Tag: Nigeria

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Occupy yourself to the fullest!

In a time where there are so many projections of the “ideal” person, be it man/woman/child/mother/student/son/teenager etcetc, it is my firm belief that each individual has to daily and fervently engage in self-examination and evaluation with loving eyes.  It is important to see yourself as you are, the minutiae of your being and actually like yourself. It is possible to be in enjoyment of your own personhood WITHOUT falling into narcissism and self-absorption. 

This is an act of war to take a hold of the territory that is you and occupy yourself to the fullest. Not to do this is to risk being swept away by mass media images that batter away at the collective consciousness of all that are alive and in possession of any of the five senses of the human body.  

It is a terrible thing when the “ideal” excludes so much of everybody else and deems them unfit to be, to just be – in peace, in happiness, in contentment and enjoyment of one’s truest and most authentic self. 

The words below are my own act of defiance against the tyranny of sameness and cancellation of my me-ness, you see, there is so much of me that is not represented as “good”. So, hurray to defiance! As you read, dare to find the crooked, imperfect thing about you and be content that you are made perfect in the eyes of the One who matters the most. 

“I like myself. 

I like the fact that I’ve got this great looking skin , which I got from my mum and my grandmothers (maternal and paternal) and my aunties. 

I like my fat thighs and my large butt 🙂 

I like the fact that as I’m now polishing my skin with a mixture of shea butter and sugar, the my stretch marks are slowly receding, with the care I’m giving. 

I like that I am curvy, there’s this cinch at my waist which makes the difference between my bust and my waist ridiculous, I like that! 🙂 

I like the fact that I’m not short and I’m not tall. I’m in between, a nice size. 

I like my face and I like my eyes. I like my teeth. 

I like the fact that I like to write, I like the fact that I can swim. 

I like that I can cook and when I cook, I do a “speedy Gonzalez”, everything happens quickly in the kitchen and after I’m done, it seems like nothing happened in there! 

I like the fact that when I cook, I talk to God and He talks to me and the food always tastes good. 

I like the fact that I can do so many things relatively well, so many skills in one package, a brown package, a mini bombshell. 

I like the fact that God likes me. He tells me in so many ways, I have such favor with people! 

I like me. I didn’t use to like me a long time ago, but now, I like me. And before you get on your high horse and say ” Oh, she’s full of herself”, I’ll ask you one question,  “Do you like you?” You better do, because no one else is going to like you like you are supposed to like you 🙂 

I like the fact that I care, my heart is moved to compassion when I need the need of another even though I might not be able to help. So many that I meet, I’m only able to meet the needs of one or two. 

I like the fact that I’ve learned how to give my best to everything I’m involved in and to be content with whatever the outcome is, knowing that I’ve given my best. 

I like the fact that I’m Nigerian and I’m African, in the 21st century, it’s AWESOME! No matter what the news will say, negative propaganda, I like the fact that I’m Nigerian. 

I like the fact that I can be so posh one minute and in the same breath, move into the deepest vernacular version of English or Igbo or pidgin English. I like the fact that I’m versatile. 

I like the fact that I’ve been through so much in my relatively short life and I’ve come out so strong, tempered steel. I like the fact that I’m Velvet-Steel – soft, rich and plush but also very hard and keen at the edges. A sharp sword, sheathed in softness. ” 

In a world that is permeated with messages that tell me that I “should” be a particular way, this is my declaration of self-love, self-enjoyment realization. If I don’t like myself first, who will? A woman who does not like herself cannot like another one ( topic for another day!)Lol

 

This was previously published on Goread.com.I have since left that platform.

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Re-reading a classic with a different set of eyes

I read “Things Fall Apart” again, in the month of April after almost two decades  I finally understood why it is such a great piece of writing and why its author is venerated. However, reading it as an adult  in this present stage of my development in thought brought certain issues to the fore : 

  • In as much as my loyalties are to the Christ and His Kingdom, I realize that the missionaries were the fore front of the war the Europeans of that time brought to the land and people of Igbo. Wittingly and/or unwittingly, they paved the way for the relentless and ruthless, utterly selfish and mercenary avarice and gluttony of the European ruling class. The gospel of Christ does not call for the decimation of a people, a change in loyalties, yes, but not a rape , a violation of a people and all the aspects of a way of life.  

It could have all happened differently , with a different effect on the land  and its peoples. Our cultural evolution , on so many levels and in so many different aspects, was catastrophically interrupted and we since have not recovered. Only in recent times has intellectual discourse begun on how, when, where to pick up the threads of our identity as a whole. 

