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KWENU! Our culture, our future |
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Raiders of sacred shrine M. O. Ene NEO-TALIBANISM The tragedy of passenger-plane bombing of World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home to African communities the need to guard against all forms explosive extremism and fervent fundamentalism. It is all well and good to differ, but when people -- any people -- take it out on others and derive freaky fun from the disruption of normalcy, then everyone should sit up. It does not matter the African nationality: Ashanti, Ewe, Fulani, Ga, Hausa, Hutu, Igbo, Kikuyi, Tutsi, Yoruba, Wollof, Xhosa, Zulu, etc. Wherever and whenever, we must never tolerate Talibanesque tendencies.
I see some budding Taliban typesets in our communities. Discourse is not their modus operandi, unless when they are insulting you and your dear ones; iconoclasm is their watchword. As a group, they exhibit intolerant Taliban traits. They can be Yoriban, Edoliban, Izoniban, Tiviban, Beroliban, Fulaban, Akwaliban, etc.
GBOLIBAN I penned a piece last year titled "Government of the Gboliban" about a cell of consummate confusion-causing, community members. The neo-Taliban quietly infiltrate community leadership, take it over, and, utilizing divisive designs, they dismantle existing structures and even make a hollow attempt to take over the world -- as we saw recently with 9-11. With a bunch of ditto-head acolytes, they extort, blackmail, and peddle absolute falsehoods. With a generally ill-informed and brainwashed but highly fanatical membership, they carry out their destructive designs. They mount campaigns of calumny, quoting valued scripts to support disruption peace, distortion of history, and destruction of our way of life.
A Gboliban, if you are wondering, is a character or a group of individuals of apparent Igbo ethnic extraction who defiles the dictates of Igbo religion's Golden Rule: Live and let live.
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE The Talibanesque tendency to zero religious tolerance was well and alive in Nigeria before day one. First came the Muslim Fulani in early 19th century. Within a couple of decades, they have erased major traditional vestiges of subdued societies north of the River Niger, including the Hausa, the Gwari, the Nupe, etc. Geography and the coming of colonial Christians slowed the onward southwest movement. The Europeans and their earlier African converts began the process of destruction of southern societies. Things started falling apart very quickly, and the center of our traditional life no longer holds. Christians and Muslims are at each other's throat, and there is the added complexity of interdenominational bickering within each faith.
Fanaticism has therefore been with us since the advent of foreign faiths. The Muslim brand is well documented. We largely ignore Christian brands. Recall when we could not be baptized without adopting the name of European saints. Recall when a Catholic couldn't date an Anglican. Recall pop feudalism in rugged republican Igboland. Recall that non-Igbo, born-again Governor Zubairu (Imo State) removed the statue of Ikenga and replaced it with a white cross. Recall that Catholic Bishop of Owerri instituted the Odenigbo lecture to stop the prestigious, premier Ahiajoku Lecture series because "Ahiajoku" is a feast of the yam deity.
THE TALIBAN ARE IN TOWN Two years ago, according to a Postexpress story of 02/24/2000, police arrested six of the Muslim fundamentalists who destroyed the Moremi Shrine in Otta, the second largest city of Kwara State. The shrine immortalizes Moremi Ajasono, the legendary wife of Oranmiyan, the founder of the Ile-Ife, cradle of Yoruba civilization. The Oloffa of Offa, Oba Mustapha Olawore, rightly stated that "he was not installed to pull down the tradition and culture of his people but to preserve them." Now, what is sacrilegious and un-Islamic by this reenactment of popular Yoruba history, and what is kosher about the bust of General Murtala Muhammed erected by a misguided military governor opposite Military Cemetery in Enugu?
Ignoring the sacrilege in Enugu, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka C. traveled across Udi Hills to Achala community, in Awka North LGA of Anambra State, to crusade for Christ against "spiritual cum social stagnation, backwardness, lack of general development and pollution." The town's sacred spring, which was dedicated to the deity Ovia, was targeted as a source of "pollution"! He renamed the sacred spring "Ngozi Stream." [Ngozi in Igbo means "blessed" -- by Father Mbaka (?), who might one day 'baptize' it "St. Mary Magdalene Stream."] It was sad to read an obviously satisfied indigene of Achala reveal that "several deities and fetish idols, to which children in the town were dedicated at birth, were successfully destroyed." [Tension in Achalla As 'Xtians Destroy Idols, Vanguard (Lagos) March 19, 2001] I have not read anyone destroying the photos of white saints after whom Igbo children are still named.
KNOCKING OUR OWN If you read carefully, you will observe the brainwashing of supposedly enlightened Nigerians. Certain obviously derogatory terms are still en vogue: "pagan," "idols," "occult," "charms," "gods," "witchcraft," "fetish," etc. Christians are "the faithful"; members of our old-time religions are "idol worshipers." Born-again gibberish is "speaking in tongues"; our libation is "mumbo jumbo." The chaplet is not a "charm"; ours is "talisman" or "amulet." The sign of the cross and veneration of photos of saints is not "cultic"; giving thanks to earth deity is "animism." The institution of knights of particular saints is not "cult"; membership of Ogboni is "occultism"!
