Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn’t: Reflections On Achebe’s New Book (2)

You check it out; that is what I get out of reading Nigerian history.
There was no Yorubaland; no Hausaland(kasar Hausa?); no Igboland; no
Itsekriland; and suddenly there are!!!! There were Oyo, Ibadan;
Ijesha; Kano; Katsina; Zazzau; Kanem-Borno; then the Sokoto
Caliphate...then Northern Nigeria; Southern Nigeria; Mid-West; East;
West; then South-South; then this that.......Where is Ngeria???

Hope this helps.

IB
=============================

On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Seun Odeyemi <blacng@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mr. Abdullah,
>
> Please can you explain further what you mean by the construct "truncated
> ethnicity" as it applies to Nigeria? Is it that Nigerians consider
> themselves, first, foremost and primarily, as part of a particular ethnic
> collectivity--say, Ibo, Ibibio, or Itsekiri--and only secondarily, as a
> member of that historical-political construct called the Nigerian state?
>
> Seun.
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:21 PM, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I also suspect that BJ has gone overboard in his quest to red card
>> Achebe. The point about realist writings is that they come up straight
>> as mothers' milk--ideological constructs, easy to swallow as faction(
>> fact plus fiction) not fiction! What you read in achebe can be
>> reproduced ad infinitum for almost all Nigerian intellectuals. And
>> this is the point that should interest us, not what achebe said today
>> or what Kongi will say tomorrow. What undergirds all these literary
>> effusions/discourses et al is the simply the historical accident of
>> how citizenship is constructed/reproduced/experienced/consumed in
>> post-colonial Nigeria. Nigerians experience citizenship as truncated
>> ethnicity--the original sin--and this gets reproduced in whatever they
>> do or say. This is as true of the left as it is true for the
>> right/centre.
>>
>> How do we transcend/subvert this original sin without reproducing it
>> in its multi-layered ccomplexity is what we should be discussing. As
>> BJ himself has repeatedly made clear in the two postings there is
>> nothing new in what Achebe has to say!!!
>>
>> IB
>> ============================================
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 3:42 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
>> > this is probably not the place to argue this, but i feel my friend bj is
>> > not
>> > correct in his definition of realism. it is a genre, a construct, like
>> > all
>> > others; no closer to "real facts" than other genres, but ideologically
>> > presented to the reader as if it were an imitation of reality. in that
>> > regard, it is more immersed in ideology than other genres that make more
>> > obvious their constructions of "reality."
>> > achebe's title as the greatest realist in the past 150 years is
>> > overblown,
>> > in my view, regardless of the definition of realism employed.
>> > further, the issue of ethnicity here should take into account not simply
>> > the
>> > politics of the coup plotters or the leadership of the regions, but how
>> > the
>> > events were presented by the population to themselves: did people say,
>> > "those igbos in biafra want to secede"? did the biafrans, like achebe,
>> > say
>> > the same?
>> > it isn't a question of whether this or that individual came from the
>> > north
>> > or spoke hausa or wore robes: it is how he represented himself, and how
>> > he
>> > was taken by others.
>> > ken
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 12/29/12 9:43 PM, Chido Onumah wrote:
>> >
>> > First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn't: Reflections On Achebe's
>> > New
>> > Book (2)
>> >
>> > By Biodun Jeyifo
>> >
>> > Superficially, it was understandable to conclude that this was indeed
>> > "an
>> > Igbo coup". However, scratch a little deeper and complicating factors
>> > are
>> > discovered: One of the majors was Yoruba, and Nzeogwu himself was Igbo
>> > in
>> > name only…he was widely known as someone who saw himself as a
>> > Northerner,
>> > spoke fluent Hausa and little Igbo, and wore the traditional Northern
>> > dress
>> > when not in uniform.
>> >
>> > Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country
>> >
>> > In the end, I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute
>> > power
>> > over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can
>> > arrange
>> > stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like.
>> >
>> > Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile
>> >
>> > If in There Was A Country "a Nigerian ruling class" only appears in the
>> > narratives and reflections of the author in the final fourth part of the
>> > book, this is only the most stunning aspect of the general intellectual
>> > and
>> > discursive architecture of the book. This "architecture", this "grammar"
>> > is
>> > none other than the fact that for nearly all other parts of the book
>> > with
>> > the exception of that concluding fourth part, all of Achebe's
>> > "explanations", all of his speculations in the book are relentlessly
>> > driven
>> > by ethnicity, and a very curious conception of ethnicity for that
>> > matter.
