
>> 619 red cedar road
>> room C-614 wells hall
>> east lansing, mi 48824
>> ph. 517 803 8839
>> harrow@msu.edu
>>
>> --
>> 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
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>>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> faculty excellence advocate
> professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> 619 red cedar road
> room C-614 wells hall
> east lansing, mi 48824
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu
>
> --
> 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
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> ---
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>

--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu


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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

Brother Ken:

Cameroonian poet Louis-Marie Pouka.


On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena <KAParr@ship.edu> wrote:
Oga Ken:

I have not put chronology before causality. My simple point is that with regard to political conscientization, mine came of age in the late 1970s when I had great opportunities to read and study several works of literature in English mostly written by Africans. This does not dislodge the Negrutudian movement from the radar of anticolonialism, not its periodizing or holistic significance.
Absolutely, we may even peel back the reels of anti-colonial literature beyond the timing of Negritude. What about the works of  W.E. B Du Bois, Kobina Sekyi, J. E. Casely Hayford, etc. that parodied Westernism and empowered the globalizing  pan-African project? Anyone like me who had his secondary school education in West Africa and took literature in English at both the Ordinary and Advanced Levels can attest to the fact that we rigorously studied the ideas of Negritudian scholars in the works of Wole Soyinka's Poems of Black Africa and Norman Shapiro's Negritude: Black Poetry from Africa and the Caribbean. Also we applied some of the earliest commentaries on Africa literature by Eustace Palmer, Adrian Roscoe, etc. that deal with such anticolonial themes framed around the efflorescence of Negritude. Our secondary education then was broader and pointed to the world of great challenges as well as possibilities of moments of excellence. This is not to say that I am a specialist in African literature, etc. In the end, I married history cum sociology, call me an academic polygamist, not to forget that literature in English was my first love affair. Certainly, I may have to defer to your conclusions regarding Negritude, etc. since it is your field. Then again, I have not put the caravan before the camels; my riddle is about when and where I joined the caravan. Thanks for these wonderful discussions, if not reminiscing, that gives me the latitude to recall my formative boyhood years.

Kwabena

________________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 12:15 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

yes, kwabena, but for 99% of those who consider african-european
ideological relations, the psychology of eurocentric denigration is
usually attributed to colonial domination, and it is resistance to that
in the literature, from negritude on, that is taught.
how rare it is to find those who can appeal to something prior to
senghor! and in a location other than in europhonic literature.
that's why i evoked lat dior, someone elevated in senegal to the status
of an anti-french hero in the 19th century.
i think what you cited as shaping your consciousness was true for many
many of us, when the names fanon and cabral etc were evoked in analyzing
the literature you described. it was as though that was the starting point.
even if it was, in the sense of the anticolonial struggle for
liberation, it was just one point on a much longer continuum, as you
state. but that longer view is rarely provided.
ken

