For some of the questions you have asked at the end, there is a book by Charles Tilly titled: "Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 1990 - 1992" that can help you answer the questions form the perspective of LONGUE DUREE.
Given my professional training, I find it a deep poverty of sociological and anthropological understanding of what it means to be human when we use big brush to paint people simply because they come from a geograhical region or ethnic group. There is no one single Igbo person, Yoruba person, Hausa person or Fulani person etc. etc. that represents all his or her group.
As Milton Friedman said, even though I disagree with his opinion on other things, if humanity can be understood this way, why do you need all the people. You can just use one as a representative sample of all. List all the factors that shape people's humanity and you will find out that even if people come from the same ethnic group, the factors will not apply to them universally or equally to the same degree. Indeed, some studies indicate even one's position in sequence of birth in a family can have a profound effect on his or her values and orientation.
As Milton Friedman said, even though I disagree with his opinion on other things, if humanity can be understood this way, why do you need all the people. You can just use one as a representative sample of all. List all the factors that shape people's humanity and you will find out that even if people come from the same ethnic group, the factors will not apply to them universally or equally to the same degree. Indeed, some studies indicate even one's position in sequence of birth in a family can have a profound effect on his or her values and orientation.
What bothers me in this respect is that many Africans will condemn white racism but fail to understand that in the analysis of things in their own countries ,they use the same racist logic. The same logic that uses one big brush to paint all Yorubas, all Igbos, all Kanuris, all Fulanis, all Hausa etc etc. can be used to paint from the U.S. all Nigerians, all Africans etc.
Did we not face situations where what some Nigerians committed in the U.S. started creating the idea of a Nigerian as a criminal? When my colleague came to join our department and he is a Yoruba person, I told him that we should just put ourselves on probation because there is a lot of negative news circulating about Nigerians in the U.S. I said let us just pretend that in whatever we do someone is recording us with a video camera and at the end they will have to admit they cannot essentialize what it means to be a Nigerian. We did not like that. We objected to being essentialized.
But why use the same logic to paint a whole region or people. The only way you can make such a strong argument is to reduce it to genetics. But if it is a cultural argument, I am willing to engage anyone on the diverse ways that culture operates or manifests itself in varying ways. Simply because people are from the same country, ethnic group, religion, does not mean that they all experience culture the same way or were shaped the same way by the culture. This is a lesson that should be taken care of in the nursery school of cultural anthropology.
I am from Bauchi State but a Christian minority, an ethnic minority and from a peasant background. Does it mean all other Christians in Bauchi share the same experience with me? Nope! And even among the Muslims in Bauchi State who are Hausa or Fulani, they do not share the same experience. I feel embarrassed discussing this. Let me say this for those that are Christians, even the disciples of Jesus did not experience him the same way simply because they were together. Soren Kierkegaard has highlighted this line of reasoning in his Christian existentialism. People can be at the same place and the same time and draw contrasting lessons about the experience.
Did we not face situations where what some Nigerians committed in the U.S. started creating the idea of a Nigerian as a criminal? When my colleague came to join our department and he is a Yoruba person, I told him that we should just put ourselves on probation because there is a lot of negative news circulating about Nigerians in the U.S. I said let us just pretend that in whatever we do someone is recording us with a video camera and at the end they will have to admit they cannot essentialize what it means to be a Nigerian. We did not like that. We objected to being essentialized.
But why use the same logic to paint a whole region or people. The only way you can make such a strong argument is to reduce it to genetics. But if it is a cultural argument, I am willing to engage anyone on the diverse ways that culture operates or manifests itself in varying ways. Simply because people are from the same country, ethnic group, religion, does not mean that they all experience culture the same way or were shaped the same way by the culture. This is a lesson that should be taken care of in the nursery school of cultural anthropology.
I am from Bauchi State but a Christian minority, an ethnic minority and from a peasant background. Does it mean all other Christians in Bauchi share the same experience with me? Nope! And even among the Muslims in Bauchi State who are Hausa or Fulani, they do not share the same experience. I feel embarrassed discussing this. Let me say this for those that are Christians, even the disciples of Jesus did not experience him the same way simply because they were together. Soren Kierkegaard has highlighted this line of reasoning in his Christian existentialism. People can be at the same place and the same time and draw contrasting lessons about the experience.
