Rethinking Africa is a forward looking blog dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the advancement of African peoples wherever they are. We provide rigorous and insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the world.
Nurse, brilliant and highly accomplished commander of Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, Mozambique Liberation Front, which frees Mozambique from nearly 500 years of the Portuguese conquest, occupation and immiseration, June 1975, and becomes first African president of the victorious republic
(Sonny Clark Trio – with Max Roach and George Duvivier, Rare session [41.46 mins] includes “Minor meeting”, “Nica”, “Sonny’s crib”, “Blues blue” and “My conception” [personnel: Clark, piano; Duvivier, bass; Roach, drums;recorded: AllMusic, New York, US, 23 March 1960])
Agronomist, one of Africa’s preeminent agricultural scientists, cousin of economist Pius Okigbo and poet Christopher Okigbo, distinguished head of the Biafra land directorate who works indefatigably to boost food production throughout the country in response to the expansively catastrophic land, sea and aerial siege of the Biafran population (31 March 1967-12 January 1970), unprecedented in African history, during the Igbo genocide by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo are murdered in this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa
(Max Roach & Anthony Braxton, “Birth” [personnel: Roach, drums; Braxton, reeds; recorded: Ricordi Studios, Milan, Italy, 7 September 1978])
THE AFRICAN WORLD (especially in continental Africa, Europe and the regions of the Americas) that unstoppably denounces racism against African peoples in all its
forms across the globe (rightly so), day in, day out, now stands to forfeit any
moral rectitude if it continues its morbid silence over the sheer savagery of
Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led Nigeria genocide against Igbo people in Biafra:
Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led
Nigeria has murdered more Africans in Biafra, southwestcentral Africa, since 1945than the total number
of Africans murdered in Africa since 1900 by all of Europe’s
conqueror-powers in Africa: Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain –
including the number of Africans the Germans murdered in the genocide of the
Herero, Nama and Berg Damara peoples of southwest Africa (1904-1907).
Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led Nigeria now rates a not-too-distant second to
Belgian King Leopold II’s notorious position as Lead Génocidaire of African Peoples
Since the 19th Century in the Leopold II/Belgian state’s genocide against
Africans in the central regions of the Congo River basin (1878-1908). What is
raging in Biafra, presently, is a campaign by indolent and immanently anti-African
fascist operatives to destroy Igbo people, one of the world’s most peaceful,
resourceful and resilient peoples. The crescendo of African World voices must
be overwhelming in denouncing this bestiality. Now is the time.
(Mal Waldron Quartet, “Hymn from the inferno” [personnel: Waldron, piano;Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: Vanguard Studios, New York, US, 15 August 1981])
(Published 27 September 2012, Penguin, London, Britain)
Father of African Literature’s incomparable memoirs on the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III), when Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain, under the primeministership of Harold Wilson, murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
Pharmacist and one of Africa’s most prolific writers with particular interest in the exploration of urban life and its immense challenges – may have inaugurated the Onicha (Biafra Oshimili Delta) market literary genre with his 1947-published Ikolo the Wrestler and other Igbo Tales and When Love Whispers (see Emmanuel Obiechina, An African Popular Literature,1973: 3), subsequently publishing over 20 novels (including People of the City [1954], The Drummer Boy [1960], Jagua Nana [1961], Burning Grass [1961], Beautiful Feathers [1963], Iska [1966], Jagua Nana’s Daughter [1993]), innumerable short stories (including several adapted for radio and television), and children’s books
(Bobby Hutcherson Sextet, “Dialogue” [personnel: Hutcherson, vibraphone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Sam Rivers, bass clarinet; Andrew Hill, piano; Richard Davis, bass; Joe Chambers, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, Cliffs, NJ, US, 3 April 1965])
SEMINAL tenor saxophonist/multiinstrumentalist and composer who has recorded with varying ensembles (big bands, octets, quintets, quartets, trios, duos, even solo!) and whose exquisite ballad “Beatrice”, named after his wife, is a classic
(Sam Rivers Quartet, “Beatrice” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 11 December 1964])
(Born 25 September 1911, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago)
ONE OF THE most outstanding African Caribbean intellectuals of all time, author of Capitalism and Slavery(1944), classic on African enslavement in the Americas by the pan-European World – from his 1938 Oxford University doctoral thesis, and first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, 31 August 1962, after centuries of the British/European World conquest, enslaving and occupation
(George Russell Sextet, “Honesty” [personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Steve Swallow, Joe Hunt, bass; drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])
