Dialogues: June 2024

Sunday, June 30, 2024

USA Africa Dialogue Series - [COURTESY REMINDER] Roundtable: Films Everywhere, Theatre Somewhere? Musings on the direction of theatre in the postcolony through the works of Prof. Ahmed Yerima

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Films Everywhere, Theatre Somewhere? Musings on the direction of theatre in the postcolony through the works of Prof. Ahmed Yerima

Date & Time: Friday, 26th July, 2024 | 4pm WAT (West Africa Time) / 10am CST (Central Standard Time)

- ⁠Are traditional theatre spaces becoming obsolete in the digital age?

- ⁠What role does theatre play in shaping cultural imaginations and development in postcolonial Africa?

- ⁠How should budding THESPIANS - scholars, practitioners, critics, policymakers and even enthusiasts- deconstruct, decolonize and de-provincialize cultural representations of Africa in cinemas and artistic performances?

Featuring:

- Prof. Ahmed Parker Yerima, Playwright, Scholar, former Artistic Director of the National Troupe of Nigeria, and former Director-General of the National Theatre (Guest Honoree)

- ⁠Dr. Ngozi Udengwu, University of Nigeria/Albany State University (Chairperson)

- ⁠Dr Rantimi Jays Julius-Adeoye, Redeemer's University (Panelist)

- ⁠Joseph Edgar, Duke of Shomolu Productions (Panelist)

- ⁠Emmanuel Adejumo (BoiSala), National Troupe of Nigeria (Panelist)

Join the conversation, let's explore the evolving landscape of theatre and performance in postcolonial Africa!

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Female suicide bombers hit Borno

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Reckoning of Joe Biden | The New Yorker

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Breaking news : President Ramaphosa announces his new post-election multiparty National Executive

President Ramaphosa announces his new post-election multiparty National Executive

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - THIS WORLD IS RULED BY PSYCHOPATHS AND SADISTS (VIII) By S. KADIRI

I ended part VII by citing horrible media publications of what the powers that be in Israel said about the Palestine Arabs as being animals and who had no right to exist. That led me to conclude that there is difference between being a Hebrew and being a Jew.

The Hebrews speak Hebrew which is a Semitic language and closely related to Aramaic and Phoenician but also to Arabic. Ancient Hebrew, Old Testament's language had already before the Birth of Christ been replaced with Aramaic as spoken language and had become the language of the learned, in which parts of the Talmud is recorded. Through Zionism, Hebrew has undergone renaissance to become a living language (p.48, volume 8, Swedish Bonnier's Lexicon). Aram, the Biblical name for ancient Syria is an abbreviation for Aramaic language while the people are known as Aramaean or Aramean. According to Collins English Dictionary, Aramaic is an ancient language of the Middle East, still spoken in parts of Syria and Lebanon, belonging to the NW Semitic subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family. Originally, it was the language of Aram in the Fifth Century B. C. It spread to become lingua franca of the Persian Empire (p.76). Defining Biblical Aramaic, Collins English Dictionary says is the form of Aramaic that was the common language of Palestine in the New Testament. It was widespread throughout the Persian Empire from the Fifth Century and is found in the later books of the Old Testament (especially Danie 2: 4 - 7; 28). The Aramaic writing which is structured on the Phoenician is the origin to both the Hebraic and Arabic alphabets (p.152, similar definition is given in Bonnier's Lexicon, Vol. 1, p.222). Worthy of note is that the Arab is defined as a member of Semitic people, originally inhabiting Arabia, who spread throughout the Middle East, N Africa and Spain during the 7^th and 8^th Centuries AD (p. 75, Collins English Dictionary). The Arabs and the Hebrews are the same Semitic people with interwoven language whereby they share the same alphabets from Aramaic/Phoenician. All the Hebrews that remain in the Middle East are generally referred to as Oriental Hebrews while those that migrated to Europe many Centuries ago and later to the U. S. A., are known to be Occidental Hebrews but prejudicially called Jews.

