217. Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman by Dorothy Sterling

I picked this book because I've read the name 'Harriet Tubman' in books and in poems where it represented the image of a bold and strong woman. However, for some reason, I've never taken the pain to explore further. Hence, when I saw a copy of Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman (Scholastic, 1954; 191) by Dorothy Sterling I never, for a microsecond, dithered in my decision to purchase it. This was the reason why I never discovered that the writing had been tailored toward younger readers; in Ghana possibly Junior High students.

However, regardless of the unchallenging prose, a lot lies within the covers of the book. It tells the almost mythical story of Harriet Tubman with her slave-parents on a farm and how badly she was treated. One of such mistreatment crushed her skull and caused her to lapse into frequent sleeps. But even as a child, Harriet yearned for freedom and to do things her way. This story brings out the power of the will. Even when her brothers staggered and returned when the path to freedom in the North wasn't clear, Harriet never waned in her decision to become free. She achieved this and more. Using songs as codes she helped smuggled her octogenarian parents and her siblings out from slavery and several other people. Freeing people became her life's work, which was later made dangerous because even the north (of America) became unsafe for runaway slaves. She became popularly known as Moses with mythical descriptions and attributions.

Harriet's life is a lesson to all, especially those who today are eager to forget how far we've come. In the right perspective, it gives some form of background to several stories like To Kill a Mockingbird and most of Toni Morrison's novels: Beloved and Song of Solomon included. The author did well to capture the African life of songs and storytelling. Even where she might have taken some liberty to reconstruct, she did it in a way that didn't take anything away from this great woman. Harriet's story cements the major role several African American women, those who were not far removed from the first slaves, played in empowering the African American people.

A further search on Harriet's revealed that she was told she was an Ashanti, making her a slave from the Gold Coast and there was a character, in book, with a Ghanaian-sounding name - Cudjoe. (Similarly, Sojourner Truth was born to a Gold Coast (Ghanaian) father and a Guinean mother who had both been sold into slavery.) This book is revealing; it shows how wicked a person could be if only he or she could gather justifications. The justification for slavery and the wickedness most whites showed to blacks is that the white colour is superior to the black colour; something which still occurs in both subtle and open ways today. Consequently, blacks became part of the master's property; part of their livestock and furniture and could be sold and bought at auctions. They decide either to make you marry or not and if a slave is not healthy he or she is prevented from perpetuating his or her kind.

After Harriet's accident she experienced a decline in her physical strength, which prior to that was enormous, and consequently, her work rate drastically reduced. This made her a candidate for trade but these qualities, relapsing into frequent sleep, put people off. She married John, a man who was helplessly enslaved and who loved it too. But she never allowed John to tie her down. In fact, it was after the marriage that Harriet escaped into freedom; John remained in slavery.

This small book, capable of being read in a day, is an introductory text to such an important figure in Black American history. It is recommended for all who truly wants to know how torture and history of African (Black) Americans.

206. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran - A Memoir in Books (Random House, 2003; 347) tells stories of the lives of the author and seven of her students between the period when the Shah was overthrown and the 'Islamic Republic' was instituted to the period where the author finally left the country, in 1997. Through her narrative, she unfolds how civil liberties, especially of women and more generally of liberals, were drastically and suddenly parred down after the revolution. 

Azar Nafisi's decision to use the stories of other books to tell her story, drawing comparisons, analogies, and association, was fascinating; it was enlightening how one word - like poshlust - used by an author could have a reverberating effects on the lives of people far away from the centre of origin. In this way, Nafisi provided a deeper understanding of these books, of which Nabokov's Lolita is but just one. Azar compares life under the secular government and life under the Islamic government. One clear theme that runs through this memoir is the issue of Choice. For just as the Islamic government took away the liberties away from the liberals and forced strict religious tenets on the citizenry, so too did the secular government forced secularism on the people, jailing the religious folks who wouldn't succumb to not wearing the veil. This part of the story was dropped in passing, with as little development as possible. Except in one character. 

Nafisi talked about the superficial lives of the leaders and how they perceived everything Western as immoral and yet would, in the secrets of their homes, wallow in them or used them. In this vein, and in others, Azar's memoir is not different from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. In both books, in addition to the sycophancy and hypocrisy of the people, people embarked on things they didn't wholly believe in, following the decrees of a few folks in authority.  

The fall from development to underdevelopment, resulting from religious fanaticism, was clear. Intellectuals who held contrary opinions to what the government was espousing, who couldn't subject themselves to the incessant and rapidly increasing decrees - like the author herself who would left the country because she couldn't bring herself to wear the veil - and decreasing freedom, left the country in droves. And it wasn't only the liberal intellectuals who sought to leave but also the youth, who had had a taste of the liberty that existed in the pre-Revolution days, were also uncomfortable with the suddenness of this change; even some Muslims lost the essence of wearing the hijab when its wearing became mandatory.

Azar shows, in this book, that revolutions may start small but when injected with the interests of different interest groups, it spirals into chaos; it slides along an incline increasing speed gradually into doom; into such a time when the revolutionaries themselves lose control and are unable to identify who is actually in control.

However, like most memoirs and quasi-memoirs of dissidents, America features strongly and positively, its society acting as the motif for the drawing of comparisons, and any reference to China and Russia is in the negative. Even when Nafisi mentioned the Gulf war, America was conspicuous in its absence; however this could be understood as she was writing a memoir about her events as she remembers them and not a historical book. Again, like all memoirs the interpretations of people's actions, emotions and thoughts were one-sided, based largely on the writer's perception of what they meant. 

Another problem with Reading Lolita in Tehran is its gallimaufry presentation of events, its lack of chronological order. It was difficult placing the events into specific time periods. She moved forward and backwards losing the reader in the process. It was as if she was working hard to lose the everybody but herself. Finally, the distinction between the different characters is not that marked. But since Azar was describing real people who lived, it could be assumed that the homogeneity resulted from the common struggle they were facing.

If you're interested in Memoirs, this is recommended; if not, this shouldn't be your introductory text. If you're a general reader, it is recommended.

199. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Oxford University Press, 1963; 197 (Originally written in 500 BCE and translated by Samuel B. Griffiths)) is one book that has inspired several other books. It's been applied to various fields from business to friendship and more. In this book, Sun Tzu discusses what a good General should do if he is to win wars. The discusses almost everything that one needs to do and know about war and its effects from war-induced inflation to food shortages that accompanies it.

According to Sun Tzu

[1] War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thorougly studied. [63]

Regardless of this, Sun Tzu puts premium taking enemies and their state whole with as minimum a damage as possible. He writes

[1] Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. [Page 77]

He goes on further to explain

[3] For  to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. [Page 77]

This advise runs through the entire text. After reading this book I get to understand the importance and premium of mind-games. For instance, how does one overcome the enemy without fighting? He explains the importance of mind games. Mind games are important to make the enemy feel weak (even when he is strong) and also to boost the morale of the people back home for it is in their acceptance and the harmony that springs forth that wars are won. Here, today, ones ability to manipulate the media counts very much. Sun Tzu says attack the enemy's strategy. Again he says "all warfare is based on deception" and the General must do everything possible not to give out much information to the enemy. Deception puts the enemy in an unstable state:

[19] When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near.[Page 66]

[20] Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. [Page 66]

[21] When he concentrates, prepare against him; where he is strong, avoid him. [page 67]

[23] Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. [Page 67]

Whilst keeping the enemy in the dark or in false knowledge, the General must work to be know the enemy's strategy; and here Sun Tzu recommends the use of spies (native, doubled, inside, expendable and and living). He showed how best to employ and deploy all these spies effectively to the advantage of the skilled General. All these is a preparation towards subduing the enemy without fighting or causing unnecessary deaths. Has anything change since 500 BCE when Sun Tzu wrote this book? It explains why defections were high during the Cold War and might explain why space technology and exploration is on the increase.

