kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 6:24 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
Cornelius' unique style shines.
Ken, since African immigrants are also Black, would they not suffer the same discriminations as african-Americans?
" America" and "If I Had a Hammer" by Trini Lopez.
Amiri Baraka : The X Is Black
Some of the matters arising from the starter candle, the header of this thread.
I imagine that in some people's minds being appointed a tenured professor at some backwater college or other is enough to make them giddy ( " Just see how far I have cone!!!") believing themselves to be elevated far above the scum and the vermin distantly known as fellow human beings from S-hole countries not to mention those who they despise as not wanting to avail themselves of all the opportunities to pursue a higher education in the land of milk, booty, and honey…
I would have guessed that once you're committed to being a good American, isn't it enough to espouse "The Protestant Ethic"
All this talk about "lower-class citizens", " upward mobility", " financial ascendancy.", and if I may so add, creative living - in my view a very good reason for relocating to the United States (hit the tarmac running on day one) you'd have thought that the African Diaspora in North America would be visibly united by colour, tribe, race, anti-racism , just as ( think of Joe Biden currently in Ireland, hustling the Irish vote in the US) - the Irish-American, and there's, of course, the NATIVE AMERICANS, various Anglo-Saxon clans, the I-talian Americans, German-Americans, the Hispanics, the various tribes the John Birch Society and of course the various shades and strands of Africa-America including the recently naturalised Johnnys Just Come Lately from Nigeria who salute the flag and all that, some of whom I suppose remain Nigerian ( Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Igbo) at heart…
To begin with I'd like to disentangle/deconstruct these lyrical lines from Bob Dylan's INFIDELS album ( song no 6, " Sweetheart like you")
"They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king"
"They say"? Who says? Well, it was nobody less than Samuel Johnson who said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"and it's the kind of statement that should make not only treasonous and bonehard Nigerian nationalists feel uncomfortable. The late Leonard Cohen already exculpated and extricated himself from any posthumous charge of treason when he declared in " Democracy" 👍
"I'm sentimental if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA
To the USA"
And please don't forget - and it's very important to note that just like Oscar Peterson, Joni Mitchell, and Madagascar Slim, Leonard Cohen is/was Canadian, not US-American.
And, talking about countries, best countries, happiest countries - such as Finland, most racist countries, promised land, promised lands, "occupied territories" - the competing interpretations of Resolution 242 ( and if Mr. Netanyahu messes with the Palestinian Nation after this 2023 Ramadan, to begin with, it's doubtful that his premiership will survive) just as, once upon a time, according to one Chinua Achebe, once upon a time "There was a country" and then there's the no man's land debacle almost bordering on treason when we have distinguished Lady Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing to her Big Daddy Joe Biden, her imagined Chief of Staff of the World's Military Police, begging him to annul his Mazel Tov to our President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, popularly embraced as the JAGABAN of the people!
I have to exercise superhuman restraint, lest I make some unregrettable comparisons that inevitably spring to mind, more vicious than the BACKLASH - some of the comments lashing Wole Soyinka for poking his nose into British Affairs: Wole Soyinka: Commonwealth should investigate UK over Brexit ( Check it out )
But to the main issue: These poignant words from Moses Ochonu, the proverbial Good Samaritan: " I knocked on many wrong doors and strangers' doors to get emergency help, use the phone, ask for directions, or because I missed an address." and then he adds, " I could have been shot. What a country!"
This takes me back to " A Closed Utopia?" - the opening Chapter of "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' by Israel Shahak - the incident in question in Shahak's own words, in the very first paragraph of the aforementioned tome:
" I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who had happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood" - that of course has to be left to God's judgement,,,
Furthermore, when it comes to competing orthodoxies, usually self-proclaimed or self-confessed, we ought not to forget the idea of America as the Promised Land - and - if that part of the Middle East all goes up in smoke, the not-so-remote prospect of erecting the third temple, maybe somewhere in New York (Williamsburg?) and going back to an even earlier date, nor should we forget Blake's The New Jerusalem
So what about Africa as the Promised Land?
