The Fiction Called Nigeria

It's an extremely rare thing when journalists and do-gooders pontificating on Africa's woes pause to consider just how rooted the problems are in unresolved issues of ethnic autonomy, so this article on Nigeria is all the more notable for doing so head on: "Nigeria" has always been nothing more than an administrative fiction representing a certain amount of territory the British managed to grab before the French could, and subsequently held together by nothing more than military force and shared elite greed for unearned oil income. The following excerpt illustrates just how transparent the fiction of a "Nigerian" nation remains:

Political violence of the type that preceded the country's elections in 1999 and 2003 appears to be on the rise as well. The wife of a prominent northern politician was found stabbed to death in her home. Nothing was taken from the house, according to Nigerian newspaper reports, leading many to conclude that her killing was a warning to her husband, Abubakar Rimi, a crucial member of a coalition of powerful northerners opposed to any extension of Mr. Obasanjo's rule.

Nigeria's vice president, Atiku Abubakar, a former general and northerner, would like to succeed Mr. Obasanjo, but the president has made it clear that he opposes that, and a deepening political row in the governing party has broken out over the succession question.

In the complex ethnic politics of Nigeria, factions have emerged in the People's Democratic Party urging that the presidency shift to a different ethnic group. Ruled for most of its history by Muslim generals from the north, Nigerians in the South-South, as the Niger Delta is known, say it is their turn, while northerners say that after two terms of Mr. Obasanjo, a Yoruba Christian from the southwest, they should get the presidency again.

Notice how nothing is said here of allowing the votes of the people to determine who gets what: it is simply assumed by all parties as an uncontroversial fact that it is some region or other's "turn" to have at the top political office, as if it were a prize holiday or trinket, rather than an office with responsibilities to the whole of the country. All one has to do to understand the endemic nature of corruption in Nigeria is to appreciate that this mentality is the norm at all levels of government and in every political arena: power is not thought of as something to be used sparingly to maintain law and order and facilitate commerce and industry, but as a means of providing massive patronage for one's own ethnic group (and particularly one's own friends and relatives) at the expense of others, and therefore a zero-sum game. In such an atmosphere, any measure one might wish to take which stands to benefit one group more than another will necessarily be opposed, however sensible it may be or how substantial its likely benefits: try to trim the civil service or enforce promotion by merit and the Northerners will interpret it as a Southern attempt to purge them of influence; propose privatizing and deregulating electricity generation and you'll be accused of favoring the Delta and South-East, where such businesses make most sense to set up; declare your intention to open up telecommunications and sell off NITEL and the predictable grumbling about a conspiracy to benefit the Yoruba South-West will start up ...

The biggest problem, though, is that few international observers are willing to acknowledge the reality of the problem, let alone its intractability, as illustrated by the following surreal passage:

... a report on the future of sub-Saharan Africa published by the National Intelligence Council, a government think tank for the United States intelligence services, after a conference on the topic last March, identified the collapse of Nigeria as the most important risk facing Africa today.

"While currently Nigeria's leaders are locked in a bad marriage that all dislike but dare not leave, there are possibilities that could disrupt the precarious equilibrium in Abuja," the report said. "If Nigeria were to become a failed state, it could drag down a large part of the West African region."

"Further," it continued, "a failed Nigeria probably could not be reconstituted for many years - if ever - and not without massive international assistance."

Left unexplained here is why exactly it would be a good thing for those who are currently called "Nigerians" if a state which had split asunder was to be reconstituted: it is simply assumed to be a good thing that it be so, as if the past 45 years of "One Nigeria" had been a glorious success in terms of governance. With such blinkered, conservative thinking rife in Western (and particularly American) elite circles, is it really any wonder that Iraq has turned out to be the mess that it is? Heaven forbid that anyone recognize that artificial states patched together by Western imperialists deserve to die natural deaths: only when Europeans descend to inter-ethnic warfare does such thinking ever seem to come into play. Rather than muttering rubbish about "failed states" and "massive international assistance", more insightful thinkers would suggest ways to facilitate an amicable divorce of the kind seen with the Czechs and Slovaks, or of Russia and the Baltic states it had absorbed into its communist empire, but with Africa the only option ever put on the table is keeping things as they are, even in the face of open and massive failure as in the Congo or Ivory Coast.