The advise that stood out, under Offensive Strategy, (and which has been given by several sages of the past) with applications in almost every field of human edeavour were:

[31] 'Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.[Page 84]

[32] When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. [Page 84]

[33] If ignorant of the enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril. [Page 84]

The importance of knowing oneself and knowing the external conditions - the enemy, the strategy, the terrain etc - was emphatically stated. Finally, even before the UN Convention Against Torture came into force in 1987, Sun Tzu in 500 BCE has written that

[19] Treat captives well, and care for them. [76]

The information provided in the book were written in short numbered paragraphs like aphorisms, sometimes requiring explanation from the translator, at other times commentaries from equally excellent Generals who have used Sun Tzu's guidelines like Tsa'o Tsa'o, for the reader to understand. This is a quick read but it will help much if it is read slowly so that the contents could be well internalised. As earlier stated, its application is beyond the subject of war. 

If you have not read it, kindly do.

196. Women Leading Africa: Conversations with Inspirational African Women, Edited by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

Issues of women, the world over, are peculiar for its similarities than its differences. The issues confronting women are not specific to any given culture, continent, country or even ethnic grouping. They are colour blind, nonracial, and ageless. They are ubiquitous. Even in the so-called developed countries where the fight for gender equality has been fought and achievements chalked to such an extent that it (gender equality) has become commonplace, one could easily point to certain discrimination against the fair sex; nevertheless, the intensity - depth and width - of this discrimination varies across cultures. Because these problems emanate from an established patriarchal society, they are structural in nature and, when not interrogated and challenged, are bound to be propagated from one generation to the other, even by individuals who have no intention of maltreating women or discriminating against them; for no one is explicitly tutored to hate women. They are only asked to implement what the traditions - developed by a council of men - stipulate. So that, at any point in time, the victims of such eolithic laws are themselves its ardent adherents, perpetrating it with ardour and tranquility with the belief that they are advancing some ancestral course. For instance, widowhood rites are mostly meted out to women by women; so too are some instances of clitoridectomy, or  FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).

For so long a time, women have passively subjected themselves to this maltreatment that generations of women took the abnormal to be the norm. Those who broke out and fought back were branded as witches and crones who were isolated and banished and upon their demise, were mythologised into fearful apparitions. But because 'no one takes the medicine for a sick person', women never left the fight. The struggle was waged relentlessly, regardless of the derisive and often derogatory labels slapped on these individuals. This birthed the Affirmative Action, which sought to address these rights discrimination. And Africa is no different.

In Africa, the struggle is still in its nascent stages and, though several successes have been chalked, there is more to be done to address this inherent, culture-defined practices. For instance, in movies - the woman is a dullard, unable to think herself out of problems and waiting to be saved by a more intelligent, macho man. This arc is common even in the Hollywood-produced movies. In Nollywood movies and movies from across other parts of Africa, the women are witches sabotaging the financial successes of their sons and preventing their daughters from having children; or they are prostitutes who will later be rescued by a rich and genteel male client. Or are arrogant to the point of insanity, where they are financially successful. Or are financially successful but unmarried and, by some twisted logic, desperate. All these pictures create a kind of dependency syndrome on the part of women, whilst at the same time - at the subliminal level - introducing it into her that the man is the saviour, the rescuer and solver of problems. The men are portrayed differently: they are imbeciles and under magic-spells whenever they are seen to be washing, ironing or helping at home. When they lose their jobs and the women become the breadwinners there will be trouble in the home.

Yet, successes have been chalked; awareness has been created and there is a belief - not yet backed by research, at least not that I know of - that the young husbands of today are different from their fathers in terms of the spousal relationships and respect and home-keeping and equality of rights.

But behind these successes are women who are struggling, and fighting tirelessly, sometimes sacrificing their careers to take on a new one, at other times adding onto what they are already doing. It is these women that Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah interviews in her book, Women Leading Africa: Conversations with Inspirational African Women (African Women's Development Fund, 2011; 177). Reading this book one gets a picture of women fighting for their rights - human rights, from different sectors of their lives. The picture is so vivid that sometimes it feels like they are virtually waging a war and even though sometimes they send conflicting messages regarding their personal opinions and beliefs, their vision remains the same. For instance, where are some don't believe in labels and will reluctantly call themselves feminists, even though they fight assiduously for women's right, others describe themselves as such boldly and with pride. Similarly, whereas others believe that the religion itself discriminates against women, others indulge in a feminist reading of the bible. It is this diversity in a unified purpose that brings them success for both the Christian and the Atheist, still could have a common ground to share ideas and advance a humane course without throwing blows, attacking throats, or being vituperative. Thus, the fight for women's right has moved beyond personality crashes to a level where the vision has become the mission and the means, varied. It is no longer about one single woman, it is about women. It is no longer about one person getting into a position of authority, it is about that girl in the village getting access to equal education and having equal chance of getting a job. It is no longer about pacifying women with positions or by doting on them but by changing laws so that they can make their own choices regarding where and what their future should be.

By bringing all these women together into one compendium, Nana Darkoa has clearly shown that there is comfort and safety for anyone contemplating to join the fight for women's right and gender equality. That this safety in numbers means no explanation for being a feminist just as no one explains being a lawyer. And that there are men out there who believe and fight for women rights, like the husbands of some of the interviewees. However, if there is anything that treads through all the interviews, it is that the fight against injustices against women requires a conscious and decisive participation, and not passive head-nodding and secret-support (bedroom support), if changes are to be made; for challenging the status quo, interrogating traditions and  demanding answers is not a passive exercise. If it were, it would have been achieved a long time ago, without intervention.

Bringing women from West, East and Southern Africa, Women Leading Africa is divided into three sections - Politics, The Arts, and Feminist Spaces - depending on the primary occupation of the interviewees. The Politics section has names like Hon. Winnie Byanyima, Hon. Margaret Dongo, Verbah Gayflor, Hon. Pregaluxmi Govender, Hon. Catherine Mabobori and Wendy Pekeur. What some of these women did, have done and are doing will amaze the reader. For instance, Hon. Margaret Dongo, at fifteen, participated fully in Zimbabwe's Liberation War. She became a Member of Parliament for the Zanu-PF party, but is now president of the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats, an opposition party. Anyone who has read Fiona Leonard's Chicken Thief and Shimmer Chinodya's Harvest of Thorns will relate to this, except that this is no fiction.

The Arts section features publishers, authors and writers. Here one will find Ama Ata Aidoo, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Rudo Chigudu, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ayesha Harruna Attah and Wanuri Kahiu. It was interesting reading Tsitsi Dangarembga's thoughts and how they influenced her books - Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. Ama Ata Aidoo's work with her Mbaasem Foundation, created to provide writing space for women but which grew to become something bigger, was also highlighted. Ayesha Haruna Attah talked about the women in her novel Harmattan Rain. She came across as not very glued to the feminist agenda but anyone who had read her book will know it is the opposite. Bibi's interview showed how one can use her primary occupation to fight against stereotyping, especially in books. Bibi owns Cassava Republic and through her publishing activities have fought against prosaic prejudices since they feed into the conscience.

Florence Butegwa, Leyman Gbowee, Jessica Horn, Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Mary Wandia were grouped under the Feminist Spaces section. Leyman Gbowee shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with her president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, though this interview was conducted prior to this. Gbowee worked to end the civil war that plagued Liberia by organisation non-violent demonstrations. Her struggle has been made into a film titled Pray the Devil Back to Hell. She also worked to get Ellen elected for a second term. Mercy Oduyoye's interview is very fascinating. It was nice to know how a feminist reads the bible, especially when most have castigated the book for been oppressive against women. However, Mercy says questions must be asked; who are those writing the book? who are those telling the story? She has views that could easily have been described as blasphemous but which answers most of the questions usually raised and she is unapologetic about them.