The separation of Church and State is one of the cardinal points of American democracy, which Nigeria copied. Yet, starting from where Abacha's Aso mosque stopped, Christian born-again President Olusegun Obasanjo built his church complete with Pentecostal priests in Aso Rock. Any plans for a shrine? As in everything Nigerian, the idea soon trickled down. The Governor of Zamfara become an ayatollah; the Governor of Anambra instituted Monday-morning prayer for all state employees, with no regards for Odinani adherents.
THE GBOLIBAN OF NNEWI & NNOBI Decades after overcoming the torture of our tradition, the preservation of ancestral heritage is threatened by the extremism of pathetic Pentecostalism and Catholic Charismatism. Not content with blasphemy, they now "crusade" in shrines of traditional religion, "destroying" in the process sacred objets d'art and archeological cum cultural treasures. It is now known that "cleansing the community of idol worshipping" is carefully coordinated cleaning the community of its cultural treasures. These rapid raiders of our sacred shrines are stealing the nation blind. Last year, it took the quick intervention of vigilantes to stop a "crusade" on the Edo Shrine in Nnewi. These iconoclastic conmen and bigoted burglars of our scared shrines masquerade as Christian fundamentalists. We now know better.
The truth was revealed recently when they took their trade to Nnobi in Idemmili LGA of Anambra State. In a report from Eno-Abasi Sunday in Calabar [The Guardian On-Line of Tuesday, February 12, 2002] Odinani Nnobi called on the Federal Government "to investigate the recent burning and looting of sculptural and historical artifacts from shrines and sacred places in Nnobi … by a Christian group, during a religious crusade, held recently in the area." The group's director of publicity and records, Dr. Ogonna Anaagudo-Agu, "wondered why some persons in the name of religion should embark on such mindless looting and destruction of sacred objects of the traditional religion." Where would they surface next?
DEEP DISRESPECT Greed fuels the deep disrespect of our culture. If you doubt how much these artifacts are worth, recall that Nigeria could not reclaim the Bini mask stolen during the Massacre of 1897. Future generations of Nigerians must fly to London to see the symbol of FESTAC 77. Recently, Nigeria reclaimed three Nok statuettes from the Quai Branly Museum in France. These symbols are testimony to the fact that Nok civilization was the earliest in the world, long before Nubia and Egypt. Luckily, the artifacts were purchased by a museum. Many end up in private collections and never see the light of day, until they can be disposed in million-dollar deals or exhibited to fetch millions more in museums all over the world.
The trend must stop. It is interesting that the same Christian community scream when Muslims burn churches in northern Nigeria, which is abominable, yet they desecrate the sacred shrines and no Christian cleric raises a hand. What does it take to know that Ikenga was a sacred symbol of strength in Odinani long before the cross became an icon of Christianity? Jesus of Nazareth did not go burning and looting the shrines of gentiles, nor did he attack Roman gods.
PEACE ON EARTH Intolerance must be crushed for communities to live without the scourge of senselessness. We must protect our cultural artifacts and ancestral heritage from pillaging terrorists masquerading as "crusaders." These cowardly clowns cannot continue to tarnish our cultural creeds. I doubt that bishops would want their churches and mighty mansions to start going up in smokes. The churches must leash these thugs. No one should endorse for one minute the idiocy of culturally challenged clowns, certified-incompetent coons who hide under the Church of Christ or the Mosque of Muhammad to foment trouble and terrorize people. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men and women to keep quiet. Clerics, speak up!
It is not hard to understand why these people cannot move on to supposedly better and bigger things in heaven without destroying our ancestral symbols: They are stealing our culture to build their kingdoms on earth. It is mind-bogging that some supposedly smart sods stagger in stupidity when the world is striving so hard to learn the truth we tell about African traditional religion. Pope John Paul II prayed with African traditional priests and later apologized for centuries of defamation of African culture. How can these lesser Christian mortals, who claim to preach the gospel of a person of peace (Jesus Christ), traumatize our communities by raiding and violating our sacred shrines? Those who seek peace must persevere in the promotion and in the pursuit of peace.
CONCLUSION The Golden Rule of Odinani states: "Egbe bere; ugo bere…." [Let the hawk perch; let the eagle perch]. A new-age version competes the saying thus: "Whichever says the other shall not perch should show it where to perch." In this case, I prefer the old-time version: "Whichever says the other shall not perch, may its wings fracture." Before Christianity, there was Odinani. Despite a century of neglect and vilification, its rituals persist; the kolanut communion springs to mind. If this neo-Christian Taliban cannot coexist, especially when whole communities have accepted Christianity -- leaving only aged "ezeani" (priests) to maintain the shrines -- then esteemed elders must ask the new and naive knuckleheads and their criminal masterminds to leave town, as the people of an Akwa Ibom community did recently to a bunch of these blinkered bandits. Those who seek equity and justice must themselves come with cleans hands. The hands we see are horribly filthy. It is time we woke up and chewed kolanut to snap us out of our cultural coma, to open our blasé eyes, and to realize that imported Middle Eastern creeds have infected us with syphilis of the soul, which has in turn corrupted our psyche and the essence of our earthly existence. This is the root of Africa's problems. Our culture is our future.
Everything else is embellishment.
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