On 12/30/13 8:17 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
> Oga Ken:
>
> Great points, but you moved the goal-posts: no one is imagining that anti-hegemonic worldviews began in the 1970s! I was only narrating what shaped my consciousness as a high school student in the late 1970s, not writing about the watersheds and cresting points of all the anti-hegemonic constructions and proponents in world history. Absolutely, anti-hegemonic, etc. structures go back to human beginnings, and one could go as far back as the Neolithic Era when surplus production sustained social, gender, and state formations.
>
> Kwabena
> ________________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 7:56 PM
> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>
> thanks kwabena
> this is wonderful to hear, your experiences. from the novels you cite,
> it was the 1970s, post-independence period. if on the one hand we want
> to imagine that no one was really able to conceptualize an
> anti-hegemonic, anti=eurocentric set of understandings that early, i
> have to go back to the 1930s and 40s for negritude to find that indeed
> there was such thinking, in extraordinary terms, by cesaire and senghor
> and late many many others--beginning first, i would say, with the
> radical thinkers and creators in the caribbean whose look back was at
> slavery, unlike in africa where the look back was at colonialism.
> anyway, a more encompassing look back would have to go to people like
> lat dior or others celebrated in resistance to european conquest. you
> can tell me their names in ghana or nigeria, but surely there was an
> influence on people like nkrumah from links to resistance within ghana?
> i know nkrumah was also influenced by american black thought, but what
> about african?
> sembene likes to celebrate that notion of an african based resistance as
> we see in his films like emitai and ceddo, and even where he
> romanticizes, he is reaching for another thread that has to be known,
> and you historians need to provide us with the details.
> people like me are versed in euro-language texts, so the depth of our
> historical knowledge is limited to what has been translated or mediated
> to us.
> (your reference to wright is also fascinating)
> ken
>
> On 12/30/13 7:22 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
>> Oga Ken,
>>
>> This topic is getting interesting. And this is why I have urged Opanyin AB Assensoh to write his memoir!
>>
>> As a young teenager in a missionary-based secondary (high) school in the late 1970s, to be precise, the Presbyterian Boys' Boarding School at Legon, established in 1938, we were taught to see the world through the tinted lens of rigid Euro-Christian worldview that debased Africanity and extolled Western traditions.
>>
>> Based on what you said about Mariama Ba and Nwapa's accounts, I too idealized, if not romanticized the "Christian missionary" education I had as the best in the world. Let me make clear that there were no white missionaries; in fact, African agents of Mission Christianity were in charge. Again, the type of education we had was no less secular than what "public" (non-missionary) schools experienced.
>> The difference was the rigidity of the Euro-Christian worldview that informed our education on the campus. But even then, by time we completed high school (advanced level) some of us had already began to ask new questions about the nature of Euro-Christianity, colonialism, the postcolonial projects of nation-building, etc., especially after devouring the works of Beti, Oyono, Ngugi, Achebe, Laye, Abrahams, Aidoo, Armah, etc.
>>
>> Let me add that one book that truly re/shaped our consciousness was Richard Wright's Black Boy, his Bildungsroman, or a story of his coming of age in America. And it was not as if our childhood mirrored that of Wright's racist and poverty-ridden environment. Of course, one can allude to the strict religious traditions in the Wright's household and his quest for knowledge beyond the confines of family and school as some of the influences we harvested from his Bildungsroman. And thanks to Adu Boahen's Topics in West African History, we were able to rethink our histories even as some of our great teachers wove their Eurocentric webs.
>>
>> In sum, this may be a personal journey: I think the education we had even in the 1970s was rooted in Western epistemological traditions that stressed the greatness and indispensability of the West and white institutions. Of course, others have used African "agency" to explain the ways that Africans have come to unlearn the brainwashing that underscored missionary education in Africa. But the question is how many Africans have had the chance to use that agency to discard white supremacy - the nursery rhyme of the best comes from the West? It is written all over the African psyche, indeed, what Adu Boahen cauterized as the worst effect of colonial rule.
>>
>>
>> Kwabena
>> ________________________________________
>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 3:26 PM
>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>>
>> when i read about missionaries in novels like une vie de boy or mongo
>> beti, le pauvre christ, etc, going back to the 1950s, they are presented
>> as naive dupes at best, usually not too mean, but ineffectual and out of it.
>> when i lived in cameroon in the 1970s, those who had been educated in
>> the high school run by the irish in western cameroonian believed it was
>> the best school in the country (anglophone). before i could pass
>> judgments on something like that, all i would want to know is what those
>> who actually had been to those schools would say.
>> and if i remember nwapa and mariama ba's accounts of their lives as
>> schoolgirls in an earlier period at missionary schools for girls, they
>> were extraordinarily loving in their memories of their teachers.
>> i wouldn't dare generalize from these few examples of novelists, but
>> they are rich portraitures of figures important in the lives of major
>> novelists, and their memoirs count in the whole picture.
>> let's see--the image is much worse in ngugi's the river between; more
>> mixed in dangarembga's nervous conditions, etc
>> ken
>>
>> On 12/30/13 1:49 PM, Akurang-Parry, Kwabena wrote:
>>> Fellow scholars who have been debating the pros and cons of missionary education may use the attachment as a minor footnote to illuminate the ways that the European predatory presence couched in Christian missionary interventionist meta-narratives damaged the African psyche! Did Africans need Euro-Christianity to come into their own and considering the massive weight of Christianity in Africa, have Africans come into their own? It is time to ask new questions.
>>>
>>> Kwabena
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Kwame Opoku [k.opoku@sil.at]
>>> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 1:02 PM
>>> Subject: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?
>>>
>>> I THOUGHT THE ATTACHED MIGHT INTEREST YOU, BEST WISHES,
>>> KWAME.
>>>
>> --
>> kenneth w. harrow
>> faculty excellence advocate
>> professor of english
>> michigan state university
>> department of english
>> 619 red cedar road
>> room C-614 wells hall
>> east lansing, mi 48824
>> ph. 517 803 8839
>> harrow@msu.edu
>>
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> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> faculty excellence advocate
> professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> 619 red cedar road
> room C-614 wells hall
> east lansing, mi 48824
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu
>
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faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Shape Of Things To Come In Nigeria In 2014!

