HOME | FUNNY ARTICLES | TOP NEWS REPORTS | SUBMIT
|
Feb. 22, 2010 My problem with Nigeria is our penchant for picking up on craze of the moment, whether it is fashion, music, or clichés and personalizing such, suddenly it has become a byword for fashionable ignorance to include genocide in any write up or speech or public address. For several weeks now or correctly since November 2008 following the violence that followed peaceful elections in Jos North the press and mouths of lesser endowed individuals has been awash with the use of the word ‘genocide’ particularly Daily Trust , Nigeria. It is ironical that the same Daily Trust has dedicated endless rims and print to misinformed positions by one two columnists namely Mr. Adamu Adamu on challenging and denying the Holocaust, even prompting a rejoinder from the Ambassador of the democratic Republic of Israel himself . It is the same Daily Trust suddenly discovering the word exists when conducting a campaign of calumny and mischief. Fortunately the intended target readers are mostly illiterate tea vendors, cart pushers and petty traders who pin shortwave radios to their ears and are oblivious to anything else. The few enlightened that read such diatribe mostly smile in embarrassment and move to the next story, but then stories like those were conveniently picked up by a one track Al Jezeera which conveniently , again , picked up by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-but we will not go into that now. Daily Trust and its affiliates would have the same ignoramuses believe that Mr. Jang, the Executive and democratically elected Governor of Plateau State was captured on Zapruder film dressed in traditional animal skin executing cartwheels and handstands after killing some Hausa /Fulani in front of his house or on the streets of Jos. Sometime in 2009 a friend showed me a short video clip like the ones very popular on You Tube titled “The Genocide in Jos” and the week following the 2010 repeat disturbances another friend, from whom I expected better being a professional and educated, posted a link on Facebook titled “Jang’s Genocide in Jos 1… not for the faint hearted”, almost the same captions and wordings used in the so called 2008 genocide, infact I am very sure it was the same video with updates. If only the these purveyors of false and dissent understood the full import and implications of the word ‘genocide’ they would not use it so carelessly except of course, and is the case that there is an ‘agenda’ which has been set in motion which demands that that the polity be so heated with careless abandon after all there are insinuations that the so called fake soldiers operating with impunity, much like the death squads in the former Yugoslavia and Bosnia, were not fake soldiers at all. The word genocide was coined by Polish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin to describe the crime of destroying or conspiring to destroy a group of people because of their ethnic, national, racial or religious identity. Genocide occurs when a group or nation conquers another group and it was common practice to kill all men –civilians and soldiers alike. So now was it Mr. Jang or Mr. Jang’s people, was it the Berom or the Berom people that set to carry out the genocide because better judgment tells that it is not possible that that a single individual will possess the capability or wherewithal to carry out a genocide but then it may be a case of the thief being chased to turn around and point at those chasing and create confusion in which he escapes. It is unfortunate that even the Sultan of Sokoto as reported by Daily Trust, a much respected leader was caught up in the frenzy to use the ‘genocide’ word. According to Fein, Helen (“Genocide” Microsoft Students 2008) the underlying conditions necessary for genocide are: 1. The offending nation or perpetrator is usually an undemocratic country (hardly a term that describes the individual Mr. Jang) that views the targeted group as a barrier or threat to maintaining power, fulfilling an ideology or achieving some other goal. They would have us believe Jang’s goal or agenda was to drive Hausa / Fulani out of Jos…an agenda or goal he failed to execute when he served meritoriously as military Administrator in Benue and the former Gongola states? 2. The perpetrators exclude the victims from their universe of obligations. They do not have to account for protection of the victims who are seen as inferiors, subhuman, or strangers… Yes!!They hammer on some misinterpreted and misconstrued statement or utterance attributed rightly or wrongly to Mr. Jang as their evidence. It is common knowledge that most or all politicians gaff and momentarily or for some length of time do not appear very smart- but to pick on a single word in a statement and use it as proof of genocide by a politician show extreme lack of reasoning. 