People like me have suffered because of marginalization but it will be stupid for me to say that all Fulanis or Hausas are this, or that simply because people come form the North they are this or that. Using geographical explanation or regional location to account for people's behavior is no more accepted as a good explanation on its own. Jared Diamond made this kind of exclusively environmental argument in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" but institutionalists have challenged him on grounds that people can be in the same environment but variation in institutions make a huge difference. Institution shape rationality (bounded rationality as per the debate between substantivists and formalist schools in economic anthropology) and reduce transaction cost etc. if they are functioning well and this can make a huge difference in human behavior and choices.
Woe unto Africans or Black people who detest or hate white racism but ignore its logic or substance, to the extent that when they talk about things in their own country, they use the same framework or logic as white racism. What they say, if said by a White person will generate great anger in the name of White supremacy. Blacks can essentialize other humans but they should be prepared if they are essentialized as a group too.
To me all this kind of approach to analysis of social groups when compared to the way we reject racism against Blacks in the U.S. is a huge hypocrisy. If the attempt by White racism to use a big brush to paint all people because they come from Africa is wrong, why should a Black person using a big brush to paint the whole of northern Nigeria or any part of Nigeria that way be treated as alright?
Some whites assume they only value freedom, but when some Mexican soldiers realized that they would have to surrender to U.S. forces during the U.S. - Mexican war, they tied the flag of their country on their head and took a jump from one of the tallest building in Mexico city if I remember very well and died. It was more honorable as they saw it. One U.S. president was so touched by that level of commitment of the soldiers and their love for their country that he decided to honor the graves of those soldiers by a visit and laying a wreath even though it was outside his official schedule.
Bottom-line -- it is not only White people that value freedom as some whites assumed, and just as it is wrong for whites to use a big brush to paint other social groups of humanity it is also wrong for Black Africans to do that. We cannot have different standards for Whites and Blacks. Our anaysis should avoid moral duplicity. If we are willing to engage that for some kind of psychological satisfaction that we must allow that for Whites too.
To me all this kind of approach to analysis of social groups when compared to the way we reject racism against Blacks in the U.S. is a huge hypocrisy. If the attempt by White racism to use a big brush to paint all people because they come from Africa is wrong, why should a Black person using a big brush to paint the whole of northern Nigeria or any part of Nigeria that way be treated as alright?
Some whites assume they only value freedom, but when some Mexican soldiers realized that they would have to surrender to U.S. forces during the U.S. - Mexican war, they tied the flag of their country on their head and took a jump from one of the tallest building in Mexico city if I remember very well and died. It was more honorable as they saw it. One U.S. president was so touched by that level of commitment of the soldiers and their love for their country that he decided to honor the graves of those soldiers by a visit and laying a wreath even though it was outside his official schedule.
Bottom-line -- it is not only White people that value freedom as some whites assumed, and just as it is wrong for whites to use a big brush to paint other social groups of humanity it is also wrong for Black Africans to do that. We cannot have different standards for Whites and Blacks. Our anaysis should avoid moral duplicity. If we are willing to engage that for some kind of psychological satisfaction that we must allow that for Whites too.
