REMINDER: Britain’s central role in the execution of the ongoing Igbo genocide ... As the British Labour party faces a meltdown over the antisemitism/racism crisis of its leader Jeremy Corbyn, we must stress that this affliction in the party started half a century ago – 53 years ago to be exact when the then Labour leader and prime minister, Harold Wilson, personally directed the prosecution of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)occupation Africa, with Britain’s client-state Nigeria

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“Diminution-of- African life”

AT THE apogee of phase-III of the Igbo genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidaires to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). 

Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself. 

 (Harold Wilson, Labour Party leader and prime minister that carried out the Igbo genocide with its Nigeria client state ... “would accept half a million dead Biafrans...”)   

WILSON’s Igbo death-decree tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists and their loyal pan-African constituent nations’ allies, particularly Yoruba, Edo, Urhobo, Jarawa, Nupe, Hausa, Kanuri and Tiv,  fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. 

Wilson would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he notes that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces “during the whole” of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then, couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...

THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY that led Britain into executing the Igbo genocide, this crime against humanity, is a social democratic/socialist/trade unionist party, democratically elected by the British population in October 1964 in one of the leading West World countries – it is “left wing”, “egalitarian”, “inclusivist”, “party of workingclass/people”, “progressive”, “liberal”, “humanist”, “internationalist” (usually supported tactically, in major political developments, throughout the era, by the Communist Party of Great Britain), not the Conservative party nor “right wing” nor “conservative” nor “party of the oppressor” nor “party of the privileged” nor “party of the rich” nor “party of bankers and landowners” nor “nationalist” nor “nativist” nor “white man’s party”, nor  “xenophobic” nor “far right” nor “fascist”... (cf. the cacophony of the current epoch’s sloganising inanities that pass for studious political discourses especially in Britain and the United States).

Intelligible

SEEN AGAINST this background of Prime Minister and British Labour party leader Harold Wilson’s execution of the Igbo genocide with Britain’s client state of Nigeria, beginning 53 years ago, the dossier of evidence so dramatically and uninterruptedly published in the past three years by influential leaders of this party, leading Jewish leaders, and others elsewhere in Britain that  the current British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic and racist becomes hugely intelligible.

(Jeremy Corbyn, present British Labour party leader... charge of antisemitism and racism by influential members of his party...)

(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 28 June/8 July 1960])

Reference

Coltrane, John and Don Cherry. “Focus on sanity”. The Avant-Garde. New York: Atlantic Studios, 28 June/8 July 1960.

Morris, Roger. Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. London & New York, 1977.

Wilson, Harold. Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record. London: Penguin Books, 1971.

Sunday Telegraph. London, 11 January 1970.

[*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe’s recently published books on the Igbo genocide and Biafra are The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)]

 Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

  

Mmuo Biafra strikes! As the British Labour party fractures over the antisemitism/racism crisis of its leader Jeremy Corbyn with this morning’s dramatic resignation from the party of seven influential members of parliament (Lucina Berger, Chuka Umunna, Ann Coffey, Mike Gapes, Angela Smith, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker), a reminder that this affliction in the party started half a century ago – 53 years ago to be exact, when the then Labour leader and prime minister, Harold Wilson, centrally directed the prosecution of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)occupation Africa, with Britain’s client-state Nigeria … More resignations are expected from the party as this crisis worsens

(Harold Wilson: “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took...”)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“Diminution-of-African life”

AT the apogee of phase-III of this genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidaires to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself (see, for instance, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe, 2001: 1-54).

Wilson’s Igbo death-wish tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists, fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. 

WILSON would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he noted that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces “during the whole” of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...

(Jeremy Corbyn: current Labour party leader)

Intelligible
SEEN AGAINST this background of Harold Wilson’s repugnant involvement in the Igbo genocide, the very trenchant charge of antisemitism and racism that current Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has had from some of his colleagues and other prominent persons in Britain, including, especially, those seven members of the party who have just quit, becomes hugely intelligible...