By Jaye Gaskia

I will begin with my conclusion; for better or for worse, the year 2014 is going to be decisive for us as a people, as a nation, and as individuals. Not because it is the year of the centenary of the name and entity called Nigeria [for the people who now make up Nigeria, have a rich history dating back centuries]; but because of the unfolding processes in the last decade and a half [at least since return to civil rule in 1999], and the projections that can be made from the contending trends........


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USA Africa Dialogue Series - There Was Genocide In Biafra (Sri Lanka Guardian)

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Fully edited : To Abolaji Adekeye – re- Journey Of The Teenage God-Boy (Poem)

SirAbolaji,

Maybe,

"All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies"

Talking about belief, as Jesus is reported to have said to Thomas  who took a look at his hands but not his feet: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed".

As for me - a poor man – neither is there much comfort to be found in the saying,

 "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle

than for a rich man to go to heaven" - since I would prefer to be a rich man.

 Of course there are many kinds of riches.  Some are even difficult to count, abstract, uncountable, cannot be quantified.  What to say?

Good words from Malcolm

It's a good song

Take Sheikh Bangura who is working on his eighteenth chapter trying to fathom the genius of Professor Toyin Falola according to some ancient Egyptian criteria/ formula. How many chapters when the book finally goes to press, I wonder. Will I have the stamina to read it?  I'd like to see him apply the same technique or criteria to Hugh Trevor- Roper or indeed to the King of " Diopists" to Cheikh Anta Diop himself. Right now -at this very moment, I find myself thinking about Professor Falola in relation to this saying:

 The ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr

Of course, all men are equal, but some men are more equal than others and we shall have to be content with that. And with our own humble station in life. Not all of us can be prophets or like Ali Mazuri or James Ngugi.

As for seeing is believing,  I have seen this on YouTube, but I still don't believe it and of course even if you promised me the 72 blessed virgins in Heaven there's no way  I would like to be in that guys shoes...

And there you have it.

Pray for us

We Sweden



On Tuesday, 31 December 2013 15:04:00 UTC+1, Abolaji Adekeye wrote:

CH
I don't  believe that everything that happens will happen today even though it is the last day of the year of our Lord 2013.

I also do not want to believe in any belief that cannot be proven scientifically or at least visually. My weakness is that I sometimes believe in belief.

I do not believe in ghost but I have seen the ghost of Christmas past this yuletide

There is not much different in all religions, in fact the 4 major religions are all from the Orient. They all profess ghosts, shrouds,  phantoms,  spirits,  Devils,  djinns ,  angels.  Jibril and azreal , malak al maut and israfel

Magical realism is the sauce and source of all religion. Is the immaculate conception not an impeachable deception? The trinity finds resonance  with Egypt and Sumeria. Jesus the Christ ascended but Sango the oba koso descended and Ganesh has an elephant head. What is more magically realistic than the very miraculous affixing of a severed ear without stitches and local anaesthetic. 

Had orisirisi igbo irunmole ( various evil forest) not prevented my warlike Yoruba  forebears from venturing out beyond Dahomey to colonise and civilise perfidious Albion, today they will be discussing the legacies of mission schools teaching Ifa divination and the proselytising of Ifa cosmology instead of the honors and those who missed  it.

Is it not instructive that Jason chased after the golden fleece  but Amos searched for his Palm wine drinkard?

The Catholic Church: Do you recall Pascal Bowers anecdote about the Fang people of Cameron and a theologian.

Did I ramble ? My church is close to trinity hospital and the communion served therein fills one with Holy wholesome spirit.