From the interview one could see some sort of distinction between men, as individuals, and men as used when referring to a patriarchal society. (I may be wrong with this distinction). Hence, interrogating the structures and that idea (which makes men think they have authority over all) should be the focus, some think. Breaking down and rebuilding the structures and the consciences, cannot be done by women alone - after all there are some women who themselves want to keep the status quo. It can be done when we all decide enough is enough; that we want to see change and that this change has enormous developmental consequences, for which society ever developed when a large part of its people are discriminated against? Therefore the fight against patriarchy is not only women's fight but everybody's fight. But since he who feels it, knows it more, they have to take the lead just as they have done. That is demonisation of men is not the solution to women's problem and I don't think the plan of women's right activist is to create a matriarchal society instead of an egalitarian one. At least Dr Musimbi Kanyoro believes so:

Change-makers strive to bring everyone to the conversation and not just their allies. My aim in life is to get as many people as possible to recognise the humanity of women. Men are the other sex of humanity. They are family members, neighbours, friends, colleagues, and we ant to enhance the good in these relationships. 

However, she also recognised that there are certain things men should be personally held responsible for. She continues

Yet with much regret, men are also our oppressors and we organise to protect ourselves from men when they discriminate against us, act with violence and dehumanise us all.

This shows the complexity of the challenge faced by these feminist activist. Each interviewee is an achiever; each knows the importance of what they want for their gender and, with the precise and incisive questioning from Nana Darkoa, stated their goals and wishes for women devoid of  circumlocution, which could have easily ensued due to the several dimensions the interviewees have. My only problem is that one or two of the interviews were short and seemed to have ended abruptly. For instance, I really wanted to know more about Margaret Dongo and what made her form her own political party.

My observations from this reading could have been influenced by my gender. Perhaps like Oduyoye, I did a masculine reading of the book or perhaps I was afraid to confront myself or that I think I belong to the new generation of men who believe in equality of the genders and therefore think all men of my generation do. Whatever the case may be, this book took me on a journey and it is a journey worth taking. I recommend it unreservedly to all.
__________________

About the Editor: Nana Sekyiamah serves as a trustee for the Korle Bu Family Fund (KBFF) as Director of Europe and is currently inspiring others to become trustees through the national Get on Board campaign. Nana is a personal coach and trainer who specialises in working with individuals looking to achieve success in their lives. Nana's experience includes delivering work based coaching programmes and organising specialised coaching and personal/professional development events.

Nana is a trained facilitator, accomplished public speaker and a member of London Communicator's (a toastmaster's) club. She also works as Programme Officer, Fundraising and Communication, for the African Women's Development Fund. (Source)

189. A Month and a Day & Letters by Ken Saro-Wiwa

The Ogoni people number about 500,000 and are a separate and distinct ethnic grouping in Nigeria; since the arrival of Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited in 1958, the Ogoni land has been producing oil for the greater good of the country. However, from the over 40 billion dollars the country was estimated to have earned from oil, the Ogoni people received nothing; instead, their lands and water bodies and forest resources have been misappropriated, polluted, and used at will by Shell working in complicit with the military regime running the country at the time. Like a classic case of the Dutch Disease, the wealth of this community has triggered extreme poverty amongst the denizens and with no pipe-borne water, electricity, tarred roads, schools, clinics, they are unarguably the most poorest of communities in Nigeria. To cap it all, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria employs none of the people of Ogoni at any meaningful level. Devoid of the lands for farming and any investment in the locality, the Ogoni people have been left to their own survival devices. The community is one of the most densely populated areas of Africa with an average of 1,500 people per square mile.

It is against these planned injustices perpetrated against a minority group that Ken Saro-Wiwa worked. His writings were tailored to expose the gradual decimation of the Ogonis by the government and Shell. And he knew his opponents - a military government and a multinational - were no mere pushovers. He knew of their combined strength and their tactics - illegal laws and massaging of perceptions (or mudslinging or character assassination) respectively - and he accepted his duty as a lone ranger, a chick in the midst of hyenas. Knowing that this task is not one he alone could carry and that support from his people would be the only route to victory, he worked also to awaken his people, the Ogonis, from that lethargic social slumber - that wilful amnesia they've indulged themselves in; to open their eyes to the injustices around them and to awaken from their hearts that anaesthetised boldness that used to be their kin some period ago. Saro-Wiwa accepted his fate, his destiny, for whilst taking on this ginormous responsibility, he never once assumed that his opponents would cave-in without a fight or that the Ogoni vision would be realised in a short space of time.

Besides, the age-old axiom that writers are governments' sworn enemies which has been repeated in several dystopian books both fiction (1984 and Matigari) and non-fiction (I Write What I Like) and confirmed by several governments was no news to him. According to Ken Saro-Wiwa

[L]iterature must serve society by steeping itself in politics, by intervention, and writers must not merely write to amuse or to take a bemused, critical look at society. They must play an interventionist role. My experience has been that African governments can ignore writers, taking comfort in the fact that only few can read and write, and that those who read find little time for the luxury of literary consumption beyond the need to pass examinations based on set texts. Therefore, the writer must be l'homme engage: the intellectual man of action. (Page 55)

A Month and a Day & Letters (Ayebia Clarke, 2005 (First Pub., 1995); 224) by Ken Saro-Wiwa is a memoir that recounts the life of this Human Rights Activist during the latter part of his life when he was arrested by Ibrahim Babaginda's, the then president of Nigeria, men. However, the book is more than just his personal struggles; it chronicles the struggle of the Ogoni people of Nigeria. It's about a people whose numbers the government deemed insignificant and so could be maltreated by sentencing them to death by environmental degradation, oil exploration, exploitation and spillage without any pernicious rancour; it is about a people virtually helpless in fighting for themselves.

In this book, Ken discusses the visions, aspirations and goals of the Ogoni people. It shows how the struggle of a single man - with the help of those who believe in his vision and those who don't - can help raise awareness to one of life's most ubiquitous challenges: the exploitation of the weak. It also shows how noxious that amorphous entity commonly referred to as multinational - in this case Shell Petroleum Nigeria - could be when they get a willing listener in a dictatorial government and an absent pressure groups; how, wicked, exploitative, and utterly inhumane, these oil corporations could be when the only thought that lingers on their minds is profit and its maximisation. For anyone who still has doubts of how brutish this ginormous complexity called Capitalism could be, refer to the Ogoni situation, or better still read this book. If you have doubts, read it again. For what could be worse than Capitalism married to a weak government fraught with corruption and a leader whose eyes sees no farther than the outline of his bobbing belly?

Consequently, Mr Saro-Wiwa's struggle had a cause and it was for that cause that he formed MOSOP, that is Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, with its main aim as to cause Shell to take responsibility for its damaging actions and for the military regime of the time to begin to invest in the region that provides the resources used in developing the other areas of the country. That this simple demand will be met with all the viciousness that a military leader and a cunning multinational can muster is an event that is certain. For even though the military government of Babangida was armed with decrees, laws, and lawlessness in equal measure, it still lived in fear, fear of exposure, fear of being questioned by other international bodies (and that's what Saro-Wiwa wants and that's what a military government who had assumed power through a coup d'état abhors), fear of losing favour with the West. Shell - as a multinational - fears were that of image, damages, and penalties that await them at a court of law and consumer satisfaction. Finally, such marriages - between corrupt governments and nefarious corporations - fear the most an individual armed with the pen, the truth and an intransigent singular purpose; an individual impervious to bribery, collusion and connivance to rob the destitute of his singular meal.

