Emeka

He arrived on 25th March, 2007. Emeka (short for Chukwuemeka) is 13 months old now. Do you still wonder why I've been absent from here for so long?

It's a joy to watch Chukwuemeka growing up; even as he explores his environment, scattering (more like destroying!) everything within reach. Toys? None is ever the same after 60 seconds in his grip!

Chinweizu 2 Marshall

Clem Marshall:
I am glad you are troubled by the plans to wipe out Afrikans and that you are sending out these updates on their implementation.

But am quite amazed that any Pan Afrikanist is just getting to see the picture. After all Garvey warned about it back in the 1920s! Or is it that Pan Afrikanists dont read the documents of Pan Afrikanism or that they dont take seriously what they contain until some white boy says the same thing? Well, as they say, if you want to hide something from niggers, just put it
in a book, like Garvey did.

Anyway, better late than never.

But I am even more amazed at your reaction, now that you've caught on to the situation.

You tell us to "Please ask those who always try to explain what's happening to Black folks in terms of CLASS warfare to explain the two scenarios in the articles below." Whats the point of that? Who cares what explanation they come up with?
Shouldnt you, instead, be asking black Africans what they intend to do about the danger? And asking why the governments of Black Africa have not caught on for the past 50 years despite all the handwriting on the wall? And what are the Afrikan people going to do about getting rid of these misgovernments/gangstaments and installing others that will do their duty and defend and advance the Afrikan interests?

And all this your preoccupation with the "global media", "world religions", the "information age", "Joe Slovo" etc and "their deathly silence", whats the use?

Are you expecting them to save us? Why should they? Isnt that like rats expecting some cats to save them? And complaining when they dont? And about the Vandana Shivas of the global anti-imperialist movement? Bear in mind that it is not the job of any ally to save you. Its your job to save yourselves! Your allies are fighting their own battles against a common enemy. They cant be expected to leave their own warfront to come do the fighting in your own home front! Those who wont hold up their own end of that common struggle will go down alone!

Furthermore, you seem not to have read or taken in Steve Biko's important remark that "the biggest mistake the Black World ever made was to assume that whoever is against Apartheid is automatically our ally." Ditto for 'against imperialism'. So why should you expect land hungry Indian anti-imperialists not to take your land if you are foolish enough to offer it to them, as in Uganda etc? We should stop being so stupid!

In any case, even if all the non Afrikans you indict were to scream their heads off in protest, what good would that do us?

Look at Darfur! People around the world are protesting, urging the UN and NATO to go in and stop the Arabist ethnic cleansers. What good has it done? And who is subtly blocking the UN? Isnt it the AU, with its black African presidents in the pocket of the Arab League? And are the black African populations rising up in protest, let alone in rebellion, against their
black governments for not doing whatever is necessary to get rid of the Bashir regime in Khartoum and get the UN forces in?
My brother, our fate is in our hands. And your outcry is ultimately irresponsible if it gives the impression that it is up to non-Afrikans to rescue Afrikans. That type of outcry would just help to keep Afrikans asleep, instead of rousing them to recognize and do their duty.

I hope you'll do those on your list the favor of sharing my comments with them.

Chinweizu


From: Clem Marshall [mailto:clem@mangacom.com]
Sent: 18 October 2006 16:14
To: Clem Marshall
Subject: Depopulating Afrika and Replacing Us with Asians and Europeans


My family,
We seldom get to see full pictures of the conspiracies against us. The crime of AIDS against Afrika and Dr. "Death" Basson's
bio-genocide in South Africa are not about health alone.

When we open our eyes, they can be a window that lets light into the conspiracy by leaders of all other races to wipe out Afrikans, to grab our riches and share the spoils of our ancestral legacy amongst their kith and kin.

While the US takes credit for resettling families from Burundi in North America, because "there is not enough land", Indians are importing their kith and kin into Uganda and settling them on rich Afrikan farmland.

Does that make sense to you?