Despite the fact that Occidental Hebrews had migrated and lived for many centuries in Europe from generations to generations, and spoke fluently the national language of their respective host country, they have never been accepted as full-fledged member of the society in the countries they lived. A Hebrew, according to Collins English Dictionary (2), is a member of an ancient Semitic people claiming descent from Abraham, an Israelite. The Dictionary points out in (3 and 5) that the word Jew is archaic or offensive as well as the word Jewish (p. 719 & 720). Despite the fact that the 1994 Collins English Dictionary on pages 719 and 720 explicitly informed that the words, 'Jew and Jewish' are archaic and offensive it went further to explain on page 1781 as follows, "Yiddish, a language spoken as a vernacular by Jews in Europe and elsewhere by Jewish emigrants. Historically, it is a dialect of a High German with an admixture of words of Hebrew, Romance, and Slavonic origin developed in Central and E. Europe during the Middle Ages." More expatiating on the word, 'Yiddish' is the Swedish BONNIER'S LEXIKON, Volume 9 where on page 128, one is informed as follows, "Yiddish (from the German Judisch), one of the Teutonic languages that had evolved from German. It (Yiddish) arose among Jewish groups in German speaking districts during early Middle Ages and developed further, mostly through contacts with Slavs. In the seventeenth Century, Yiddish had been widely spread among the Jews in Europe ... At the outbreak of World War II, Yiddish was spoken by about 11 million Jews. Yiddish has had a subordinate position in relation to the Hebraic in the State of Israel. While Oriental Hebrews speak both Arabic and Hebraic fluently, its Occidental descendants, prejudicially named Jews in Europe and America, speak Yiddish. Before the creation of the State of Israel from Palestine in 1948, the Oriental Hebrews lived in peace with their Arab cousins throughout the Middle East. That was why Benzion Mileikowsky, a Jew born in Warsaw, Poland, could migrate to Palestine in 1920s and thereafter renounced his Polish family name, Mileikowsky, to a Hebrew one, Netanyahu, which is the origin of the surname of the present Prime Minister of Israel, Binjamin Netanyahu.

At the outbreak of 1^st World War, there were no Arab Nation States but all Arab territories were under the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. During that War, Thomas Edward Lawrence better known as Lawrence of Arabia played a major part in the Arab's revolt against the Turks in 1916-1918. From historical records, Lawrence of Arabia was an English Archaeologist, a military and a writer. He carried out archaeological researches in Syria and became a Spy for Britain in Cairo at the outbreak of World War-1. As a contact officer encouraging the Arabs to revolt against the Turkish Empire, Lawrence had a great influence on the Arabic Northern operations. He had promised the Arabs the creation of a Great Arabic Nation under a Hashemite dynasty. Unknown to Thomas Edward Lawrence, Britain and France had agreed to balkanised the Arab territories into their spheres of influence. On May 16, 1916, when World War-1 was still ongoing, Mark Sykes of Britain and Charles Francois Picot of France concluded an agreement that divided up Arab land between the United Kingdom and France. It was from that agreement that Palestine, Jordan and Iraq became British ruled while Syria and Lebanon became French ruled which was later formalised as the League of Nations British and French Mandated Territories. Bitter over being betrayed by Britain, Lawrence withdrew from public space and in 1922 he joined the Royal Air Force as a mechanic using a pseudonym.

