Chigachi Eke - Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was a Jew of unusual intelligence who out reasoned Roman General Vespasian whose order it was to lay waste Jerusalem in 69 AD. Unable to unite the feuding Jews of his days against a common foe he decided to go it alone.
Firstly, he never lied to himself. He knew the end was near for Israel as only an unconditional surrender would satisfy the invader. Already the long siege had halved the population by starvation and pestilence. Every night Rome soldiers allowed the dead to be brought out for burial after which the city gates were bolted again. Anyone venturing out would be shot by Roman archers, assuming the defending Zealots failed to kill him first. Secondly, Roman policy of Pax et Securitas for loyalty is matched with war and exile for rebellion. When Nebuzaradan, acting for Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, conquered the Northern Kingdom with its capital in Samaria centuries ago, nothing was heard again of the ten tribes carried into exile. If the remaining two tribes now known as Israel were to survive Roman captivity then emphasis must shift from defending Jerusalem and the Temple to putting in place structures to sustain them in exile.
Jewish history records he risked his life sneaking out of the gates to talk to the Roman man of war. Face to face with Vespasian the sage did not beg for his own life. Neither did he ask for Jerusalem to be spared. He made three innocuous requests to the great white man. The Rabbi had asked that (1) the family of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel be spared; (2) Rabbi Tzadok be given medical attention; and (3) the Sanhedrin which he, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, headed be spared promising to reorganize it into a mere institution of learning without political curriculum.
Strange Romans were sticklers for Rules of Engagement not limited to battle field banters with an enemy before a great slaughter. Vespasian was no exception and talking to the old Jew lifted a great load off his mind. He readily granted the wishes before riding off to Rome where the Senate summoned him to become the next Emperor. The Rabbi smuggled himself back into the city for the bloodbath he knew was coming. It would be the responsibility of Vespasian's son, Titus, to raze Jerusalem and carry off the survivals into exile. A thousand, nine hundred and seventy nine years later another old Jew, David ben Gurion, reestablished Israel in 1948 after making similar wishes before powerful white men. As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end world without end.
This is how the Jewish historians Berel Wein and Yaakov Astor interpret Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai's action: The victory of Rome would be nullified because the line of Hillel (the line of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel) would live and provide spiritual leadership for the Jewish people. By keeping the holy man Rabbi Tzadok alive, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai relied on the principle that one righteous people can influence and protect an entire generation. Finally, by allowing the Sanhedrin to reconstitute as an academy in Yavne the Jewish people were able to survive throughout the ages.Whereas Vespasian thought he was giving him nothing, in reality he was giving him everything. Despite the destruction of country and Temple, the Jewish people emerged from the conflict with their religious leadership and religious infrastructure intact, elements that would allow them to outlast Rome, not to mention numerous other situations and tyrants in ensuing history.
With the way and manner the gentle Emeka Aseme was kidnapped and murdered alongside a pregnant woman by his own Igbo brothers, fresh bodies floating on the Ezu river, the borrow pit of Mgbirichi converted into a mass grave, Umuada Igbo ululating when abortion was legalized by the Anambra legislature only to weep when Umuulu Igbo mercifully set up baby factories where Igbo children could be born and sold rather than wasting them in abortion clinics run by Umuada Igbo, catholic priests protesting with their parishioners against the appointment of Monsignor Ebere Peter Okpalaeke as Bishop-elect of the Ahiara Diocese but retired for siesta when Moslem clerics incite Boko Haram to kill Igbos, we must concede that we are a besieged nation whose conquest is near.
In other words, the sheep-without-shepherd situation Ndigbo (Igbos are called Ndigbo which means "Igbo people" but their language is called "Igbo") find themselves in this second millennium is not dissimilar to the Jewish experience of the first century AD. Worst, they are entering the long night without bitterness because they are bitter. At the worst of time the Jew still loved his country, "If I ever forget you, Oh Jerusalem, let my right hand wither." The Masada Complex seen in him today is all about patriotism dating back 70 AD. But this cannot be said of the Igbo who vows, "If I ever set my foot there again let Amadioha kill me!" His very village evokes in him not love but anger because of the many attempts on his life.