Last night I listened to The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson
--On Wednesday, 19 April 2023 at 03:32:46 UTC+2 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
One Phone Call/Street Scenes (2022 Remaster) - YouTube
Two choir boys: Simon and Garfunkel: AMERICA
Jefferson Airplane - Good Shepherd
All the people in this thread are invited to think about what JFK once said ;
"Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country"
No big grammar Malcolm X put it so succinctly for those concerned to understand:
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us."
He was definitely not talking about the big kahunas, the Falolas, the Waribokos, and the Okeke-Agulus who arrived by air several centuries after the original Pilgrim Fathers arrived on the Mayflower, and the kidnapped Africans who survived The Middle Passage, arrived as human cargoes on other kinds of ships, whereas the aforementioned 20th - 21st century academic Nigerians who voluntarily arrived by air, each with a bag full of PhDs and other degrees as hand luggage, are consequently at least aware of their own personal histories and have their own unique perspectives and trajectories. For a surety, some of the Johnny Just Come will insist that in their circumstances, much better than shuffering and shmiling, leaving Africa for America was the coolest thing to do, because the situation at home was so hopeless, and in the name of self-interest, maybe, also in the name of the national interest, Pan-Africanism, etc, Moses Ochonu using some Big English would like to assure us all that Uncle Sam, after all, offers " the greatest aggregate set of opportunities for human flourishing, individual self-actualization, and professional and financial ascendancy."
What I'm about to say here is nothing new, it's common knowledge, I'm not on the path of disagreement or direct confrontation, it's just another aside that can be conveniently brushed aside, a reflective response/ commentary on what Don Ochonu has been telling us about "The American Dream", and his is an honest, straightforward take, not a reinvention of the wheel, an argumentum ad misericordiam or a rehashing and recharging of the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King's wishful thinking so famously expressed back in 1963, his I Have Dream reported as " a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States"
Home remittances to Africa which contribute in no small measure to the economic betterment of many African countries is a big plus. Otherwise, a main reservation about the mass emigration from Africa to North America ( " Bigger and Better") is also the usual opposition to the idea of people not staying home to help build their counties but wanting to go to the US and Canada, etc to enjoy some of the ready-mades and to help build the already developed, in defiance of " charity begins at home."
Despite Hiroshima, tribalism, racial tensions, and anti-semitism. gun laws, the various assassinations of Malcolm, Dr. King, John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedtý, the prison-industrial complex, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, the Black Panthers, COINTELPRO, Hurricane Katrina, 911,¨the US has surged ahead, and I can't complain or blame them for making Barack Hussein Obama a two-term president
Racism, Rodney King, George Floyd, well, I just viewed the BBC reporting the very latest incident: Andrew Lester charged with shooting boy who rang wrong doorbell and as Don Ochonu just told us (unquestionable first-person testimony), " I knocked on many wrong doors and strangers' doors to get emergency help, use the phone, ask for directions, or because I missed an address. I could have been shot. What a country!" Lucky bugger!
We have been given to understand that psychological hedonism is consistent with human nature and that for even "folks without souls,'' it's something like a religious principle that awakens a tremendous longing within, hence we have the song " Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die" and from Ochonu's definition the nearest to heaven down here on mother earth is to be found in the United States, hell is to be found in some other place - so it's logical that in the name of self-preservation, the realization of dreams, mythologies. a man sets out to look for what he cannot find at home, armed with the unshakeable belief that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" - which explains why, given just half a chance, everybody, all of poor Africa from each and every b and s-hole country - no mythology - would like to emigrate to the land of milk and honey, the promised land, and you, therefore, need to look no further for an explanation for economic migrants, economic refugees, the brain-drain - after all, it's written at the feet of the statue of liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
And, of course, for African folks like Ochonu, it's not Nigeria, but the United States of America that is the Promised Land, even though it's being claimed by some of the Pentecostal Pastors that it's Jerusalem and not Washington DC that has a direct phone line to the Almighty, and that that's where THE LIGHT is going to spread from JERUSALEM!
So why is everybody not heading to Jerusalem by any means necessary, camel backpack, boat, Musk Rocket, or by Air the way the crow flies?
Slavery has long since been over, and while a whole lotta Africans are all set for trying their luck through the Green Card Lottery, the good news is that the Back-to -Africa movement is still very much alive, and a whole lot of born and bred African-Americans are returning to Africa….