Hence, the two love birds resorted to illegalities - one by force arrest and false charges and the other through character assassination, bribery and connivance - with the sole aim of  discrediting him. The opportunity came for them to act when after the failed election of 1993 several fracases erupted in several areas and communities and Ken Saro-Wiwa was arrested on a charge that was not disclosed to him until later. He was moved around the country from one prison custody to the other and even though his health status was deteriorating and in need of assistance, help was hardly provided. He was finally charged with the murder of some Ogoni chiefs and was sentenced to death by hanging in 1995 by a kangaroo military court that offered him no chance to defend himself or appeal and was summarily executed. Before his conviction and sentence, Shell - having been accused of working with the government to cancel out the threats Saro-Wiwa poses to their exploration, exploitation and spillage in Nigeria - released the following message which was shared with Wole Soyinka, and which he talked about in his book You Must Set Forth at Dawn, by Ken Wiwa (Saro-Wiwa's son):

If anything untoward happened to the Ogoni Nine ... others were to blame - the agitators whose aggressive tactics only hardened the mood the military regime and undid all the careful work of the silent diplomacy being undertaken by their company, and well-meaning others. [Page xii]

Shell showed their complicity in this sentence, having already held secret meetings on strategies to neutralise Saro-Wiwa who was lucky to have received outcomes from some of these meetings. Thus, instead of correcting the problem, Shell with the military government decided to eliminate the man. The cancellation of the election results coupled with the relentless power struggle in government saw General Sani Abacha take over power from General Ibrahim Babangida whilst the latter was on a visit to Egypt. It was therefore Sani Abacha who oversaw the execution of the death sentence, having already assured the international community and presidents, including Nelson Mandela who claimed the Abacha had personally him, that nothing untoward was going to happen to the Ogoni Nine.

If there is anything that this book shows, it shows that it wasn't the combined power of Abacha-cum-Babangida and Shell that destroyed Saro-Wiwa; Saro-Wiwa's death was caused by four different groups of Nigerians who knowingly or unknowingly added their voice and strength to the draconian measures that had been set into motion by the two.

The first group is the people of Nigeria who were not directly affected by the destruction and havoc being wreaked on the Ogoni people and whose silence encouraged the government. This group of people by their silence gave meaning, substance and backing to the evil that was being perpetrated against this man and the other eight Ogoni people. For them since they will not be the direct beneficiaries should Ogoni win, there was no way they should be the direct victims of any crackdown that was sure to arise from showing their support to the accused. Remaining neutral they confirmed what Desmond Tutu said that:

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

The second group who worked in complicit with the government to persecute Saro-Wiwa was individual Ogoni denizens. These individuals like Dr Leton, Edward Kobani, Dr Birabi, Albert Bodey, seeking their parochial interest accepted financial and positional bribes and promises to sell out their participation in the Ogoni cause. Wanting to be part of the government, to harvest some of the trappings of power, they abjured their links and worked against Saro-Wiwa. Members of this group went a long way to challenge the position of Saro-Wiwa as the leader or spokesperson of the Ogoni people; they countered every move he made to ensure his failure and their success.

The third group is the civil servants (lawyers, policemen, military men, doctors, judges) who through that universal anthem of justification - 'I'm only doing my work' - ensured that he was arrested, mentally tortured, neglected, falsely charged, poorly defended, and hanged. This group to show their impotence pretended to pity him when in custody. Some will go a long to offer such 'services' they described to be a prohibition for a person in custody to have, to show their solidarity with him. Yet 'in doing their work' they ensured the implementation of the death-sentence of an innocent man whose only work was to ask why. Saro-Wiwa bitterly wrote about that female judge who charged him falsely and the likes of Mr Inah and Ada George. What does one do when the officers of the law who have sworn to protect the law subvert the law? What does one do when they turn this law to commit crimes against humanity and against the spirit of the law? This group of people only have temporary relief for their conscience do forever haunts them. This is a poem Saro-Wiwa wrote, titled The True Prison, to describe those who sold their conscience:

It is not the leaking roof
Nor the singing mosquitoes
In the damp, wretched cell.
It is not the clank of the key
As the warder locks you in.
It is not the measly rations
Unfit for man or beast
...
It is the lies that have been drummed
Into your ears for one generation
It is the security agent running amok
Executing callous calamitous orders
In exchange for a wretched meal a day
The magistrate writing in her book
Punishment she knows is undeserved
The moral decrepitude
Mental ineptitude
Lending dictatorship spurious legitimacy
Cowardice masked as obedience
Lurking in denigrated souls
It is fear damping trousers
We dare not wash off our urine
It is this
....
Dear friend, turns our free world
Into a dreary prison. [Page 156]

The fourth group are international groups and leaders of countries who either refused to speak publicly against Abacha's regime or spoke feebly against it or even spoke strongly against it whilst patting its back in camera for fear of losing oil supply. Was all that could have been done to ensure a fair trial done? Is it coincidence that 'access to oil' is a pun of 'axis of evil'?

In the light of this, it is sad to read of Babangida still commenting and dreaming of the presidency in Nigeria. This book is an interesting book and it will show you the levels of human wickedness. My only problem with the book is that the other eight individuals were hardly mentioned or talked about and there could be reasons for this. It could be that Ken Saro-Wiwa initially did not know all the people who have been arrested and got to know of this when they were charged with murder, the trial of which is not recorded in the boo. Or it could also be that as a memoir, Saro-Wiwa wanted to speak for himself. Regardless of this, the wickedness of man against man, of black oppression upon black folks, in some way reminds me of The Book Thief. A Month and a Day & Letters is Highly recommended. You can also read my poem - Echoes in a Dying Head - written for him.
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About the author: Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian author, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of theRight Livelihood Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme and unremediated environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as President, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area. At the peak of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested, hastily tried by a special military tribunal, and hanged in 1995 by the military government of General Sani Abacha, all on charges widely viewed as entirely politically motivated and completely unfounded. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over three years. (Source)

188. If I'm So Successful, Why do I feel Like a Fake - The Impostor Phenomenon by Joan C. Harvey with Cynthia Katz

If I'm so Successful, Why do I feel like a Fake (St Martin's Press, 1984; 246) by Joan C. Harvey and Cynthia Katz is a book about peculiar human behaviour. It discusses what has been referred to as the Impostor Phenomenon where a high-flier - in academia or work - think that he or she does not deserve his or her success. Usually, such individuals feel like they are fakes and have used some exceptional extrinsic values to deceive everyone into believing them and that it is on this that their success is based on. They never attribute their success and promotion or recognition to to their ability but to such things as hard work, beauty, communication and the likes. They see these as external to ability and therefore often feel like cons.

Harvey's book adequately discusses the signs and symptoms of the impostor syndrome and how it happens in the family and in the world. The three main signs of IP as discussed by Harvey are:

1. The sense of having fooled other people into overestimating your ability;
2. The attribution of your success to some factor other than intelligence or ability in your role;
3. The fear of being exposed as a fraud.

Because these individuals believe that hard work - not sleeping, over preparing and others - get the work done, they usually become hyperactive when given the slightest job. They put in their all hoping that they will meet expectations whilst at the same time anticipating that this is the last job that will point out that they are fakes or frauds.

According to Harvey, some of these problems are caused by family members who define roles for children and with time it becomes a burden. For instance, a child may be described as the 'helper'. If such a child grows with the idea that he or she is supposed to be the one who always offers help, it becomes his or her default trait and will go to all possible extent to fulfil this even if he or she is personally suffering in carrying it out. However, people might exhibit some of these traits and might still not be suffering from the IP syndrome. To know whether one is suffering from it or not, Harvey provides - in this book - the Harvey IP Scale, which is a likert type of questions with explanations. Answering the questions will show whether you suffer from it or not. It should also be noted that the IP syndrome is not a discrete or dichotomous measure where you either have it or not. It is on a continuum of differing strengths. The IP syndrome is pervasive and when one identifies with it, one should not feel isolated. 

