HOME | FUNNY ARTICLES | TOP NEWS REPORTS | SUBMIT
|
Apr. 15, 2010 (A Treatise on the Vexing Indigene vs. Settler Question) Throughout the checkered history of mankind genocide has always been conducted against indigenous peoples (Stephen Lonewolf Makama, Feb 2010). Having fired the opening shot across the historical bow and having furrowed a few brows as well I will now set forth my arguments. This may certainly not win me more friends and most certainly has lost me a few- maybe they were not anyway, but I feel history needs a little bit of straightening out – as one writer put it “if the Axis had won WWII history would have been written differently”. I write with a clear unfeigned understanding that a treatise is ‘a detailed account of a subject; a formal written work that deals with a subject systematically or usually extensively’ and I will attempt to do so. I am writing this on the heels of recent happenings in a small almost sleepy city called Jos on the Middle Belt Plateau of Central Nigeria (not and never Northern Nigeria) which has generated a host of false reports, misconceptions, propagandized and venomously biased reporting especially and particularly by foreign media organizations namely VOA and BBC DW Radio and so on. While the BBC was dishing biased and somewhat slanted angles seemingly favoring a ‘limb’, the VOA on its part was wondrously perplexed with a line that seemed to form an integral ……part of their the fallacious notion that the conflict in Jos or over was one by ‘natives’ and ‘settlers’ over scarce resources , economic power , political power and the usual nonsensical self righteous stereotyping of African human angle stories usually by a correspondent relaying second hand events garnered by ‘plants’ I mean associates locally embedded in a locality- this case a BBC correspondent in Lagos or some other African country completely receiving ‘instructions’… I mean breaking news from an associate usually giving only one side of the story from say Nigeria. The same goes for the VOA, DW radio and majority of the Western news agencies, throw in Arabist channels like Aljezeera and capitalist news channels like CNN and do you have a mix! In article I wrote in February 2010 I stated that “the people of Jos should not expect any sympathy from America…” primarily because the unions of states comprising the United States of America are 100 percent settlers from all over the world whose for-bearers arrived unceremoniously on a boat called the Mayflower and the rest is history. The way and manner in the reporting was done and has been done in the past seriously calls to questions the frame of mind of the reporters, the motives of the disseminators, though one thing is clear that it nothing close to the whole truth and nothing but part of the truth that was being told. Peter Schraeder writes (in United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa) “ the lack of substantive knowledge of Africa is especially acute at the level of the mass public which maintains what can be called a ‘National Geographic image’ of the continent… the National Geographic image is reinforced by the nature of US media programming and the ‘safari tradition of US journalism. Media programming when it does focus on Africa, usually concentrates on sensationalism and often negative aspects of the continent”… for example many or million of Americans are ignorantly unaware of the fact that it was tin exploited from the Jos Plateau by the colonial British that helped the Allies win the Second World War, the mineral literally helped turn the tide of the war and many westerners gawk today and wonder “JOS?” Peter Schraeder further comments on the ‘safari tradition’ of US journalism –“sending generalists into Africa on short term assignments as opposed to those willing to make a long-term commitment to becoming authorities on Africa – reinforces(ing) the checkered view of what the public learns about the continent”. Initially it was a point of desperation that I concluded “Jos people should not expect sympathy from the US…” Now I say it with emphasis and dare I say without apology. Many people have had the impression that my nom de guerre, Lonewolf, is a process of an uninformed mind or thought process – I adopted the indigenous Cheyenne North American tribe or the Tsetschestahase or Tsistsistas, which translates as “beautiful people” or “our people.” Indigenous people are beautiful people…whether they are ‘natives’ or ‘primitives’ running around in loin clothes or butt naked or stepping off a ship called the Mayflower- the point is let the truth be told without reservation even if it means accepting the responsibility for injustices of the past. These injustices have been garnished by history and historians as told by the conquerors and as a result those injustices of the past rear up their ugly heads and become injustices of the present… According to Microsoft Encarta 2008 ‘indigenous peoples refer to those who have inhabited and have made their living directly off the land for hundreds of years …’ It is not my intention to stir any bad blood by recounting the sordidness of the past or to paint any country or nation in bad light but the record sometimes demand setting straight and I attempt to doe