(The seven members of parliament who made their exit from the British Labour party today: [l-r] Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger, Ann Coffey, Chuka Umunna*****, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker) (pic and graphics: Daily Mail, London, Monday 18 February 2019)

SNIPPETS of comments made by two of the seven members of the Labour party during the London press conference today announcing their exit from the party:

Luciana Berger:  “I am embarrassed and ashamed to remain in the party … [the Labour party] is “institutionally anti-Semitic … I cannot remain in the party that I have today come to the sickening conclusion is anti-Semitic … I am leaving behind a culture of bullying, bigotry and intimidation”.

Mike Gapes: “I am sickened that the Labour Party is now a racist, anti-Semitic party”.

*****It is immensely significant to note that Chuka Umunna, one of these now seven ex-Labour party members of the British parliament, is Igbo British, born in England in October 1978, 12 years after the launch of the Igbo genocide

Marcus Roberts Septet, “Nebuchadnezzar” (personnel: Roberts, piano; Wycliffe Gordon, trombone; Wessell Anderson, alto saxophone; Herbert Harris, tenor saxophone; Chris Thomas, bass; Maurice Carnes, drums; Herlin Riley, percussion; recorded: Mastersound Studios, Astoria, New York, US,  9-10 August 1989/10 December 1989 and The Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, US, 15 December 1989)

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is author of the recently published The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019)  (https://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com/2019/01/published-longest-genocide-since-29-may.html)

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

On this “independence” day of genocidist Nigeria (2): Reminder of Britain’s key role in the execution of the Igbo genocide ... As the British Labour party faces meltdown over the antisemitism/racism crisis of its leader Jeremy Corbyn, we must stress that this affliction in the party started half a century ago – 52 years ago to be exact, when the then Labour leader and prime minister, Harold Wilson, centrally directed the prosecution of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)occupation Africa, with Britain’s client-state Nigeria

(Harold Wilson: ... “would accept half a million dead Biafrans...”)   

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe 

“Diminution-of-African life”

AT the apogee of phase-III of this genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidaires to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself.

Wilson’s Igbo death-wish tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists, fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. Wilson would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he noted that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces “during the whole” of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). Colonel Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...  

Intelligible

SEEN AGAINST this background of Harold Wilson’s repugnant involvement in the Igbo genocide, the very trenchant charge of antisemitism and racism that current Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has had from some of his colleagues and other prominent persons in Britain, becomes hugely intelligible:

(Margaret Hodge, British Labour party member of parliament: “Jeremy Corbyn is f****** racist and antisemite”, The Independent, London, 18 July 2018)

(Chuka Umunna, British Labour party member of parliament: “The Labour party [under Jeremy Corbyn] is institutionally racist  ... very painful”, Daily Mail, London, 9 September 2018)

(Jonathan Sacks, former British chief rabbi: “[Jeremy Corbyn] is anti-semite [who has] given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate”, New Statesman, London, 28 August 2018)

(Trevor Philips, former head of British equality commission: “[Jeremy Corbyn] is anti-semite and racist”, Daily Mail, 13 September 2018)

(Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour party leader...)

(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 28 June/8 July 1960])

 Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

As the British Labour party faces meltdown over the antisemitism/racism crisis of its leader Jeremy Corbyn, a reminder that this affliction in the party started half a century ago – 52 years ago to be exact, when the then Labour leader and prime minister, Harold Wilson, centrally directed the prosecution of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)occupation Africa, with Britain’s client-state Nigeria

(Harold Wilson: “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took...”)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“Diminution-of-African life”

AT the apogee of phase-III of this genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidaires to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself.

Wilson’s Igbo death-wish tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists, fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. Wilson would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he noted that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces “during the whole” of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). Colonel Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...

Intelligible

SEEN AGAINST this background of Harold Wilson’s repugnant involvement in the Igbo genocide, the very trenchant charge of antisemitism and racism that current Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has had from some of his colleagues and other prominent persons in Britain, becomes hugely intelligible:

(Margaret Hodge, British Labour party member of parliament: “Jeremy Corbyn is f****** racist and antisemite”, The Independent, London, 18 July 2018)

(Chuka Umunna, British Labour party member of parliament: “The Labour party [under Jeremy Corbyn] is institutionally racist  ... very painful”, Daily Mail, London, 9 September 2018)

(Jonathan Sacks, former British chief rabbi: “[Jeremy Corbyn] is anti-semite [who has] given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate”, New Statesman, London, 28 August 2018)

(Trevor Philips, former head of British equality commission: “[Jeremy Corbyn] is anti-semite and racist”, Daily Mail, 13 September 2018)

(Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour party leader...)