At just under 250 pages (for the hardcover type) this book presents all one needs to know about the Impostor Phenomenon and how to seek help. Note that the IP syndrome can prevent you from reaching or maximising your potential. It can lead to depression and other such psychological disorders and so help must be ought. This book is highly recommended.

185. The Rational Optimist - How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

For far too often people have had only apocalyptic forecasts for the world using variables of the time such as food production and energy sources; however, technology and innovation have proved to be our saving grace, shattering any prophecy of doom before it could materialise. Besides, people have shown to be resilience and have bounced back from the Great Depression and the Phytophthora famine. In Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist - How Prosperity Evolves (Harper Perennial 2010; 453), he challenges these popular views that has become the accepted trend since man arrived on this planet to date. Using statistics and science he shows that the world today has lower rates of all vices and higher rates of all virtues.

By providing figures, he argues that trade is the major driver of economic development and prosperity and not government; according to him governments almost always stifle development. He seemingly lean towards the idea of globalisation. He challenges popular views that Africa could never come out of its impoverished state and Climate Change will destroy the world. Through this he pointed at some of conclusions Jim Gockowski and I came to when we studied effects on agrochemical use on the forest in the Western Region of Ghana. According to him going organic is a sure way of keeping a large part of the masses in hunger and this method of cultivation is detrimental to the forest.

Ridley based his arguments on a 200,000 years of history when exchange and specialisation began and when man moved from being a hunter-gatherer to a farmer and livestock holder. He showed how Malthus theory, hammered upon by several individuals, failed due to the Green Revolution and how the present day of an explosion in population is unfounded because population everywhere is declining and new crops are being produced - Genetically Modified Foods. Ridley talks about the collective mind as being the brain behind all innovations and struggle. He argues that if communities do not trade and live isolated lives, they lose the little technological advancement they have achieved and descend into primitive livelihood of subsistence.

Though this book tries to dispel any idea of pessimism by showing, broadly, that humans have escaped from worse predicament in previous times and they do so anytime there is freedom to trade without stifling laws, there are definitely some parts that I disagree with. Note that I am not an expert in anything here: First he writes 'The rapid commercialisation of lives since 1800 has coincided with an extraordinary improvement in human sensibility compared with previous centuries...' Here he attributes improvements in human lives with commercialisation; however, the fact that two or more variables are moving in the same direction or even in the same sinusoidal trend is no justification of causality. The variables themselves could be acted upon by whole different variable(s). In the above what caused what?

He also argued that people become less selfish or even more selfless and philanthropic when they become more rich, citing Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as examples. I have a problem with these. I think robbing Peter a pound to pay Paul a penny is not fair game and being kind to another for one's own selfish ends isn't selflessness. Some people become philanthropic by giving huge sums to charity because it lessens and helps their tax obligations to the state. Thus, billionaires will continue to do this irrespective of the moral standing on the issue. Again some of his arguments that large companies can't control governments is one I found very difficult to believe. It is true that large companies does not necessarily earn the economies of scale they are usually tipped to earn (Nassim Taleb also mentioned this in his book The Black Swan Event) and become frail and fragile and frightened, but they do control governments even if they don't have their way every time because governments have to balance delicately between the power of the people who puts them there and the power of those who maintain and fund them there. For instance, to whom did Obama's TARP help? Why were banks bailed with several trillions of  taxpayers' dollars only to reap all the profit into their own pockets less than a year later? Why is corporate tax almost always less than individual income tax, and why is it that governments are unable to reverse the situation? Who are those who spend billions of dollars to get bills passed and laws enacted that will help them? Why is it that when the Gun Control law in America came to an end and police officers agitated for its extension citing the benefits it has had, the president of the time George Bush, turned the ban and allowed people to wield heavy weaponry? Thus, improvements in life could not necessarily be linked to corporations; doing so would be discounting the natural and gradual organic improvement in the collective mind.

Regardless, Ridley make compelling arguments for his optimism that would put smiles on many a face. He is a strong believer in the world and its peoples ability to rise up to the occasion when they are needed most. If all he is saying are true and if his argument are true, then all the noisemakers, including Al Gore, are only blowing hot air. They need not be considered. But what the fears of the vociferous is the key driver of innovation (assuming that innovation is no longer serendipitous)? What will happen if we all sit on our haunches and fold our arms over our chests and declare that we are optimists and that life is good and that our current living poses no threat to anyone?

This book is a must read. Whether you believe it entirely, partially, or entirely disbelieve it, you will take something out of it after the read.

183. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable* (Random House, 2007; 444) is a revolutionary book that spares no word to describe how nonsense the tools of probability are in forecasting the most important events in the world today like the Financial Crisis, the advent of computers and many such events which all exist in extremistan. Nassim Taleb divides the environs within which events occur into two: mediocristan and extremistan. Mediocristan is where the usual rise and fall occurs. Events that occur in the world of extremistan are somewhat predictable and so their impact has less consequences. For instance, the population of a country in the year n+1 could be pretty well predicted; however, that a plane will fall from the skies and decimate a whole village is wholly unpredictable and these events have large consequences. A simple example given by Taleb is the 2008 Financial Crisis, something he wrote about even before it occurred. None of the highly-paid, Harvard-trained, navy-blue-suited Risk Analysts, vested in the mathematics of derivatives, could predict it leading to the collapse of large banks.

What Taleb is saying is that these tools we depend upon are helpless when it comes to the big things that matter. The invention of computer that changed the world was never predicted by anyone until it was invented. In fact, it's impact was never until today. Extremistan events are the five percent we leave out when we draw our 95% Confidence Interval using the Gaussian distribution. This Gaussian Distribution or the Normal Curve as it is widely known has assumed that events follow a pattern and that once an event falls outside that pattern it becomes an outlier. Yet these outliers, which according to Taleb exists solely in Extremistan, are those that shape the world. A backward glance through history is prove of this. However, because humans love to ascribe reasons and explain after the fact, we are likely to read reasons of their occurrence. The Black Death was never predicted but neatly explained.

Taleb defines a Black Swan event as 'an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences.' The author-philosopher explained the three attributes of a Black Swan: 'First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact (unlike the bird). Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.' (page xxii). The author continued 'A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives. Ever since we left the Pleistocene, some ten millennia ago, the effect of these Black Swans has been increasing.' However, accessibility to information could make a difference in Black Swan events. Thus an event could be a Black Swan to one person and an entirely White Swan (predictable) to another. Take an instance (this was used in the book) of a farmer who feeds a turkey for 999 days and kill the turkey on the 1000th day. Anyone who observes the first 999 days cannot possibly predict that the life of the turkey will end on the 1000th day. In fact, to the turkey death is a Black Swan but not to the farmer.

According to Taleb there is this kind of epistemic arrogance with men. When man comes into contact with a piece of knowledge, he behaves as if he knows everything and so could predict everything. In fact, Malthus predicted that population growth will be higher than food production leading to catastrophe. To Malthus, the invention of fertiliser and the coming of the green revolution was a Black Swan event. Most human inventions has arrived serendipitously including the two main ones in twenty-first century: mobile phones (communication) and computers. Almost every forecast about what the future will be like has been wrong because past events, which is what forecasters depend and what statisticians love most, do not account for the sudden discovery of an innovation that will totally change the course of events. History is replete with those who have been fooled by randomness. 

Taleb's thoughts are revolutionary and will make you think of markets and trade and forecasts in a different way. It makes nonsense of the economics establishment that is so fond of their Econometrics and forecasting tools of Probability. How then could one prepare himself against Black Swan events? Knowing there is a probable Black Swan in an area is good enough to protect yourself. This is a man who benefitted greatly from his postulates during 2008 Financial Crisis. And he knows what he is talking about. Above all he doesn't make the book too academic. There are directions for those not articulate in the mechanics to skip certain chapters. The chapters flow from reader-friendly basic English to more academese and other subject jargons. His views are gradually been accepted by the guardians of the academic establishment who are the hardest hit by them. People who criticised him had come to accept his theories and those who still throw arrows at him do so from arrogance and pride that academic miseducation breeds. In fact he is now mostly in demand by NASA and co.