(protesting US [American] football players, Wembley Stadium, London, England, Sunday 24 September 2017)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe IF… If these
US American football players in the picture (above) at Wembley Stadium in
London, England, protesting against racism in their own country were, for
instance, Igbo football players protesting against the recent
Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led genocidist Nigeria military slaughter of Igbo youth
in eastcentral Biafra regions, these players would be detained instantly on
their return by the genocidist troopers and surely “disappear” subsequently… If
the Igbo players had instead staged their protest in a stadium at Aba or Onicha
or Oka or Asaba or Owere or Igwe Ocha or Enuugwu or indeed any other Biafran
city or town, the players would almost certainly have been shot at sight by the
gun-toting genocidists just as the vile operatives mowed down hundreds of Igbo
youth at Afaraukwu-Ibeku/greater Umuahia and Aba/greater Aba regions of
eastcentral Biafra on Thursday 14 September 2017... If… Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
(Sonny
Rollins Trio, “The freedom suite”
[personnel: Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford,
bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US,
7 March 1958)
INFLUENTIAL sociologist and academic who publishes expansively on subject of race and human rights in the United States with the E Franklin Frazier Center for Social Work Research, Howard University, named after him (https://socialwork.howard.edu/centers/frazier-center, accessed 24 September 2017) Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
ON THIS DAY of the 91st
birthday of John Coltrane, we here recall one of the most outstanding collaborations of two
artistic geniuses in history: Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In this memorable
April 1959 session, the Davis Quintet (Davis, trumpet; Coltrane, tenor sax;
Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums – they are joined
briefly towards the end by a group of trombonists who are part of the brass
section of an orchestra to perform with Davis on a separate date) is playing “So what” . Davis’s solo is sensuously crisp and achingly
fragile, with every single note played literally justifying its being… This is
sheer beauty. Coltrane takes over and it is fascinating how, in his intro, he
acknowledges the delicacy of the mood already established by Davis but
confronts the question posed by the title of the composition by pitching his
stall on a different plane – with those unmistakable torrents of notes, his
“sheets of sound”, that mark his signature. As he takes his break, the usually
reticent Davis is seen swaying to the beat as his tenorist soars. Kelly
reorders the tempo, once again, as he contributes to the debate on piano and of
course the irrepressible Chambers on bass (who had just turned 24!) and drummer
Cobb are all redefining the state of African
American classical music at such a
crucial epoch in US and world history. For an excellent book on the working
relationship between Miles and Trane, I recommend Farrah Jasmine Griffin and
Salim Washington, Clawing at the limits of cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane,
and the greatest jazz collaboration ever (New York: St Martin’s & Thomas
Dunn Books, 2008).
(Born 23 September 1926, Hamlet, NC, United States)
ICONOCLASTIC tenor (and soprano) saxophonist and composer who, arguably, has had the most profound impact on the development of jazz, African American classical music, in the past 50 years
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Impressions” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live, Jazz Casual Productions {host: Ralph Gleason}, 7 December 1963])
By
A Correspondent, Aba, 1146HRS, September 22, 2017
HARD
NUMBERS on the victims of the on-going military crackdown ordered by Nigeria’s
genocidist president Muhammadu Buhari have started to trickle in.
Pieces
of information made available to this correspondent on the casualties of
victims of the September 14, 2017 massacre of unarmed Igbo youth in just the
Abia state administrative areas alone are staggering.
The
numbers that are still being compiled by field investigators who are nowhere
close to the middle of their painful forensic undertaking indicate that more
than 800 (eight hundred) casualties of the massacre that took place in the
Afara Ibeku, Umuahia country residence of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and its
environs include “over 400 dead, 400 terminally wounded and thousands arrested
and detained indefinitely in undisclosed locations without charge”.
According
to the source, “investigators have recovered over 88 corpses of Igbo youths
from in and around Mr. Nnamdi Kanu’s residence in Afara, Umuahia … executed by
Nigerian security agencies in the night of 14 September, 2017 alone”.
Eye
witnesses report that “35 dead bodies” were removed by the soldiers from the
scene following their brazen massacre.
The tactic of quickly removing the bodies of their victims is indicative
of the systematic and premeditated orders that soldiers who were deployed to carry
out this massacre were handed by their superiors ahead of and preparatory for
their deployment.
This
correspondent learned that field investigators, who are still busy at work, are
compiling the list of casualties in the September 14, 2017 massacre that took
place in the nearby city of Aba and the other locations in the Abia state
administrative area.
