Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

nice, thoughtful statement, samuel.

like you my first reaction is to question the strength of any claim that i encounter or read. your desire to work for social justice, which no one would want to disagree with, might be avoiding difficulties. for instance, what is social justice? even more, if we all agree upon it as a goal, is a universal agreement an impediment, since one might argue, like mouffe and laclau, that we all belong to/participate in movements that compete for resources or values, and that we have to agree on allowing some other group "hegemony" to move the whole toward a larger social notion of justice. for instance, affirmative action advances one concept of social justice at the expense of those not "affirmed" by the action. we can also cite recompensatory justice, which people exploited or enslaved in the past should be compensated by people in the present whose own ancestors might not have participated in the earlier phase of enslavement. etc.

i imagine a messy universe with competing values, even as i admire your statement and agree in principle with its goals.

a last thought.

is the outsider endowed with a point of view missing from all insider points of view, and which open up new vistas? not only de toqueville on america, but bakhtin especially made that claim. i am not totally convinced he is right, and yet i think we all share some element of outsiderness, even with respect to ourselves.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Samuel Zalanga <szalanga@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 9:56 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

 

Thank you very much. Scholars do disagree and my discipline is one where there is serious disagreement and I am fascinated by that. I am so used to that such that when I hear one position in an argument, I want to hear the other before digging dip. 

One of the earliest dialogues that fascinated me in sociology was between Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore on the one hand and Melvin Tumin on the other hand. Davis and Moore made one of the strongest case supporting the legitimacy of inequality and social stratification in society, saying it is inevitable and it is the best way we can inspire or motivate people to work harder and achieve higher status. Tumin provided one of the most insightful questioning and critique of their assumptions and conclusions. The debate went back and forth. The other early debate that fascinated me was Robert Merton's critique of the claims of American liberal democracy as serving everyone. This was embedded in his strain theory or what others call "social structure and anomie" theory. When you read it you feel, yes, this is a debate that is touching on something serious, central and at the core of American society and what it claims to be. Indeed, initially when I read it, you feel he was calling for another American revolution, but the author said, it was just a liberal critique of the American social order. That critique is relevant even today. 

 I never expect even in a church that people will all think the same, let alone in a forum like this that brings together excellent African scholars. I am aware some in the forum started teaching when I was in secondary school or not even yet in secondary school. So my expectation is that the dialogue will be serious. I want to invest time in the human development of all people and not an ethnic or tribal project. Being from a particular ethnic group in Nigeria or any African country does not mean one has to have an ethnic project. Doing something to help people in a particular ethnic group by someone from the group can be done as part of a larger vision for our shared humanity. 

 Indeed, some in this forum may not even be Africans but they are interested in the conversation going on. But in my assessment, even in intellectual debates there are some disagreements that are profoundly important and when one understands the tradition, he or she becomes fascinated because the debate touches on something that is meaningfully constructive and central. 

In this respect, it is interesting that Jurgen Harbermas was reflective enough to identify conditions that have to be realized in order for dialogue as a means of communication to be effective in creating a new social imaginary. One of the six conditions he identified was the sincerity condition. People must mean what they say in a dialogue. If I am in a dialogue on this forum and I say something like the problem of Nigeria is just one particular group of people, in my view, I am honestly wasting the reader's time. The issue is far more complex. That is why I said, culture is important, but there is no culture, wherever it exists in this world that is embedded in a socially stratified social structure that is unequal, but yet all experienced it in the same way. I care less where that culture is. This is what we call social fact. It is true of ancient Greece, Rome as it is of all ethnic groups in Nigeria that are stratified, and in all parts of the world. 

For sincere dialogue to take place there must be certain foundational assumptions otherwise the people will not even be speaking one "language." They will just talk past each other. It is one thing to have dialogue on for example all agreeing to go to New York City, but the question is how do they go about that based on certain values they take seriously. in contrast, it may well be that for some, the dialogue is not even how best we can go to New York, or even Los Angeles, but rather should we even go anywhere? What kind of progress can such dialogue bring? It may not be even a genuine dialogue but people pretending to have dialogue when they talk pass each other. There are contributions on this forum that are edifying. Because they move us somewhere with a deep sense of sincerity and honesty about the challenges we face in the African continent. They are complex. 

 Frankly, social justice is my primary interest and focus. I do not see irredentist vision that ignores the human problem of justice which is not just a "between-groups" issue, but also "within-group" issue as worthy of my time. It is easy to see irrendentism as a solution to problem of injustice, but injustice sociologically is not just a simple problem of white versus black (i.e., racial), it is not just inter-ethnic, because it happens within ethnic groups. It is deeply a human condition and problem that manifests itself in different ways at different times and in different contexts. I will live in this world for a very limited time and so I need to think how best to use my time and my life. There may be variation in  how we all approach this. But I can serve in any part of the world to help in bringing out greater social justice. I consider this a project worthy of sacrificing my life. If there are social movements committed to such struggle in, for instance, Igbo land, I can assure you that I will join that movement. But if the social movement is exclusionary in its tone and practice, I will not be able to be part of it. And I believe there is a way to struggle for social justice in any part of Nigeria as part of a broader coherent strategy for the struggle for social justice for the whole of humanity in the world. I do not want to struggle for social justice in Bauchi State for instance in a manner that when I encounter a Yoruba, Idoma, Kanuri, Igbo or Bini peson etc, I have to start running up and down to reconfigure my vision because my vision originally and fundamentally is about a primordial group only "my people." My vision is about anyone group as part of the human race.There is a difference here.  So any local struggle I am involved in will be part of a careful vision that encapsulates a vision of social justice for the human race. It will be a dialectical relationship between the global and the local, the macro and the micro.

Without trust, we cannot have dialogue. Dialogue is built on certain foundational understanding. There is no need for me or anyone to engage in dialogue with each other when there is no trust. If I am part of a genocidal group, what kind of dialogue can we have? Let us be honest, there is no dialogue when you are dealing with such a person. As I said, for me, exchange of ideas is not about ego. It is about what can we meaningfully learn from each other. It is my prayer that I will be a kind of person that will acknowledge anything good and worthy of admiration anywhere, anytime and from anybody, even if I disagree with some other things. Thank you very much.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga, Ph.D.

Bethel University

Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Reconciliation Studies,

Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, #24, Saint Paul, MN 55112.

Office Phone: 651-638-6023

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 1:53 PM Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:

"Sam:
No need to defend yourself or explain yourself!
TF"

Why? That is the "dialogue"!

CAO.

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