In effect, I am telling you - whether you love economics or not, whether you are a student of that amorphous subject called statistics or not - to read this. It is that important. And it will change your thinking. Highly recommended. In the end

The Black Swan is about consequential epistemic limitations, both psychological (hubris and biases) and philosophical (mathematical) limits to knowledge, both individual and collective. I say "consequential" because the focus is on impactful rare events, as our knowledge, both empirical and theoretical, breaks down with those - the more remote the events, the less we can forecast them, yet they are the most impactful. So The Black Swan is about human error in some domains, swelled by a long tradition of scientism and a plethora of information that fuels confidence without increasing knowledge.' (Page 330) .... [F]rom this definition, we can see that it [The Black Swan] is not about some objectively defined phenomenon like rain or a car crash - it is simply something that was not expected by a particular observer. (Page 339)

Nassim Taleb is the author of Fooled by Randomness (2001) and The Bed of Procrustes (2010)
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*This is the Second Edition which had a new section: On Robustness and Fragility.

149. Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter

Most often people who have spoken against America's foreign policies have been described as anti-America. People who have gone ahead to question certain decisions such as why corporate tax has always been lower and quick to be reduced than income tax and who have suggested that a certain cabal is ruling America have been described as Conspiracy Theorists, which currently tantamount to speaking gibberish or simply, insanity. And for those of us non-Americans, especially Africans who raise such issues, our own compatriots, fascinated by the dazzle of power, or perhaps more appropriately by the suit-and-tie of American leadership and their zeal to live in the beautiful country and so would betray everything they are, would tell you, 'you are a fool'.

I don't know what I expected to find when I picked this book. I never though an American president would criticise his own country's policies, a country he has led before. I thought that criticisms meant being 'against'. Yet, Jimmy Carter's book, with subjects ranging from religion to nuclear weapons, has shown that those of us who speak or criticises aren't necessarily 'anti-' but rather we all seek the good of mankind that never again will one race, religion, people, stand up and rule the others in the way they seem fit.

In Our Endangered Values (Simon & Schuster, 2005; 231), Jimmy Carter made compelling arguments without unnecessarily philosophising. He talked about his personal beliefs as a Christian and how he separated his belief from the office he was holding and so passed policies that leaders of his church thought were secular. He questioned the motive of such individuals and classified them as 'fundamentalists' who argue narrowly and forcefully only when it suited them. In fact he questioned why such individuals would argue against abortion and almost unanimously support the death penalty, even when the bible says 'thou shalt not kill'. In 'The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism', Jimmy Carter provided or described some of the prevailing characteristics of these fundamentalists. He writes:

Almost invariably, fundamentalists movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers. [34]

He argued that some political parties have almost become the political wings of these religious fundamentalist implementing policies to suit them. For instance, he questioned why certain issues, such as abortion, are supported by the majority of Americans but has not become law yet. He also discussed his opinions on the separation of the state and the church. And here he proffered such valid arguments on why the two should be separated. On 'Sins of Divorce and Homosexuality', he again discussed the hypocrisy of some Christian fundamentalists who accept divorce but not homosexuality. He argues that to protect equal rights for citizens the state could allow 'civil unions' for gays and 'holy matrimony' for church congregations. The idea that 9/11 was the result of the sins of lesbians, gays, abortionists, pagans, was ridiculed, intelligently. One thing Carter did, which helped this book, is that he backed all his statements with quotes and statistical figures.

However, this fundamentalism - not necessarily religious - have gripped the entire American government so that most of its foreign policies are changing to reflect this iew. For instance, he quoted the then United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as saying

It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so - because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States. [98]

These and others show how the country that boasts of international laws and always quick to invoke them when it suits them views such laws. Again, Bolton was quoted as saying that 'The United Nations is valuable only when it directly serves the United States.' This is not just the opinion of an individual but that of the US's ambassador to the UN. And not that Carter is saying anything different from what people who really care about the peace and human rights of people in this world are saying; what makes Carter's different is that he has been there and knows more about the American government than any non-American and most Americans. The issue of America's lies regarding the invasion of Iraq and how Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice lied consistently, using graphic images to deceive the people and Congress, and the subsequent killing of over a hundred thousand Iraqi noncombatants (as of the time the book was published, 2005) were discussed.

"Although there are many other complicating political factors, the tendency of fundamentalists to choose certain emotional issues for demagoguery and to avoid negotiation with dissenters has adversely affected American foreign policy." This begins the chapter on 'The Distortion of American Foreign Policy'. Here Carter described how lucrative 'hating' Fidel Castro and Cuba has become for America's career diplomats as he who is able to show the 'greatest' hate gets the 'lucrative' posting. Discussing America's motive in the establishment of the ICC, an issue that has come up again and again but which some people have tended to brush away, it was clear that the ICC is the 'legal' wing of America's military invasion. Here Carter showed how the formation of the institution was made in such a way as to exclude the prosecution of American Military who commit genocide overseas provided US courts will address any such crimes. In addition, the Non-Surrender treaty was signed with individual countries that expanded this clause in the ICC's formation to cover ordinary citizens. On the whole we can say that an American citizen who commits human rights atrocities is above an African president who do so (or is alleged to have done so).

On other issues, it came as a surprise that the US has the largest prison population in the world with 7 out of every 1000 people incarcerated, greater than the all time record held by the Soviets: 6 out of 1000. It was also heart-wrenching that there are prisoners as young as 8 years in American prison. 

After visiting six of the twenty-five or so US prisons, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported registering 107 detainees under eighteen, some as young as eight years old. [119]

A careful reading would point to the US interest in the current Syrian crisis and their possible influence. For the United States had had problems with Syria for not

been cooperative in some issues involving the nearby war in Iraq... [113]

The book mince no words in describing the appalling human rights records of the United States, something that has been on the decline since the 9/11 catastrophe. 

Following the attacks of 9/11, the US government overreacted by detaining more than twelve hundred innocent men throughout America, none of whom were ever convicted of any crime related to terrorism. Their identities have been kept secret, and they were never given the right to hear charges against themselves or to have legal counsel. Almost all of them were Arabs or Muslims, and many have been forced to leave America. [118]

 And

The International Red Cross, Amnesty International, and the Pentagon have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, confirmed by soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse. In addition to personal testimony from children about physical and mental mistreatment, a report from Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib, described a visit to an eleven-year-old detainee in the cell block that house high-risk prisoners. The General recalled that the child was weeping, and "he told me he was almost twelve," and that "he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother." Children like this eleven-year-old have been denied the right to see their parents, a lawyer, or anyone else, and were not told why they were detained. A Pentagon spokesman told Mr. Hersh that "age is not a determining factor in detention." [120]

Even though the US intelligence accepts that 70 to 90 percent of prisoners in Abu Ghraid were held by mistake, torture and death in such prisons are common.

Military officials reported that at least 108 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and  other secret locations just since 2002, with homicide acknowledged as the cause of death in at least 28 cases. The fact that only one of these was in Abu Ghraid prison indicates the widespread pattern of prisoner abuse, certainly not limited to the actions or decisions of just a few rogue enlisted persons. [122]

Death to Iraqis are not limited to civilians, suspected terrorists and mistaken identities but also including Major Generals.

Iraqi major general Abed Hamed Mowhoush reported voluntarily to American officials in Baghdad in an attempt to locate his sons, and was detained, tortured, and stuffed inside a green sleeping bag, where he died from trauma and suffocation on November 26, 2003. [122]

Perhaps open-minded Americans reading this book would come to a realisation of what their government really is and what it does in their names. In fact, torture has been sanctioned by men of the law and at the highest level of government such as the Department of Defense. 