IT
IS ON record that the governor of Abia state, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, is already
implicated in the previous acts of extrajudicial executions and massacre of
unarmed, non-violent agitators for a Referendum for self-determination by Igbo
youth carried out by Muhammadu Buhari’s forces, known to have taken place in
the Abia state area since 2015. Dr
Ikpeazu’s name is on the list of 16 individuals who have been named in the Tort
suit filed in a Washington, DC, US federal court on behalf of victims by
Attorney Bruce Fein’s law firm. Also
named in that suit is General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, who is also Buhari’s army
chief, and 14 others.
The
sources that interfaced with this correspondent cautioned that these numbers of
victims of the massacre are best taken as estimates because the field
investigations that are still underway are also in their early stages.
THIS REPORT (at link below) on the stretch of pogroms of Igbo
people across Biafra by genocidist Nigeria’s Hausa-Fulani/islamists-led
military occurred between May 2016 and September 2016 (not May 2017 and September 2017) was issued by the International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law human rights group on 22
September 2016. The cataclysmic tenor of this genocide is clearly evident for any
conscientious genocide student who observes that just changing the May and September
designated dates here to 2017 – in other words focussing on current times, automatically
brings forth a template of unchanging geographical arena for the perpetration
of this crime against humanity but with worse deleterious outcomes.
INFLUENTIAL philosopher and theorist of an encompassing African World*consciousness and first president of contemporaryGhana, July 1960, following the 6 March 1957 restoration-of-independence after a century of the British conquest, occupation and immiseration *Africans in Africa continent, Europe, the Americas, the MiddleEast, Asia, Australasia, wherever else on earth
(Jackie McLean Sextet, “Appointment in Ghana” [personnel: McLean, alto saxophone; Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Tina Brooks, tenor saxophone; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 1 September 1960])
ONE OF LEADING innovative jazz drummers in the 1950s/1960s who frees the drums from the “traditional” time-keeping role in the music ensemble, with the drums now engaging more proactively and continuously in multiple-centred dialogues with other instruments whose soloists resultantly feel less inhibited by time in their own creative enterprise
(Albert Ayler Trio, “Ghosts – first variation” [personnel: Ayler, tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock, bass; Sunny Murray, drums; recorded: ESP-Disk, New York, 10 July 1965])
Pioneering and distinguishedscholar of the historic *Onicha market literature genre and versatile literary critic and one of the leading Igbo intellectuals who defends Igbo people resolutely during the Igbo genocide (phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970) by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of the population are murdered by the genocidists; this is the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa *(river port city in Biafra Oshimiri Delta)
(Charles Mingus Sextet – with Eric Dolphy, Cornell University 1964, “Meditations” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Dolphy, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: live, Cornell University, 18 March 1964])
INTENSELY CREATIVE alto saxophonist and composer who categorises his music (as well as that of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers and other masters) as “spontaneous composition”
(Dave Holland Quintet, “Homecoming” – featuring Steve Coleman [personnel: Holland, bass; Kenny Wheeler, fluegelhorn; Robin Eubanks, trombone; Coleman, alto saxophone; Marvin “Smithy” Smith, drums; recorded: live, Zelt-Musik Festival, Freiburg, Germany 31 March 1986])
Physician, poet, co-founder of Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, and first African president of Angola, November 1975, after the people’s victory terminating 400 years of the Portuguese conquest, occupation and immiseration
(Sonny Clark Trio – with Max Roach and George Duvivier, Rare session [41.46 mins] includes “Minor meeting”, “Nica”, “Sonny’s crib”, “Blues blue” and “My conception” [personnel: Clark, piano; Duvivier, bass; Roach, drums;recorded: AllMusic, New York, US, 23 March 1960])
THE Indigenous
People of Biafra, led by Nnamdi Kanu,
is constituted integrally in the
Biafra freedom movement which campaigns peacefully for the
restoration-of-independence of the 50 million indigenous people of Biafra.
This is the most peaceful freedom movement in Africa and one of the very few of
its kind across the entire South World – Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South
America. It will stop 51 years of the Igbo genocide by genocidist Nigeria/co-genocidist
state Britain (29 May 1966-present day) and will free Biafra from 47 years of occupation (since 13 January 1970) by these dual states. Finally, it will work assiduously to prosecute all individuals and institutions involved in the Igbo genocide since its 29 May 1966 launch, including those involved in the ongoing unimaginable stretch of programmed savagery perpetrated in Biafra by the Nigeria genocidist military-led Hausa-Fulani/islamists.
