Biko,
Thanks for yours. I don't know of anyone in this ilo that is against African unity. That would be unwise, since we are defined so much by perceptions of that continent and our color. Many of our conversations get off on the wrong footing because people are uncomfortable with ideas that veer off orthodoxy, that seem so counter-intuitive. I mean that we have been saying the same things for decades, arguing the same points, perhaps it is time to explore other paradigms. Many of us were fed the robust philosophies of the pan-Africanists of old and we are still enamored of their ideas because deep down they make sense. I am deeply uncomfortable with the extremists, those who persist in painting a hagiography of our past and present, and scoff at any idea that does not meet with their approval. Yes, Africa is a continent, just like North America. We may be Africans, but we are many different people. That has nothing to do with yearning for African unity. Who wouldn't?
Be wel, prof.
- Ikhide
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From: Biko Agozino <bikozino@yahoo.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CORRECTED Chika Ezeanya on Olaudah Equiano: Before We Set Sail
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CORRECTED Chika Ezeanya on Olaudah Equiano: Before We Set Sail
| Bro Ikhide, Thanks for the nice treat of quoting my review of the book in yours, it is truly an honor. I particularly liked your complementary nationalist history of the Maaafa or the fact that although we are all Africans, we belonged to different nationalities that warred against each other during the mournful centuries of slavery. Walter Rodney offered a class analysis that I subscribe to in the sense that even if you speak the same language and worship in the same religion (the two most important identities that Africans obsess about today), or you may be the same race and gender, you would continue to suffer indignities if you are poor and you will continue to enjoy privileges if you are rich, the fact that occasionally a prince of princess got kidnapped and sold across the pond too not withstanding. On who really sold their own children into slavery, I forgot to add in my review of the book that just as European and North American tree hugers are more likely to be the ones to live on tree tops even today, a pejorative attribution to the heart of darkness, white enslavers like Thomas Jefferson were the ones who regularly had children by raping enslaved African women with the specific aim of selling their own flesh and blood into slavery like cattle to make more money. Ezeanya's book demonstrates that such a wicked level of greed was unknown in Africa and that when it was suspected that a father had sold his own child, it was indeed shocking and incredible. What I would like you to do, brother Ikhide, is to reflect some more on your ideological opposition to Pan Africanism. The fact that there are many different nationalities in Africa is no longer an alibi against unity for even the USA, Canada, Australia, China, India, Russia and Western Europe are all multicultural republics that thrive while Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Rwanda all sought to achieve ethnic cleansing and monoculturalism in defiance of the curse of the tower of Babel and almost all of them nearly got crushed out of existence for that hysterical longing for sameness. With the African Union Commission already running a Parliament where the representation of men and women are equal, African intellectuals need to step up and offer theoretical support for the coming People's Republic of Africa United Democratically (PRAUD) with the opportunity for dual citizenship available to those in the African Diaspora who desire it and without threatening anyone. Bro Ikhide, what do you have against African unity today? Biko --- On Sat, 17/11/12, Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com> wrote:
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