The techniques of torture are almost indescribably terrible, including, as a US ambassador to one of the recipient countries recipient countries reported, "partial boiling of a hand or an arm," with at least two prisoners boiled to death. [128]

The blatant disregard for nuclear non-proliferation and the increasingly rising military budget which was around $400 billion dollars, greater than the combination of the rest of the world, was also touched upon. However the most important topics to developing countries are the issues of aid and subsidies. Cotton farmers in Mali has suffered greatly because of American subsidy to its cotton farmers which decrease their cost of production relative to farmers in Mali and suppress world prices to levels below Malian production cost. This makes Malian cotton farmers poorer by the day, unable to earn profits. Regarding aid, the deception was uncovered. For instance 95 percent of money allocated to malaria control are spent on consultations, the remaining 5 percent are spent on necessary products from American companies. Again, some claims of help are blatant lies as in the Botswana AIDS victims claims where the US announced officially that it had provided forty-one thousand AIDS victims in Botswana with life-extending drugs only for the managers of the program to challenge them for proof. It came out that America's contribution was zero. Carter reported that 

According to Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the UN Millennium Project, ... ,annual US aid for sub-Saharan Africa was about $3 billion in 2003, of which "only $118 million was left for US in-country operations and direct support for programs run by African governments and communities ... for investments in health education, roads, power, water, and sanitation, and democratic institutions in the region" [189/90]

Again, the gap between the rich and the poor is at its all time high. Was it this that led Bill Gates to talk about moral capitalism? Whatever be the case, it is now clear that the current wealth gap between the rich and the poor is not sustainable and as if to slap the people in the face whereas the rich benefits from tax cuts, the poor get their income halved by income-tax increases. 

Under the tax cuts pushed through Congress since 2000, for every dollar in reductions for a middle-class family, the top 1 percent of households will receive $54, and those with $1 million or more in income will benefit by $191! During the first three years, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by 3.5 million, while the income for the four hundred wealthiest Americans jumped by 10 percent just in the year 2002.  Another indication of the growing division between the rich and poor in recent years is that the salaries of corporate chief executive officers have gone from forty times to four hundred times the average worker's pay. Even though there was strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell in 2004, after adjusting for inflation - the first such drop in many years. [192/3]

This book is an eye-opener. It shows that it takes more than being a president to change things in America or in most countries for that matter. In most cases it is clear that corporations with personal interest are those ruling the country so that even when the police and several individuals wanted the gun-control policy to be extended, Bush scrapped it. A double-standard policy creates an unsafe world. If America today is unsafe, it should question its policies, for the shedding of blood will create more enemies as Carter wrote about that the raging war in Iraq is serving as a recruitment ground for Al-Qaeda. Recommended for those who want to know more about how our world is run. 

147. Birds of Our Land by Virginia W. Dike

Virginia W. Dike's Birds of Our Land (Cassava Republic Press, 2010 (first pub., 1986); 40) is an illustrative and colourful book on birds found in Nigeria and by extension, perhaps, across West Africa. This carefully written book provides insights into the habitat, habit, identification, and nature of several birds including the Plantain Eater, Parrot, Kite, Sunbird, Egret, Finch, Guinea Fowl, Crow, Coucal, Owl, Pipit, Mannikin, Whydah, Thrush, Kingfish, Roller and more. The book is directed towards young children, probably between the ages of five and fifteen; however, adults could learn a lot from if for how many of us know the birds we have been seeing by name. However, through the clear picturesque illustration by Robin Gowen one is able to identify several of these known birds by name and description.

The book opens with a definition of a bird accompanied by a well-labelled illustration. Following from there is a brief description of the birds, systematically, with each bird followed by its illustrative representation. The text is precise, poetic, and seems to tell a story. The sounds that these birds make have been carried through. The names of the birds have been translated into three main Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. And the reader could perhaps compare these translations with what they call it in his or her own native language, if he or she has one. For instance, a Parrot is called Ayekooto in Yoruba, Icheoku in Igbo and Aku in Hausa; in Ghana the Akan Twi speakers call it Akoo. I couldn't help but notice the similar sounds the name has among all the local languages, the alliteration and assonance is not oblivious to the reader.

Though this book is geared towards developing the scientific knowledge and conservation concerns (or habit) of the reader from a tender age, it could also serve as a reading book due to the simplicity of the text and the beauty of the write. None of the words used are difficult and beyond pronunciation. The author did well to do away with the jaw-breaking scientific names these birds carry, relying instead on the common names.

After describing twenty-five birds, the author concluded with a checklist for bird watchers and how to help in the conservation of bird population and bird habitat. Knowledge of this is very important even as we struggle to understand the world we live in and make the best use of it whilst protecting it for posterity. The author, Virginia Dike, also provided a list of what to look for when observing a bird. To conclude this, it is best to quote the author

This book aims to: (1) familiarise children with their environment by introducing the variety of birds around them; (2) help build habits of careful observation; (3) stimulate inquiry about the natural world; and (4) develop communication and critical thinking skills. Its use can help children acquire language and mathematical skills by expanding their vocabulary and providing opportunities for classification and measurement.

And in forty pages the book does this and more. This comprehensive book, with guides to both parents and educators, is likely to build the reader in more ways than one. Whilst acquiring scientific knowledge, the reader will at the same time be appreciating the environment within which he or she lives and appreciating language also. This is very much recommended.

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Read about the author here

NEW PUBLICATION: Birds of Our Land

SYNOPSIS

When the author moved to Nigeria in the early 1970s with her young family, she discovered that Nigeria has so many fascinated birds that she wanted to share with her children and other children.  But she couldn’t find books on Nigerian or West African birds.  Instead, the bookshops had lots of books about birds from the United States and Britain.  This gave birth to Birds of Our Land*, a child’s guide to West African birds with the aim of introducing children to some of the many fascinating birds around them. It explains the basic features of birds and key things to note in observing them and is accompanied by beautiful paintings by illustrator Robin Gowen of 25 birds representing the major species in the region. Most of these are birds that children are likely to come across in most parts of West Africa, while a few are less familiar but amazing in some way.

Through its rich, poetic descriptions Birds of Our Land offers children a gateway to the natural world by introducing them to the basics of bird watching. This book also includes activities relating to birds and a guide for teachers and parents. It is more than a great read. Birds of Our Land is the perfect tool for parents and educators encouraging children to spend more time outdoors exploring the world of nature and giving them an appreciation of the beauty and interdependence of all forms of life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Virginia Dike is a professor and head of the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.  She grew up in the United States and has a BA in History from Harvard University and an MA in Education and an MSc in Library Science, both from Columbia University. She is a founding member of The Children Centre Library at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka.  She is an American by birth and Nigerian by marriage and has five children.
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*The book is published by Cassava Republic

128. I Write What I Like by Steve Biko

Title: I Write What I Like

Author: Steve Biko

Genre: Non-Fiction/Essays/Letters

Publishers: Picador Africa

Pages: 244

Year of First Publication: 1978

Country: South Africa

On January 8, 2012, the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa marked its centenary and to celebrate that I decided to read this book. Though Steve Biko ran parallel organisations, The Black Conscious Movement, which was basically to empower blacks to stand for themselves and fight for what they believe in and its political wing the Black Peoples Convention, he has come to symbolise the South Africa's fight against the barbaric and inhuman attitudes meted by the white minority, Boers and even in his writings recognised the ANC has the main group for the old guards like Mandela, Sisulu and others. Thus, instead of talking about Mandela, who is already known, I chose to talk about Steve Biko.