(Herbert
Ekwe-Ekwe)
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Acknowledgement” {part-I of A Love Supreme suite} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 9 December 1964])
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe IF ANYONE, anywhere in the world, ever doubted the sheer
savagery of the Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led Nigeria genocidist military in its 51
years of campaign to destroy the resourceful and resilient Igbo people of
Biafra, the internet and other media are deluged, presently, with awfully
distressing videos, still shots and other recorded accounts of its ongoing
scorched-earth operations in Biafra that capture its dreadful portraiture. This
is an unrelentingly sustained terrorism in real
time operation to overrun the Biafra freedom movement, the most peaceful of its kind in Africa and one of the very few in the South World, by a state’s military, not “non-state”, that immanently
privileges its jihadist history and geography and worldview. This state and
military are equipped and reequipped by Britain which created both for its service in perpetuity. As I have argued severally, the priority of the Biafra government on the morrow of the restoration-of-independence is to inaugurate the
construction of a civilisation where Igbo life, human life, fundamentally,
is sacrosanct. This salient feature cannot be overstressed, given the
sickening pictures of Nigeria’s acts of depravity of recent days. Nigeria has
been, for the Igbo, a haematophagousmonsterthroughout
its history. In contradistinction, Biafra is a realisation, a
profound reclamation of that which makes us all human and part of
humanity.
BIAFRA isthe beacon of the tenacity of
the spirit of human-overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginably brutish
Hausa-Fulani/islamist forces and all that they represent.
(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])
THERE HAS BEEN a commendable worldwide criticism of the Myanmar
military for its operation in the country’s southwest Rakhine region where the
Rohingya people, predominantly muslim, live. Nearly 400,000 Rohingya have fled
to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the increasing violence.
In contrast, the world has remained unconscionably silent over
the Nigeria genocidist military campaign in (occupied) Biafra where it has
murdered 2000 Biafrans since October 2015. The Nigeria state, created by
Britain, is headed by Hausa-Fulani/islamists and its military engaged in the
genocide in Biafra is led by a phalanx of senior islamist operatives. In the past
week alone, hundreds of Biafrans have been murdered in scorched-earth
operations mounted by the Nigerians who have laid siege on all Biafran cities
and towns (including especially Enuugwu, Onicha, Asaba, Oka, Aba, Orlu, Okigwe,
Owere, Igwe Ocha, Abakeleke, Umuahia, Owere, Afaraukwu-Ibeku) in response to
the Biafra freedom, restoration-of-independence movement. The Biafra freedom movement
is totally peaceful, the most peaceful of its kind in Africa and one of the
very few anywhere in the South World.
World stop Igbo genocide now
The world must now wake up from its inexcusable slumber over the
Igbo genocide and condemn genocidist Nigeria unreservedly. This condemnation
must also extend to Britain, the co-genocidist state in this crime right from
its original launch date on 29 May 1966, which is the principal exporter of the
array of weapons the Nigerian enforcers employ in their slaughter of the Igbo.
In this case, it is indeed not without significance that the current phase of
the genocide (beginning Sunday 10 September 2017) was mounted shortly after the
July/August 2017 visits to Nigeria by Tony Blair (a former British prime
minister) and Boris Johnson (current British foreign secretary).
THE WORLD must at once stop the Igbo genocide and the occupation
of Biafra and support the Biafra freedom movement’s programmed process of a referendum to determine the democratic choice
of 50 million Biafrans. All those involved in this crime against humanity, the
foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa, must be arraigned and
prosecuted forthwith in designated international courts. The genocidists
murdered 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of the population during phases
I-III of the crime, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, and tens of thousands of additional
Igbo during phase-IV which has been ongoing since its launch date on 13 January
1970. The whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra, are presently unknown since the genocidists stormed his Afaraukwu-Ibeku
(east Biafra) family home yesterday (Thursday 14 September 2017), murdering a
yet undisclosed number of relatives and others therein and abducting his
parents.
(George Russell Sextet, “Nardis” {composer: Miles Davis}[personnel: Russell, piano;Don Ellis, trumpet;Dave Baker, trombone;Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet;Steve Swallow, bass;Joe Hunt, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, 8 May 1961])
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is specialist on the state and on genocide & wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch – beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-present day, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered by Nigeria and its allies, principally Britain. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. African peoples have, presently, no other choice but exit/dismantle the extant genocide-state (the bane of their existence & progress) & construct own nation-centred states that serve their interests. He is author of several books & papers on the subject and his new book is entitled The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019).