Please ask those who always try to explain what's happening to Black folks in terms of CLASS warfare to explain the two scenarios in the articles below.

There is not enough land, the first article tells us, in Burundi.
However, next door in Uganda, the other reveals, Asians have been secretly robbing First Nations Afrikans of their land
and putting poor, farming (peasant)-class Indians on our stolen ancestral property.

Of course they could not do so without the collusion of the askari (mercenary) forces in power in Uganda today.

Let's pay attention to the deathly silence from the global media and "world religions'.

There is no protest, not even a peep, from the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, or the Hindus.

Nor is there a call for justice from those who confess to believe in nothing more spiritual than materialism, market forces,
capitalism or Marxism.

How is it possible for so many powerful global forces, normally fighting each other, to keep such vital information out of the news, and hold it for so long under the radar of popular insight - in the "Information Age"?

Of course, such unbroken silence also stifles the natural outrage that such injustice ought to inspire within the hearts of people of conscience and all Afrikans in our right minds.

Let's not fail to note how all our self-described allies are also strangely silent!

Where is the vaunted Vandana Shiva, passionate Indian guru of global justice when her people are the ones sucking the last seeds of life from the most vulnerable Afrikans?

Where are the hordes of Canadian, US, Australian and European NGOs who have made themselves so "indispensable" to solving land conflicts in Zimbabwe?

Surely there are a few Doctors Without Borders in Uganda who can bear honest witness to this ongoing crime against Afrikan humanity! We have heard them say more in even more difficult situations, in places like Gaza, when there seemed to be no one else around who was free to tell the truth.

Where are the self-anointed saviours of Afrika, like AIDS czar Stephen Lewis; saint Nelson Mandela; the "first Black president", Bill Clinton; Bob Geldorf, Jimmy Carter or all-embracing Oprah?

Why are there no wise words from the emperor of Truth and Reconciliation, Archbishop Tutu or the "voguing" primadonna, Madonna?

Let's face it! This kind of information will never be the first concern of anyone else but us.

The vast lands and riches of Afrika are ours alone to lose, if we don't wake up.

The rest of the world is obviously invested in keeping us asleep, as long as possible,
while they continue ruthlessly to root themselves in our Motherland's womb.

Let us remember the callousness of Katrina so that we don't forget the atrocities of Darfur!
Let's remember Egypt - the Black folks' sacred land where the bones of our Ancestors lie visible to all, in their golden glory above ground! Let's expose the lies of the Arab grave robbers who now brazenly dare to tell the world that Kamit (Egypt) belongs to them.

Let's concentrate our minds on re-peopling Afrika with folks of Afrikan ancestry!

We have been left a sacred trust and a duty to burn away the schemes of the birthright thieves with our lasers of undeniable truth.

Let's share what we learn widely, wisely, amongst our folks, wherever we congregate, celebrate or meet!

May the Ancestors grant that we Afrikans, no matter where we're born, wake up before their legacy, and through it our very destiny, passes, in this generation, out of our hands!

May Billions of Brilliant Blessings fall like manna from heaven on us all, especially the children! Ashay!
Manga


U.S. Accepting Approximately 10,000 Refugees from Burundi Individuals can permanently resettle and apply for U.S. citizenship By Stephen Kaufman -Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- At the request of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Bush administration is offering permanent resettlement to approximately 10,000 refugees from Burundi, some of whom have been living in camps in neighboring Tanzania since 1972.

State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters October 17 that the refugees would be brought to the United States over the next two years and would be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship.

"Obviously, it's an individual choice of people whether they would apply beyond that residency status for U.S. citizenship or not," he said, but "they have that option."

Casey described the plight of the Burundian refugees, some of whom fled or were driven out of their country in 1972, as "a long-standing issue," but said the UNHCR had asked the United States to resettle them only in the past year.

He added that other countries also have been asked to participate.

