WHOM TO FEAR

Kajit J Bagu (John Paul) PhD (Edinburgh).
johnpaulkajit@yahoo.co.uk
@jpkajit

'... care for those of us who lag behind and bring them back into the fight ...
identify whoever keeps betraying us at the back and help us find out why.'
- BDS Santos, 2014.

It is not the oppressor that should be feared, for his/her man/woman power and abilities are terribly limited.

It is the compromised among the oppressed who should be feared (the weak, the selfish, the ambitious, the proud, the vain, the vulnerable, the uninformed and the non-conscious!)
They have the power to betray, and that is a great and terrible power indeed!

The struggle for a just, equal and peaceful world is confronted by this challenge at different levels.

In Scotland, Scots were necessary for the subjugation of Scotland.
'Europeanised Africans' were necessary for the subjugation of Africa.
Libyans were necessary for the destruction of Gaddafi in Libya.
'Elites' are necessary for the neo-colonisation of Africa today, they are necessary at every level for the obliteration of indigenous Africa and the alienation of her birth right.
Syrians will be necessary for the destruction of Syria.

Unfortunately, I must 'soil' this post with my expertise in Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy by adding that in the case of what the British Empire derogatorily called 'Nigeria', certain principles are deeply enshrined in the constitution of this colonial construct to guarantee a permanent state of division and thus, of collective, comprehensive and desirably perpetual subjugation. Let the thinker consider these ornamental, constitutional chains:

1. Consociationalism;
2. Colonial 'Nationhood';
3. Individualised and 'corporatised' Fundamental Rights in contempt of indigenous communality;
4. Europeanised' and 'Arabised' elites and 'citizens';
5. A federalism and boundary system defined by what I have called 'colonising cartography'.

These are exalted as ornaments with colonial roots, but they act as chains!
How seemingly beautiful to think that another reality is unimaginable besides these! That it is treasonable to be critical in thought, and therefore remain bound to relish chains as ornaments!
When structure becomes the veiled-cum-desired tool for oppression, which the oppressed are bound to adore; when you must take more doses of poison to 'cure' earlier, lesser, but destructive doses!

No! It is not the oppressor that should be feared, his/her powers are limited.

OF CHASING SYMPTOMS? (US Diplomacy, Murders and Reactionaries)

By 

Kajit J Bagu (John Paul), PHD (Edinburgh).

johnpaulkajit@yahoo.co.uk

@jpkajit

AFRICA-'NIGERIA'

And so, many were concerned that John Kerry visited the Fulani/Muslim Sultan in Sokoto, met with 'Northern Governors' only and with the President behind closed doors in a rare US high level visit to Nigeria!

In the meantime, some profoundly gruesome pictures accompanied tales of 'Fulani attacks' in Enugu within a short space of time.

Simultaneously it would seem, some Kaduna State indigenes under the banner of SOKAPU assembled in black with banners saying no to grazing reserves, and 'stop the killings'.

Zamfara completes my circle of 'symptoms' with accounts of the murder of an 'infidel' Christian, along with about 7 Muslims as 'collateral damage', for being in a house where the 'infidel' was shielded. His crime was something along the lines of insult to Islam!

These four incidents all led to the raising of concerns, or constituted the raising of concerns such as the protest against grazing reserves. But what do these concerns have in common from an epiphenomenal (what proceeds from what) perspective?

For one, I suppose that I might be entitled to call them all reactive, and thus reactionary, rather than proactive. To be reactionary often also amounts to 'waiting for the manifestation of things long in motion'. How does this 'reactionarism' play in each of these cases?

First on Kerry's visit, the reactionary bit locates itself at various levels, first in being blissfully ignorant, or nonchalant about how the West constructs and views power relations in 'the dark continent' as they call it. It lies in a complicit ignorance of what is central to Eurocentric philosophies of identity, power and race as pivotal to the construction of what it calls 'civilisation' in the mould of Modernity and the New World Order. It makes no sense to the reactionaries that Barbarians always rank ahead of Savages in western political philosophy. In this case, being reactionary or behind the tides is what happens when Kerry does precisely what agrees with long established patterns of Eurocentric foreign policy of the USA, itself a European colonial offspring.

With the Enugu murders and the outcry they generate, the SOKAPU protest against grazing reserves (including the protest in Plateau and the Booing of Deputy Governor Tyoden in COCIN Church) and killings in southern Kaduna, as well as the Zamfara murders, a consistent pattern of reactionary predispositions is remarkable.

This says a lot about the people in this colonially crafted and structured 'Nigerian' system!

What does it say?

Yes, it says much, much more than I can type here. But at least you can take one lesson away: there seems to be a profound aptitude for chasing symptoms. This perhaps indicts the capacity of first, those who we may call 'rulers', then the intellectuals/thinkers and lastly, civil society in this post-colonial construct.

It'll take a volume to outline these perspectives and realities. Perhaps that's why we undertake a Cognitive Justice Peacebuilding Ambassadorship training for six weeks at the Foundation for the Move(ment) for Cognitive Justice (MCJ).

Certainly, those who should solve problems, or facilitate their being solved, need the right levels of consciousness, awareness, knowledge, skills and tact. Otherwise, as Einstein implies, how can the same level of consciousness solve the problems which were created from it?