this by establishing how even though history glaringly stares us in the face we sometimes refuse to heed. All over the world and in almost all continents indigenous people have been disenfranchised , uprooted and pillaged by people whose descendants harp and set standards which they describe as proper behavior patterns which when not in conformity with what they deem civilized they damn and condemn as barbaric and primitive. From 1768 to 1771 British explorer captain James Cook surveyed many regions of Australia and with a noxious legal doctrine called terra nullius ( land belonging to no one) , the British laid claim to the entire eastern portion of Australia . This singular act denied the Aboriginal people any rights or ownership of the land. In the eyes of the British, this doctrine was justified because the aboriginal people did not build permanent houses, practice agriculture or have a clearly defined hierarchical with which the British could negotiate. As accounts went British settler s arrived on the island of Tasmania in 1803- the island had 5,000 aboriginal people. By 1820 barely 7 years later the settlers had eliminated almost all of the aboriginal inhabitants of that island. Graphically the British settlers disrupted aboriginal life, taking over good sources of water, productive land and fisheries. Probably what was more devastating for the aborigines than the conflict with white settlers was the impact of European diseases to which the aborigines had no immunity. Smallpox, venereal diseases, TB, syphilis – were all introduced into Australia by the settlers which drastically decimated the aboriginal numbers. Again, insidiously as the frontier of white settlement expanded, aboriginal people increasingly offered violent resistance to the taking of their land and many died fighting the British settlers. In some areas white farmers took matters into their own hands and formed vigilante groups, often responding to the killing of sheep and cattle by murdering Aboriginal women and children… The story of /in Southern Africa is not much different. According to (Robin Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia) “the white agricultural policy was to promote expansion of European farming…” In 1908-1914 to radically pursue this end the British South Africa Company launched an attack on Native Reserves which the indigenous populations were herded with the intention of recovering all the best land and making it available for European settlement. As the number of white farmers grew, they came into conflict with many successful African farmers, and with the help of the Company, they began the long process of proletarizing the African peasantry probably eliciting the famous utterance by an Ndebele Headsman in 1896 on the Matopos Hills to the rogue Cecil Rhodes, “You will give us land in our own country! That’s good of you!” Such recollections sound so light hearted compared to the cruelty, treachery and decimation of great civilizations along with their belief systems, local economic specializations and skilled craftsmanship. Spaniards began to colonize the major Caribbean islands. 2 years earlier in 1492, Christopher Columbus ‘discovered ‘the islands for the Spanish Empire. The indigenous people were subjected to labor on sparsely deposited gold mines on the islands. The Spaniards introduced epidemic diseases which within 50 years had decimated the indigenous populations of the large Caribbean islands. In the early 1500s Spaniards began to broaden the scope of their conquest and colonization to mainland South America. In 1519 the Spanish Conquistador Captain Hernan Cortez led his forces into Central Mexico conquering the Aztec capital. In 1532 another conquistador Francisco Pizzaro went up against the Inca Empire. His forces executed the Inca Emperor and established a colonial capital at Lima. The Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula resisted the Spanish Expeditions through guerilla style warfare but the Spanish were able to quickly expand their empire in Middle America. Portugal claimed the eastern coast of the continent in the 1500s which they named Brazil. Coastal indigenous peoples harvested local wood before Portuguese ships would arrive at the shorelines to transport the commodity. Later in the 16th century, the Portuguese began developing sugar plantations which required enormous tracts of land leading to the clearing of ancestral n indigenous lands forcing many natives to flee into the hinterlands of the interior. Plantation owners tried forcing indigenous peoples to work in the sugar fields and mills. They also forced many into slavery and by the 1560’s faced with a diminishing labor force as European introduced diseases swept through the indigenous villages with the consequent effects , the Portuguese graduated to a greater evil ,they began to import the ultimate ‘work horse of humanity’- the black man to work the plantations. According to Huggins Jackson (An Introduction to African Civilization) “being a member of the superior race, is trying business,” he says, quoting Broun, “for to them comes no rest”. Being a member of a race conscious of its faults, modest about its excellencies, willing and ready to appreciate, use and preserve the talents