What I do in many of my courses when students make certain arguments is that I avoid engaging in arguing the specifics, but focus on the logic informing the details of the reasoning or argument. I will apply the logic to a broader context as someone interested in universal experience of the human. Some times I take the universal and apply it to the local to see what happens. There are no easy answers. But I ask the students whether they are comfortable with the logic of their argument applied in different contexts not just to a particular specific situation. If not, what sort of caveat does one need to factor in in providing such an explanation.
Some years ago, I was at a conference at Sokoto State University, which was well-organized by Professor Malami Buba. In one of the sessions during the conference, a woman made a presentation on gender. I was amazed by the way many men in the session hiding behind some erudite scholarship literally wanted to tell the woman that they did not like the argument she made, which was about unfair representation of women in some African literature.
I resisted intervening in the discussion because I know the mentality of the average Nigerian is that if as an academic living abroad you make a point of caution, correction or critique, it is assumed that you are trying to show that you are from abroad, which I do not like. I just want to live my ordinary life as a person.
But at some point, I felt compelled to speak and I decided at whatever cost to intervene. I said the logic informing the argument the men were making were the same kind of frame that was used by Europeans to discriminate or put down Africans or non-Western people, even though the contexts are different. Just as they thought either women implicitly are comparatively incapable because of their biology, intellect, culture and being emotional, etc, similarly Europeans put down Africans using the same frame of reasoning.
The men would like to claim superiority over the women even though when European scholars (e.g. Hegel) condemned Africans ad inferior people, they did not treat any group in Africa as special. Any logic of reasoning that one applies to analyzing a situation in Africa, can equally be applied at the international level. We should be careful about condemning certain logic of reasoning used by Europeans or Westerners to put Africans down while back in our continent or countries, we wittingly or unwittingly are comfortable using the same logic of reasoning frame or argument in a different way. If such logic can be used and be taken seriously locally, we should be willing to embrace it internationally even when it portrays us as backward compared to other parts of the world like Europe.
The documentary film below documents how the children of undocumented immigrants on subsidized lunch beat MIT students in a technology competition. The MIT students thought of themselves as superior to all. The documentary shows that after all is said and done, MIT or any group of scholars should not see themselves as special human beings. With appropriate training, many can equally excel as the Latino kids did.
Charles Murray's book (cited below) makes the point that European accomplishments are exceptional vis-a-vis other regions, and he did not mention any group as producing any achievement worthy of recognition. in Africa. He thought in the past several centuries it has been the Europeans that have accomplished something special.
I know the immediate feeling of others is to reject the methodology and reasoning behind Murray's argument. But just as we reject that, the same logic can be applied to any claim in other regions of the world. For instance in Guatemala, the Ladinos cannot see themselves as racially superior to the Maya because of their great accomplishments in Guatemala, and then object to Europeans seeing the Ladinos as inferior and are just in the same category as the Maya, because of their comparatively low achievement when situated in the broader context. The unit of analysis informing one's work or analysis, thus, matter. .
If we do not want to accept that Europeans are inherently superior to all other people because of their extraordinary achievements for some legitimate reasons, then the question is: under what conditions should we be willing to apply the same logic informing Europeans claim of inherent superiority ( given their accomplishments) vis-a -vis people in other regions or societies of the world.
I am sorry that I have to intervene because this is a conceptual issue that needs clarity for me. Last year at a conference in Abuja, Nigeria, I prepared my presentation but when I stood up to speak I told the audience that, because of many conceptual issues in other presentations, I will rather focus on clarifying those issues than building on top of unclassified assumptions. I have a bias for a more just and egalitarian society even though many Nigerians have little concern for social justice.
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Nightline (5/27/2005): HOW STINKY BEAT M.I.T.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
"Co-author with the late Richard Herrnstein of the neo-racialist book The Bell Curve, Murray returns with a mammoth solo investigation that is less likely to spur controversy than provoke a simple "so what?" The book attempts to demonstrate, through the use of basic statistical methods such as regression analysis, that Europeans have overwhelmingly dominated accomplishment in the arts and sciences since about 1400. To this end, he has assembled a laundry list of people and events from various reference texts, and generated numerous graphs and rankings of genius figures: is Beethoven "more important" than Bach? Leonardo Da Vinci than Michelangelo? A major problem with this approach-beyond equating "importance" with the number of times an artist or work is referenced in texts-is that the reference texts used as data sources do not themselves seem free of cultural bias or chauvinism: without asking "important to whom," the Western-centric data are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another problem is that other, less affluent cultures may have had many plundered or lost works, or may not have a tradition of naming writers and other luminaries-or keeping track of and promoting their works through secondary material. Further, plenty of attention is lavished on forms such as painting but comparatively little to architecture or to non-Western forms of music. The book's cursory treatment of Africa (outside of Egypt) also leaves more to be desired. Murray claims to have corrected for these factors, and finds that Western culture still dominates "accomplishment" either way. The chapters describing achievement at the book's beginning are, at many points, well-written and informative, but they end up clouded with the latter part of the book's numerical hubris and grand pronouncements.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc."
Samuel
On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 4:52 PM, 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
--It is longer news, anew or a boast that the South-south and the Southeast Geopolitical Zones are Nigeria's socio-economic survival and bread-winners. It is also a truism that 60% if not 70% of the Lagos State's economic and wealth potentials are controlled by the enterprising sons and daughters of the Southeast Zone. In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, 80% of resources used in developing the area came from oil and gas proceeds exploited in the Niger Delta or South-south Geopolitical Zone and 70% of private properties built and owned by serving and former political office holders; whether illicitly or genuinely acquired; have their direct origins linked with Niger Delta gas and oil proceeds (both criminally and officially earned) and 70% of the wealth of the northern rich men and women including oil bloc owners originated from natural resources of Old Eastern Region of Nigeria.....................From chidi opara reportschidi opara reports is published as a social service by PublicInformationProjects
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