Dr Oohay,
You hit the proverbial nail on its head right there :
"some obverse reality ALSO appears (for better or worse) anytime any HOT or suspicious "legal" or non-legal controversy appears."
Ray Charles also hit on that mostly US reality in his hit song Child Support Alimony understandably ( sympathetic understanding ) alimony being one of the reasons why although St Paul advised "it's better to get married than to burn " ( to burn with lust and then to burn in the hell-fire afterwards) because of the spectre of alimony some men of substance don't want to get married, don't wanna be fleeced like a sacrificial lamb in the divorce court, not even at Reno . About the celebrity alimony scandals , I think of Tiger Woods and smile. Because of the spectre of alimony, I suppose that polygamy would not be an economically wise or viable option for most weakly paid men over there in the United States.
When Wa Thiong'o made that statement "that Njeeri was his only legal wife, adding that although he had grown-up children with his first wife, Njeeri was his only wife and that he had "no valid marital bond with any other woman", he was probably under some kind of pressure to clear the air, just in case some rival marriage claims were being made or should pop up in the usual African polygamic context, he himself an outcome of such an arrangement since his father Thiong'o wa Ndūcũ had four wives and twenty eight children , Ngugi born of his third wife, Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ. So, given that traditionalists often complain about Christian missionaries interfering with their bountiful marriage customs and other cultural norms, we must admit that that statement of Ngugi's represents a radical generational departure from the family culture and marriage customs. We may choose to call it modernity or according to Wa Thiongo's mode of expression, refer to it as decolonisation of body and mind from the trammels of ancient tribal mores and marriage customs, hence his magnum opus in Gikiyu, " I will marry when I want."
Having mentioned Tiger Woods, I must say that last night as I followed proceedings at The Toyin Falola Interviews: A Panel Discussion on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: Life and Literature , as I listened to Okey Ndibe , I found myself thinking of tigritude and Blake's The Tyger… Interestingly enough, after the matter of Wa Thiong'o excising the FGM scene in a later (Gikiyu?) edition of his The River Between was brought up, I was anxiously waiting and half-expecting Brother Ndibe to pounce ( like Soyinka's or Blake's tyger) on this kind of controversy rearing its ugly head, but as Nobel Literature Laureate Bobby Dylan once humbly sang,
"Democracy don't rule the world
You better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that's better left unsaid!"
So, so many possible things were left unsaid.
And so, even posthumously we may safely observe that Wa Thiong'o in this instance did wisely bow down or bend to societal pressure, as FGM even in the context of post-colonial modernity in Kenya and other African countries where FGM was practised by some ancestors, is still a very sensitive issue.
Now that the missionaries' gold standard of "lay down your weapons and turn the other cheek", "Love your enemies" etc is over, in the post-colonial modernity too, violence has its special language or indeed violence is also a language, in some cases, the only language which some people understand. As a language of resistance we had the Mau Mau Rebellion in tune with the Malik el Shabazz ethos "There is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully." - and therefore on the domestic front too , sometimes, the human factor, responsible for domestic violence
Fortunately or unfortunately, some obverse reality ALSO appears (for better or worse) anytime any HOT or suspicious "legal" or non-legal controversy appears.OohayAnd last, but not least, Domestic Violence in Sierra Leone
where I suppose Joe is still bragging "Ai gee am good beat"
and Sally is still showing off to her best friend,
the love marks she got from the latest beating.
Best friend is a little envious and is complaining
that her man never beats her.
"Maybe, he doesn't really love you", says Sally
On Wednesday, 4 June 2025 at 20:01:37 UTC+2 Victor Okafor wrote:Friends, as you know, the human experience is a mixed bag, encompassing the good and the ugly. The thoughtful questions posed by Dr. Oluwatoyin Adepoju are in order. In our sinful world, can individuals be falsely accused even by relatives? You bet, it happens. Do both men and women engage in domestic disputes? You bet, disputes happen, but not all the time. No human relationship is perfect, and anyone who claims perfection in his/her own relationships is self-evidently fake. The African cultural universe embraces its own sense of due process and requires a methodical adjudication of claims by both a plaintiff and a defendant before a verdict of guilty or innocence is rendered. So, the legal principle that an accused should be deemed innocent until proven guilty is not an exclusive Western jurisprudential expectation. I presume that each one of us expects this right of presumption of innocence until proven guilty to be extended to us if we ever get entangled in the judicial system. "Nobody knows tomorrow," reads a common note of wisdom that we often see on the external frames of public transportation buses that traverse our bustling cities.
An age-old adage says that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. We should, at all times, not sometimes, unreservedly extend to others, rights which we believe we are entitled to. And so, anyone on this forum who subscribes to the universal principle that a person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty should deem Ngugi Wa Thiong'O innocent of any and all accusations leveled against him by whomever during his earthly sojourn, given that the said accusations were not subjected to the scrutiny of due process. That said, one thing is for certain: each of us will ultimately answer to our Creator, the owner of our lives, for how we led our earthly lives.
Sincerely,Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.Professor and HeadDepartment of Africology and African American StudiesEastern Michigan UniversityEmail: vok...@emich.eduTel: 734.487.9594Food for Thought:"I myself do not judge a man [or a woman] by the color of his [or her] skin. The yardstick that I use to judge a man [or a woman] is his [ or her] deeds, his [her] behavior, and his [or her] intentions." -- Malcolm X.
On Wed, Jun 4, 2025, 8:07 AM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:Ngugi's Son's Accusation of His Father and the Burden of TruthThe great writer Ngugi's son publicly accused his father of being physically violent against his mother and people have taken him on his word.Why?Must it be factual because the man was his father?What do we know about his relationship with his father and about the tensions of their family?Why should a person be condemned just beceause a child or a spouse accuses the person?Are those family members not fallible humans too?Accusations of physical violence, often directed against men, draw outrage, and rightly so, although it should also necessitate the need to investigate the accusation, and if not investigated, to be treated with caution.I also hope verbal and attitudinal violence, which women are more likely to engage in, is more subtle but perhaps equally destructive depending on context, would also inspire the same outrage, while people are encouraged not to tolerate it bcs it can become normalized in relationships, and also needs to be investigated when reported or if not investigated, managed with caution.Rape claims can be false.Domestic abuse claims can be false.My argument is that the fact that Ngugi's son claimed his father was violent does not make the claim factual.The Western legal approach to accusations is ideally "innocent until proven guilty".But when it comes to accusations against men in sexual or domestic situations it has become "guilty until proven innocent".That is a misandrist mindset, which needs to be dismantled in sensitivity to the fact the need to seek the facts and context in such situations.Secondly, bad as domestic violence is, its not the same as rape.We need to know-what are the facts?Was Ngugi actually physically violent against his wife?Then, if it can be proven he was, we also need to understand the context.What were the dynamics of his relationship with his wife?Women and men can be verbally and/ or attitudinally abusive, contributing to abusive behaviour from the other party.I consider it overstretching the case by conflating a claim of physical violence with one of rape, as a respondent to my argument did.Its also unrealistic to refuse to examine the context even in verified claims of domestic physical violence by claiming that bcs its wrong the context is irrelevant.Both partners can be abusive to each other. All forms of violence and abuse should be condemned.Bottom line- we don't know whether or not Ngugi's son is saying the truth and its unjust to take him on his word.We also need to understand the dynamics of their familyIn the absence of such info what we owe the son is respectful attention not the current rush to anoint him as the truth speaker for his family.--
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