Since 1975, the United States has offered more than 2.6 million refugees a permanent home as part of its ongoing refugee resettlement program.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group of Burundian refugees fled in 1972 from the Tutsi-dominated government's ethnic killings directed against the country's Hutu population. They had been living in refugee camps in western Tanzania, with many having been displaced multiple times and the majority spending their lives in exile.

More than 315,000 Burundian refugees have been able to return home since 2002, but because of a critical shortage of land, the group remaining in the western Tanzania camps was seen as being unlikely to return.

The official said UNHCR initially had wanted to repatriate all the refugees, but ultimately asked the United States to consider resettling as many as 15,000 in October 2005.

That number has since been revised downward, and the Bush administration believes that the group of refugees needing resettlement will total no more than 10,000 and possibly fewer, according to the official.

However, "it's a significant number of people, I think, particularly from a relatively small country," the official said.

The United States hopes to admit 4,000 to 5,000 of the Burundian refugees during fiscal year (FY) 2007, which began October 1, 2006, and a similar number in FY 2008.

The costs associated with refugee resettlement in the United States are shared by the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services. Some additional services and private support come from state and local governments and nongovernmental agencies.

The refugees wishing to be resettled will begin interviewing with an "overseas processing entity" under contract with the State Department in Nairobi, Kenya, beginning in October 2006 and will move on to interviews with DHS scheduled for January 2007.

The first participants are expected to arrive in the United States in late spring or early summer 2007, with a steady stream of arrivals for the next 12 to 15 months, according to the official.

For more information on U.S. policies, see Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov) 17 October 2006

Distressed Indian farmers eye Uganda - official

KAMPALA, Nov 6 2004 (Reuters)
Hundreds of debt-ridden farmers in southern India want to make a new start in Uganda after 500 of their colleagues committed suicide in seven months because of financial woes, an official said. The farmers from Andhra Pradesh state, with their government, have appealed to the east African country for 100,000 hectares (about 250,000 acres) of land, John Akawa, a senior official at the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) said yesterday.

It is part of a wider scheme to acquire land leases in Kenya and Tanzania also.

"We are still considering their request and as soon as we agree we shall sign a memorandum of understanding," Akawa said.
Uganda's Information Minister Nsaba Butoro said the government has plenty of land for foreign investors.
"The issue of land is not a problem and the state of our infrastructure is also not that prohibitive," Butoro said.

So far, with the talks at preliminary stages in Kenya and Uganda, poor farmers in both states have not reacted to the prospects of foreigners farming in their countries. But in Kenya, where land issues have been boiling recently, it has
the potential to add to an already sensitive and potentially explosive situation.

UPDATE:
Since the above article was written, I have been informed that anti-Afrikan interests have conspired to resettle hundreds, if not thousands of Indians on First Nations Ugandan farms. Similar unjust displacement by Europeans, Arabs, other ethnicities from the 'Middle East' or Asians is being practiced by those in office in Mauritania, Angola, Mozambique, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, South Afrika and other parts of Afrika. Our homeland is under a hostile takeover siege.
Manga

Soul Food

We love music, and like good wine - the older the better, the rarer the more better. It doesn't really matter who made it; if the rythmn is right, we consider it food for the soul.

The Chiawas may claim no record labels yet, but we've got our ears tuned to good music, old skool and modern jamz alike. The only member of the family who had come closest to making music was Cyprain Ozochiawaeze, of blessed memory. He made melodies in his time, and his favourite instrument was the guiter. It is also on record that he taught Gentleman Mike Ejeagha, of the Akuko n'Egwu series, how to play the guiter.

Appreciating good music is significant in many ways. In an interview with Upbeat (the Program Guide) of the New Jersey based WBGO Jazz FM in 2000, Obi Taiwan Ozochiawaeze noted that:
"...Jazz music helped me survive the ravages of childhood civil war (the Biafra War)."
Special tribute must go to one distant Radio Station which at that time consistently rolled out a brand of Congo jazz music, and which was simply referred to as Santa Isabel.