On Tuesday, 18 April 2023 at 22:11:18 UTC+2 Harrow, Kenneth wrote:
Toyin, african immigrantsa in the u.s. constitute a relatively highly educated, not to say motivated class. They did not come over on leaky deadly boats from libya.K
Get Outlook for iOS
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 7:59:39 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor--Adepoju:
The questions you pose lead you to a certain set of answers.
TF
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 6:57 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor'' Black issues may be seen as addressed through showing Blacks competently active in prominent positions.''
im not suggesting that is adequate, from what ive seen so far, in the first season. i'm only trying to interpret the ideology of a film most of whose characters are Caucasian or have skin like those of Caucasians, that term being the best i know.
On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 11:45, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:
I was subconsciously hoping for an effort at a balanced analysis like that one from Ochonu.
Responding to Cornelius, the history of Nigeria's various ethnic groups is not identical with the history of Nigeria.
I was asking about Nigeria as a nation constituted by those ethnic groups.
There are a good no of inspiring aspects of Nigerian history.
To what degree are these aspects achieved in spite of the system or because of it and to what degree have they been sustained, demonstrating socio-economic and historical continuity?
That film does not celebrate isolated achievements in US history. It celebrates the country as a system that works through the efforts of various people working to advance the nation.
I'm yet to see any reference to Native Americans and the dispossession of their land that has made the US possible. Black issues may be seen as addressed through showing Blacks competently active in prominent positions.
One may argue that mythology and nationalistic ideology are central to making a nation.
The cinematography of that film, its use of visual elements, of images of landscape, architecture and painting, in particular, dramatize a running embedding of the film's action in symbols of US history, in visual evocations of great moments and iconic figures and locations in that history, symbols that I expect many Americans identify with.
A recurrent image is that of Lincoln, a portrait of him permanently located in the Oval Office, if i recall correctly, and the President in the film often shown positioned in relation to that painting, a visual centering reinforced by at least two quotes from Lincoln in the films first season, where i am at the moment.
Im asking myself, is there any Nigerian head of state or President I can relate to the way i expect a good no of Amerians or those of them who know US history relate to Lincoln, who has become such a mythic figure that he ranks with such American folkloristic characters as Brer Rabbit, various imagined adventures constructed for him in US folklore, as one article puts it if i recall correctly?
Can I point to any nation defining vision by any Nigerian leader at that level akin to even if not identical with Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address declaration, if i have the name right, ''Government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the Earth''?
IBB once used a term that struck me ''realistic visionaries.'' Does IBB's political trajectory inspire me?
Can Buhari, for example, and I have the same or similar or correlative heroes in Nigerian history? To what degree are such founding figures of Nigeria as the Sardauna, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and Zik nationalistic or ethnic heroes?
The film also celebrates the FBI.
I expect a significant part of that celebration is factual.
To what degree can I be proud of Nigeria's DSS, given clear state complicity in the persistence of Boko Haram Islamic terrorism and Fulani imperialist terrorism?
Im reading on this thread about social mobility. I hope its realized that many people in Nigeria do not have water provided by the state and often have to generate their own electricity?
thanks
toyin
On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 08:42, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Ken:
From my observations in various Western countries, including France (especially north of Paris where you see Africans selling tomatoes by the street side), Peckham in London (a slum similar to Agege in Lagos) [apologies to Agege as it is one of my favorite places to understand Nigerian politics and relate to "Area Boys" where I collect street language], African immigrants may be better off in the US than in Europe:
- Poverty and low income are usually homogenized but not so in practice. The poor/low class in the US is better than in other locations. They are still poor in the context of where they live, but the representation may move them to the lower middle-class/middle class in other locations.
- Educational opportunities provided by trade centers and community colleges allow the acquisition of skills that translate to social mobility.
My two points above are based on quantitative data I have collected but will write about in the future.
TF
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 2:30 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated SurvivorI've learned somewhere or other than climbing the social-economic ladder in france—and probably in europe—is actually easier, more common, than in the u.s. the gulf of privilege moses alludes to in the u.s. keeps social and economic classes much more rigidly apart than elsewhere.
The myth of the american dream….