May the dying year take our pain away. Especially We.

On 31 Dec 2013 11:10, "Cornelius Hamelberg" <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Re-"outside of poetry and the poetic"

Me caught me-self thinking and pleading guilty to this short question & answer found in Spirit on the Water

"You ever seen a ghost? No
But you have heard of them"

 Forgetting about Brian Eno & David Byrne,  for a while, forgetting about  Amos Tutuola himself and his  "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" , forgetting  Professor Soyinka's  "Agemo phase"  as a dramatic flashback technique  etc,  and forgetting the supernatural in Camara Laye and even Carlos Castaneda who  like Eno and Bryne, is and was not African), forgetting science fiction, there's also what has been described as  magic realism attributed to e.g.  Ben Okri and his "The Famished Road" although he stoutly rejects the title and the temptation

The connoisseurs of African Literature can take a dip...dig deep...

I suspect that the missionary schools and missionary schooling must have had their own impact, since they introduced the concept of "The Holy Ghost" - as the third person of their Trinity – thus suggesting at least two categories - the Holy and all the things that missionaries deemed unholy, such as the "voodoo" drums which they lost no time in banning to begin with, along with a few other African cultural practices (such as the ancestral holy polygamy) which was also soon damned  and without further notice relegated to one of the many categories of "Heathen superstition" – "pagan practices" "pagan beliefs"... not even on par with European pantheism...

 Ignorance asking: Is it true that Roman Catholicism was more accommodating of African norms and culture than most of the other Christian missionaries?

 If Edward Wilmot Blyden would have been with us today and just about now, settling down to write his Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race – would he still arrive at the same conclusions?

Ah! That was a million dollar missionary question...

We Sweden



On Monday, 30 December 2013 14:31:19 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

Compliments of the season Sir, and the coming season's greetings to us all!

Indeed Idoto's watery presence is one such.

As Prince Hamlet says to Horatio, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Some of the cosmologists among us still interested in other people's cosmological ideas may be interested in Meher Baba's "God speaks" - the only book I've had time to read by him....

In these modern, post-enlightenment times, outside of poetry & the poetic, any mention of the supernatural is not only forbidden/ anathema, and pray who is anxious to be ridiculed and labelled either lunatic (crazy) or if such a one is African, to be labelled superstitious, primitive? I guess that's why some people may not talk too loudly about "spirit beings" or "Mami Wata" or watery presences, that area where the extra-sensory enters the realm of what's sometimes known as the mythological ( e.g. all the fictitious," the real" or the imaginary Carlos Castaneda stuff) Toyin Adepoju has already talked about the anonymity of those who authored the Upanishads – and indeed  there's Shruti and Smriti, the philosopher-seer-poets of what goes down as other people's scriptures, causing some to learn Sanskrit even as others take to hieroglyphics.

However, the Santeria for example are self-confident and don't bow down to evangelizing missionaries – they themselves have become missionaries - missionaries to other lost sheep of another house.

 Bearing in mind the property of water as a purifying agent,

1) I'm still wondering whether the Assemblies of God Pastor& Brethren, who gave me a full immersion baptism in that River in Umuahia, in 1981, considered it a holy river. (I have finally tracked down my long lost evangelical Igbo Brother Titus Akanabu  - he will surely be able to answer that question, hopefully on the phone one of these coming days...

2) What Professor Segun Ogungbemi asked here about President Goodluck Jonathan's prayers, on the banks of the Jordan River. (In fact, I just watched this programme on al-Jazeera in which someone (from the Jordan Valley) is in essential agreement with Professor Ogungbemi's "Dirty River" concept: in speaking about the Jordan River he says, "This River, so holy to Christianity, is now a garbage dump!"

3) That one of my bosses in Nigeria was a staunch follower of the leader of the Cross Rivers based Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (and here I'm being a little superstitious - I have never uttered the name of name of their leader which consists in a triple O)  - she made me to understand  that people were coming from as far away places as the then Soviet Union  to be cured of certain skin disease  by taking a healing dip  in the miraculous river waters, under his supervision...

Rivers State, Nigeria

Langston Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Gary Bartz: I've known Rivers

Sacred Rivers

Yours sincerely,

We Sweden

 

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