By the time the war ended in 1970, many tunes made popular by that Radio Station had become anthems for the Biafran cause. Subsequently, by popular demand, the Radio Station in Enugu (the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Service, later East Central Broadcasting Service "ECBS"), ravaged by the war, was reactivated to promote this spirit. The Station devoted one hour daily, of premium broadcasting time, solely to Congo and East Africa music. Dubbed "ECBS-by-One", this programme endured variously as "ABC-by-One" and as "ESBS-by-One", as Nigerian politics began to carve up the Igbo nation.

Later, local parlance would rename this brand of music to: Ikwo-kiri-kwo, Ikwo-maleku, or simply Ikwo. It remains popular with old timers and connoiseurs, who choose to worship Lord Bacchus at special joints where local brews are sold and enjoyed. To date, you do not need a wrist watch to tell that it is 1.00pm when in Enugu. This relic of the Biafran war would certainly remind you of the time, as the spirit of Santa Isabel takes the airwaves. OK Jazz, or Yokolo assuredly would filter out from one radio or another, as devotees turn up the volume.

In the Nigerian setting, people from this part of the world go absolutely loco for music from other lands, and I'm not talking about pop music. Language holds no barrier. For instance, Ghana music became popular here in the days of The Ramblers Dance Band, City Boys, Okuku Sekou, etc. When Okuku Sekou came to play at Aba, the group had to relocate their base permanently to the Enyimba City and then to Onitsha, out of sheer demand for their brand of music. I do not know of any other region in the country where this is possible. Hence, it is very rare to see a yoruba taxi driver in Lagos playing Osita Osadebe in his vehicle when he has his apala, juju, or fuji on board. (You're not likely to find a yoruba taxi driver in Enugu). As for the mallam in Lagos minding his little corner kiosk, or setting up the evening for his suya spot, he's got the ubiquitous transistor radio by his ear. That tiny radio has never echoed any sound from Sir Warrior. It is permanently fixed to BBC Hausa service, Radio Nigeria Kaduna, or some other station from the northern part of the country, just as assuredly as he would were he in his home state.

But does one have to be a good singer to appreciate a good song? Ndigbo enjoy music by other people, but they also make good music. The early 70s witnessed the greatest surge of talent in the Nigerian music scene. Those were the hay days of - One World, The Wings, Semi-Colon, Ofege, The Apostles, Wrinker's Experience, The Doves, Strangers, Founders 15, Sweet Breeze, etc. Most of these talents and musical groups originated from Aba. Their days saw some of the highest forms of Nigerian pop music. But they left the scene just as they arrived - in a flash. Today, you are filled with a heavy sense of nostalgia any time you hear their music.

And those tunes are so hard to come by! Somebody should please locate and re-master them all on dolby digital CDs, MP3, or whatever, retaining their originality. They should be properly packaged and made available to us, even Online; please, not the kind of low quality stuffs that come out of Alaba International Market and Idumota. Ditto for music from such talents as Sunny Okosuns, Chris Okotie, Dora Ifudu, Bongos Ikwue, etc; including also music from the enduring Highlife maestros. One easily recalls such legends as Celestine Ukwu, Osita Osadebe, Victor Olaiya, Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, Oriental Brothers, Ebenezer Obey, Peacock International, Prince Nico Mbarga, etc. These classics should never be adulterated! It is revealing that when the BBC conducted a worldwide search in 2005 for the most popular African music track (African Anthem), the title fell to Prince Nico Mbarga's "Sweet Mother". Evergreens endure from generation to generation.

Imagine, I was able to locate and secure Otis Reading's "Security" among other tracks that I consider rare, but I've searched forever for one title by Fela Kuti, known as "Dog Eat Dog". This is an instrumental number - which some people believe they've heard - but which nobody seems to know where to find! While on the subject, anyone who knows where I can lay hands on such rare titles as "Baby Pancake" (I forget the artist), "Opi Igwe" (again I forget the artist), "Bonsuwe" (Olaiya), should please point the way to me!

