It took an observation recently in
London to prompt me to put these thoughts to paper. I have read and listened to
countless tales of marginalization based on either ethnic, tribe or gender
basis. It has become a recurrent decimal and the meaning is all but lost in the
over flogged rendition. Here in Nigeria, every action or mostly inaction of the Government is
ascribed a tone of marginalization. The Ibos apparently feel that they are the
most marginalized in the country. Now
some are queuing behind a modern day ‘Moses’ to take them to the promised land,
out of Nigeria as we know it but landlocked within Nigeria as they will find
out in the event that Biafra becomes a reality. They overlook the industrial
and economic prowess they enjoy, and made possible because of the sheer size of
the land and population of Nigeria. The Ibos are very hard working and
industrious; and the most cosmopolitan within Nigeria. They are to be found
thriving in their favourite vocation, trading; within all the nooks and cranny
of the land. They give their daughters out in marriage to other tribes and
their sons happily marry else-where too; I have heard that the Ibo man ranks
among the best specie of husband types in the land. God willing, my Yoruba
family will acquire Ibo relatives through our daughter in the near future. I
grew up with Ibo friends, a good chunk of the fabric of my childhood has Ibo
influence; my friend, Joy, an Ibo girl who was born and bred in Lagos speaks
Yoruba far better than anyone I know, including myself. She understands the
language as a poet would. She went on to marry a Yoruba man and bore him a son.
An Ibo man I have never met but admire so much is Emeka Ayanoku, I understand
he is married to a Yoruba woman and they have been together for a very long
time, her name is Bunmi too. Ditto for the other groups with language and
cluster geographical affiliations. All the different ‘tribes’ have their unique
qualities and idiosyncrasies and wonderfully so. However, from the increasing
populations of the off springs of inter-tribal unions it is obvious and glaring
that we are all but one people, beautiful and diverse. Some people are so ‘mixed
tribe’ that they can trace their immediate ‘origin’ to more than six different
cultures. Imagine someone whose mother is half Yoruba and half Ibibio and their
father is half Ibo and half Hausa, where would you say such a person is from?
Most will simply say he or she is a Nigerian and they would be correct. I know
a few such ‘multi originated’ Nigerians. As populations are getting more fluid
because of modern lifestyle, we will continue to fuse together into mono
ethnicity until someday when it will become impossible to distinguish the Ibo
from the Hausa and the Ebira from the Yoruba. The only yardstick to
differentiate the people will be basic human predispositions.
I have looked across the west, the east, and
the north of Nigeria to other African countries and the dialogue appears the
same. One tribe marginalizing the other, the tragedy of Rwanda is in recent
memory. This seems to be unique to us black people, classifying people on
tribal basis. This is an evil rotten wind that has been blowing over our continent
and that has brought no good because it lacks the capacity to bring any good.
Simple.
Recently I stood by on a visit to a
local ‘Afro’ cosmetic shop in London and observed throngs of my people, black
people flooding in to patronize the businesses that offer everything from
chemical relaxers to bleaching creams. These businesses are worth billions of
Pound Sterling. These business are wholly patronized by Black people. Yet these
businesses are almost wholly owned by people of Asian and particularly of Pakistani
origin. Ditto for the ‘African’ food shops that sell ethnic foods imported from
the motherland, most merchants are not Africans, they sell us our cow legs and
goat meats, they sell us our dry cray fish and pounded yam flour. This is another
multi-million- pound industry, yet black people are merely consumers while
others are the profiteers. Black people, despite being one of the oldest
settled non-Europeans in the Uk have no monopoly of any part of that economy.
On the flip side, in the areas
where Asian artefacts and food stuff are sold, you will be hard pressed to see
a non-Asian behind the counter and impossible to see an African owned business.
Ditto for the Jews and other racial clusters living in the UK. Only the black
people have handed the rights to other people to own their businesses and even
dictate to them what to put on their hair and on their skins. Something is very
wrong with us. I don’t want to dwell much on the other trend also in the UK, that
of black men’s increasing preference for non-black women, any woman but a black
woman. Could this be born out of some suppressed odium of their own mothers
too? I wonder.
It is understandable to trace this
tragedy of self-hate to our history of slavery, but for how long will we
perpetuate this self-hate? The Jews have risen from the ashes of their gruesome
torture at the hands of the Germans led by an Austrian man called hitler. It is
arguable that they suffered a worse fate than black people. Whereas black
people were taken advantage of because of their strength and majestic prowess
gleaned from its awesome, albeit ancient civilization; the Jews were considered
worthless by their depraved aggressors and were thus being systematically
exterminated to extinction! Both actions of the aggressors were horrific and
inhumane, however, why has one group come out of its ordeal bigger and greater
while the other keeps staggering from one catastrophe to the other? My
postulation is that while both groups suffered heinous crimes against humanity
born out of hatred by their aggressors, one group has come out of it by
applying self-love, self-worth, unity of purpose, promotion and conservation of
self-identity. The other group has remained voluntarily captive to its
aggressors by over dosing on self-hate which has led to the self-destruction
and an impossible attempt at the re-construction of self. Is it a co-incidence
that the Jews and most other oppressed people never adopted the religion and
beliefs of their aggressors?
The Europeans in their increasing quest
for self-preservation within their supremacist ethos, came together to form the
European Union. To forge an even stronger alliance within their racial group
despite being multi-lingual, their racial identity being the motivating factor.
Rightly so too. The effects of the Uk membership of the EU has further
disenfranchised the black people in the UK. Jobs hitherto in the preserve of
black people have been shifted to the Europeans, gradually the major fast food
chain counters are staffed by eastern Europeans. Ditto most other blue collar
jobs that were once the traditional preserve of back people in the UK. This is
not the best of times for black people in the Uk, as they have been further
relegated to the back by the European cousins of the Brits. A British man would
rather give a job to an Eastern European who barely speaks English than to a black
man who considers himself English. On the other hand, a Nigerian man, including
its Government, would rather give a job to the lowest class of European than to
a PHD wielding Nigerian. What does that say about us as a people? What has
afflicted us so? The late Michael Jackson, a black icon and a product of the
black race, suffered so much self-hate that he transferred this awesome legacy
to the white race via his white children. How do we cure ourselves of this
affliction?
The spirit of the black man must
rise again from the ashes of self-hate; we must look within us for the answers
to this quagmire of owing the greatest resources on earth yet being the most
desperately impoverished. We must disrobe the divisive toga of tribe and
religion and adorn instead the crown of racial identity, elevation and
preservation. The cliché, ‘together we stand and divided we fall’ resonates
more than ever today. Our division continues to impoverish us; it continues to
de-humanize us even. We have become the helpless of the earth, running from
Europe, to US and now to China for help when all we need is within us. We need
to look inwards, the love of self, the African being and the preservation of
self. Did I hear you say ‘I’m black and proud?’ say it loud then.
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