Ken
Get Outlook for iOS
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 8:55:37 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
To whom it may concern : The Tragedy Of White Injustice by Marcus Mosiah Garvey
On Tuesday, 18 April 2023 at 01:35:07 UTC+2 Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
This is a version of the claim
often made by colonial apologists
that Africans should
thank the colonizers for
independence since African
nationalists made use
of tools acquired from
colonial rule and agents,
such as missionaries -
a rather twisted, convoluted,
circular argumentation. Since
Africans have "agency," Ochonu's
pet term, wouldn't Africans not be
sensible, rational, and normal
enough, to resist and fight against
forms of oppression,
including the toxic legacies of
colonization, through
decolonization processes
and methodologies.
In any case, a system should not
be congratulated for unwittingly
sowing the seeds of its own
destruction.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 3:21 PM
Cc: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way is that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
EXTERNAL EMAIL: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.
im also puzzled when at times reading the way African scholars working in the West address the subject of decolonization of the Western academy.
Im yet to see recognition of the growth of that system as the primary enabler of its own decolonization, by giving room for such scholarship to exist and thrive within it.
On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 20:16, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:
''I asked Falola those questions in response to his focus on US negativities while neglecting the positives that led him and others like him there and are keeping them there.'''
On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 19:15, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu> wrote:
"you take advantage of thetechnological power underpinning
those military potencies and
initiatives….. as
part of the globally dominant
Western culture".
The simplistic version
of this is -why do you
criticize the West, if you
live there? By implication,
sycophancy and "obedience"
(that could lead to fascism
according to Biko) are
prerequisites for living in
a region.
Really?I totally disagree.
Interestingly, the series"Designated
Survivor" is a favorite of mine,
but for opposite reasons, namely,
the exposure of the intrigues,
guile and deceit
underlying " the mythologies
of power," as TF states it.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 5:59 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
EXTERNAL EMAIL: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.
Oga TF,
With all due respect, sir, a problem with your response may be summed up as ''how should the possessor of a nine fingered hand respond to discussions of such anomalies?'' adapting a Yoruba proverb Abiodun invokes in Yoruba Art and Language.
Please allow me explicate this delicate point.
Your response to my post about US self celebration of its Presidency, history and institutions in that film, describing it as idealized but significantly factual, wondering if i can be proud of my own country along similar lines, is1. '' Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted slavery'' yet, you, who as a historian are better informed than me about that inhumanity, chose to leave the motherland you and I share in that continent that provided the source of the US's dehumanizing trade in slaves across centuries, reverberations of which continue to resonate till today, to spend most of your adult life in that very country that so brutally enslaved our people.
Why?
The answer to that question will help us assess to what degree the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and institutions are mythologies of power.
2. ''Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted...racism'', yet, after witnessing the recurrent unjustified killings of Black people by police in that very country, after witnessing how one of the most illustrious Black scholars in that nation, Henry Louis Gates Jr, was unfairly targeted at his home because of doubts that the home belonged to him, handcuffed and led off by police since they were not happy with the response to their queries by the unarmed, middle aged man using a walking stick, the Black, but actually half Black, half Caucasian President Barack Obama describing the polices' act as ridiculous but was later compelled to apologize to the police and invite Gates and the Caucasian police officer to lunch at the White House, you did not publicly respond in disgust to what some may see as that show of double standards and make a public protest, to the best of my knowledge, talk less return to Nigeria, where such an anomaly is most unlikely to occur.
You are likely, like other Black members of the US middle class, to have realized that your sterling achievements and social standing would not help much if you did not abide by certain unfair rules, and like one of Gates' Harvard colleagues described himself as doing, made sure that his house ownership papers are always in an easily accessible location near his door so he can show them when required, and like Nigerian immigrant scholar to the US, Sylvester Ogbechie stated on his blog, made sure that his vehicle papers are readily accessible in his car so he could readily provide them when asked by police, and if he needed to produce anything from the car when demanded, he would ask permission first, while keeping his hands visible in full view of the police, all these to alleviate fears or claims that he could be reaching for a gun, rules Black people in particular, it seems, have learnt to follow, since following them could mean the difference between life and death.
In Nigeria, such horrors are much less likely but you have not returned to live in Nigeria but prefer to visit and return to the US.
Why?The answer to that question will help us assess to what degree the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and institutions are mythologies of power.
