What is “civil war”?

The oxymoron “civil war” is a strange beast indeed. It neither describes what, by any imagination, is “civil” about it nor does it elucidate on the salient features of the nature or character and range of its being. All that “civil war” connotes is that it is an “internal war” – occurring within a seemingly sovereign state, which, in the Africa case, would be a reference to its “Berlin state(s)”. Its opposite, supposedly, is the “inter-state war”.

Since the beginning of the presumed restoration-of-African independence epoch in the Sudan in January 1956, “inter-state wars” in Africa are in fact an exception – just a handful, not more than five! Even here, the genesis of the Ethiopia-Eritrea War (May 1998-June 2000), one of the five, is located in the “internal” wars of old Ethiopia. If one were therefore to follow this “internal war”/“external war” dichotomy-characterisation of armed conflicts in Africa during this epoch, the overwhelming majority of the 15 million Africans who have lost their lives, since the 1966-1970 Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, would be designated as having died in “internal wars”.

Recognisable

Scholars and others who promote the “civil war” tag particularly in Africa have often done so merely to privilege the extant  “Berlin-state” configuration and its principal or “dominant” protagonist in the conflict (“state”, “government”, “central government”, “federal government”, etc., etc.) over oppositional or insurgent protagonists often cast as “regionalists”, “secessionists”, “rebels” or worse. The trend is to be restricted or trapped in a quaint juridical fidelity of discourse under the overarching, essentially sanitising banner of “civil war” without confronting the much more expansive turbulence of underlying history emplaced. 

If most of the 15 million Africans already referred to died in “internal wars”, then “civil war” proponents’ primary quest to preserve the “Berlin-state” status quo ironically problematises the latter’s existence as this “Berlin-state”, in Africa, is a murder-machine… The salutary lesson from this is obvious:  Rather than try to obfuscate or sanitise a human-made catastrophe, call it by its instantly, recognisable name!

Besides a reference to a territoriality and its constituent peoples in Africa, there is nothing else internal about “internal wars” in Africa. As the Igbo genocide demonstrates, this crime against humanity would probably not have occurred without the central role played by Britain, an external power – right from its conceptualisation to execution (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/britain-aburi-and-igbo-genocide_14.html).

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Did Igbo people “lose a war”?

No, Igbo did not “lose a war”. The Igbo did not “lose a war” between 29 May 1966-12 January 1970. No such “war” was waged in Igboland during this period. And this is not a case of semantics. On the contrary, what went on during those 44 months was a campaign of genocide against Igbo people by Nigeria and its allies, particularly Britain. 3.1 million Igbo, a quarter of this nation’s population, were murdered. This figure is about the total fatality of the Vietnam War (both sides – including all civilians, US combat troops, the Vietcong, North Vietnam troops, South Vietnam troops) between 1959 and 1975. 

The clearly stated goal of the Nigeria campaign is (note tense of operative verb) to annihilate the Igbo, as a people: see anthem of the campaign in Hausa, broadcast throughout the duration of the slaughter on Kaduna radio (shortwave) and television (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/29-may-1966.html); see also key statements made on radio and/or tv broadcasts, interviews/press conference, essays, memoirs, etc., etc, by leading figures involved in the campaign – Awolowo, Harold Wilson, Gowon, Danjuma, Useni, Muhammed, Adekunle, Rotimi, Katsina, Obasanjo, Haruna, Taiwo... 

To embark on a research of the genocide, it is indeed staggering to discover what a treasure trove for the researcher just watching or reading a clipping of statements/commentaries on this crime against humanity by an Obasanjo or an Adekunle or an Useni or an Awolowo or a Wilson or a Haruna or a Rotimi… This genocide is ongoing. Those who carried out the genocide do not, at all, deny their involvement in the crime... It is astonishing.