>> > Logically, inevitably, the corollary to this is that "explanations" and
>> > speculations based on class, and more specifically on intra-class and
>> > inter-class factors, are either completely ignored or even deliberately
>> > excluded. As I shall presently demonstrate, this is a remarkable
>> > departure
>> > from virtually all of Achebe's writings prior to this recently published
>> > book. For now, let me illustrate this startling matter of the complete
>> > subsumption of class into ethnicity in There Was A Country with two
>> > particularly telling examples out of innumerable other instances in the
>> > book.
>> >
>> > The first of our two selected examples pertains to nothing less than the
>> > January 15, 1966 coup itself, arguably the "opening shot" in the chain
>> > of
>> > events and crises that led to the Nigeria-Biafra war, the central
>> > subject of
>> > Achebe's book. It so happens that there is quite a significant body of
>> > both
>> > general and academic writings and discourses on this signal event. And
>> > indeed, Achebe's long citation of his sources in the bibliographic
>> > section
>> > of his book mentions many of these writings and discourses on the
>> > January
>> > 15, 1966 coup. It is therefore baffling that of the variety of "motives"
>> > or
>> > "interests" that have been ascribed to the coup plotters, the single one
>> > that Achebe addresses in his book is ethnicity, "tribe": Was it, or was
>> > it
>> > not, "an Igbo coup".
>> >
>> > There have been suggestions, there have been speculations that it was a
>> > "southern coup", this in light of the fact that most of the political
>> > and
>> > military leaders assassinated or inadvertently killed were,
>> > overwhelmingly,
>> > either northerners or southerners in alliance with northern leaders.
>> > More
>> > pertinent to the present discussion, there has also been an even more
>> > plausible speculation that class and ideological interests were
>> > significant
>> > in the motives of influential members of the coup plotters like Chukwuma
>> > Kaduna Nzeogwu and Wale Ademoyega. Of the two alliances of the ruling
>> > class
>> > parties of the First Republic, the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) and
>> > the
>> > United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), with the exception of Festus
>> > Okotie-Eboh, the Finance Minister, all those assassinated belonged to
>> > the
>> > NNA. S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region, was a diehard NNA
>> > chieftain; there is compelling evidence that this was why he was
>> > assassinated while Michael Okpara, the Premier of the Eastern Region,
>> > was
>> > spared because he was a major figure in the UPGA alliance. As a matter
>> > of
>> > fact, there is clear evidence that some of the coup plotters had the
>> > intension of making or "forcing" Chief Awolowo to assume the office of
>> > Prime
>> > Minister in the belief that the progressive northern allies of UPGA were
>> > far
>> > more regionally and nationally popular and credible than the southern
>> > and
>> > conservative allies of the NNA.
>> >
>> > Achebe's book pays not the slightest attention to these other probable
>> > factors in assessing the motives of the January 15 coup plotters. Was
>> > it, or
>> > was it not, "an Igbo coup"? That is all Achebe is interested in
>> > exploring -
>> > and disproving – in There Was A Country. Of the many threads that form
>> > the
>> > complex fabric of that fateful coup d'état, this single thread of
>> > ethnicity
>> > or "tribe" is all that Achebe strenuously tries to unravel in his book.
>> > This
>> > may be because by the time of the terrible pogroms of May 1966 against
>> > Igbos
>> > in the North, all other plausible motives for the coup had been almost
>> > completely erased by assertions, indeed pronouncements that the coup had
>> > incontrovertibly been an Igbo coup. But Achebe's book was written more
>> > than
>> > forty years after the event and it had the advantage of both historical
>> > hindsight and a vast body of accumulated research and discourses. For
>> > this
>> > reason, there is no other conclusion left for us other than a finding
>> > that
>> > Achebe almost certainly has a driving rationale for sticking exclusively
>> > to
>> > ethnicity or "tribalism" while simultaneously ignoring or excluding all
>> > other plausible, and in some cases factual, factors.
>> >
>> > At any rate, this is precisely what Achebe repeats in the second of our
>> > two
>> > examples. This pertains to the period of regional and nation-wide crises
>> > between 1964 to 1966 that preceded the January 15 coup and the
>> > Nigeria-Biafra war. Here, in Achebe's own words, is the particular case:
>> > "By
>> > the time the government of the Western region also published a white
>> > paper
>> > outlining the dominance of the ethnic Igbo in key government positions
>> > in
>> > the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the Nigerian Ports Authority, the
>> > situation for ethnic Igbos working in Western Nigeria in particular and
>> > all
>> > over Nigeria in general had become untenable" (p. 77). This is indeed a
>> > fact, but it is a partial fact, one aspect of a complex of facts and
>> > realities many of which Achebe chooses to ignore or obscure. It is
>> > useful to
>> > carefully state what these other facts and realities were.