The Arabs were deceived by France and Britain to rise against Turkish hegemony only to find themselves in small and weak Kingdoms controlled by Britain and France through the Western controlled League of Nations. Britain and France were conscious of the fact that their strangle hold on the weak Arab Kingdoms would not last long, therefore, the idea of creating Jewish State in the Arab-Palestine territory gained momentum after the end of the First World War. Before the Second World War, Britain and France had permitted the influx of Yiddish speaking Europeans into Palestine with no negative reactions from Palestinian Arabs since there was enough space for the incoming European Yiddish settlers. When World War II broke out the immigration of European Jews into Palestine abated but Britain had created British Army's Jewish Brigade with Soldiers recruited mainly from Yiddish speaking European Jews. When the World War II ended, the emigration of Yiddish Speaking Europeans into Palestine increased under the pretext of atoning for the murder of descendants of Hebrews (Jews) that had lived in Europe for centuries during the war. The idea of creating a Jewish State in Palestine because of the massive murder of Hebraic descendants in Europe between 1933 and 1945 was hatched by Britain and France. Nevertheless, the population of Palestinian Arabs was still greater than the Yiddish population in Palestine. Britain unleashed soldiers of the British Army's Jewish Brigade on the Arabs in Palestine. The State of Israel which was born in 1948 was immediately recognised by the US and Western Europe dominated United Nations. In reality, Israel is a Yiddish State in an Arab world created by Western Europe and United States of America as a military base situated in a geographically located Islamic world. Israel is a settlers' country for the Yiddish speaking Europeans and Americans where settlers behave and see themselves as the extension of American and European civilisation in relation to the Arabs in general.

Overlooking how the State of Israel came into being, apologists from US and Western Europe claim that the current war of annihilation being perpetrated by Israel on the defenseless Palestine Arabs was caused by Hammas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Critics of Israeli for massive deployment of weapons of life extinguishers on the Palestinians have been branded as anti-Semite as if the Hebrew pretenders, named Jews, have monopoly to the epithet Semite or Semitic. Collins English Dictionary defines a Semite thus: a member of the Group of Caucasoid peoples who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians. Semitic: a branch or sub-family of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, and such ancient languages as Akkadian and Phoenician (p. 1407). Since 1948, Palestinian Arabs have continued to fight in protest of the seizure of their land to create the State of Israel. Thus, speaking at the funeral of a young Israeli Security Officer, Roy Rotenberg, killed while patrolling the Israeli-Gaza border in 1956, the then Israeli Chief of staff, Moshe Dayan said, "For eight years now (1948-1956), they (Palestinians) have sat in refugee camps of Gaza and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their land and villages, where they and their forefathers, previously dwelled, into our (Israeli) home. ...//..... Let us today take a stock of ourselves. We are a generation of settlement (settlers) and without the steel helmet and the gun's muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree and build a house (p. 267, MY PROMISED LAND; THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ISRAEL By ARI SHAVIT)." What happened on October 7, 2023, cannot be difficult to understand, considering the fact that the perpetrators of those actions have been confined into refugee camps since 1948. (To be continued)

Saturday, June 29, 2024

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Explosive North

Explosive North

Open Letter to Northern Politicians

Salihu Moh. Lukman

Kaduna

The living reality in Northern Nigeria is very explosive. If anyone is interested in finding the practical meaning of the Hobbesian description of life being 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short', just look at what life is in Northern Nigeria. Indices of poverty, unemployment, inequality are beyond description. Conditions of schools and hospitals is, to say the least, depressing. The civil service, in virtually all the nineteen states, is only a shadow of itself, with hardly any public service activity taking place. Our illustrious and respected traditional institutions have been devalued and reduced to state of hopelessness. Most of our religious leaders and centres are far removed from God's way of life. Few industries exist in the region. And on account of insecurity, agricultural activities, which is the main stay of the economy of the region, is highly on the decline.

No need to go into conventional statistical analysis of out of school children, number of people living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps. Not to talk of problems of drugs and substance abuse. Problems of broken homes and abandoned children is quite alarming. As it is, the North is an explosive waiting to explode. We have lost virtually all our homes, our families and our children. Every person with human feeling should be saddened with the reality of what the Northern part of Nigeria has become. Sadly, even the one strength the North is known for, which is strongly united political leaders, has been lost.

More than anytime in the political history of Nigeria, the North has never been disunited without any semblance of political leadership like we have in today's Nigeria. Partly, on account of lack of unity, the quality of political leadership in the North is sharply on the decline. Many so-called politicians are Internally Displaced Persons/Politicians (IDPs), especially once they are out of office. Those in office today are potential IDPs. Consequently, the worst among us, with hardly any commitment to resolving the challenges facing the North, find their way to political leadership in the North simply because they can cheaply access elective and appointive offices and control public resources, which is largely mismanaged and privatised.