Ethnic strife is at the very heart of Africa's atrocious record of government, which in turn is why the region lags behind the rest of the world in growth, and until all the world's do-gooders and international busybodies come to acknowledge what any African on the street could tell them if only they were willing to listen, none of the grandiose schemes being conjured up in Western thinktanks to "save" the continent stand a chance in hell of making the slightest bit of difference for the better. The problems Lydia Polgreen sees in Nigeria are emblematic of those which plague most of Africa south of the Sahara.

Comments

[Jim]

... all the world's do-gooders and international busybodies ...."

Who have a big reason to poke their noses into other people's business - oil.

"Heaven forbid that anyone recognize that artificial states patched together by Western imperialists deserve to die natural deaths: only when Europeans descend to inter-ethnic warfare does such thinking ever seem to come into play."

Except when the inter-ethnic warfare is in Ireland, but that example just makes your point. Imperial vanity and an unshakeable faith in their Olympian decisions are the issue here.

[Chuckles]

[...but with Africa the only option ever put on the table is keeping things as they are, even in the face of open and massive failure as in the Congo or Ivory Coast...]

There are narrative reasons for this:

1. To acknowledge that these failed states fail for the primary reason their creation: i.e. the structure put in place by the imperialists will be a final blow to the benevolent civilizers most Westerners still like to think of themselves as: As Micheal Crowder noted; the only lasting legacy granted by Europeans to Africans was not economic, educational or otherwise; it was political: the fashioning of new political/identity spaces for them. In the colonial imaginations of the French for instance - just how many of the old school would bear to see the zone of French civilization so elegantly espoused by Senghor be replaced by ethnocultural African formations? It deals the blow to the entire colonial school which holds that as the Romans were to the Europeans, so the Europeans were to Africans: Bringing culture, stability - and the rest of that crap.

2. By admitting that these States present no basis at all for progress, and coming to grips with the notion that they may be replaced by again, African ethnocultural formations - good grief! What exactly is someone from the school of thought that holds that Africans were no more than tribal delineations running around naked and possessed of no patrimony worth building modern societies, structures or states on?

3. I think, that it is precisely because of number 2 - the deeply ingrained belief that Africans are \"tribes\" that need to be \"unified\" - again, a redux of the Roman imperial narrative that mostly fuels the unconscious but all too pervasive and dangerous silence of those of us with voices in the West towards these catastrophes. We grant Asians leave to be Koreans and Japanese and Vietnamese - supporting East Timor, Laos and whatnot - In Europe, slovaks can be slovaks and Czechs can be Czechs - after all, these are \"civilized societies\" able to stand on their own. But Africa? Good God, No. You will recollect that at the onset of the Biafra war - one of the British secretaries opined his opposition to the Igbo by saying that he didnt want to set a precedent for \"tribal seccession\" in Africa: How so Imperial, How so Roman.

4. In a fundamental sense, the continued support and propping up of these States, apart from the all to visible use of the States as private means of acquisition which are nevertheless legally empowered to blast human beings into pieces with military equipment; apart from the all to apparent reality that Nigeria itself was a franchise devolved from company territory into Government hands - and then, back again into private hands in a starkly mercantilist exchange - apart from that: The continued support of these States is RACIST in its most stark sense: That while all other nationalities on the face of the earth are entitled to self determination, Africans are not. They are tribes in need of unification: And what a unification it has turned out to be: splitting entire people-culture-language groups into 3, 4, 5 different countries: The retroprojection of the unity narrative is belied by the careless and decidely materialist nature of a lot of the imperial adventures in Africa.

5. The evidence is compelling, at least from Nigeria - that The National Question, is one to be addressed. To chalk this down to economics, poverty or whatnot is completely ridiculous. Was there no ethnic strife in the 1940s when Awolowo and others were running around? Yet the economy was okay then. In the 50s and 60s, with the saga in the Western house, the AG/NCNC etc palaver and the civil war - was the economy not okay then, comparatively? Of course it was. How then can people say that the ethnic unrest will disappear if we just \"deliver development\"?

6. The Marxist influence in African studies is enormous. Enormous to a frightening degree - and the effect of this is to undermine real and present issues of ethnocultural identity as mere manifestations of poverty, elite and class exploitation. Richard Sklar for instance - no dyed in the wood Marxist - opines that beneath the surface of the so called Ethnic strife is the raging beast of class and elite aspiration. But this is ridiculous: It presumes that is illegitmate for elite classes to seize upon their ethnocultural patrimonies as an asset - or that these elites suddenly became aware of their ethnic identities upon their assumption of elitism, and refuses to recognize that it is precisely the presence of a priori ethnic unrest that makes it so easy for elites to exploit said loopholes. But in any case: When the Fulani, led by Dan Fodio were wreaking havoc across the midwest and in parts of the west - was it also poverty and unemployment that were driving them? Are we therefore to take unseriously the words of the heirs to Dan Fodio who say that they intend to finish the mission of their founder?