My thinking here is to come up with measures capable of guaranteeing that Ndigbo outlast globalization, Nigeria, kidnapping, abortion of/trade in Igbo babies and ephemeral democracy.
In espousing new solution my first impulse is to enquire why this epoch which found a relative fertile ground even in the desert, producing the Dangotes, somehow got sick in Igboland. How come that a people who produced Louse Philippe Odumegwu-Ojukwu are now saddled with lazy bones who murder and blackmail when they're not blaming their dead ancestors for their lackluster performance, how come? When you configure the Igbo man today the picture that readily comes to mind is that of a criminal caught up by nemesis, for what crime? There is a total lack of feelings for his plight. Any attempt at salvaging him must be an exercise in behavioral pathology in understanding his problems which include:
(1) The excessive anger in his heart that tends to frighten friends while reducing him to a predictable opponent before foes. I attribute this to the war crimes he suffered under the Yakubu Gowon government.
(2) His dabbling into global business still trapped in his petty trader mindset. The newly arrived Asian who understands expansion and warehousing has taken over benching him as a security.
(3) The collapse of his family while he idles away abroad. Prolonged separation plays havoc on his lonely wife who must be human, "Person body no be firewood." Fragmentation also makes it possible for his daughter to be sequestrated for commercial baby breeding.
When you carefully reflect on the above you begin to understand why Ndigbo are sliding down the slippery path in tranquility. A people could be destroyed in peace and prosperity and victorious under evil and adversity. South African blacks who underwent the worst kind of evil were triumphant under Apartheid sticking to their culture. Their defeat came with freedom when the black family was destroyed. Under the influence of Steve Bantu Biko's Black Consciousness Movement, Soweto School children burnt down the country in June 1976 than being taught in the white man's language called Afrikaans. But under Thabo Mbeki's democracy thirty years later the succeeding generation rooted for white homosexuality while pouring scorn on Comrade Jacob Zuma for practicing African polygamy. In "Thekwane" the young Xhosa musician called Zahara today warns: "Umuntu ongazi laphumakhona ngekazi la ayakhona/Indake Zulu iyangilandela…./Steve Biko uyangilandela." ("A person who does not know where he's coming from will not know where he's going to/Indake Zulu (African god) is following me…. /Steve Biko is following me"). Likewise, the greatest harm was done us in times of peace and the evidence is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, report warning that Igbo could die by 2025.
Here, then, is a disturbing omission.
For a language spoken by 40 million people to suddenly die on its home soil while its speakers continue to live is to admit that such speakers were not master of their own fate. The implication is that such language had become a burden to be done away with for another that truly empowers them if they were to be socially relevant. Yoruba is not in danger not because Yorubas love it more but because those who speak it are privileged in corporate Nigeria. Again, to say that Igbo could die while failing to admit that Igbos were equally at risk is faulty reasoning. Igbo is in danger because Igbos are an endangered people. Hausa is not on the extinction list because there is no Hausa Holocaust.
The United Nations, UN, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon must closely scrutinize the reports of his own United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. The demographics of West African refugees of the past forty three years will show that Igbos top the list worldwide for the very fact that they are victims of state sponsored genocide. The Biafran/Nigerian war did not end in 1970. It persists. Now, the wicked thing about war in general is its corruption of moral. This happens when women are forced to compromise if only to save their starving children from its pangs. The moment an invader sleeps with the local women, by rape or consent, he has truly conquered the land. Are women not the custodian of morality? Their corruption, by token of same logic, becomes the worst. At some point in our recent history an event, or the lack of, altered the psychological makeup of the Igbo woman. This brash wheeler-dealer is not the same species that fought the British at Aba in 1929. Call a spade a spade, ho-ha!