and virtues in others, is pleasant business. Superior races Aryans, Nordics, have little time for the larger justice, the nobler love and more prudent reflection. Their job is to carry The White Man’s Burden and be dominant”. On the North American continent the Mayflower had long since landed and its occupants had since settled down to the occupying the land of promise and the indigenous native American Indian’s presence was to soon become a ‘barrier to civilization’. In 1881 Helen Hunt Jackson wrote a damning book condemning the actions of the United State’s government against the Native American tribes. She writes “it makes little difference, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of all, varied only by differences of time and place; but neither time nor place makes any difference in the main facts …. There is not among the 300 bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelty at the hands of the government or white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band the more certain the cruelty and outrage they have been subjected…one of the most strongest supports in doing so is the widespread sentiment among the people of dislike to the Indian, of impatience with his presence as a ‘barrier to civilization’, and distrust of it as a possible danger. The old tales of the frontier life, with its horrors Indian warfare, have gradually, by two or three generations ‘telling, produced in the average mind something like a hereditary instinct of unquestioning and unreasoning aversion which it almost impossible to dislodge or soften…” is this the same hereditary instinct with which most Americans view and express the Jos problem / issue? Is this why most Americans feign shock and seeming incomprehension at what they are fed about ‘natives in Jos massacring settler Hausas? Is this why Americans will never sympathize with the people of the Jos…? According to Hunt Jackson President after President (of the United States) appointed Commission after Commission “to inquire into and report upon Indian affairs and to make suggestions as to the best methods of managing them…” ‘Managing them’. The reports according to the writer “are filled with eloquent statements of wrongs done to the Indians, of perfidies on the part of the government…there are hundreds of pages of impeachable testimony on the side of the Indian ; but it goes for nothing , is set down as sentimentalism or partisanship, tossed aside and forgotten.” “The Indian will not work…” was the assertion that seemed to be inferred when in 1869, President Grant appointed a Commission of nine men, representing six important states, to visit the different Indian reservations and to ‘examine all matters appertaining to Indian affairs.’ “Why”, argued Hunt Jackson,”should the Indian be expected to plant corn, fence lands, build houses, or do anything but get food from day to day when experience has taught him that the product of his labor will be seized by the white man tomorrow? The most industrious white man would become a drone under similar circumstances”. My uncle, an educationist, who spent close to 15 years in the United States of America in the late 70’s to the early 80’s and decided to return back home told me a very interesting story – the Colonial British so coveted Jos and the temperate weather and so issued a decree to the ‘natives’ to all relocate to the lowlands of the Plateau and farm. Some natives began to comply. The then Southern Nigerian independence activist Nnamdi Azikiwe -Nigerian politician, founder of modern Nigerian nationalism and first president of Nigeria hired a British lawyer and filed a court action against the Colonial British. As the story goes he then asked all the natives to stay action on the relocation pending the law suit. On the crucial day when opening arguments were to be heard all were seated yet the plaintiff lawyer was nowhere to be seen. He eventually arrived late and walked into the courtroom and straight to the Crown lawyer and asked him to stand up so he could sit down. The crown lawyer was flabbergasted. He railed at the man not only are you late in a Crown court but you have the gall to ask me to vacate my position!” The plaintiff’s lawyer waited until he finished and squarely addressed him. “Sir the British came to Jos late yet they are asking the natives to leave?!” With that he turned to red faced judge and addressed him “Your honor I rest my case”. The natives won the right to stay on their land. A story it seems with a happy ending at that but were the same people that claimed to bring civilization to dark and unexplored continents themselves civilized the history of world would have had such a tainted and controversial time-line and such controversy as witnessed today. Imagine that what is now Sydney, Australia started off as penal colony- convicts could redeem themselves on another man’s virgin land… “The testimony of some of the highest military officers of the United States is on record to the effect that, in our Indian wars, almost without exception, the first aggressions have been made by the white man; and the assertion is supported by every civilian of reputation who has studied the subject. In addition to the class of robbers and outlaws who find impunity