3. ''Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted...massive destruction of the world in several locations, the military-industrial complex and the storage of the bomb that can kill you in far-away Lagos!''
Yet, not disgusted with what seems like such an inhuman culture, such bastardization of human possibility, you take advantage of the technological power underpinning those military potencies and initiatives, of the human possibility amplifying construction of social systems of which that military power is one expression, built as it is on the contributions of a globally sourced conglomeration of immigrants, from the German WW2 rocket scientists eventually central to US rocketry after WW2 to Elon Musk from South Africa, you creating your own egalitarian research and publication near global empire within the belly of US cultural and educational culture as part of the globally dominant Western culture and educational, social and technological system.
Why?
Among your most recent publications in the last five years are stringent efforts to foreground non-Western and particularly African agency in the face of Western cultural imperialism, empowered as it has been by Western political, military and economic imperialism, a globally dominant force of which the US is the centre, yet these books are published by Western publishers, mainstream publishers, not rebel, fringe publishers explicitly distancing themselves from those hegemonic orientations, and yet you are likely being rewarded for those publications by the US university you work in, an employment position greatly facilitating those productions.
Is this a contradiction or a creative integration of contraries into a unity?The answers to these questions will help us assess to what degree the Americans' glorification of their Presidency, history and institutions are mythologies of power.
thanks
toyin
On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 09:17, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Mythologies of power!
Hope you are not proud of how that power and office promoted slavery, racism, massive destruction of the world in several locations, the military-industrial complex and the storage of the bomb that can kill you in far-away Lagos!
TF
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, April 17, 2023 at 3:10 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?: A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated SurvivorCan I Be Proud of Nigeria's History and Institutions the Way that Many in the US Are Proud of Theirs?
A Reaction to Watching the US TV Series Designated Survivor
Oluwatoyin Vincent AdepojuError! Filename not specified.
The President in the film, centre, flanked by his aides
Picture by Ben Mark Holzberg in Explore Entertainment
Watching on Netflix the fictional film Designated Survivor, a sheer celebration and idealization of the US Presidency through visual and performative symbolism, plot, characterization and speech projecting the Presidency as a noble institution rooted in the convergence of intimate, heterosexual family values and humanistic personal integrity, radiating outward to pastor the American people and care for the world through personal challenges the President may face, through national and international crisis, at one point I started crying bitterly, asking myself if I could be proud of my own country's history, institutions and values the way that films like this one project those of the US, idealized projections, but demonstrating some truth, and reflecting how many Americans see their country, in my view.
Against the background of the recurrent quotation of words of that most iconic of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, the pervasive use of images of past US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, evoking for those informed about their symbolism, the glories they are associated with, and the recurrent showing of famous paintings dramatizing great moments in US history, I asked myself, are there any Nigerian Presidents or heads of state I can't point to as heroic, whatever their limitations, any events in Nigerian history that I understand as collectively agreed by the nation as great moments?
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMpjDefTaxiAQKCED%2B22L1yht_MypH27bdK%2BUrSoHpvQQ%40mail.gmail.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/PH0PR06MB900497157FF4759D53C4BA94F89C9%40PH0PR06MB9004.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMDqokbamBNMao%2BEcNxeiT15XkE25LHHuj4%3DHrxbbWk%2Bg%40mail.gmail.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfN0p2RY7BC-q9uxatnR3hz_FgtCOZUPMkQ0jAv%3DWzTRMw%40mail.gmail.com.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/ed022d60-070e-418e-ba7a-ea86fc9f335bn%40googlegroups.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR12MB8436918F2B7B5AD268C61DF3DA9D9%40SN7PR12MB8436.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/PH0PR06MB9004E50333800980FAE8D35AF89D9%40PH0PR06MB9004.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMbuJ_a5AYLdRpDBqNxxEWgXTggKiXQtGZ7%2BMwMXCmN-g%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/PH0PR06MB90043C8208432AD8F8852940F89D9%40PH0PR06MB9004.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.
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.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/b25f7de2-179c-47f4-b45d-050af3a3a152n%40googlegroups.com.
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.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfPi5%3D1Q51Vwf-xPEEakRjGsSGAbFikkfP_k9iep7XkKig%40mail.gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment