Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2023 4:07:21 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Today's Quote
Where do you think the expression "shuffering and shmiling" comes from?
This is an instance when we have the lumpenproletariat seated in that Danfo - many of them - with the certain exception of the driver whose head was being bumped brutally and repeatedly on the steering wheel in front of him as his punishment for allegedly causing the "go slow!". We have the whole scene caught red-handed on camera as per my narration, identifying with the brutal police constable who represents the lower echelons of the towering, corrupt power structure. If it was a colonial policeman in the good old colonial times in unison we would have called it RACISM: - but I don't suppose that there was ever that kind of colonial policeman, especially not in Graham Greene, "The Heart of the Matter " or Joyce Cary's "Mister Johnson". Fast forward to an intensification of that kind of brutality, in history, and you arrive at Rodney King and George Floyd in the United States and what's being perpetrated frequently in the occupied Palestinian territories, being perpetrated by the wanton sinners who claim "God gave us the land" - the same God who issued The Sixth Commandment and all the other commandments?
This incident, indelibly etched as it is, is a good example of "The Stockholm Syndrome", in this case, a foreign ( strange) Nigerian mentality. You know how it is with what's known as "crowd psychology". Every day suffering Nigerians identify with their oppressors - especially if they are of the same tribe and ilk. It's "Every day is for the thief", isn't it.
On a good day it's "Hosannah!" and on a bad day, they don't call it "Good Friday " for nothing, so it was, "Crucify him!"
In this case, it would seem that the crowd identified with the police constable who - shock and awe, stealth and surprise, I had so easily thrown off balance and onto the ground. It's just that when he got up with that hideous smile on his face, took off his belt and told me that he was going to teach me a lesson, I knew there and then his intention was to flay me alive with the silver buckle of his belt - to avenge his humiliation. So I did the wisest thing. I ran for my life. "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" I ran as fast as my legs could carry me along that road, one hand carrying one of my bags laden with fruits and belt in hand the police constable ran after me for a while while the crowd around the danfo cheered and jeered until like Jesus, I disappeared into the crowds at Mile One Market
Didn't the crowds cheer the hungry lions ripping up Christians in the Roman arenas?
A magnificent piece Cornelius.
Did you really knock down the policeman?
If so why would the bus passengers cheer him after the bad thing he was doing?
Thanks
Toyin--
On Tue, May 16, 2023 at 7:21 PM Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:
Chidi the Poet,
You provoke a reaction. No smoke without fire. Remember, "Provocation is next to mad-ness"
It's unfortunate that in the heat of the moment, Seun threw discretion, the better part of valour - to the winds, and that his indignation and anger erupted the way that it did. The psychological causes of that eruption are probably deep-seated, maybe even genetic, a part of his DNA, given his father's long-standing relations with the authorities known as the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Police.
The first time I found myself listening to Swedish Radio was sometime in the mid-80s in Stockholm flipping through stations, I arrived at one of the stations that was not blasting classical or pop music and this is exactly what I heard, in Swedish: "Nigeria, where between the airport and my hotel, I was robbed twice; first by the military, and then by the police"
Not so farfetched and not necessarily racism ( although it could have been a case of racism against the Oyibo or tribalism, or both. Man's inhumanity to man/ woman: Police Brutality : rob him.; "repaying the colonial debt" etc. You can well imagine the details of the story about what happened at the checkpoints.
Is it any wonder that Buhari & Idiagbon had this at the top of their agenda: WAI - War Against Indiscipline ?
Before God and man, one would have thought that as a poetic representative of the Motor Park Mentality with which you are so well acquainted, you would be well aware of all the possible antics of Particulars Joe. I'm talking about the downtrodden and oppressed people of the People's Motor Park at Owerri which is our political, social and economic constituency, " our", being the same as the lumpenproletariat of the PPP ( the Poor People's Party) and in your case, with the Motor Park which is in your heart and is your haunt, I take it as for granted that it's not only the streetwise Say Tokyo Kid, that is aware of the gravity of the situation and that you too as a habitue at that place, the people's park, the centre of gravity of our poor people's daily bread, are aware, because the poetic evidence in print points to the impression that you are a people's poet and everybody in this forum can attest to that and our testimony is true. We are not some fake politicians, sycophants or flatterers, the type who said that "Peter Obi is the conscience of Nigeria" and the pastors who said that he is God's gift to humanity, that Peter Obi had been sent by their God, to redeem the people of Nigeria. ( I just listened in to the British House of Commons about the investigations that targeted Javad Marandi, as if the UK was now sinking into money laundering & corruption usually associated with turd world / s-hole countries)
Therefore, take this unsolicited piece of advice, to thine heart, Dear Chidi even if I sound a little like Polonius to Prince Hamlet here :
In Sierra Leone and Nigeria: ( less so in Ghana)
In the presence of a police constable, you have to
Suspend your great big chest-beating poetic ego.
Suspend all highfalutin notions of Human Rights,
Justice, and equality before the law. In all circumstances
You've got to act/ react with due respect and subservience.
Intili? In your soul, in the heat of that moment, you've got to
Descend into answering Jiddu Krishnamurti's question:
Why are you afraid of being nothing which in fact is exactly what you are ?
I know that it's a very difficult question, especially for people like Kp ( Per Roguey) a good illustration of " a little learning is a dangerous thing", getting too big for their boots, start imagining that they are great ( like Wittgenstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Cicero, Alexander the Great) - or as great as distinguished Ojogbon professors occupying distinguished chairs and royal academic thrones. The worst case scenarios: big brother Nigerians, self-imagined sons of God who go around, trying to impress, bully, browbeat and intimidate those who they see as their inferiors - into submission, with questions such as, "Do you know who I am?"
On Nigerian Airways, London - Port Harcourt, my travel companion Solomon, a former soldier (Captain) in the Biafran Army, what did he do and what did he say? Just when they were announcing " Fasten your seatbelts", that's when he got up to go to the toilet. The air hostess came running over to tell him to please sit down and that's when he stood up to full attention to his full height with his beer bottle in his hand and asked her, " Do you know who I am?" - as if he was going to have her arrested when we arrived at the airport. An hour later we had zapped through customs and passport control etc and were on our way to Aba under full military escort. That's power for you. Real power, when the customs officers salute you at the airport and ask me no questions. They must have thought that I was part of his cabin luggage, or his houseboy or some big business tycoon.
Two things.
1. The slap. In 1998 I met Monty Cole, a Sierra Leonean journalist at a Sierra Leone Social function, somewhere in Camberwell, in London. I was introduced to him by Dr Bernard Fraser. I repeated - verbatim - a conversation that once too pölace between him ( Monty Cole) and the then Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, Sir Albert Margai, and Mr Cole was amazed. The conversation, which I heard on the radio, went as follows - and as the saying goes, " power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts, absolutely":
Mr Cole: Sir Albert, there have been allegations of corruption at the SLPMB…
Sir Albert: The allegations are false!
Mr Cole: Have you investigated the allegations, Sir?
Sir Albert: I say the allegations are FALSE! ( Probably trying to protect a sacred cow)
Mr Cole: Sir, how do you know that the allegations are false without any investigation?
Sir Albert: I have told you: THE ALLEGATIONS ARE FALSE
Mr Cole: But, Sir….
Mr Cole had been pressing the point and pressing his luck and " But Sir" is as far as he got, because he was cut off in mid-air by the slap which I heard, so loud and clear.
2. The assault ( insult). I well remember what happens when you confront a Nigerian Policeman physically: It was on the first day of Ramadan 1981 I had gone to buy some fruits at Mile One Market and was returning to my abode by danfo - to the flat i was sharing with Mr Rahman ( from Pakistan) and family, A police constable had stopped the danfo at a "go slow" ( traffic jam) he then took hold of the driver's head and started beating it on the steering wheel, telling him that he was the cause of the go slow. I had been sitting somewhere at the back of the vehicle and when I could no longer stand it, I got out, took the policeman by the scruff of his neck and threw him down to the ground. When he got up - great surprise was written all over his wretched face, he smiled a devilish smile and took off his belt - a thick black belt, and told me that he was going to teach me a lesson.
I had to run for my life THose who should have helped me, were cheering the policeman.
In Seun's case - if indeed he did slap the police constable, it must have been his " Do you know who I am?" celebrity status that must have saved him from the "lesson" that the policemen he had assaulted, was going to teach him…
Koffi Olomide: Pi Pi Pi ( Poor Peoples' Party)
On Tuesday, 16 May 2023 at 13:28:19 UTC+2 Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA wrote:
What are the REMOTE CAUSES of a normal Nigerian citizen physically assaulting a police officer?
-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)
--
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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