Behind all the talk about Africa, and building states and development and this and that - lies one spectre: The spectre of Racism.

[Chuckles]

Only God knows what a sane individual is to make of stuff like this:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0109/p20s01-woaf.html

[Chuckles]

Only God knows what one is to make of stories like this:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0109/p20s01-woaf.html

[Ajax]

But where are the Vandals, Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Gauls, Bretons, Normans, Vikings, Jutes and the myriad roving bands now? Caesar, then Charlemagne, then Napoleon, then Bisamrck, then Garibaldi then Hitler all tried to unite Europe's eternally warring "tribes". Caesar had some success and Napoleon managed to have all Europeans--except the stubborn Brits who still love Roman measurements--measure and count in hundreds, but Hitler was a disaster.

But don't forget the absudity of Eritrea the formation of which entailed an incendiary and the equal colonial absudities of the Gambia and Lesotho. Point is that 53 dicators in Africa is way too much--even though its good business for the Mercedes Benz car manufacturer.

Australia, Russia and Canada together are probably bigger than Africa but have only 3 heads of state. And they are home to hundreds of migrants from every concceivable corner of the globe. And not to mention the 50 states that make up the USA--each with its alphabet soup of migrants from every spot on the globe.

So what gives? Unless one trots out the tired arguments about the "capacities" of Africans then what's wrong with keeping the baby--the African states--but throwing out the bath water--the colonial boundaries and their colonial entanglements and faux identities.

[Ajax]

And what about Somalia seen by the Western political experts as the "most failed of all the failed states"? They are ALL ethnic Somalis except for a few others here and there. The cry is that " but they don't have a central government" with its Western suited and perfumed minsters of this or that. I get the impression that people get along better when there is no central government to suck in all the petty donor money that's sent to Africa as enforcement money with the tacit knowledge that the suit and tie neocolonial boys must have their cut.

In short, the problem is not the myriad ethnicities--countries like Canada, USA, Australia are not much more than Babel houses with their cheek-by-jowl migrants--that people have but a) the ignorance, illiteracy and immaturity of the masses and b) the absolute venality, greed and corruption of the dictator castes that run those nations on hand-out donor funds or appropriating for themselves whatever cut the international mining and petroleum companies decide to give them.

The result is that those "governments" are more beholden to the donor governments and the Western companies than they are to t heir populaces. They just use the ignorant masses as ethnic chips in their struggle to hold on to the state coffers. Witness the present conflict in Ivory Coast. Only illiterate fools would be tricked to believe in nonsensical ideas such as Ivoirienite'--to the extent of rioting and dying for such.

[Chuckles]

[...But where are the Vandals, Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Gauls, Bretons, Normans, Vikings, Jutes and the myriad roving bands now?...]

Which is precisely the point. Are you ready to do to Africa what these marauding conquerors did to Europe? You are talking as if the price for "unifying" these roving bands was paid in anything other than blood.

[...Australia, Russia and Canada together are probably bigger than Africa but have only 3 heads of state...]

The point being? How big is Europe and how many heads of States are there in Europe? Trying to pull standards out of lumping countries arbitrarily together here doesnt work. I might as well argue that on a density basis, Africa should have like, 300 heads of States based on the current European arrangement.

[...And they are home to hundreds of migrants from every concceivable corner of the globe. And not to mention the 50 states that make up the USA--each with its alphabet soup of migrants from every spot on the globe...]

Ah! The classic "melting pot" fallacy. The reality of course, is that in this countries that you are trotting out; these immigrants are compelled to assimilate to predefinde cultural standards - very often European and Western in order to succeed in the society. In Nigeria, it is precisely in order to succeed that assimilation towards any unified cultural mode (God knows what that would be anyway) is discouraged. So comparing Nigeria with the USA is completely off. In other words, the ethnic mix which supposedly comprises America's melting pot is a coterie of thoroughly tokenized identities. Even the subtle attempts to kick against this norm have provoked the violent backlash against "multiculturalism" - a backlash which these days is more likely to come from liberal quarters as well as conservative. In Nigeria; how exactly does one go about telling the Yoruba to tokenize themselves in their ancestral homelands; or the Igbos, or the Ijaws? It is precisely in response to this, that politicians are able to exploit so called "ethnic divisions"

[...then what's wrong with keeping the baby--the African states--but throwing out the bath water--the colonial boundaries and their colonial entanglements and faux identities...]

