Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - No, Jonathan Wouldn’t Have Been Better!

Ken:  

You wrote about your discomfiture about Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and sunday oppression.  This was a drama whose script was rehearsal-written with the 1967 Arab Israeli Yom Kippur war.  I believe this is a case where Nigeria (warts and all) stands as a shining example to the international community.  

After Nigeria's first civil war if the military leaders of the federal side had encouraged a policy (or looked the other way) while emissaries and agents of the emirs grabbed Igbo lands in the east as spoils of war while the Igbo nation was down on its knees we would not have the Nigeria we have today would we?  All the conquerors would need to do is use instruments of the state to keep them perpetually on their knees.  This is where credit must be given to whom its due that the Gowons and Obasonjos (despite their human inadequacies and lapses that led to the war in the first place) were able to enforce this policy.

The world has a supervening supranational institution (formed at the behest of exchange of letters between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud among others as I maintained years ago).  That this body could turn a blind eye and allow Israel to profit fron naked aggression laid the ground work for the crisis in that region today.  A situation facilitated by a disguised Arab hatred in that body.  It is not too late for hat body to make it clear that it would march in with an overwhelming supra national force to dislodge the Israeli invaders from their forced acquisition and enshrine in its charter that exchange of lands can be secured ONLY  through negotiations.  There all Israeli sabre rattling will end.  This is where the manner of ending Nigeria's first civil war exemplifies Nigeria as a nation worthy of emulation by the international community to upgrade its human index.

The other matter which I wanted to comment up in a few weeks ago but which my existential predicament almost shut down was the ordeal of my friend (Farooq) at the Nigerian embassy in Georgia.  What I wanted to say then is that he should consider himself lucky for being a Nigerian which shortened his irdeal to 7 hrs. (I know there is room for improvement in all situations)

I know the intimate details of someone in a similar situation to his in Her Majestys passport office in London ( no apocryphal tale intended here) who wanted to procure a travel document (one day passport renewal) still waiting the fourth year and may have to wait 7 years (not 7 hrs) on the bogus spurious excuse of identity checks.  His only crime: member of the minority community.  He is apparently  one of the victims of reactions to the glut of EU influx which led predictably and deservedly to Brexit.

It is doubtful whether any of the officers acting in the disguised hatred couched in the language of identity checks will ever be brought to justice since they will plead to be only carrying out orders and doing their duties at a time when Her Majestys spouse was acting as personal chauffeur to a visiting black American president Her Majesty is preparing to welcome a black daughter in law into the fold and Prince Harry is getting his hustings as a journalist in a radio interview with Barack Obama: in short at a time when the Royal Family is putting its best foot forward to demonstrate leadership by example that the age of bigotry is over. 

 It all goes to show that sometimes when there are problems it isn't always the lesdership that is to blame but the followership themselves as in the celebrated case of the bòok ' Ordinary Men" on the Holocaust.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu>

Date: 01/01/2018 03:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - No, Jonathan Wouldn't Have Been Better!

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (harrow@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Gloria is right that no enmity need be eternal. In fact, unless there is an economic motive, enmity will dissipate quickly. My own view.

As for the analogy between jews and germans, that doesn't quite work for me. The germans with whom the jews made up were not Nazis, but the opposite: those who outlawed Nazism in all forms, down to this day. And especially those who sided with the enemies of the Nazis.

The jews who made up, too, were not really The Jews but Israelis who accepted reparations, not quite the same as making up.

Most jews I knew when I grew up after WWII hated the germans, refused to buy german products, like VWs, and certainly never went to Germany. We are now 3 generations after that day, and not only has that hatred weakened, especially for the younger generation, the germans themselves have become the model nation that has apologized for its holocaust. If you go to berlin you will be impressed, or even overwhelmed, by the monuments, the tokens to the past, the reminders, and above all, the deep signs of apologizing for that past.

The Israelis are no where close to apologizing for the occupation, the slaughtering of Palestinians in gaza, the new settlements, the expulsions and ethnic cleanings, the wall, the prison abuse etc.

It is not easy for jews like myself to see in Israel, what had once been the great golden hope of the jewish people, turn into the oppressive state.

Will this change one day? Maybe not. When the invading Europeans took the native people's lands and put them onto reservations, there was no basic change in policy. There have been vague gestures toward apologies, but no truth and reconciliation commission, no resolution to the miserable conditions on all too many reservations, except for those w casinos or minerals.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@ccsu.edu>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 31 December 2017 at 20:34
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - No, Jonathan Wouldn't Have Been Better!

 

Well the Nazis connote genocide,
death camps, gold filling extraction and a host of despicable actions.As I said in another list, if the Jews can make up with the Germans, then they could certainly come to an agreement with the Palestinians. But that is a stray point. The real issue here is about politician s and the lies they weave. Few can be trusted. You can only think in relative terms at the moment of voting.
Who would have thought that Alassane Ouattara would turn out to be such a lousy, avaricious,ungrateful President but he did. Gbagbo's friend

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Professor of History
History Department
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain. CT 06050
www.africahistory.net
www.gloriaemeagwali.com
www.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html
Chief Editor- "Africa Update"
www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
8608322815  Phone
8608322804 Fax

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 4:01:16 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - No, Jonathan Wouldn't Have Been Better!

 

"No Nazi invocation, I plead." (Moderator)

Why not, if within context and helps to illuminate viewpoints?

CAO.



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