I Write What I Like is a compendium of articles, essays, letters and memoranda by the freedom-fighter-turned-martyr, Bantu Steve Biko. In this collection, put together after his death in police detention in 1977, Steve Biko shares his views and aspirations for a country under apartheid. He visualises and cuts the path that would see blacks move from their lethargic acceptance and grumbling to an energy state where they would see themselves as the only saviours they have and need. As a do-it-yourself person, Steve Biko, early on, saw the struggle against apartheid not as a liberalist fight. For the liberals, mostly white, through no fault of theirs have been born into a system that gives them privileges and rights not earned by any other South African, black or coloured. It is this realisation and his philosophising of the black man's conditions that would become the core of his actions. He saw the liberals as not doing enough to change the status-quo they enjoy, as trying to tell the black man what is good for him. 

Nowhere is the arrogance of the liberal ideology demonstrated so well as in their insistence that the problems of the country can only be solved by a bilateral approach involving both black and white. [21]

As a testimony to their claim of complete identification with blacks, they call a few 'intelligent and articulate' blacks to 'come around for tea at home', where all present ask each other the same old hackneyed question 'how can we bring about change in South Africa?' The more such tea-parties one call the more of a liberal he is and the freer he shall feel from guilt that harness and binds his conscience. [23]

The liberal must understand that the days of the Noble Savage are gone; that the blacks do not need a go-between in this struggle for their own emancipation. [27]

Liberal organisations such as the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) whose executives were mostly white and which push 'no harder' the problems blacks faced were seen as ineffective in the struggle against apartheid. It was only fitting that the first organisation Steve Biko would form would be a Students' organisation, for he saw the lacuna between the old and young black South Africans. Whereas some of the old were afraid to act, were torn between the Bantustan policies that was trying to divide and rule the country by diverting black South African's attention from the fight against apartheid to a struggle amongst themselves, and some were too slow for young, Biko saw an opportunity to bridge this gap. The South African Students' Organistion (SASO) was formed as a platform to address and push problems facing non-white students.

Biko's ideology was to awakened the catatonic soul of the black man that has made him unresponsive to the daily abuse he receives at the hands of the white man in South Africa. He challenged a system that deemed it best to preserve jobs for a certain category of people based on their skin colour. He criticised a system where blacks were deemed to be illiterate even though the system prevented them from receiving proper education. And his expansive knowledge of issues made him walk in and out of courtrooms and trials a happy man even though he received several detentions and bans. He saw the social vices of blacks, like stealing, murder, fighting, sexual promiscuity, not as an inherent or congenital trait - as preached about by the Nationalist party and some Priests - but as a consequence of the system; a system where the influx control or 72-hour clause restricts Africans to a given district and prohibits movement from one district to the other without government permit to last for more than 72 hours. 

Again, Biko - though religious in a broader sense of the word - saw the harm that Christianity was causing. According to him, the black man does not find himself in the bible and the preaching does not reflect his situation. He made several statements that highlighted the incongruity between the Christianity the white missionaries brought and the practice of that Christianity. For instance, he bemoaned the daily atrocities meted out to blacks in South Africa and intimated

The anachronism of a well-meaning God who allows people to suffer continually under an obviously immoral system is not lost to young blacks who continue to drop out of Church by the hundreds. [34]

To him the bible must be seen to preach against white supremacy and allow blacks to see the evilness of that system rather than making them 'soul-dead' citizens who are seen to be eternally carrying the cross of Christ, waiting for their reward somewhere in heaven. He writes

The bible must not be seen to preach that all authority is divinely instituted. It must rather preach that it is sin to allow oneself to be oppressed. The bible must continually be shown to have something to say to the black man to keep him going in his journey towards realisation of the self. [34]

It is in view of this that Steve Biko advocated for Black Theology, which according to him

... seeks to depict Jesus as a fighting God who saw the exchange of Roman money - the oppressor's coinage - in His father's temple as so sacrilegious that it merited a violent reaction from Him - the Son of Man. [34]

Because a larger population of the South African society were Christians and because the individual priests - black or white - wield enough power in their communities, Steve Biko avoided antagonising them but rather prep them with what is wrong, to work to awaken the self of the African rather than continuously preaching the of Jesus walking water, among others.

Later, Biko formed the Black Conscious Movement, with its political wing the Black Peoples Convention, whilst still working for the Black Community Programme. With BCP Biko worked with the people to build clinics, to let them know that there is more they can do for themselves. All these were done under the watchful eyes of the security system. There several arrests, several deaths in detentions, several demonstrations and several shootings and deaths.

Steve Biko also fought the Bantustan policy where about 13 percent of the land were given to over 80 percent of South Africa population (the non whites) to form homelands. Though some of the leaders like Gatsha Buthelezi, Lucas Mangope, Kaizer Matanzima accepted and later ruled the Zulu, Tswana, and Transkei territories, Steve saw a divide and rule tactics inherent in the system. He saw how the National Party was fighting to divert the struggle to among the people so that instead a united Azania, Steve's name for South Africa, they would be approaching the struggle as different units of people making it ineffective.

After 101 days in detention under Section 6 of the Terrorism, Biko was again banned and restricted to his locality of King but not before he sent a memorandum to a visiting American diplomat, Senator Dick Clark, on American policy towards South Africa. In it he made some demands; but before those remarks, Steve wrote:

Besides, the sin of omission, America has often been positively guilty of working in the interests of the minority regime to the detriment of the interests of black people. America's foreign policy seems to be guided by a selfish desire to maintain an imperialistic stranglehold on this country irrespective of how the blacks were made to suffer. [159]

His restriction to King meant that he does not talk to not more than one person at a time, that two people in addition to him is a crowd, that his name is not mentioned anywhere that nothing he writes is ever to be read at any place. These were to wipe his name from the minds of the people. But Biko survived it all, including death. In August of 1977 he was arrested and through the usual police brutalities sustained brain injuries. Here the evil of apartheid was seen in all its 'glory'. For after the police had hit his head against the wall he was left, chained to the window grille, to recover so that the interrogation would proceed. On September 11, 1977 he, he was loaded in the back of a police Land Rover, naked and chained and was driven on a 1100-km journey to Pretoria to a prison with hospital facilities. He died on September 12, 1977 at the Pretoria prison.

This version by Picador Africa includes a memoir, Martyr of Hope: A Personal Memoir, by Aelred Stubbs an Anglican Priest Steve had close friendship with, sharing his fears and aspirations and considering him as his father.

Steve's death, at the age of 31, caused international protests leading to the UN arms embargo on South Africa. I Write What I Like was a column Steve Biko wrote in SASO newsletters under the pseudonym of Frank Talk. It is through these writings that he shared his visions. This book is recommended to all those who love international politics, who want to know more about a young man's quest for equality. 

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Brief Bio: Bantu Stephen Biko was born in Tylden in the Eastern Cape on the 18 th December 1946, the third child of the late Mathew Mzingaye and Alice Nokuzola “Mamcethe” Biko. He attended primary school in King William's Town and secondary school at Marianhill, a missionary school situated in a town of the same name in KwaZulu-Natal. Steve Biko went on to register for a degree in medicine at the Black Section of the Medical School of the University of Natal in 1966.

Very early in his academic program Biko showed an expansive search for knowledge that far exceeded the realm of the medical profession, ending up as one of the most prominent student leaders. In 1968, Biko and his colleagues founded the South African Students' Organisation (SASO).

With the seeds of Black Consciousness having been sown outside of student campuses, Biko and his colleagues argued for a broader based black political organization in the country. Opinion was canvassed and finally, in July 1972, the Black People's Convention (BPC) was founded and inaugurated in December of the same year. Inspired by Biko's growing legacy the youth of the country at high school level mobilized themselves in a movement that became known as the South African Students Movement (SASM). This movement played a pivotal role in the 1976 Soweto Uprisings, which accelerated the course of the liberation struggle. The National Association of Youth Organizations was also formed in order to cater for the youth more generally. (Read more here)

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