Nigerian music today is in quite a state. Gospel singers, Copycats of Western hip-hop and R&B, and blends of 'Africa and everything else', all leave your ears tingling and confused! I guess we have to make do with what the day provides. But now and again, a real star does shine forth. Perhaps the future is still bright? Fela (Abami Eda) may yet be the most popular Nigerian musician, but talents like Sade and Seal (if we claim them as ours) remain in a class of their own.

Hey, it's time to change that CD! How can you write all this while listening to Chuck Mangione!

Hmmm, if music be the food of life, play me more!

What not to name your dog

Sent in by one of our more intellectual members "Just for a laugh".

Everybody who has a dog calls him "Rover" or "Boy". I call mine "Sex"!

Now Sex has been very embarassing to me. When I went to the city hall to renew his dog licence, I told the clerk that I would like a licence for Sex. He said, "I'd like to have one too". Then I said, "You don't understand. I've had Sex since I was nine years old". He said I must have been quite a kid.

When I got married and went on my honeymoon, I took the dog with me. I told the motel clerk that I wanted a room for my wife and me, and a special room for Sex. He said that every room in the place was for sex. I said, "You don't understand. Sex keeps me awake at night". The clerk said, "Me too".

One day I entered Sex in a contest, but before the competition began, the dog ran away. Another contestant asked me why I was just standing there, looking around. I told him I had planned to have Sex in the contest. He said that I should have sold my own tickets. "But you don't understand. I had planned to have Sex before I was married". The judge said, "Me too".

Last night Sex ran off again. I spent hours looking around town for him. A cop came over to me and asked, "What are you doing in this alley at 2 o'clock in the morning?" I said I was looking for Sex.

My case comes up Friday!!!

Danish Cartoons spark riots in Nigeria

Danish Cartoons spark riots in Nigeria
By Chinweizu

Published on Sunday 26 March 2006 on page 26. in Citypress, Johannesburg, South Africa. - Headline "A divided Nigeria only way forward"
Recent riots in Nigeria sparked by the Danish cartoons illustrate that Muslims cannot peacefully coexist with non-muslim neighbours, argues CHINWEIZU

