"there is no country without problems."
Farrakhan
Does it not matter that the vast majority of citizens are victims of the problems while a tiny minority create the problems and add to them. It is easy and painless to say that “there is no country without problems” when you profit from the problems. When you are a victim of the problems, you want the problems solved. When you create the problems and benefit from them, you want the problems to remain unsolved.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 12:02 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Libya & Gadaffi apologists
But, Pius, don't forget that the great pan-AfriKan, Louis Farrakhan, vigorously defended Abacha in an infamous interview that has since gone viral. Farrakhan's defense of Abacha mirrors the cookie-cutter pan-AfriKanism of today's defenders of Gadaffi. A key theme in Farrakhan's defense is the same familiar, lazy critique of European imperialism, neocolonialism, and resource-grabbing violence. To every reference to Abacha's atrocities by the interviewer, Farrakhan responded by pointing to America's double standards, history of state-sanctioned violence, genocidal imperialism, etc--as if that made it okay for Abacha to brutalize his compatriots. Farrakhan infamously concluded his pro-Abacha lecture by uttering these defeatist, exculpatory, immortal words: "there is no country without problems." History is always a guide in these things. Our new pan-AfriKan friends are merely recycling themes from the Farrakhan anti-imperialist, pro-Abacha playbook.
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Pius Adesanmi <piusadesanmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Ken, Franklyne, Esi Bani:
The thing tire me o. They are saying that Gaddaffi is AfriKan and Gbagbo is AfriCan. All it takes for genocide and sit tightism to be acceptable to these pan-AfriKan enemies of neocolonialism and imperialism is for the perpetrator to be an AfriKan and not an AfriCan leader. Our spellin bee pan-Afrikanists will never cease to amaze!
Lesson: had Nigeria's Sani Abacha and Uganda's Idi Amin been sensible enough to build a pan-AfriKanist legacy under their heaps of corpses, Mwalimu Bangura and co would be out praising and defending them today!
Pius
--- On Sun, 27/3/11, Esi Bani <aleameleo@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Esi Bani <aleameleo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Libya & Gadaffi apologists
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sunday, 27 March, 2011, 15:12
Many commenting on the intervention in Libya are truly trapped in history. It's frightening. It looks like while the people fighting and DYING for their freedoms in the streets of North Africa and the Middle East are redefining the paradigms useful for the 21st century, many on here are embarrassingly trapped in the past and textbook quarterbacking. Seriously, it is no wonder as academics, we get dismissed as pointy-headed fossils clueless in a world changing around us at warp speed.
It is pathetic how some Africanists cling for dear life to the colonial/ neo-colonial prism of analysis for EVERY single situation no matter what. So are the defenders of Ghaddafy saying that his so-called bona fides as "anti-imperialist' trump the the yearning of his citizens NOW for a change in dispensation? How patronizing. Whatever happened to the basic idea that leaders, no matter how charismatic, should govern with the CONSENT of their people; that they leave power within a constitutionally defined term in office, and/or when that consent dries up? The argument that Gaddafy has done so much that Libyans should be "grateful" for is insulting. The country is NOT Gadaffy's personal property, and doing right by one's people is not an excuse to subject said people to "benevolent" subjugation. This is the sickness that has kept autocrats in power long past their "sell-by" dates.
The rest of the African continent that has not yet extracted itself from the stifling grip of octogenarian autocrats can borrow a page from their scrappy North African peers who decided that holding their own leaders accountable for their miseries was a more productive use of their energies. It is time for Africa's old guard to go. Period. No one can have any more useful ideas for governing after 8-10 years in power. No leader is indispensable no matter how wonderful the revolutionary credentials that brought them into power. The young generation of Africa and the Middle East is starving for the opportunity to remold their coutnries, and even make their own mistakes, in this new century. Is that too much to ask without the ivory-towered furrowed brows brigade snarling at them for "aiding" the scary "western imperialist powers"? Esi Bani
From: Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh <ogbunwezeh@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, March 27, 2011 3:26:32 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - President Museveni Discusses Libya &Gaddafi: A Must Read
Ken,
Good Morning. What Most of the arguments here lack is exactly that: Moral compass! You get this when academics betray their vocationa and allows themselves to become Thermometers that rise and fall according to the temperatures of popular opinion.
Dr. Franklyne Emmanuel Ogbunwezeh
Am 27.03.2011 um 00:31 schrieb kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>:
> i am so disappointed that after all the millions dead in rwanda and the drc that this opposition to outside intervention is made. it is an argument that dismisses any need to oppose genocide or its equivalent. where is the moral compass here?
> ken
>
> On 3/26/11 12:20 PM, Okafor, Chinyere wrote:
>> Rosemary makes very good points in her piece. I think that people have digressed from its main import about outside intrusion in internal national matters and the moral authority of the intruders. As for her reference to Western and African thinking, who can really claim not to have some of the western when we all use the language of western thought? The main issue is about the suffering of people in Libya in the hands of internal gunfire and external bombardment.
>>
>> Professor Chinyere G. Okafor, Ph.D
>> Department of Women's Studies& Religion
>> Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA
>> Phone: (316) 978-6264, fax (316) 978-3186
>> E-mail: chinyere.okafor@wichita.edu
>> URL<http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/handle/10057/1222>
>> <http://webs.wichita.edu/wmstudy/faculty.html><http://www.chiwrite.com/>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
>> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 12:49 PM
>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - President Museveni Discusses Libya&Gaddafi: A Must Read
>>
>> this is called determinism. marxism 101 teaches us that the revolution
>> comes because people refuse to accept determinist thinking, both the
>> oppressors, from which the vanguard is to come, and the oppressed whose
>> consciousness is not immutably determined by the ruling class.
>> who today would accept determinism like this? you would have people
>> thinking like objects,as though they had no agency to determine how to
>> think.
>> ken
>>
>> On 3/25/11 1:19 PM, ROSEMARY MWENJA wrote:
>>> We are a product of our experiences and that has a big influence in
>>> how we think. If you have been part of the oppressor you think in a
>>> particular way. If you are the oppressed you think in a particular way.
>> --
>> kenneth w. harrow
>> distinguished professor of english
>> michigan state university
>> department of english
>> east lansing, mi 48824-1036
>> 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
> distinguished professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> east lansing, mi 48824-1036
> 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.
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