Errr - because the baby is the identity? because the baby is the boundary? What exactly do you mean by keeping the State but chucking the "boundaries"? Last I heard - territorialism was the prime function of States: Unless something got revised since Westphalia. Or perhaps you intend a Nigerian engulfment of Niger and Benin a la Ali Mazrui?

[...In short, the problem is not the myriad ethnicities...]

In the context of Nigeria and other colonial African States, the problem *is* in fact, the myriad ethnicities: Because they present a platform for political capital and identities that act in opposition to the unificatory assumptions of a modern State.

[...countries like Canada, USA, Australia are not much more than Babel houses with their cheek-by-jowl migrants...]

Wrong. I dont know where you are getting this from; but to compare African States with Western ones in this regard is comparing apples to sugar cane. Look, Nigeria itself presents a diversity index that is perhaps more than triple that of India's. The so called "immigrants" in the West are tokenized: Their ethnic identities do not present platforms for political action, simply because the lands they have emigrated to have strong, predefined patrimonies to which newcomers are supposed to assimilate - or risk failure. This is clearly not the case with respect to Nigeria. Even if it was; even if we assumed, that somehow, the British left a colonial English patrimony in Nigeria, the reality simply is that the claims of being Yoruba, etc still trump - by sheer weight of what they deliver - any claims to being "Nigerian" - The proof is in the politics: Power shift, Power Rotation, Igbo Presidency, South South Presidency, Born to Rule Northerners, Sharia States and Non Sharia States: These are terms that are comparatively absent in States that which diverse biologically, but do not have the problems of ethnic patrimony.

[...that people have but a) the ignorance, illiteracy and immaturity of the masses...]

Yeah right...the same masses that have absolutely no problem integrating into the political workings of more robust systems of Government in the West and in Asia. You seem to forget that it is precisely the educated, literate and mature aspects of the "masses" that are wont to affirm their patrimony. Consider Obafemi Awolowo: graduated the bar in London, A man who turned phrases like vinyl, whose personal library was nothing short of phenomenal: It was precisely this fellow, rare among African leaders of his generation in the extent to which he resisted the lures of "African socialism" (save for the backslide towards the latter part of his career) that recognized, as far back as the 40s - the problems that ethnicity would create in Nigeria, and called for a Federal arrangement to neutralize this. His supporters; Bankers, Professors, Lawyers - the larger part of them inevitably trained in Europe didnt support his so called "ethnic position" because they were ignorant, illiterate or immature!!! They saw the bloody writing on the wall. Azikiwe, who prided himself on his Nigerian Nationalist position opposed this "ethnic, regional" position - only to turn around to serve as advisor to Ojukwu and the rebelling Biafrans. It was only when the crap hit the fan, that the Biafrans started shouting self determination: recognizing, albeit belatedly, that "ethnic blindness" was a recipe for disaster in a country which boasted hordes of Fulanis etc steeped in resentment and vain ambitions of Islamizing West Africa. Having learned their lessons, the Igbo are the first to cry "marginalization" and demand their turn to produce the President - No doubt, as a share of the national cake. You fail to see that political office in Nigeria is a resource, like Oil, which ethnic nationals pursue, exploit, and redistribute like any other commodity.

[...the absolute venality, greed and corruption of the dictator castes that run those nations on hand-out donor funds or appropriating for themselves whatever cut the international mining and petroleum companies decide to give them...]

I dont buy this for minute. So where was the venality and greed when the Action Group contributed more to the development of the South West in years than various Federal Governments have managed to do over decades? Of course there was embezzling in the AG: But it was precisely the factor of ethnicity and the related pride that informed the policies of the AG. The Dictators of Nigeria and other colonial African States are the exact products of the The National Question: The first coup in Nigeria occured in times of economic robustness: It occured because of The National Question. Nigerian Dictators are a product of the unresolved National Question. Look at Gideon Orkar - His goal on ousting Babangida? To excise the North from the rest of the country! Was it venality or greed that informed this position?

[...The result is that those "governments" are more beholden to the donor governments and the Western companies than they are to t heir populaces...]