Starting on Friday, Feb.17, 2006, several cities in Nigeria were engulfed in riots, arson and mayhem which left more than 200 persons dead, some 50 churches and mosques burnt, as well as hundreds of shops and residences destroyed and looted. It all began in the far north city of Katsina when a public lecture organized to protest the notorious Danish Mohammed Cartoons veered from its declared purpose and began to violently agitate against President Obasanjo’s scheme to perpetuate himself in office through an opportunistic constitution review process to which most Nigerians are opposed.
The next day, Feb. 18, a similar public lecture in the northeastern city of Maiduguri also changed into a violent protest against the Obasanjo third term quest. By the time soldiers were able to restore calm, the mob had destroyed, looted and burned churches, shops, hotels and homes all over Maiduguri. In all, more than 43 churches and 400 shops were burnt and over 60 Christians were killed by the Muslim mobs.
Two days later, in yet another northern city, Bauchi, a different incident sparked rioting. A school teacher seized a copy of the Koran from an inattentive student who was reading it during lessons. That so-called desecration of the Koran sparked a riot in which 50 Christians were killed and thousands were injured or rendered homeless.
These killings in Nigeria’s far north provoked reprisal killings in Onitsha, an Igbo, Christian city in southeastern Nigeria, when the bodies of some of the dead arrived from the north by bus on Feb. 21. By Feb. 23, over 100 Muslims in Onitsha had been killed, several mosques had been burnt down, and some 5000 Muslims of northern Nigerian origin had taken refuge in army camps.
That week of riots provoked by the Mohammed Cartoons-- in which more people have died in Nigeria than anywhere in the heartlands of Islam-- was the latest in a fifty-year-long tradition of almost yearly riots in which Muslim mobs, on one religious or political pretext or another, kill Christians and burn churches. The tradition began in 1953. After a political crisis in the national legislature in Lagos, between the AG party of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria and the NPC party of the Muslim Hausa of the north—a crisis over an AG motion demanding Independence for Nigeria by 1956—riots broke out in Northern Nigeria and targeted principally the Igbo Christians living there.
The next major incident in this tradition was in 1966, when a series of anti-Igbo pogroms was organized in Northern Nigeria as part of the North’s campaign to retake power from an Igbo-led Government that had come to power by a coup on January 15, 1966. Those ethnic cleansing pogroms of 1966 set the stage for the Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967-1970.
Since the 1990s, it has been rare for a couple of years to go by without some Muslims rioting over some alleged grievance and destroying the churches and lives of Christians in Northern Nigeria. For example, in 1991, in Bauchi, a long bout of rioting by Muslims occurred, with much loss of Christian lives and property. In Kano, in 1994, an Igbo Christian, following a quarrel with his neighbors, was abducted from police custody by a Muslim mob and decapitated for allegedly desecrating a copy of the Koran. In February 2000, when the Federal Government banned the implementation of the unconstitutional Shariya legal system introduced that year by some of the Muslim states in Northern Nigeria, peaceful anti-Shariya demonstrators, who did not want Shariya in Kaduna state, were attacked by Muslim mobs in Kaduna city. In 2003, riots by Muslims aborted plans to hold the Miss World contest in the partly Muslim city of Kaduna. The bikini-clad beauties, it was alleged, would offend the sensibilities of Muslims.
The reprisal killing of Muslims and burning of mosques in Onitsha marks a departure from the 50-year pattern of Nigerian Muslims killing Christians with impunity. It was swift and serious enough to elicit calls by the leadership of the North for peace and for government compensation to the victims of all the February riots. Despite such noises for peace, conciliation and compensation, many Nigerians, are searching for a lasting solution to this recurrent mayhem. They are starting to acknowledge that a Nigeria composed of Muslims and non-Muslims is not viable, and are beginning to look to ‘Pakistanisation’ as the lasting solution.
During the 1953 legislative crisis, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the then leader of the Muslim North, had angrily declared that “the mistake of 1914 has come to light”. He was voicing his recognition that Lugard’s amalgamation -- of a Muslim dominated Protectorate of Northern Nigeria with a non-Muslim Protectorate of Southern Nigeria -- had been a profound mistake. And that was even before the first of these murderous Muslim riots had taken place. In 1990, a coup announcement by Southern officers led by Major Orkar summarily excised the Muslim far north from Nigeria. But that coup failed and the excision failed with it.
Over the years, non-Muslim Nigerians have been slowly putting their ordeal into global historical context, and noting the chronic violence of Muslims against non-Muslims in Sudan, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Kashmir, Indonesia, Egypt etc; They are starting to see that, as Samuel P. Huntington has demonstrated, in his book The Clash of Civilizations: “Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors.”
And the reason for this is not far to seek. It is rooted in the Islamic world view itself which divides the world into two zones, Dar al-Islam [the abode of Peace, i.e. the Islamized lands] and Dar al-harb [the abode of war, i.e. the unIslamized lands doctrinally targeted for conquest and Islamization]. In line with this world-view, Alija Izetbegovic, a 1990s leader of the Bosnian Muslims of the former Yugoslavia, in his 1970 book, The Islamic Declaration, argues for “the incompatibility of Islam with non-Islamic systems. There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political institutions.” Hence any country in which Muslims and non-Muslims find themselves together is a warfront waiting for Jihadists to conquer and Islamize it as soon as they can.
Now, looking back in the wake of the February 2006 Mohammed Cartoon riots, many thoughtful Nigerians have come to agree with Ahmadu Bello’s diagnosis and are reluctantly converting to the view that Orkar’s surgical excision of Shariyaland is the only lasting cure for Lugard’s mistake.

All rights reserved.

© Chinweizu 2006