(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 28 June/8 July 1960])

 Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe reflects on the express mission of the Biafra freedom movement (video 9.34 minutes)

(Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe: The imperative of  Biafra)

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

The imperative of Biafra

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

It is indeed striking if not extraordinary that quite a few don’t seem to recognise the underlying features that link the almost routinised murder perpetrated by the police/other agents of the state in Africa on an African people in the streets of Onicha, Igwe Ocha, Aba, Nairobi, Oka, Uzo-Uwani, Bujumbura, Owere,  Enuugwu and Asaba, for instance, with the stretch of murders of African-descent people in the United States carried out by police in innumerable cities including, especially,  New York, Tulsa, Orlando, Washington DC, Omaha, Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, Dallas, Minnesota, San Francisco, Columbus, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Chicago and  Los Angeles.

Rubric

These murders, east or west of the Atlantic, are configured and executed under that same overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself. Europe’s “Berlin state”-aftermath of this scourge of history in contemporary Africa duly operationalises the agelong legacy. 

Thus, the significance of the late 1960s British Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s notorious declaration that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept the death of half a million Biafrans if that was what it took” Britain’s client and co-genocidist Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the ongoing Igbo genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122) is a reminder to anyone who would wish to think otherwise (in the globe’s post-World War II era) that the raison d’être of the state that would “oversee” the lives of African peoples forthwith wouldn’t differ, significantly, from what Britain and the rest of Europe had constructed, in variegated forms, since the 1490s. The Nigerian executioners on the ground end up murdering 3.1 million Biafrans or 25 per cent of the Igbo population during 44 gruesome months (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) – far in excess of “massa” Harold Wilson’s  “half a million Biafrans”-death wish, representing 4.2 per cent of the Igbo.

Just as the murderous gangs of camp overseers in the African enslaved estates in the Americas of earlier epochs, the overseers in present day Africa matrix estate formations, often drawn from constituent African nations opposed to the restoration of African freedom from the pan-European conquest and subjugation (e.g. Hausa-Fulani in a British Nigeria), are primed by the estate to murder conscientiously liberatory and transformative Africans as instantly, overwhelmingly and savagely as they deem fit.

Prize

It is precisely as a result of this devastating tract of antecedent that the soon to be freed Igbo people from genocidist Nigeria occupation have an opportunity to begin to build a new civilisation in Biafra where African life, human life, fundamentally, is sacrosanct. This is the immediate prize of the restoration of Biafran freedom. And Biafrans share this prize with the rest of African humanity – wherever they are emplaced across the world. Surely, for African peoples, 500 years later, this salient goal of Biafra cannot be overstressed. Never again does anyone anywhere on earth devalue African life as a ritualised instrument of state power. 

Beginning

Biafra is an inclusive state where women and men live as co-operators and co-creators in fundamentally transforming their society. This is a state that accepts and accords full rights to all its people. This is a state where people enjoy the rights to differ and to dream dreams and dream different sets of dreams as they choose.

Biafra is a state dedicated to furthering and nurturing the resilience of its people and to enable them advance their highest creative endeavours. This state continuously strives to remove all limitations in the paths of its people and committed to making life better and better and better.  This is a state that tasks its people to flourish.  Already, 50 years since the first dreadful murders of the genocide were committed in north Nigeria on Sunday 29 May 1966, Biafrans have written an extraordinary essay on human survival and fortitude, a beacon of the tenacity of the spirit of human overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginable, brutish forces.

Alas, this chokingly long drawn out catastrophe that is at once Britain’s Nigeria hotchpotch and the expanded timeframe of Europe’s totalising hegemony in Africa is over and truly African peoples do stand poised on the eve of a new beginning. Biafra.

(John Coltrane Quartet, “The promise” [personnel: Coltrane, soprano saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live at Birdland, New York, US, 8 October 1963])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe