and i suggest that terms like emerging, developing, en cours de developpement, etc, are the ones that are truly insulting
ken
At 11:50 AM 10/11/2010, you wrote:
"Toyin Adepoju has a point. These days the term Third World is used insultingly. See for example
Huffingtonpost.com on the series 'Third World America'.
Studies of Emerging Economies, African and Asian Studies, Non-Aligned Studies
or Majority Studies are some possible alternatives that come to mind."
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Gloria,
You are referring to Arianna Huffington's blatant attempt at hawking her latest book, Third World America:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/third-world-america-why-i_b_706673.html
I am conflicted about whether the term is insulting or not. The world is what it is, and perhaps the best way to handle a corpse is not to offer it lipstick. I am not familiar with the historical origin and context of the term, "Third World." My sense is that the person(s) or institutions that did the christening had a strong sense that this was indeed "third world." My sense also is that if out intellectuals yell foul enough, the term will recede and live richly in the minds of Westerners and be replaced by your preferred term eg "Studies of Emerging Economies", "African and Asian Studies", "Non-Aligned Studies", or "Majority Studies." Sounds like a triumph of political correctness over substance.
The West is obsessed (and mystified) by the mystery of the other as in Africa and other civilizations of color. They have crafted names to describe what they really feel about us. And sometimes they are helped immensely by people that look like us but have violently rejected themselves. I am thinking of VS Naipaul and Dinesh DiSouza. But it is not only these neoconservatives that define us as the other. Why are we now wailing foul? For decades, Africa has been largely defined by "Third (World) cinema" featuring the height of our differences or otherness with the other civilization. We dance, we sing, we clap, and white liberals climax to the beat of our simple poetic ways. It is a multimillion dollar industry, our avuncular white liberals have found a way to profit from their white guilt. Why are we not similarly exercised by this? What would you propose we call these movies that celebrate our otherness in perverse condescending patronizing song?
More importantly, we should start shifting away from investing in political correctness. Let them call us what they want? What we want to be called may be gleaned in how we carry ourselves. Our political and intellectual elite are busy doing NOTHING for the people but they insist on respect. They will only do for themselves, so self-serving are they. I mean, look at ASUU, that bunch of degreed thugs, they are on strike again, which is not a problem, their children are abroad studying, screw the children of the oppressed.
I guess I am supposed to say the obligatory patronizing crap; that there are indeed some good people in ASUU who truly love teaching. Balderdash. I have said it. Balderdash I mean. When are we going to stop thanking people for doing what they are overpaid to do? ASUU is at it again, they are on strike, that gathering of certified thugs wearing PhDs, they are on strike again. Which is not saying much. Apparently even when they are not on strike they really are in the habit of not teaching our children judging from the grammatical challenges of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his legion of adoring half-illiterates on Facebook. Please go read his status postings and fawning barely coherent comments to touch the perverse face of the mis-education of our children by the thugs of ASUU.
A nation signs her doomsday when she stops educating her children. Only a sick mother refuses to feed a child. Nigeria is a sick nation, egged on by her political and intellectual elite, the most self-centered narcissistic tribe of wine-swillers the world has ever come across, and for the avoidance of doubt I am a card carrying member of that evil pantheon. Shame on all of us for doing this to our children.
I don't know what they are looking for now, the agberos. Who has seen their latest "communique"? I am sure that it will be inchoate, full of bluster and signed by a pompous know-it-all "comrade" if the last one is anything to go by. They still leave in the sixties, sporting Patrice Lumumba beards and "manifestoes" in the daytime while making time at night to sleep with vampires of the nation like Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. They want to be paid, because, you guessed it right, it is time for them to pay the school fees of their children abroad. Pay them please, pay them in dollars. Their children are hungry abroad. Lecturers that are so bad they will not permit their own children in their classrooms. That is the new Nigeria for you. "Schools" that are so bad, the minister for (mis)education brags that his children study abroad. Where is the outrage? The children of the poor and dispossessed are trapped in the cesspools that ASUU proudly calls "universities." Shame on ASUU.
My point is, don't worry about what others think about us, worry about what we are doing to ourselves.
ASUU is a bunch of thugs. I said it. Sue me. Abo mi re O!
- Ikhide
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Distinguished Professor of English
Michigan State University
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