>> >
>> > First, the government of the Western region that Achebe alludes to here
>> > was
>> > that of Chief S.L. Akintola and his party, the Nigerian National
>> > Democratic
>> > Party (NNDP). Arguably, these were the most perniciously right-wing
>> > government and party in southern Nigeria in the entirety of our
>> > post-independence political history. Achebe completely ignores this fact
>> > and
>> > fixes exclusively on this government's anti-Igbo programs and diatribes.
>> > Secondly, Akintola's government and party were not only virulently
>> > anti-Igbo, they were also scurrilously anti-welfarist and
>> > anti-socialist. A
>> > brilliant orator and a master of Yoruba rhetorical arts, Akintola
>> > tirelessly
>> > satirized a range of targets and issues of which Igbos were only one
>> > composite group. He was particularly fond of spewing out twisted,
>> > parodic
>> > visions of welfarism and socialism in which everything would be shared –
>> > wives, children, family heirlooms and personal belongings. There is not
>> > the
>> > slightest doubt in my mind that Achebe had to have been aware of these
>> > facts
>> > and realities; but he ignores them completely. Thirdly and lastly,
>> > Akintola
>> > and his party quite deliberately stoked the fires of intra-ethnic
>> > tensions
>> > and resentments within Yoruba sub-groups and they took this as far as
>> > founding a rival Pan-Yoruba organization to the Egbe Omo Oduduwa which
>> > they
>> > called "Egbe Omo Olofin". And for good measure, they tried,
>> > unsuccessfully,
>> > to instigate the late Duro Ladipo to write and produce a play to counter
>> > Hubert Ogunde's famous pro-Awolowo and pro-UPGA play, Yoruba Ronu.
>> >
>> > It must be emphasized that all these intra-class and intra-ethnic facts
>> > and
>> > realities were so well-known at the time that Achebe could not have been
>> > ignorant of them. We are left with no other conclusion than that Achebe
>> > simply had no place in his book for any factors, any realities beyond a
>> > pristine, autochthonous conception of ethnic identity and belonging in
>> > which
>> > no other aspects of social identification are allowed to "contaminate"
>> > the
>> > singularity of ethnicity . This, I suggest, is what we see in its
>> > quintessence in the argument expressed in the first of the two epigraphs
>> > to
>> > this essay to the effect that Nzeogwu being Igbo "in name only", the
>> > January
>> > 15 coup could not have been "an Igbo coup".
>> >
>> > In last week's beginning essay in this series, I made the assertion that
>> > Achebe is one of the greatest realist writers in world literature in the
>> > last century and half. I now wish to clarify the relevance of that
>> > assertion
>> > to the present discussion. One of the most compelling claims of realism
>> > is
>> > that it is the mode or genre in which the chain of representation in a
>> > work
>> > of literature or, more broadly, an intellectual treatise, comes closest
>> > to
>> > the chain of causality in nature, history or society. In a layman's
>> > formulation of this "big grammar", this means that above all other
>> > modes,
>> > forms and genres, it is in realism that what is presented in a work of
>> > art
>> > or a treatise is as close as you can possibly get to how things actually
>> > happened. Another way of putting this across is to suggest that
>> > typically
>> > and unavoidably, there being always and forever a big gap between how
>> > things
>> > actually happen and how they are (re)presented in writing, it is only
>> > the
>> > most gifted and talented realist writers that come close to bridging
>> > that
>> > gap.
>> >
>> > In all of Achebe's books on our pre-colonial and postcolonial
>> > experience, he
>> > had come closer than perhaps any other writer to this conception and
>> > practice of realism. More specifically, ethnicity, class and
>> > individuality
>> > had been superbly interwoven and productively explored in such titles as
>> > No
>> > Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah, The
>> > Trouble
>> > with Nigeria and Home and Exile. Thus, in my opinion, There Was A
>> > Country
>> > marks a radical rupture in Achebe's writings on our country, a rupture
>> > in
>> > which the realist rigour of his previous writings gives way to, or is
>> > considerably modified by a mystique, an apologia, an uncompromising
>> > defense
>> > of Igbo ethno-nationalism. I do not think that Achebe took this path in
>> > a
>> > fit of absent-mindedness; to the contrary, I think it is a decision, a
>> > choice he made in this new book quite deliberately and purposively. In
>> > next
>> > week's continuation of this series, I shall deal extensively even if
>> > only
>> > speculatively with this choice, with particular reference to what I
>> > personally regard as one of the most controversial aspects of There Was
>> > A
>> > Country, this being the link that Achebe makes in the book between what
>> > he
>> > deems the endemic ethnic scapegoating of Igbos in our country and the
>> > utter
>> > collapse of meritocracy in post-civil war Nigeria.
>> >
>> > Concluded.
>> >
>> > bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > kenneth w. harrow
>> > faculty excellence advocate
>> > distinguished 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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