Dear Brothers Samuel and Salimonu:
I enjoyed both of your postings (and others), but your detailed discussions reminded me of what Baba Ijebu, my legendary Yoruba mentor, used to tell me in the late 1960s (the good old days, when palm oil from Okipupa, Western Nigeria, cost on 2 shillings a gallon; and a dozen of chickenn eggs cost 6 pence, etc.) when we discussed Nigerian and Ghanaian problems (very much similar to the
problems faced by identical twins). Apart from Professor Chinua Achebe's brilliant conclusion that leadership deficiency was part of Nigeria's (and, indeed Africa's) major problems, Baba Ijebu also thought that "book long" was part of the crucial problems. He then cited too many degrees, adding that when all of us went to school in the colonial educational systems, anything (i.e. graded assignments or exams) with "D" and "F" denoted poor or failing work. He added, "Today in Nigeria, we have too many people with qualifications ending or beginning with 'D': DDS, MD, DMD, DD, E.DD, Ph. D. Why won't our country, with so many book men and women, have these many problems?"
Part of my posting is for comic relief, but Baba Ijebu had a real point when it comes to the thorny problems facing Nigeria and her twin brother, Ghana! Do you remember that Nigeria had a coup in January of 1966, and Ghana followed with her first coup in February 1966 ? There you have it; with apologies to VC Aluko!
A.B. Assensoh.
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Samuel Zalanga <szalanga@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 8:14 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
What is the definition of intelligence please? I know there is still debate on this. From a relativizing historicist position, is there one way to define intelligence? How do you constuct the indicators of intelligence for the sake of measurement so that they can transcend time and space? Or are there some cultural assumptions that underpin the definition that are not made explicit. If so, we need full disclosure please. Is there any intelligent person that could be understood outside a cultural economy or some sociocultural context? I am just fascinated by any discussion on this.
I remember reading in a book where someone constructed an IQ rest assuming that white culture with all things underpinning it is not the dominant culture of the US. Rather, Mexican / Latino culture was presumed as the dominant culture in constructing the IQ test. After administering the test, the white students either failed or performed poorly while the Mexican/ Latino students excelled. If my memory is correct this experiment was in Arizona. I do not deny the use of the term or its relevance but I am concerned about how you measure it without some either explicit or implicit cultural assumptions or expectations, that have built into it insiders and outsiders ie some on the "other side." And if one cannot escape this social reality and we know that many cultures are characterized by inequality if not injustice, which mediate the existential experiences of the lives of the people, then we may have a problem of hegemony here.
And this problem for me can be a universal one in all human societies characterized by inequality and injustice. In this case even the stratified precolonial African societies must have defined intelligence in a biased way that favored people with certain kind of standing in the social structure although as in other societies, discourses might be produced to legitimize and normalize the measurement and ranking. Do we need to first understand the dominant value system in a society and the struggles that produced them and how such value system leads the society to define certain things as desirable, intelligent or an expression of high ability or stupidity? Whatever.
Samuel
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html ---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit
https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
