Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones.
By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition.
That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.
Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?
Biko
On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018<yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
EDITED
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-------- Original message --------From: Windows Live 2018 <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism
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BikoI'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms. What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.
It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position. Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.
My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here. It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland. The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.
Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?
Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs. So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render. Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth. The institution will surely outlast you and I
OAA
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-------- Original message --------From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism
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You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.
It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality.
Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man.
I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.
I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.
Biko--
On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018<yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:--Biko.I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )
Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife. That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies. I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.
Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend. That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.
Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas). When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.' Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.
HRH OAA.
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-------- Original message --------From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism
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Biko--
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