Hi obi
I enjoy reading, as an outsider to your profession, these analyses. So take this as the amateur’s musings. It may be the case theoretically that the republic and the kingdom do not mix: oil and water. You are right—but perhaps only in theory.
The combinations of sovereignty lead to many many possible configurations, whatever the state might proclaim its constitution to be. Just imagine a state apparatus—call it republican, but in reality relatively mixed—alongside county, city, etc. governances. There are regional, as in france; states, as in the u.s. and within all those, other forms. We have townships, in Michigan. Then the universities control a good deal of their territory, avoid state and city taxes, have their own police forces. The churches too march to relatively different drummers from state institutions or configurations.
Why not a thing, a local thing, called a kingdom. We might call it a county with a county executive. We might call it a native reservation with its own council and ruler, native ruler. Under the ultimate authority of the state…?
And these configurations all, without exception, enter into conflict when the larger one says to the smaller, give me taxes, or let my policing supplant your own.
You can see that with all the messiness re marijuana nowadays (if you are following that).
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday 9 May 2017 at 10:05
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obi of Onitsha, Ooni Ogunwusi and HRH Sanusi as Growing National Brands
Chika, first, no one can abolish the ethnic religious groups, be they in India or any other place. That's out of the question. The class and cast systems themselves are situations sedimented by economic and religious reality. All those are besides the point. As a matter of fact, the security of one's religion or ethnicity, is part of the reality in the creation of a modern republic. Ideally, the only "class" permitted by the republic is "equal citizenship" irrespective of those affiliations. Whatever else accentuates any disparity in class formation arises, as Marx would put it, from the convergence of "material" and "historical" conditions. Secondly, it is not quite right that the Indian state is the product of "Hindu nationalism." Hindu nationalists may have had a great hand in India's nationalist movement, but you must remember that the legacy of Ghandi is of pluralism, and Jawaharhal Nehru was a secularist. E.M. Forster's Passage to India, at the very least, gives us a sense of the plural nature of Indian nationalism under the British Raj. The Hindutva - Hindu revivalist and militant nationalism does contend with the Islamist movement of which it is in great conflict even in cotemporary India. But also note that among the great monarchies abolished by the Indian republic were Hindu Rajas and Kumaris.
And Okey, this is not just a mere matter of my "hating" monarchies. This is also not a question of adapting the monarchies to a republican state. This is a question about nation and forms of nation. Nigeria chose to be a multiethnic republic, not a constitutional monarchy. And there is a reason for that. A republic by its very nature is, well, a republic. Adapting the monarchies to a republic is fundamental contradiction - it is like mixing paint and water. Besides, it diffuses loyalties, and in a very fragile state like Nigeria with its plural contours, it keeps active the fissures that continue to limit its formation as nation. You cannot have two captains in a ship.
Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukaga001@umn.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 12:25 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obi of Onitsha, Ooni Ogunwusi and HRH Sanusi as Growing National Brands
And why must we copy India? Nigeria and Nigerians should be free to adopt/adapt/develop any system they like/want/need, and to keep or change that as they find necessary and appropriate. Obi does not like monarchy and for that reason wants everyone to also not like it. Well, that is not going to happen. Some will continue to like it while others will not. Best to make peace with such reality and move on. Regards!
OU
On May 9, 2017 6:08 AM, "Chika Okeke-Agulu" <okekeagulu@gmail.com> wrote:
Obi, the Indians may have abolished their monarchies, but not the nationalisms of its constituent ethnic and religious groups, or its uniquely entrenched class system. India is a nation funded by Hindu nationalism. It is no more secular than Nigeria, despite having a better working democratic system.
Chika
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