Perhaps, the opportunity for Northern political leaders to redeem themselves and return the North back to rational order with committed leaders capable of responding to the challenges of the region was blown away during the tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari. The painful reality was that no leader in the political history of Nigeria gained the kind of national acceptability former President Buhari had at the beginning of his tenure. The closest was Chief M. K. O. Abiola whose election was annulled by the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. More than any Northern political leader, former President Buhari undisputedly won the votes of people from both Northern and Southern Nigeria, which could have been used to produce new crop of selfless leadership for the country. Selfless leadership is required to put every part of Nigeria on the roadmap to national development.

Golden eight years between 2015 and 2023 was lost. Instead, the country, especially the North became worse off with crisis of insecurity taking over everywhere. Problems of poverty, unemployment, drugs and substance abuses, etc. becoming almost peculiar characteristics of the Northern region. Unfortunately, here we are under President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who got majority of the votes that won him the Presidency from the three regions in the North but seem to be only interested in taking advantage of the lack of unity among leaders in the region. Certainly, not his fault and if he is uninterested in challenges facing the region, no one, especially Northern political leaders, should complain.

Partly, on account of lack of unity among leaders in the North, President Asiwaju Tinubu has marginalised the people of North-Central in the political leadership of the country. It is quite depressing that President Asiwaju Tinubu could marginalise the people of North-Central in the manner he did without leaders in the North showing any concern. In addition to marginalising the people of North-Central, he imposed Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje from North-West as National Chairman of APC, which is the ruling party. Out of all the political leaders of North-West, he finds no one who is better qualified but Dr. Ganduje with all the baggage of corruption allegations and poor political relations with other leaders in Kano State, including the Kano State Government. Partly, because of the poor relations between Dr. Ganduje and Kano State Government, the revered Kano Emirate Council has been plunged into avoidable crisis with no end in sight and President Asiwaju Tinubu is pretending to be uninterested.

So far, one year has pass into President Asiwaju Tinubu administration. No doubt, Northern political leaders are becoming weaker and more disorganised. Even the Vice President, Sen. Kashim Shettima GCON, who is the highest office holder and by virtue of that should have served as the needed rallying point for Northern politicians, is anything but a political leader. With every respect, hardly any official of the current administration of President Asiwaju Tinubu from the North, including Sen. Shettima, is willing and able to take the needed risk to defend the interest of the North. Painfully, what is emerging is that most leaders from the North are more concern about self-preservation in the government.

Because of self-preservation, already scheming for 2027 has commenced. Within the Presidency there are indicative cold war dynamics and positioning, which is alleged to be responsible for the praise-singing disposition of Vice President Shettima. The National Security Adviser (NSA), Mal. Nuhu Ribadu has devalued an exalted office almost to the status of a Protocol Office to President Asiwaju Tinubu. Virtually all other Northern politicians holding offices in this government, including the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Sen. George Akume are absentee public servants who have been reduced to members of a choir group poorly singing 'on your mandate we stand' irrespective of the shaky and staggering reality being demonstrated by the mandate holder with reference to poor service delivery and crashing living conditions in the last one year.

Despairingly, opposition political leaders are hardly any better. With hardly any exception, they seem to be only interested in their narrow ambition to contest for office in 2027. The question of uniting political leaders and developing the needed political framework to respond to national challenges is hardly given any consideration. It is quite worrisome that we have crashed, both as politicians and as a region, beyond rational reasoning. More worrisome is the fact that we imagine that we can continue like this, and perhaps current leaders impose themselves on Nigerians in 2027.

We need to caution political leaders in the country that things are about to get out of hand any moment from now especially in the North. If care is not taken, hungry people who are everywhere in the North will start breaking into homes and looting properties of innocent citizens. The other danger is that innocent citizens going about their normal businesses could be attacked on the streets by hungry people. Regrettably, all we do as politicians is to go about doing things the old way and most times promoting the primordial sentiment around ethnicity and religion as reasons for our failings. The truth is that Northern politicians are the problem of the North and by extension the country. Certainly, Northern politicians hold the remote control for the explosive in the region.