A marked people are ever wary and Ndigbo cannot be an exception. Such group responds to their condition by defiantly holding fast to their culture, like South African blacks of the '70s cited above; or deliberately wearing the mask of what WEB du Bois calls "patent defence," like Jews of the Middle Ages. Patent defence involves encouraging their children to learn other people's language while discouraging them from speaking their own because it carries a stigma. It involves using the newspaper to publicly denounce and curse their own race while praising members of the master/superior race if only to advance economically. It involves, also, living two-life where they pretend to be morons while their real selves are mentally imprisoned as a way of staying out of physical prison. Wycliffe Jean captures this ambivalence in "Diallo," "Have you ever died/Only so you can live?"
Only after analyzing the reports of the UNHCR and talking to psychologists on how oppressed people behave would the esteemed Secretary General be in a position to understand why Igbo is on the extinction list and Angas spoken by a quarter of a million people is not. I mean, Ndigbo could not have given up on their language without a life and death reason. They stopped speaking it to remain alive as speaking it killed them, eminent Prof. Innocent Eleazu of Asusuigbo Teta Association International please take note. It logically follows that removing the hazard associated with speaking it is the best medicine a genuinely concerned UN can administer. Start by looking into the social condition of its speakers in the period 1966 till date.
I return to the subject matter, namely, how Ndigbo can survive the present actors and their ghastly prescriptions. The complexity of our situation is such that Ndigbo have no foundation, institutional or ideological, to build a future on. The Japanese domesticated Western technology with their language. Americans have their vast territory and the freedom to make mistakes. A strong leadership ushered Indians into the nuclear club. The English have their Anglican church that does not take orders from any pope. But Ndigbo have neither their language, territory, freedom nor indigenous church. We are a dislocated people perpetually responding to others as we have no cultural compass. The resultant disorientation makes it impossible for you and I to conceptualise a national faith which is the building block of every civilization.
This is where we admit the wisdom of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai as it reflects our own unheeded existential philosophy. Ndigbo believe death can never wipe out a people; what wipes out a people is stupidity. A "prudent" race will survive a disaster that claims a "foolish" one, in other words. An extended interpretation means that a cautious people under attack will endure while a reckless one will destroy itself even without an attack. Are Igbos prudent or foolish kidnapping and killing their greats whose opinions are respected at the UN, World Bank and world capitals? Will Ndigbo endure or perish aborting their unborn and selling the born? Our indigenous belief meets the Rabbi's half way as both agree that common sense can nullify any catastrophe in the life of a nation. How then do we apply this to the Igbo condition?
Every person is imbued with qualities natural to him. Likewise, every given group is known for a particular preference. Ndigbo have certain negative/positive traits peculiar to them. To transcend we must carefully filter out our negatives while emphasizing our strong points. I list these positives as our (1) spread or Diapora (2) imitativeness or creativity, and (3) industry or entrepreneurship. These qualities constitute the Igbo quiddity; being activities Ndigbo love doing without compulsion or prompting. Based on newspaper reports, I profiled ten Igbos caught doing serious crimes as well as those who legitimately achieved milestones by examining the interplay of these positives in their circumstances.
The Igbo with attributes 2 and 3 less 1 is dangerous. He kidnaps at home.
The Igbo with attributes 1 and 2 less 3 is redundant. He peddles drugs abroad.
The Igbo with all three attributes is resilient. He is resourceful at home and abroad.
Logically, therefore, if Ndigbo must see the light of tomorrow care must be taken that all three attributes are working simultaneously for them. Nos. 2 and 3 must be encouraged wherever No. 1 takes them to. It simply means establishing more Igbo markets at home and abroad, in particular, since commerce is their second nature.
For the umpteenth time I call on Igbo governors to intervene in the economic live of Ndigbo by using state fund to build Igbo markets overseas. China and India are doing just that. When they build their shopping plazas they lease only to their citizens who are then launched into the mainstream of their host country's economy. Lift the siege by creating the enabling environment for Igbos to carry out legitimate business and these talks about drug trafficking, defrauding others, kidnapping and trade in Igbo babies will stop. Any Igbo who is economically self-reliant in Berlin, Miami, Prague, Ikeduru, Johannesburg, Sidney, Dakar, etc, constitutes that "righteous people" to influence and protect the entire generation.
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