Again, a typical colonial scenario: Only underscoring the importance of the National question. It is precisely because Nigeria, with its English baggage, bifurcates "Nigerian Society" into "two publics" that these Dictators can act with impunity: They can count on the support of loyal kinsmen to excuse their every evil!

[...They just use the ignorant masses as ethnic chips in their struggle to hold on to the state coffers...]

Wrong. You presume that the masses do not willingly offer themselves to be chips.
Who forces the masses to "Ranka dede" every Alhaji that crosses the street? Who forces them to croon "Alaye Baba" at every Oloye that saunters by? Who forces them to boast of their "Uncles in Abuja", their "Aunties in the Ministry" and their "Brothers in the Military" - No one is using these people: Various factors have coalesced to form a system of patronage that is now virtually self sustaining. You also seem to think that the "Leaders" are existentially seperated from their followers: Yet, for most civilian office holders, this is not the case:They are one and the same.

[...Witness the present conflict in Ivory Coast. Only illiterate fools would be tricked to believe in nonsensical ideas such as Ivoirienite'--to the extent of rioting and dying for such...]

Underscoring again, the importance of National Questions. The origin of the conflict in I.C does not start with being Ivorienite. It started with the assimilationist policies of the French which again, bifurcated the public. A common anecdote is of the history books used in IC in the 50s and 60s which spoke of the ancestors of the IC being blond haired, blue eyed Gauls. In response to conflicting ethnic patrimonies, a unificatory narrative was adopted by the State. The result? The Ivorienite fallacy: created to fill the void caused by colonial bifurcation. The masses in IC are not being "tricked" into rioting: This was a perfectly predictable scenario: One neednt be a pessimist like Naipul to see that IC was headed for a disaster a la Yugoslavia after Tito.

[Ajax]

To Chuckles

Let me have the last laugh. I present the whole forest and your reply is a jumble of bushes. Let me just say in huge places like China, Russia, Canada, India and the U.S. long resident and not so long resident minorities seem to have agreed that the supra-state has its virtues--especially for business and trade.

More recently established states like the U.S. also have its large traditional minorities such Germans, English, Irish, Jews, Italians,Poles, Spanish, Swedes, Africans, Navajo, Cheyenne, Chinese, etc. For whatever reasons, they seem to have worked out a system that they love to boast about and they also claim that every individual from what they refer to as "third-world hell-holes" would sell their mothers just to scramble aboard what they claim as the [sic] "greatest nation on earth".

Now all those nationalities mentioned above all have varying degrees of political clout. Yet despite their evident contentiousness on matters of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. they seem to hold things together with relatively little political violence.

What are the reasons: a vibrant civil society, a large intellectual class, mass literacy, and the capitalist spirit.

In other words, they don't believe that they have to have "their man" in power in order to get rich. The Jewish ethnic group has never thought that they must have a Jewish president in order to wield real political and economic clout and own huge amounts of capital in assets and property.

How did they do it? Simple. Cultivate the life of the mind in all its dimensions. It beats rioting and waiting for the next noisy "Big Man" with lots of stolen loot to show in a gleaming German automotive product.

As I said the problem with all those cobbled together nations of Africa boils down essentially to ignorance, illiteracy, and lack of access to capital so that individuals can go about their own business.

For closers: take Switzerland with its mix of languages and ethnicities all crammed into a tiny place chock-full of little practically autonomous cantons. Do they care about having some president dictate their lives and lock them up when they say naughty things about him.

Despite their cantons, are they thinking about breaking Switzerland into a thousand tiny statelets? Not on your life!

[Chuckles]

[...Let me have the last laugh. I present the whole forest and your reply is a jumble of bushes...]

Rubbish. And what is this imbecilic reply to a perfectly straightforward critique of your points supposed to mean?

[...More recently established states like the U.S. also have its large traditional minorities such Germans, English, Irish, Jews, Italians,Poles, Spanish, Swedes, Africans, Navajo, Cheyenne, Chinese, etc...]

Minorities who subscribe to a larger cultural patrimony and identity - as well as a larger political identity purely on the basis of their voluntary entries into these societies. Ergo, their so called German ancestry is tokenized. You do understand what tokenized means don\\\'t you? When did anyone ever win an election by appealing to his German homebase in the United States? This could have been the case with the Irish and the Italians - but again, as voluntary immigrants - an assimilationist drive has converted all these ethnics into bonafide Americans - a drive that is absent in all colonial African states. This is the point.

