On Sunday, December 9, 2018, Chielozona Eze <chieloz@gmail.com> wrote:
Obododimma,
You are unto something profound here. Reading you reminds me of Areoye Oyebola, one of the very few African intellectuals to defy the overwhelming tendency in African thinking to always begin every discourse by accusing the West and conclude it by positing what they believe to be authentically African.
Your sharp analysis of African blame-game is similar to what I'm working on now. What you call the logic of blaming, I call the syllogism of a wounded psyche. Blaming others is a typical post-colonial phenomenon. It is borne of Africa's shock of defeat at the hands of the white man. It is a particular form of despair at the overwhelming superiority of Western mastery of reality and Africa's failure to do the same. The African resorts to what my friend Denis Ekpo calls moral posturing. Moral posturing results from accusing others, and it functions in the illusion that once the other has been shown his/her place, then the accuser is, ipso facto, clean/redeemed, absolved of all culpability.
One of the major decisive points in African syllogism of the wounded psyche can be found in Things Fall Apart, in the scene in which Obierika, humiliated by the ignominious death of Okonkwo, turns to accuse the district officer of having driven Okonkwo to kill himself. Another is yet Obierieka's judgment that the white man put a knife on the things that held Umuofia together and they fell apart.
Chinua Achebe, as the literary scholars among us here would attest, helped shape African postcolonial thought. But it is a particular brand of thought that derives its potency from accusation - J'accuse. The syllogism of that brand of postcolonial thought is simple, if not simplistic. First premise: Accuse the white man (God, there's a bunch of evil that can be traced back to him). Second premise: posit the black man's implied innocence as the victim of history (Is he innocent?). Conclusion: posit African "X" or African "Y".
I'm wondering what would have been the color of postcolonial African thought if Obierieka had acknowledged that Umuofia never really stood together and that Okonkwo was also to blame for his death.
Thanks for sharing.
Chielozona
Chielozona EzeProfessor, African Literature and Cultural Studies, Northeastern Illinois University; Extraordinary Professor, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.Fellow - Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africawww.Chielozona.com
https://neiu.academia.edu/ChielozonaEze --On Sat, Dec 8, 2018 at 4:35 PM Obododimma Oha <obodooha@gmail.com> wrote:You need a refreshing weekend. You do. Don't mind Obododimma with that
"Our Odelele Choice." Now, you need to know something more about
blaming others, especially when it has been made a family business. I
would like you to have "The Logic of Blaming" this weekend.
To read the full essay on one of my blogs, click on this URL:
https://x-pensiverrors.blogspot.com/2018/12/the- logic-of-blaming.html
Thank you.
Obododimma.
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B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.
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B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.
COORDINATES:
Phone (Mobile):
+234 8033331330;
+234 9033333555;
+234 8022208008;
+234 8073270008.
Skype: obododimma.oha
Twitter: @mmanwu
Personal Blog: http://udude.wordpress.com/
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
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