Until the North wake up and get its politicians organised, united and committed to providing the needed leadership to resolve the challenges of the region, the explosive, which the region has become may go off anytime soon. It may go off largely because of the default mindset of an average Northern politician of today's generation who only think about himself/herself alone. Any other thing, including public service and responding to societal challenges is not his/her business. For the North to wake up and change this default mindset, conscious effort must be made to develop new frontiers of political organisation in the region and in the country. Such new frontier of political organisation must be strategically about building a formidable team of respected Nigerians who could deploy themselves within the structures of a political party based on the commitment of mobilising human and material resources to resolve challenges facing the North and by extension the country.

The mistake of the past, especially with reference to former President Buhari and now President Asiwaju Tinubu whereby frontiers of political organisation was development based on individual ambition to contest election must be avoided. Developing frontiers of political organisations based on the ambitions of former President Buhari and President Asiwaju Tinubu has only produced the current monstrous reality of electing emperors and overloads who are succeeding in disintegrating the foundation of Nigerian democracy.

As it is, there is now a prevailing atmosphere of fear among political leaders. Structures of virtually all the registered political parties have been demobilised. None of the parties is organising meetings and none is recruiting members. In fact, hardly any of the registered parties and its leaders are debating what is to be done to resolve our current national challenges, especially the explosive waiting to explode in the North. Most political leaders and parties are afraid of taking initiatives that could begin to mobilise Nigerians in a different direction. And as far as the APC and President Asiwaju Tinubu are concerned, they believed they could deploy the advantage of being the so-called ruling party to win the 2027 elections even as they have failed or are failing to respond to challenges facing the country.

Remarkably, this is a complete contrast of the records of President Asiwaju Tinubu in Lagos State. Some of us who supported the emergence of President Asiwaju Tinubu did so with reference to what he did in Lagos, notably being able to recruit generation of successive visionary leaders for the State and putting in place the development blueprint that gave birth to modern Lagos State. So far, the Lagos reality is no where near what is emerging under the Asiwaju Presidency. Given the absence of any plan, governance by impulse seems to be the order with wide range of speculations all over the political landscape.

Yet, Nigerians expect our democracy to perform miracles. So long as political leaders are not willing to take the needed responsibility to start organising the new frontier of political organisation, which can hold elected leaders accountable based on which they are able to respond to societal and national challenges, our democracy will continue to produce emperors and overloads and our challenges will continue to get worse. Worsening situation will continue to spread across every part of the country. Nigerians must be reminded that the crisis of insecurity in the country was predominantly located in the North-East and some parts of North-West in 2015. Sadly, it has now covered the whole of the nineteen Northern States, South-East and parts of South-West in different ways.

Above all, it has become an explosive in the whole North waiting to explode. If care is not taken, like the problem of insecurity, the explosive in the North, which is largely a product of hunger, unemployment and collapse of economic activities may spread to other parts of the country. It will be tragic if that is allowed to happen. Nigerian politicians must wake up and do the needful. Northern political leaders must make the needed sacrifices and begin to work for the detonation of the explosive in the North. Such sacrifices must be reflected in the willingness and commitment of leaders to participate in the development of new frontiers of political organisation in the country, which should subordinate elected leaders and make them accountable. Anything short of that could make the explosive in the North to explode and spread to other parts of the country.

May God Almighty touch the hearts of all our political leaders in the country. May He also strengthen the capacity, drive and wisdom of patriotic Nigerians across every part of Nigeria to unite and develop the vanguard for the formation of the new frontiers of political organisation in the country. May God Almighty make the new frontier of political organisation successful in Nigeria capable of reforming and transforming Nigerian political parties to produce new generation of accountable and responsive political leaders across every part of the country. And May He crown the new frontier with victory in 2027 and even before 2027 immediately detonate the explosive in North. Amin!

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Friday, June 28, 2024

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