Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Reflection I

Oga Ken,

That's one way to reflect on this sir. I suspect that within the context of modernity, no adult would deliberately want to be branded with marks. We can actually consider empirically the number of people with marks. I suspect it has become infinitesimal.  

That leaves us with the culturally large matrix of parenting--the things we do for/to our children. This child's parents must have considered that they owe the culture the responsibility of appropriately scarifying him to meet the expectations of a proper Ogbomoso "son of the soil." 

This in turn raises the issue of paternalism and the extent parents can go on behalf of their children in terms of cultural and religious responsibilities. 

But then, what happens if the child grows up to fall in love with the marks? That would be a confusing twist in the tail! Maybe what matters is incising the tender flesh at this moment. The future can wait. 

  

 

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

On Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:15 PM, Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

Dear shina

This is a moving issue you opened up. I never thought much about it, but the picture says a lot. I am in favor of male circumcision, and have attended more than one, but they were not apparently terribly painful for the boy, who cried for a bit and then stopped. But your argument, and the excessive length of the scars makes me wonder if we shouldn't advocate for a law that people should be old enough to decide before this kind of facial markings could be made. That means an adult, 18 yrs old, instead of a child.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday 17 November 2016 at 02:59
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Reflection I

 

 

On the Tension between Modernity and Cultural Identity

 

When i saw this picture, like the one about the child getting burnt, i lost my peace totally. I couldn't eat. I became depressed. Then i began to plan murder in my heart. The parents who could subject such a young child to such a traumatic scarification should be jailed for a long time without an option of fine!

 

Look at the child. He must have wept and screamed in trauma, and sleep only offers an interval of almost painless oblivion marred by nightmarish flashes. Who still considers scarifying such tender faces at this age and time?

 

Well, who doesn't? We call it scarification, but those traumatic lines etched forever on the child's tender face reflects cultural beauty for others. "Baamu" (the name of the specific marks on the child's face) is essentially an Ogbomoso trademark in Southwestern Nigeria. Each Yoruba tribe has its own unique marks. My daddy was an Igbomina man and my mother is from the Okeogun area of Oyo state. Both of them have beautiful identity marks sketched on their cheeks. My daddy was certainly handsome and my mum is still beautiful. But then, they certainly were like this poor and traumatised kid. 

 

So, what's the balance? What's the differential?

 

 

 

Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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