Kola, please get off this high horse about Ikhide being "anti-Yoruba" because he took positions that do not suit your own conception of Yoruba. Ikhide is a great admirer of both Awo and Achebe, and he has been very candid about these facts; and he has very strong opinions about books and about Nigeria and the African continent. That does not make him anti-Nigeria or anti-Africa. Ikhide's positions have always been based on the "tough-love" approach; I personally do not agree with some of his perspectives, and I find some a bit too general, but he also comes with unique, independent and at least informed perspectives in these matters. Because he agrees with Adam Hochchild's perspective on Soyinka on the NYT does not make him anti-Soyinka or anti-Yoruba. Hochschild would in fact not be the first one to talk about Soyinka's grandiloquence, even as he admits his great moral courage and his undoubtable place in the canon of modern letters. But here, someone talks about Hochschild as vacilatory on matters about Africa citing his extremely painful book King Leopold's Ghost - painful in the sense of its harsh, elegiac look at the evils of colonialism and the brutality of Belgian rapacity in particular, in the destruction of the Congo. Anybody who talks of King Leopold's Ghost as washy has either not read it, or worsestill, has read it without discernment.
And Hochschild is anything but vacilatory on matters of Africa: his father was one of the wealthiest investors in the mines in Rhodesia, who divested from Rhodesia early in recognition of the evils of apartheid and colonialism; he sent his son with some other American boys to Ghana, at Ghana's indepedence as his way of getting him to understand and forge links with his generation in Africa; and it was in that trip that he met, with his friend Peter De Lissavoy with another boy from Achimota, Ayi Kwei Armah, with whom he has remained life-long friends. The story of this three is actually quite rich and fascinating in the direction that life took them. Adam's father made certain Armah went to the Groton School from Achimota, and from then on to Harvard where he was room mates with Adam Hochschild and Peter de Lissavoy, and they were shaped by the radical politics of the 1960s. Lissavoy abandoned Harvard to join the civil rights movement, Armah moved to writing, journalism and Translation and radical engagement in Algeria, while Hochschild founded Mother Jones and went on also to writing and journalism, also of the lefty kind. You may in fact see aspects of their friendship in one or two of Armah's novels, and particularly a rather cryptic reference to Hochsfield's former wife in one of them. I point to this rather briefly, to suggest that Hochchild takes Africa very seriously as a result of his emotional engagement with that continent and her writers. King Leopold's Ghost is a testimony of his profound honesty - borne wether from honesty, liberal angst or liberal guilt, is immaterial. Ikhide is also not anti-Yoruba or anti-Soyinka. We need to be careful how we build the "anti-" brigade when individual opinions do not suit us. It is the very germ of fascism.
Obi Nwakanma
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 04:42:21 -0700
From: kol_onif@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Adam Hochschild od the NYT Reviews of "Of Africa," by Wole Soyinka
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
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And Hochschild is anything but vacilatory on matters of Africa: his father was one of the wealthiest investors in the mines in Rhodesia, who divested from Rhodesia early in recognition of the evils of apartheid and colonialism; he sent his son with some other American boys to Ghana, at Ghana's indepedence as his way of getting him to understand and forge links with his generation in Africa; and it was in that trip that he met, with his friend Peter De Lissavoy with another boy from Achimota, Ayi Kwei Armah, with whom he has remained life-long friends. The story of this three is actually quite rich and fascinating in the direction that life took them. Adam's father made certain Armah went to the Groton School from Achimota, and from then on to Harvard where he was room mates with Adam Hochschild and Peter de Lissavoy, and they were shaped by the radical politics of the 1960s. Lissavoy abandoned Harvard to join the civil rights movement, Armah moved to writing, journalism and Translation and radical engagement in Algeria, while Hochschild founded Mother Jones and went on also to writing and journalism, also of the lefty kind. You may in fact see aspects of their friendship in one or two of Armah's novels, and particularly a rather cryptic reference to Hochsfield's former wife in one of them. I point to this rather briefly, to suggest that Hochchild takes Africa very seriously as a result of his emotional engagement with that continent and her writers. King Leopold's Ghost is a testimony of his profound honesty - borne wether from honesty, liberal angst or liberal guilt, is immaterial. Ikhide is also not anti-Yoruba or anti-Soyinka. We need to be careful how we build the "anti-" brigade when individual opinions do not suit us. It is the very germ of fascism.
Obi Nwakanma
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 04:42:21 -0700
From: kol_onif@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Adam Hochschild od the NYT Reviews of "Of Africa," by Wole Soyinka
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Prof. Aluko, Please permit me to note as follows: Ikhide has deep seated anti-Yoruba sentiments. You may not notice. However, I noted how he clapped excitedly for Achebe when his muck-racking, controversy-generating fiction (which Ikhide labels history) came out. Second, I noted how he denigrated Chief Awolowo's (PBUH)1983 interview posted on this forum by you. Ikhide saw nothing of value in Awo's responses to questions and accusations; his clear roadmap for Nigeria's greatness; his expressed readiness to work with other parties to ensure the country's growth and development etc. What Ikhide saw/heard was heckling and shouts of "Up Awo" by Papa's supporters! That, "belittled" Awo (PBUH) in Ikhide's estimation! Now, Ikhide has extended this sentiment to our own nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka! I read Lavonne Staple's response to Ikhide's diatribe and mused how emotion could becloud one's objectivity! as my people puts it: "anjuwon ko see wi lejo, ija ilara ko tan boro." When a supposed writer begins to conflate fiction (Achebe's book) with history, then we know that wahala don shele. Ikhide is human. He is entitled to emotions and subjectivity. However, he should know not to mix this with his views as a writer. Regards. Kola/ --- On Fri, 11/2/12, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
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