in their nefarious pursuits on the frontiers, there is a large class of professedly reputable men who use every means in their power to bring on Indian wars for the sake of the profit to be realized from the presence of troops and the expenditure of government funds in their midst. They proclaim death to the Indians at all times in words and publications, making no distinction between the innocent and the guilty. They irate the lowest class of men to the perpetration of the darkest deeds against their victims, and as judges and jurymen, shield them from the justice due to their crimes. Every crime committed by a white man against an Indian is concealed or palliated. Every offense committed by an Indian against a white man is borne on the wings of the post or the telegraph to the remotest corner of the land, clothed with all the horrors which the reality or imagination can throw around it. Against such influences as these the people of the United states of America need to be warned…” What was then and this is now. I used to admire what I supposed to be the ideals and tenets by which the people of the United States of America stood by but in the light of recent responses to happening in my abode I only began to comprehend the level and depth to which the ‘hereditary instinct of unquestioning and unreasoning aversion which it almost impossible to dislodge or soften…’is ingrained- then the so called Charter of the United Nations: WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, AND FOR THESE ENDS… (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. ) …is just a tirade of hypocritical posturing serving only to assuage a seared conscious of a race of peoples who believe themselves to be conquerors which generations have been saved from the scourge of war? The African people are continuously scandalized for their seeming proclivity for civil war and genocide but no one queries the influx of small arms and sophisticated weapons and ammunition finding their from the west and Eastern Europe into Africa. What affirmation in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small… In Sudan the conflict has been dramatized and over theatricalized – a foreign reporter called it a ‘celebrity war’- the US and Britain have almost no moral authority to call the Chinese who have grabbed sweet oil concessions from the Arab government in Khartoum because when they were conducting their own greedy game for exploitation of other peoples rights and privileges in the hunger for mineral resources they would accept , allow or entertain any dissent from to other members of the international community and as a result China conducts herself with the same impunity all over Africa and wherever she has a toehold in mineral resource control. The settler question and the emergence of ethnic tension and violence in Jos, Nigeria are not new, not peculiar and not specific to Jos my people. As far back as the 1980’s these violent incidences have been rocking mainly Northern parts of Nigeria especially Kaduna State where the indigenous people have been constantly at odds with the settler Hausa / Fulani. In 1984 Zangon Kataf , home of the Kataf people in Southern Kaduna exploded with an unprecedented level of violence against the settler attempts at imposition of dominance with such ferocity that up till today the settler Hausa / Fulani keep a very wide berth of the Kataf man…there are numerous other incidences and as one Anglican cleric observed ‘”this cycle of so called religious violence has gone full circle throughout the Northern parts of Nigeria and has come to Jos…” Dung Pam Sha (Professor) categorized settlers in Jos into four broad groups: The first and by no means the largest or most important are: The Hausa –Fulani: this group he described as predominantly Muslim but with several fundamentalist sects. In this group he identifies a broad spectrum of social classes – a small peasant class involved in year round farming, a middle class involved in small scale transport , retail and speculative business class – possibly the most insidious class , which controls the sales and prices of agricultural product (…the Indian will not work?) and an upper middle class which controls high speculative businesses , such as large scale transport businesses estate ownership and the distribution of petroleum products. These classes according to Sha have strong ties to their cousins and other relations at ‘home’ and especially federal government institutions. Sha cites documentation showing the encouraged influx of ‘forced labor’ for the tin mines on the plateau, laborers which came from Bauchi , Benue , Borno , Kano , Katsina , Niger , Plateau , , Sokoto and Zaria. From 1940 -1942 according to Sha’s sources the highest number of migrants came from Zaria with 19%, Sokoto 16.1%, Bauchi 15.8%,Benue 12.9%, Borno 11.4%, and Kano 2.1%. They settled in Jos and environs. The colonial British also ‘imported’ migrant labor to build the Bauchi – Kafanchan railway in the 1920’s for transportation of ‘the ‘tin and other exploited materials. Growing commerce saw a growth in settler communities in Jos and finally workers from a number of government and private organizations had their workers settling down in Jos. The second