Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Complexity of Biafra

"Biafra was waging a war against genocide."

Gloria is spot on.

It's not just simplistic to claim that the war was fought to stop genocide; it is a dangerous self-deception. I, too, survived that war. I, too, grew up consuming the Igbo leaders' version of the war. But then I read books. I asked questions. I'm still searching for answers. But I'm now sure of one thing: that war could have easily been avoided. It only needed a wiser cadre of leaders. I don't easily blame the past, but if I were to do so, I'd begin with those who herded me and my family into a war that was totally avoidable. It's good to read books that seem to affirm our beliefs; it's also good to interrogate them.

Chielozona

Chielozona Eze

Bernard J. Brommel Distinguished Research Professor

Professor, Africana Studies, Northeastern Illinois University; Extraordinary Professor, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.Fellow - Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa
https://neiu.academia.edu/ChielozonaEze

My latest book: Race, Decolonization, and Global Citizenship in South Africa.

On Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 3:37 PM OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:

There were clearly genocidal tendencies against Igbo in the North following the January 1966 coups and it is undeniable.  Danjuma has explained why:  they saw some Igbo jubilating in the streets at the senseless murders of the Sardauna and other northern leaders.  

Also word went round that  most Igbo leaders were untouched by the coupists.  These are undeniable facts.  In psychoanalysis we call that the reign of mass hysteria.  The first casualty is loss of reason and common sense.  Its as though, to perpetrators, war had been declared unofficially against the North.

This explanation does not justify the genocidal tendencies  it only demonstrates how people going through collective mourning and mass hysteria are prone to behaviour far below human standards.

I have also used this to explain how this same feeling propelled a person with lofty academic credentials as Mailafia to give the potentially explosive interview on the imminent invasion of the South by Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen, and false accounts of plane loads of arms already shipped to the South.

OAA

Mr. President you swore an oath to rule according to the Constitution.  Where are the schools to promote the teaching of the country's lingua francas?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 30/09/2020 21:08 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Complexity of Biafra

Gloria,

Genocide is always complicated. Read Achebe again on There Was a Country. Read Ekwe-Ekwe on Biafra Revisited. Read Daniel Jacobs, The Brutality of Nations. Read almost everything Soyinka has written in all genres. Read also Walter Rodney on HEUA. Then let us have the discussion about the complexity of genocide. 

I am always be against genocide no matter who is targeted. Anyone who is in support of genocide or denies it because it is targeted at the Igbo has explanations to offer. There is never a justification for genocide.

Biko

On Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 09:21:36 GMT-4, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:

"Biafra was waging a war against genocide ."

This is a simplistic, unidimensional view of events, Biko. This was also a war against secession and the machinations of foreign powers who had their eyes on oil  and resources. It intersected with panafricanism, anti-colonialism, Anglo-French rivalry, the  military industrial complex of arms dealers and gun runners, federalism, Ojukwu-ism, personality conflicts, regional power blocs, intraregional and geopolitical power struggles, and a hundred more issues.

Gloria Emeagwali

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