 

  • Certain aspects of Igbo culture/tradition have to be restored and incorporated in a balanced manner and reintroduced to the lives of contemporary Igbo. 

Two sections of the book have captured my attention because of the profundity contained in several lines. The depth of meaning is immense, worlds and realities existent in several lines of words. 

  • Page 165 – “ Obierika who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously, “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself and now he will be buried like a dog….” He could not say any more. His voice trembled and choked his words.” The death of Okonkwo is a representation of the death of Igbo, things/ concepts that we stand for, the death of identity. Granted, Okonkwo was a very flawed man in his character, but his sense of identity was so strong  that instead of bowing to the aggressive incursion/attack on his sense of self, he removed himself in a violent manner; such an extreme act that was in itself a sign to those left in the realm of the living. The death of a way of life, the death of high concepts that were aspired to : honour, bravery, dignity, loyalty – to land, family, friends. Oh, such tragedy. 
  • Page 165 -166 – “ The Commissioner went away, taking 3 or 4 of the soldiers with him. In the many ways in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learnt a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting down a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Everyday brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought : The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” 

In one word “condescending”. 

All of Okonkwo’s life, its detail, its struggle, its significance brought low, clumped up into one chapter, nay, “a reasonable paragraph “ in a book describing one Caucasian’s experiences of his brutal tactics in conquering/dominating a people sophisticated in thought and ability, only different from his. 

This should never be forgotten. I do not advocate hatred towards ANY race. However, Igbo MUST NOT forget the effects of the incursion of Caucasians into her borders.

Read,Grow,Occupy

#RGO

This was originally written in my NeoIgbo journal 8th May,2014

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Gender ruminations

Gender ruminations, Africa, Nigeria, Igbo.

Thinking about the highly patriarchal society that is Africa, Nigeria and Igbo land that I grew up in, that I call home, it is not news that women and children are subjugated in that environment. I’ve jut been cogitating on the implications for that space.

I turn 37 this year, I’ve been emotionally and physically involved with African men and men of African descent. My gender cogitations intensified as a result of my varied interactions with them. I find that majority of them , within and without the Body of Christ, have been ( have tried to be is more accurate because they did not succeed) harmful, not physically, but emotionally. As I have grown older in years and more comfortable in my own skin, I noticed that the psychic violence increased, sometimes quite subtle and sometimes very overt.

I have interacted with men from many different cultures as a result of my meanderings on the earth and made a well thought out decision that when it came to choosing a life partner, I would always go with “my people” ( for various reasons which I won’t go into here). This choice has led me into a great forest of thorns.

For all the personal inner growth I have experienced by the grace and mercy of God, hard work, self-sacrifice and self-denial, plain old seppuku/harakiri, MY AFRICAN BROTHERS DON’T APPRECIATE MY STRONG SENSE OF SELF. Because they haven’t done the work on their own selves, even though they recognize the worth of the woman I am becoming, my brothers have rejected, wounded and worked hard to belittle me in order to have CONTROL over my life force and strength of purpose, to be used for their own ends : my feminine power is a means/commodity to their own ends. This I refuse and resist most vehemently.

It has cost me too much to be where I am , who I am today.

From these cogitations I have come to the conclusion ( quite obvious really, not ground breaking , this) that Africa, Nigeria, Igbo is the way it is because the male power is extreme in its decision to subdue, subjugate and dis-empower feminine power to co-function with it in the totality of life in that location.

Reading from “Voices of the Other” – “For women, the additional oppression of gender predated the arrival of the British and even the Portuguese: it was long ingrained in African society. … Addressing this subject , Lisa Iyer writes that African women were “subjected to African and Western patriarchy simultaneously “ and that their suffering was only made “more acute by colonization.” “

In a recent number of the ARIEL, Rose Ure Mezu identifies patriarchy as an equivalent of colonialism and she calls the Igbo male hierarchy a “fascisizing Oedipal agency”( page 216).”

This quote and its contents lead in excellently into my next thread of thought that is related to an angle of this matter that I have been pondering: Biafran women and their largely overlooked role during the ghastly genocide (physical, cultural, emotional) inflicted on Igbo people and their sympathetic and unsympathetic neighbours under the all acceptable all covering label of “war”. This “war” was inflicted upon them and their children by Ojukwu and his friends, enemies and frenemies. They did not ask for it nor want it, they were not consulted and did not constitute or contribute to any part of the decision making process.

Extreme patriarchy exists in Africa, kept alive and functioning by the patriarchal men and women born of that environment.

This was handwritten in one of my journals in 2016.