USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Chinua Achebe At 82: “We Remember Differently” By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Toyin,

Well I never!

What are you talking about? Even my great teacher Abiola Irele
wouldn't say that. And if you said that about our Aminatta Forna, I'd
sue you and still hope that someone doesn't put a curse on you so that
you don't wind up in some cannibal's cooking pot where they could
still make a delicious dish out of you and invite me & Chidi for cam
chop. Dis na serious talk.

I know that your Mid-West / Bendel was hard hit at the beginning of
the war but you can't hold a grudge towards the eternal Igbo nation,
just because of that.

I don't find anything shallow in or about Chimamanda Adichie's latest
essay - in fact I think her sweep is classic, a really forward-
looking Nigeria literary chic and if we could only take even just this
my favourite paragraph to heart we'd begin to see the glimmerings of
a greater nation:

"Ethnicity has become, in Nigeria, more political than cultural, less
about philosophy and customs and values and more about which bank is a
Yoruba or Hausa or Igbo bank, which political office is held by which
ethnicity, which revered leader must be turned into a flawless saint.
We cannot deny ethnicity. It matters. But our ethnic and national
identities should not be spoken of as though they were mutually
exclusive; I am as much Igbo as I am Nigerian. I have hope in the
future of Nigeria, mostly because we have not yet made a real,
conscious effort to begin creating a nation (We could start, for
example, by not merely teaching Maths and English in primary schools,
but also teaching idealism and citizenship.) "

https://www.google.com/search?q=Aminatta+Forna&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a


On Nov 29, 6:52 pm, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This essay is largely shallow on the issues discussed.
>
> It demonstrates little  awareness of the range of responses to the questions
> at stake that need to be tackled if one is to assert a position.
>
> It is largely a self serving presentation buttressing  a shallow school of the
> self described Igbo/Biafran side, a school whose claim to be representative
> of Igbos and Biafra needs to be questioned.
>
> If challenged, I can point out in detail the shallow self serving character
> of the essay.
>
> toyin
>
> On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 5:50 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Sahara Reporters <sahararepor...@yahoo.com>
> > Date: Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:16 PM
> > Subject: NigerianID | Chinua Achebe At 82: "We Remember Differently" By
> > Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
>
> > **
>
> > I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts
> > Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced
> > man in a wheelchair.
>
> > READ MORE…
> >http://bit.ly/URlby4
>
> >  __._,_.___
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