[...Now all those nationalities mentioned above all have varying degrees of political clout. Yet despite their evident contentiousness on matters of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. they seem to hold things together with relatively little political violence...]

Nonsense. They hold things together because as the descendants of voluntary immigrants to the United States, who came here seeking opportunities, it has always been in their best interests to hold things together. Why exactly, is it in the best interests of an Ijaw man to hold things together in Nigeria? YOU explain that.

[...What are the reasons: a vibrant civil society, a large intellectual class, mass literacy, and the capitalist spirit...]

Oh really? The illiterate, uneducated and thoroughly lower class Scots-Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and other waves of persecuted peoples who built the United States form this \\\"large intellectual class\\\"? Gimme a break! The immigrants to this country were often destitute uneducated walkabouts - not unlike the touts on the streets of Ajegunle. Your so called vibrant civil society has absolutely nothing to do with the success of the USA: On the contrary, it is because of the volitional nature of America\\\'s founding that this vibrant civil society came into existence.
Mass literacy? Ha! This is so stupid and ridiculous. What were the literacy rates for the USA in 1920? Have you looked at them? Mass literacy is a recent phenomenon, very, very recent - Its appearance being a product of modern states and industrial societies not a cause - at least WRT the West. Where was the mass literacy before the Industrial Revolution? And even after it; most Western societies were still starkly illiterate: Matching Roman levels of Literacy - not to mention that of Eastern populations only by the 19th century: A logical outcome of Christian Feudal beginnings.
Capitalism? Yeah! I am sure that Western States are stable because of Capitalism and that bloody wars have nothing to do with it! Yeah capitalism is the key (we\\\'ll just pretend that Europes history of protectionism doesnt exist) - Look, Capitalism as we know it, emerges after the the State as we know it emerged. It is not causal. Even after the emergence of capitalism, various European polities that failed to confront the National Question - Think Austro-Hungary, experienced exactly what African countries are experiencing now - on an even larger and bloodier scale.

[...In other words, they don\\\'t believe that they have to have \\\"their man\\\" in power in order to get rich. The Jewish ethnic group has never thought that they must have a Jewish president in order to wield real political and economic clout and own huge amounts of capital in assets and property...]

Obviously you dont read responses to your posts. Jewish people in America are American. Yorubas in Nigeria are Yorubas. Dont you get it? Now the question is: How and Why should the Yoruba in Nigeria become Nigerian?

The rest of your post is a hodge podge of unthought-out assertions - Which I already addressed in my response to you: Which again, you obviously didnt go through.

But, to do you a favor, I will ask you again:

How and Why should the Yoruba or the Igbo or the Ijaw who are currently under the jurisdiction of the Nigerian state, shed their national identities and assume a Nigerian one? Because this, in effect, is what has happened in Switzerland: The tokenization of ethno-national identities and their subordination to a greater whole: The question to you is: Why should, say, the Igbos follow this path, entailing as it will, vast amounts of cultural dislocation and displacement in their own ancestral homelands?
The ethnics in Switzerland all have ancestral homelands, many of them outside Switzerland where their culture, their nationality is topdog: So they dont need to assert an ethnic identity in Switzerland. How and Why should this be the case in Nigeria? You try answering this question and telling the Tiv, Igbos, Yoruba, Ijaw, Hausa and Nupe out there what the answer is - and maybe your arguments will possess a bit more rigor.

[nnetim ituen]

send this page to my box

[Ajax]

Last post on this topic

The Swiss are indigenous to Switzerland. It's just that they speak languages spoken by other peoples in other countries.

My case was easily clinched by pointing out that the best example of your theory is Somalia which has become not much more than a non-stop gang war.

The migrants to the U.S. did so willingly--except those from Africa who, by the way, are quite patriotic despite the cruelties meted out against them--but the people who make up the different ethnic groups in West Africa are also relatively new migrants who trekked from points to their East--within the range of 800--1,500 years ago. Such groups picked up new people here and there are they migrated Westwards; so romantic interpretations of the origins of such groups cannot be sustained. Some of them have also been bifurcated to t he point of having different dialects of varying degrees of mutual comprehendibility.

The Jews of the U.S. are more psychically attached to Israel than to any country they happen to find themselves in--hence the accusation made against them of "dual loyalty".

Devolution is fine, I guess--if one can stomach the slaughters, rapes and ineffable crimes of the break-up of Yugoslavia and the wanton slaughters of Eritrea breaking away from Ethiopia.