groups are the Igbos who Sha describes as “largely Christian who are noted for their commercial prowess, small and large scale transport business…They, according the author co-operate with other ethnic groups in Jos in order to maintain collective”. The last statement is very important in view of the situation rocking Jos presently. Next are the Yorubas who again “are mainly Christians with a small percentage Muslims. They are united as an ethnic group. They are also engaged in commerce – wholesale and retail trade, estate ownership and industrial production…” The remaining ethnic groups in Jos come mainly from northern and southern Plateau State; the greater majority are Christians, others are from Middle Belt of Nigeria who are petty traders, farmers, workers in private, state and federal government institutions. Sha notes two dimensions to the settler question in Jos: First, “the settlers are in control of economic power and are currently fashioning out ways of creating and expanding political frontiers favorable to the consolidation of their economic power, and the enjoyment of social services”. An example of this manifestation is how “they used their economic might to dispossess native peasant households of their lands using the federal government policy on Land Use”. The settlers control market for both consumer and intermediate goods. They control transport and other commercial activities. “This control has been facilitated because of their ethnic and personal links with sources of credit e.g. banks and multinational companies, and their distant cousins who control federal institutions. Secondly, the development of the indigenous economy was ‘arrested ‘by the colonial and post colonial administrations …” This economic marginalization has ultimately morphed into the barbarity and inhumanity being witnessed in the streets and villages of Jos – not only Jos but all over the Northern Nigeria region where indigenous people have been dispossessed and disenfranchised of their birth rights…from historical it is pertinent tot know that what the people or the so called ‘natives’ of Jos have resisted and been resisting foreign invasion for this length of time, this is commendable. Incidentally the conflict with settlers in Jos seems very complicated as the indigenous native may have problems with the settler groups, which in all sense of the word is expected, but this problem seems to be more intense with a particular settler group – the Hausa Fulani. Why the Hausa Fulani and not the Yorubas or the Igbos? The Hausa Fulani claim they were in Jos even before the Colonial British- even before the Uhrobo and Ogbomosho traders… It is a historical fact that the tin mine industry which Jos was built upon eventually collapsed- the land was bastardized and depleted and laborers who knew their roots began to return, the Hausa Fulani on the other hand being “historically nomadic” were unable to trace their origins and therefore presented the argument that Jos is a no-man’s land setting the stage for what is happening today. The Hausa Fulani again through the manipulation of their cousins and links in the federal government carved out a niche in the city called Jos North contending still that they it generating bitterness from the indigenous due to the insult on their hospitality and accommodating nature. One may ask what about the other settler groups? At most times they sympathize with the indigenous but align with the Hausa Fulani for some benefits. Probably the most insidious aspect of the conflict which bears economic and political undertones is ambition of the Hausa Fulani to Islamize Jos –something which their forbearer Othman dan Fodio utterly failed to do in the ‘primitive days’. Violence in Jos did not occur until April 12, 1994, till then all settlers had been afraid of any violence considering the fact that they own property and sizable investments but in view of the fact that economic competition in the market was pushing the Hausa Fulani out of some business sectors and because they are a minority they once again turned to their cousins and links in the patriarchal federal government for succor – this has been the genesis and confidence that has accompanied and become a feature of the now terrorist nature of this particular group of settlers against the indigenous and fellow settlers; ‘since we cannot have it we will destroy it’. I will not digress however by going into the mechanics of the Jos problem proper but the bottom line and crux of the matter is succinctly summarized in the conclusion of the paper by Professor Sha …” the colonial state inaugurated inter-ethnic crises , but the post colonial government expanded the scope of such conflict through its differential support of ethnic groups…lasting peace can only be attained when the state distances itself from distributing political power in a manner that does respect the customs and tradition of the people…”
The people of Jos know by association that they will not expect much
understanding from the former colonial British in whose inertest it
was to divide and rule but if the people ever expected any sympathy
from the United States of America then it is time to think again.
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