Samuel
On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 6:14 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyinkaidara@gmail.com> wrote:
Characters like Abba and Buhari will argue that Abacha did not steal, in spite of all the huge Abacha loot publicly returned to Nigeria over the years.In spite of the Abacha family admitting to the theft by cutting a deal with the Nigerian govt to return part of the money to Nigeria and keep the rest, these characters still insist on denying reality in a most horrible demonstration of evil hypocrisy.Yet, these same characters will do anything to locate political power in their Northern Muslim region, the home of the kleptomanic Abacha.These characters will claim that they are fighting for justice for Nigeria.They are both unified in profound and vicious ethnic/religious hypocrisy.Abacha is a Northern Nigerian Muslim like them, and so reality must be revised for his sake.When such characters claim to have anything to say agst corruption in Nigeria, shouting loudly as they do,does anthing they say or do along those lines have any value?Does Nigeria exist a nation in the sense of shared values and common direction?No.Its a country of divided disparate entities, where everyone congregates but with which no one identifies as a project to develop in the common good.Its like pouring water into a leaking basket.As far as I can see, it cant work.We need a discussion by all ethnicities as to where they want to go.Toyin--On 5 October 2015 at 07:13, Acer Acer <mjogundu1@msn.com> wrote:Abba,
Unless some of you are playing to the gallery, there have been numerous evidence showing that Gen. Abacha looted the treasury like most Nigeria presidents and heads of state before him and all of them after he was eliminated from the scene. They are all culpable in their respective effort to destroy the country through looting, embezzlement of the people's collective resources. Regardless of your denial, he looted the treasury like Babangida, Obasanjo, Buhari, Abdul Salami, Jonathan along with members of their cabinets, governors, permanent secretaries, heads of government agencies and business cronies. None of them is innocent. So call a spade, a spade and the issue will be left alone. Anyone that reads your denial on behalf of Abacha will conclude that you support the looting of the nation's resources as long as the looter is from your neck of the woods. Please stop defending the indefensible.
Dr. Joseph Ogundu
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2015 22:57:57 -0700
Subject: Re: NigerianID | Re: Switzerland returns $380 million Abacha loot [Even After Dismissal of this Loot by New Nigerian Ruler]
From: abba2007@gmail.com
To: topcrestt@yahoo.com
CC: ebohon@dmu.ac.uk; toyinkaidara@gmail.com; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com; NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com; NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; Naijadreamteamintellectuals@yahoogroups.co.uk; nigeria360@yahoogroups.com; talkhard@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; okonkwonetworks@googlegroups.com; raayiriga@yahoogroups.com; NaijaEvent@googlegroups.comBro. Joe the Pastor,Yes, I have not seen any incontrovertible evidence to that effect....and I believe if Abatcha was alive today, probably no one will be accusing him of thievery. If it is indeed true that he stole the said amount (as alleged by the Swiss), then I shall happily do a Kasirim (of Naijanet of yore) and reverse my priors. We spare no one, my friend. I never met with Abatcha or anyone in his family...I absolutely have no dog in this fight. I call it the way it is. Even if I did know or meet him (or his loved ones), that, in itself, will not remotely deter me from calling a spade a spade.AbbaOn 4 October 2015 at 15:35, Joe Attueyi topcrestt@yahoo.com [NigerianID] <NigerianID-noreply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:I second the motion. Money should be returned to the Abacha family.If I am not mistaken I believe my brother Abba also said there is no proof Abacha stole our moniesJoe
Sent from my iPhoneI supposed the money would be returned to his family since PMB said he did not steal
OJ
From: okonkwonetworks@googlegroups.com [mailto:okonkwonetworks@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Sent: 04 October 2015 15:48
To: USAAfricaDialogue; Bring your baseball bat; <nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com>; naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com; Nigerian ID; Kenneth Joshua kennethnuhu@hotmail.com [Naijadreamteamintellectuals]; Punch me I deck U; Talkhard; Omo Oodua; 'ishola williams' via OkonkwoNetworks
Subject: Switzerland returns $380 million Abacha loot [Even After Dismissal of this Loot by New Nigerian Ruler]
see post and rich thread at link
Switzerland returns $380 million Abacha loot
About $380 million Nigerian money, stolen and stashed in accounts in Switzerland by late Head of State, Sani Abacha, will be returned, Swiss officials said Tuesday.
The money was confiscated in 2014 after it was transferred to the country from Luxembourg where it had been seized since 2006, Geneva prosecutors said.
This followed an agreement between the Nigerian Government and the family of the late dictator.
The money was confiscated on the ground that the Abacha family was a criminal organisation, according to the Swiss authorities.
The process of returning the loot to Nigeria will be supervised by the World Bank.
With the return, Geneva prosecutors have closed their case with the Abacha family which was opened in 1999. Abba Abacha was the last member of the family under investigation.
Meanwhile, previously Switzerland has returned to Nigeria more than $700 million that late Abacha hid in Swiss accounts.
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Samuel Zalanga
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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