The Europeans have recognised that an European identity--passport, free movements, single currency--offers more advantages than their post-feudal nation states.

The ultimate irony though is that those who are in love with the atavistic, primordial unit are all so eager to flock to,live in, and be educated in those mega-states constructed by the Europeans whether the U.S. Canada, Russia, Australia and the European Union. It's that kind of behaviour that provokes a certain smugness on the part of the Europeans about their societies.

[Chuckles]

[...The Swiss are indigenous to Switzerland. It's just that they speak languages spoken by other peoples in other countries...]

No they arent. Gaddemit, read your History. Indigenous Swiss is bullshit. The area was settled by Germanic Tribes, underwent significant Romanization prior to that and has significant Frankish settlement too - which is of course why they speak German, and French and a Romance language. The "original" Celtic inhabitants were of course, displaced.
So its not just about "speaking some other language" - As though the "indigenous swiss" of which you speak just up and declared one day - Hey Folks! Why dont we just speak thar there German and thar there French! The linguistic legacy of Switzerland is rooted in populational settlements.

But hey - even if this historical scenario werent the case, your argument would still be crap; because again, Switzerland has a rich history of Confederacy - a history that has served to ameliorate opposing identities: A solution that has been proposed for Nigeria many, many, many - oh, how many? MANY MANY TIMES! Under the guise of true federalism, confederalism, regional autonomy etc - BUT has always been rejected by the "born to rules" , the military and the other crackpots who run Nigeria, Inc, a subsidiary of Goldie and Sons.

[...My case was easily clinched by pointing out that the best example of your theory is Somalia which has become not much more than a non-stop gang war...]

Rubbish! And this is the same Somalia that is a testament to anarcho-capitalist success! Somalia with all its gang wars; is still more robust, economically, than Nigeria! But yet, this otherwise outlying case consists of a leap in illogic. It assumes that simply because Somalia, a country of single ethnicity and nationality has a problem, ergo, ethnicity and nationality can not be problems anywhere (even when we have empirical evidence that they are). This is bullshit. But again, your claims are still false, even if I assumed the monoethnicity of Somalia - since, the effective colonization of the region by varying European powers bifurcated the region into, yes, two publics.

[...The migrants to the U.S. did so willingly--except those from Africa who, by the way, are quite patriotic despite the cruelties meted out against them--but the people who make up the different ethnic groups in West Africa are also relatively new migrants who trekked from points to their East--within the range of 800--1,500 years ago...]

This is outstandingly ignorant. First of all, the African-American community in the USA is very, very alienated from any notion of an American identity. John McWhorter gives an interesting treatment of this therapeutic alienation in Losing the Race and the recent Winning the Race. The reason for this, again, has to do with the history of this population, and the only reason why America is stable in spite of this is because alienated populations like African Americans are vastly outnumbered. This is not the case with Nigeria where every significant group is alienated from the notion of a Nigerian identity.
Furthermore, the notion of relatively new ethnic immigrants is ridiculous. So tell me, how new is ethnic Englishness? How new is Ethnic Japaneseness? This blog has an interesting page on African history which you might want to look at: Ife was founded before Kyoto and only a couple of centuries after Rome. Are you will to extend you "early fallacy" to those populations also? Again, you commit a blatant fallacy by speaking of migrants walking to present locations only within 1500 years. The truth of the matter is that the oldest H. Sapiens fossil in West Africa is an Akure specimen that dates to within 10,000 to 9,000 y.a. Furthermore, Yoruba Land shows evidence of Agriculture for a seriously long period - long enough to destroy your early migrant theory - and is comparable to dates for the Igbo etc.
I dont know what you mean by "romantic interpretations" - this is just a ridiculous red herring. Were your early scenario to be the case, it still would not undermine the notion of strong, present and actively workiign ethno-national sentiments among the groups in question, any more than the recent formations of a unified Japanese identity undermine strong ethnonational Japanese sentiments today - or the recent formation of an ethno-national, European based, Mexican, Colombian, etc identity undermines the workings of those identities in *present* political climes.
Your point about dialects, is again, ridiculous. Just how comprehensible does Jow Blow from Redneckville in Texas sound to Professor Pointy Hat Liberalus from Massachustes? Yet, you dont argue from this, against an undermining of the workings of an American identity - and I doubt that you would argue that the Cantonese, Mandarin and their many cousins undermine the workings of a Chinese identity - or that Cockney undermines the workings of an English identity, or that Osaka-Ben and Kyoto-Ben undermine the workings of a Japanese identity - or that even the strange presence of Okinawa-Ben in Japan undermines the active working of a Japanese identity in Japan: No, you will not argue that Milanese and other Italian dialects effectively ruin an Italian ethno-national identity: But somehow, the presence of Ijebu, Ondo and Oyo somehow mean that a Yoruba identity is not active and working in Nigeria? Or the presence of Onitsha and Abia mean that an Ndigbo identity is not active and working in Nigeria? Dont be idiotic.