3. Most genocides occur during a crisis, state breakdown or revolution. The only crisis in Jos since 1994 was and is still being fomented by a certain faceless group of citizens whether indigenes or ‘settlers’ who believe that unless they have their way the whole State along with its people should burn to ashes, the only breakdown is the one these faceless people and their sponsors seek to create so that an emergency situation be declared to further truncate and stagnate the development of the state. These ignoramuses especially in the Nigerian Parliament are so blinded in their shallow grasp of the law fail to understand as pointed out by one Senator that a ‘state of emergency’ never means the constitutional or democratic structures of the state in question be dismantled but that Federal aid especially security be dedicated for control of the situation be it manmade or natural disaster. The cowardly and unjustified provocation arising from the peaceful conduct of the November 2008 Local government elections in Jos North followed by retaliatory actions by aggrieved, genuinely, victims was brought under control within a week without Federal intervention and the same with the 2010 ‘terror’ attacks which was unfortunately exacerbated by the field operations of ‘fake’ army units who were not under the orders or control of the state governor. For reference it would be pertinent to note that that the 2001 crisis under the stewardship of a different governor dragged on for weeks and then almost 3 or 4 years. There are 4 types of genocide: ideological, retributive, developmental and despotic. The Turkish genocide of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire is an example of ideological genocide, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 which claimed up to a million lives in 3 months is also described as an ideological genocide. In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge carried out a killing spree of close to 1.7 million people in retribution by the Communists against academics and intellectuals, Idi Amin and Milton Obote were said to have carried out despotic genocide against each other’s people. In the late 1960’s and 1970’s the Paraguayan government committed developmental genocide against indigenous peoples to clear way for access to logging areas and cattle pastures. Genocide has always been against indigenous people if one looks critically at history because these are people who always profess a very very strong identity and culture and immediately a ‘settler’ comes the settler proceeds to begin dismantling or destroying all those identities and attributes. In 1975 Indonesia attempted to subdue and “integrate” the region of East Timor resulting in the deaths of 200,000 indigenous people-more than 1/3 the entire population, between 1960 and 1966 200,000 Guatemalans were killed or disappeared in genocidal circumstances. The issue is not about numbers but ignorance and misinformation should not be promoted in any guise. The United Nations Genocide Convention provides the following actions when committed with the intent to eliminate a particular national, ethnic, racial or religious group constitutes genocide:
1. Killing members of a group To be sure the misinformed minds calling for Mr. Jang’s head on genocide charges are simply people whose brains may not yet be capable of partaking of intellectual nourishment without cerebral indigestion. Social scientists have estimated that since the end World War II at least 16 nations have attempted or committed genocide- not one single individual has been classified, the late Milosevic died in International custody on charges of War Crimes as genocide charges would have been laughable. Those calling for genocide charges on Mr. Jang should continue and hopefully when it gets anywhere, hopefully the ICC, the man can sue for millions for libel against such narrow minded individuals. The so called ‘rejection’ by the Hausa /Fulani of the settler label is a process of the above mentioned – the ‘settler’ concept is an article of colonial stereotyping and branding which purpose still serves to divide people. Any African knows that the ‘visitor or settler’ in any African setting is the most welcome and heartily received. African culture dictates that a visitor is treated with utmost respect and dignity, the most pampered – and sometimes for any length of time because in African culture and practices the settler or visitor is special. See how the Igbo, Yoruba, the Urhobos, practically every representative of the major and minor groups of Nigeria have accepted the status of settler or visitor and have been reaping the benefits. A Chinese proverbs states that that “a fish and visitor smell after 3 days”…Jos is not China, the so called ‘native people’ of Plateau or Jos are not Chinese – so why has it been that the so called ‘venom’ of the Jos people been directed at only a particular group?
I put it to all that the word ‘settler’ translated and expantiated
under any African or Nigerian language would carry with it very
positive and heart warming connotations, that the mischievous
attribution of the use of the word ‘settler’ Mr. Jang was deliberately
manipulated and taken out of context to generate and fuel the present
controversy, that the word ‘settler’ has place in African culture and
custom and that the word which first described the Colonial British in
all of its negative ramifications was left in place to cause the
confusion and distraction it is now doing.
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