Survived

The Igbo survived the genocide. At the apogee of the genocide, 1968/69, few expected the Igbo to survive. Igbo survival is one of the most extraordinary human developments of recent history. Some people don’t often appreciate the resilient spirit and drive that ensured this survival outcome. This capacity cannot be exaggerated. Provided they survive, no peoples targeted for genocide lose except, of course, they are obliterated. Those who survive genocide such as the Herero or Armenians or Jews or Igbo or Tutsi or Darfuri, for instance, are indeed victors – because they survived. I am pleased to share the following link where I elaborate on this subject in a presentation at the historic conference (in the US) on Christopher Okigbo, Africa’s leading poet:

http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2011/04/herbert-ekwe-ekwe-on-okigbo-igbo.html

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

75th birthday of Alexander Obiefoka Animalu

(Born 28 August 1938, Oba, Igboland)

 Distinguished theoretical physicist (discoverer of Animalu’s Isosuperconductivity), expert on solar energy, professor emeritus, and prolific multidisciplinary author including a set of biographical studies, one of which is on mathematician Chike Obi aptly subtitled: The foremost African mathematical genius of the 20th century

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

76th birthday of Alice Coltrane

(Born 27 August 1937, Detroit, United States)

 Perspicuous harpist, pianist, organist, bandleader and versatile composer which includes the ethereal work, Ptah, the El Daoud, featuring tenor saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

80th birthday of Wayne Shorter

(Born 25 August 1933, Newark, New Jersey, United States) 

 Jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist, member of the seminal mid-1960s Miles Davis Quintet and arguably the most prolific living composer in the repertoire – compositions include standards “Footprints”, “Nefertiti” and “ESP” and  Schizophrenia, Speak No Evil  and the classic, The All Seeing Eye

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

The world goes to Enuugwu... Ethiopian airlines’ scheduled flight lands successfully...

Ethiopian airlines’ scheduled flight lands successfully in Enuugwu on Saturday 24 August 2013 at 1215 hours local time, 1115 Dakar Time, 1115 Accra Time, 1415 Addis Ababa Time, 1415 Johannesburg Time, 1115 GMT, 1215 British Summer Time, 0715 EST, 0415 PST, 0615 Kingston (Jamaica) Time, 0715 Georgetown Time, 0815 Brazilia Time, 1315 Stockholm Time, 1315 Berlin Time, 1415 Helsinki Time, 1515 Riga Time, 1615 Moscow Time, 1645 New Dehli Time, 1915 Beijing Time, 2115 Canberra Time, 2315 Wellington Time... Nnoo nu

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

From what other source are you still waiting for this news of the age?

Straight from the horse’s mouth: “[Nigeria] is jinxed and cursed; we should all go to hell”! This declaration is from none other but Matthew Olusegun Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, speaking recently in Ibadan, west Nigeria. In the speech, not surprisingly (saharareporters.com, 13 August 2013), Obasanjo, who had been head of regime for 11 years,  totally absolves himself of being a key agency in facilitating the status of his “jinxed and cursed” Nigeria as can be shown clearly in the following (“‘Cargo cult mentality’, Nigeria and the illusions of NEPAD”,
http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2011/03/cargo-cult-mentality-nigeria-and.html). 

“[J]inxed and cursed” Nigeria has the unenviable accolade of having carried out the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa against Igbo people. During the course of 44 months, beginning from 29 May 1966, Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, or one-quarter of this nation’s population. And Olusegun Obasanjo is one of the most notorious Nigerian military commanders of this genocidal campaign. At its apogee, 1968/1969, the Obasanjo-led brigade, operating in the outstretched south Igboland, had converted this panhandle into a veritable killing field in which it slaughtered “… everything that moves … we shoot at everything, even at things that don’t move”, as its previous commander, the equally notorious Benjamin Adekunle, had  so grimly proffered. The skies of Igboland were neither spared from this “shoot-at-everything” monstrosity. In June 1969 Obasanjo ordered his air force to shoot down an international Red Cross aircraft bringing urgent relief to the encircled and blockaded Igbo and he later boasts fiendishly of this crime in his memoirs, aptly entitled My Command. Not since the German genocide against the Herero in Namibia in the early 1900s had Africa witnessed such brazen act of savagery on expansive display. As I have argued, severally, Nigeria collapsed as a state with few prospects on that Sunday it launched the Igbo genocide (See, for instance, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, “29 May 1966”,

http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/29-may-1966.html).

Given Obasanjo’s imprimatur on this catastrophe and recalling that it is, after all, not just unbridled opportunism that the London Financial Times not too long ago dubbed the same Obasanjo “godfather of modern Nigeria” (Financial Times, London, 14 April 2012), the genocidist’s Nigeria-is-“jinxed-and-cursed” acknowledgement, albeit belated, is testimony that the offspring indeed carries the unmistakeably doomed DNA signature of its paternity.