[...The Jews of the U.S. are more psychically attached to Israel than to any country they happen to find themselves in--hence the accusation made against them of "dual loyalty"...]

Accusations made against Jews of Dual Loyalty are FALSE. You dont get around much, do you? This is precisely why we have organizations like the ADL, to demonstrate that Jews do not constitute a fifth column. What now, I am supposed to believe that Noam Chomsky, Finkelstein - or any Jewish Hollywood exec are more attached to Israel than to the United States? Ridiculous! It wasnt even true during WW2, when any number of traitorous German Jews could be found. A driving element of the era of the Jewish Left-Cosmopolitan was to divest themselves of Jewishness to a significant extent (ever heard of Jewish guilt) - ergo, accusing Jews of dual loyalty and now claiming that they are more psychically attached to Israel is just bogus. Joseph Liebermann is an American, and most Jews vote liberal - you arent likely to find them cheering on Pat Robertson as he makes any pronouncement on the Middle East.

[...Devolution is fine, I guess--if one can stomach the slaughters, rapes and ineffable crimes of the break-up of Yugoslavia and the wanton slaughters of Eritrea breaking away from Ethiopia...]

Nonsense. It is precisely in the name of unification that such crimes are committed, not in the name of self determination. Again, you demonstrate historical illiteracy here. Igbos were slaughtered in the 60s not because they secceded, but because those with superior fire power wanted to keep Nigeria one. Self determination, as far as I am concerned, is the a priori assumption - and it is the unificatory response to it that have to be questioned.

[...The Europeans have recognised that an European identity--passport, free movements, single currency--offers more advantages than their post-feudal nation states...]

Rubbish. I suppose this is why Non, Nein and Get the Hell Out were the responses to the constitution across Europe? In any case, even if I assumed the validity of this point, you seem the forget that the EU is a voluntary, volitional organization that thrives precisely because the Nationals that comprise it have all been given their own space. The E.U "thrives" because self determination is a fundament in principle.
This is not the case in Nigeria or any other number of colonial, African pseudostates.

[...The ultimate irony though is that those who are in love with the atavistic, primordial unit are all so eager to flock to,live in, and be educated in those mega-states constructed by the Europeans whether the U.S. Canada, Russia, Australia and the European Union. It's that kind of behaviour that provokes a certain smugness on the part of the Europeans about their societies...]

This is simple, stupid, racist bullshit - and thank Goodness I dont own this blog, otherwise you would be out on your ass. Which primordial atavistic units are you talking about, ya punk ass? Oh No, when its French, German, English, Italian, Japanese, Korean, ethnonationalism in question: Its all fine and dandy. When its self determination in Czechoslovakia, its all fine and dandy. But when it comes to Africans: What we are really dealing with is a bunch of Tribes! Ergo, no legitimacy! It is precisely reasonings like yours that prompted my initial response to his post, and this idiotic statement from you only validates this. Albanians in Albania arent primitive - they arent descended from tribes: No, No atavism there: Just the occasional blood feud - but ignorant morons like yourself cant even deign to entertain the thought that populations like the Yoruba, or the Igbo, or the Ijaw which contain far more people than any number of European States, and yes, even the mega States that you talk about (compare the population of Britain and the population of the Yoruba) - In fact, just do a comparison of European populations and the populations of any number of African ethnic nationalities - populations which are only set to increase as European populations decline: You cant bring yourself to concede that these "tribes" - urrgh! with their naked bodies, raffia skirts, icky languages, and barbaric mores - have the same rights as any other ethnic nationality out there, in Europe, Asia or the Americas. Morons and simpletons like yourself continue to delude and drown yourself in just-so stories and histories about Africa and the Peoples that Inhabit it.

Carry on. You will be the same set of people to complain about the latest genocide to come out of Africa and put it down to Tribalism, a la Rwanda. You guys are just so freaking stupid.