I am back in the chilly climes of the United States still in the frosty embrace of last week’s winter storm that blitzed through the North Eastern corridor dropping more than a foot of snow in South Orange, New Jersey where I reside. However, it turns out that we did not get the brunt of this “Northeasterner.”
As I write this, comfortably draped across a soft yielding sofa in Virginia, I look out of the window and see the still substantial remains of close to two feet of snow that came down in the Washington DC area. I am at Chris,’ my dear friend and in-law doing that ritualistic Christmas family reunion thing; year-by-year, it is either your house or my house.
This year it is at “your house,” so here we are with a full complement of folks including my niece, visiting from Nigeria, as well as the three “mouseketeers,” Chris’ brace and my own dear daughter completing the two girls, one boy trio as well as mummies in tow. However, I digress, this is not supposed to be about yuletide family reunions, it is strangely enough about the dignity of labor. Let me explain.
Last week in the aftermath of the snowstorm, I learnt a very useful lesson about the nature of work. I woke up to see the world around me transformed into a white snowy dreamscape. With everything outside covered in this enchanted white drapery of snow, the world looked positively different; clean, pristine, and full of un-trodden possibilities.
Gazing through my window at this winter wonder-landscape, I could better appreciate why Inuits and Eskimos reputedly have hundreds of names to describe their white snowy habitats. For me that white blanket mercifully covered a multitude of sins, for a moment, I preferred to enjoy the untainted vista before me instead of reflexively trying to unearth what lies beneath.
However, at some point, I knew I had to lift selective edges of this frosty carpet to etch pathways out of our snowed in encampment. In these parts and at this time of the year, shoveling snow is a quotidian routine necessitated by the practical challenge of moving around as well as strict local ordinances that compel you to clear the pedestrian pathway that outlines the front of your property.
When done cooperatively with each household taking responsibility for clearing their frontage, the result is remarkably efficient; typically, an uneven path hacked through the snowy thickets running parallel to the main street, providing the brave pedestrian safe passage through the treacherous and slippery snow drifts.
Of course, there are patches along the trail where, negligent households have not bothered to provide this public service and the result is this jarring obstacle of mounted snow hindering the trek. I must confess that in the past, I was one of those negligent homeowners, refusing to go out and shovel snow, preferring to either pay those shovel toting, roving band of brothers, as in “brotha,” that magically appear after every snow storm, or wait patiently for the big thaw that happens after every ice age to take its course.
In truth, I was not always this recalcitrant, but I remember trying to shovel snow for the first time six years ago and nearly having a heart attack, or so goes the urban myth. Then I was left thoroughly breathless and aching all over, the result of a sedentary lifestyle sitting in front of a computer working or beached on the couch watching television and plenty of heavy meals in between, and now…
Well, glad to say I am in a much better physical shape. With this assurance, I woke up to a hearty breakfast; you need the energy you know, and a determination to dig my household out of the snow. It helped that my daughter offered to lend a hand. I was pleasantly surprised considering that last year I had to pay her for the same service offering.
This time she volunteered to help “daddy out,” and so at approximately 11 am, we both set out, shovels at the ready into the lush, fluffy, milky froth that was a foot of snow covering the entire yard and beyond. First, we had to shovel a path through the backyard to parking space where the family minivan was usually parked.
This time it was not in place because my wife had bravely driven it out through the snow on short errand, but had been forced to leave it marooned at the end of our longish drive way. My daughter’s offer to help was short lived, because a family friend soon pulled up on the main road in an SUV packed with kids with an offer to my daughter that was simply too good to refuse. “Help daddy out” in back breaking work, shoveling snow, or go tobogganing at the park with your friends. Well… what do you think?
Now left to my own devices, armed with two shovels, and totally immersed in the pulsating Afro jazz rhythms of the seminal Afro-Cuban super band Irakere thumping from my iPod, I set to work. At a later point, I had to move Irakere over and let Jimi take over… Jimi Hendricks that is.
I systematically began to shovel strategic tracks all around the yard, first clearing the walkway leading to the front door, next the full length of the public walkway across the frontage, and then the parking space before tackling the full length of the driveway to rescue the marooned minivan.
In all about three and a half hours of work, real work. As I proudly stood looking at and savoring the fruits of my labor, so to speak, I realized that I had actually gotten more done in those hours than I had done in a long time. I could see that with every deft heft of the snow-laden shovel, I was slowly but surely clawing a clearly discernable path to a clear objective.
None of that vague, open ended, subjective gobbledygook that often passes for white-collar intellectual output. This was real, tactile, tangible, quantifiable blue-collar work. You could see that in some places, where there was snow three hours before, now there was none, and you could see that it had been shoveled aside, revealing what lay beneath.
This was not some pointless flight of fancy or intellectual expose on what lay beneath the snow, in the deliberately exposed parts, you could actually see it and touch it if you wanted and not ponder what it was or wasn’t.
Put another way, this was the conversion of bio energy into the physical displacement of weighted loads that just happen to be snow. I have come away with renewed understanding and appreciation of physical labor and the dignity that lies therein. I know that to get things moving, there is a need for the cerebral exertions that I am more familiar with, but it should not be done at the expense of the its more earthy physical alter ego.
PS. Happy New Year to you. May this New Year bring you in wise measure all that you need and some of what you want.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Back again sort off..
Eh..hem.. I’m back sort of. I will spare myself the apologetic platitudes and you dear reader the irritation of another “apology” for not keeping this blog alive by frequent contributions. I think it is because I suffer a peculiar slothfulness when it comes to writing anything creative these days. However, for my own sanity, I think I must give vent to those incessant voices that I hear in my head. These days, I think more, say less, and even “lesser” write less. It will have to change. This is the first step.
In the past six months or so, lots of things have happened, far too many to even begin to unbundle at this point, but in the incoming days and weeks as I find my breath and pace, I will make an effort to share some of those voices. I am especially looking forward to the new year, with its unwritten promise. Watch this space.
In the past six months or so, lots of things have happened, far too many to even begin to unbundle at this point, but in the incoming days and weeks as I find my breath and pace, I will make an effort to share some of those voices. I am especially looking forward to the new year, with its unwritten promise. Watch this space.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
A Blog Abandoned
I feel like a negligent parent, even worse, a bad parent. Honest, I really do. I have abandoned this Blog for many months now, not unlike a parent more or less abandoning a child in the hands of a long-suffering relative, with the insincere promise to “be back soon.” Now that I am back, hardly soon, but back nonetheless, like the prodigal son; I must throw myself at the mercy of a blog abandoned to the cobwebs of the worldwide web. It would be presumptuous of me to imagine that I was missed in any measure by my blog and the legions of its phantom readers, but regardless, that feeling of willful abandonment and the need for some restitution persists. But how do you pacify a justifiably angry Blog seething with self-righteous resentment as well as an undermining neediness, grasping for restorative embrace and the promise that will be well from now on. I suspect that I must at least explain where I have been over the last couple of months, and spin a fabulist tale of danger filled adventures in far, far lands and then my triumphant return home, bearing gifts. Forgiveness, restitution, restoration, all is forgiven. But not so fast buddy! The tales, where are the tales?
Well, the tales will have to initially come from my fractured and abbreviated recollections of happenings over the last three months or so pitifully melded into a contemporary narrative. The truth is that I have spent more time on that voyeuristic panopticon called "Fishbowl" sorry "Fishbook," I beg your pardon, Facebook. As expected, I have reconnected with long lost friends; friends that I would rather they remained lost, but they found me! Written on walls "mene mene tekel upharsin" (check out your Old Testament Biblical references Daniel 5:25 I think, and more, appropriate for these times), have people poke me and write on my own wall. In addition there has been the little witticisms of the art of the short form commentary, writing just enough to sound witty and knowledgable, but artfully covering a mountain of ignorance about the pending subject matter. I kind of like that. Indeed, I have built a whole persona on that; the sage old sliverback chomping ruefully on a thick clump of vegetation viewing the world askance and trying to so say much with little, and periodically nodding at the appropriate points of inflection. But alas, that cover is blown. I now have to feed this hungry blog. This I promise to do, as best as I can.
Well, the tales will have to initially come from my fractured and abbreviated recollections of happenings over the last three months or so pitifully melded into a contemporary narrative. The truth is that I have spent more time on that voyeuristic panopticon called "Fishbowl" sorry "Fishbook," I beg your pardon, Facebook. As expected, I have reconnected with long lost friends; friends that I would rather they remained lost, but they found me! Written on walls "mene mene tekel upharsin" (check out your Old Testament Biblical references Daniel 5:25 I think, and more, appropriate for these times), have people poke me and write on my own wall. In addition there has been the little witticisms of the art of the short form commentary, writing just enough to sound witty and knowledgable, but artfully covering a mountain of ignorance about the pending subject matter. I kind of like that. Indeed, I have built a whole persona on that; the sage old sliverback chomping ruefully on a thick clump of vegetation viewing the world askance and trying to so say much with little, and periodically nodding at the appropriate points of inflection. But alas, that cover is blown. I now have to feed this hungry blog. This I promise to do, as best as I can.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Heading home
I really have to get used to the drip, drip exposition of life as a blogger. In the good old days, the discipline and schedule of a weekly deadline as a newspaper columnist meant that I had to concentrate my thoughts to write on schedule. Now I oftentimes plain forget that like a chia pet, I have to feed and water my blog. Anyhow, where was I? Ah yes, my last blog was about re-entering the reality distortion field that is Lagos and by extension Nigeria. Right now, I am preparing to head back to the US, in its own way also a reality distortion field. My time spent here in Lagos has had its moments. One highlight was the visit of my intrepid friend Tom Lansner who came for a quick visit at the end of February and into very early March. After years of mutually threatening to pull off the trip, Tom finally made it to Lagos from Amsterdam. Now Tom is an old "Africa hand" as we say in the business, having been a war correspondent in the eighties, traversing and reporting on some of the most misbegotten episodes in Africa's recent history, and recently was in Nigeria to monitor our last elections in 2007. So, it was nice to see him very shortly after his plane touched down, outside the airport terminal, dressed in a light khaki pants, a summer jacket and a fedora arched jauntily on his head looking like the intrepid traveller that he was. Surprisingly and in my own experience, he was out of the airport, perhaps 15 min after the plane landed. I also arrived "just in time" like needed automotive part in a high efficiency Japanese car factory. It was all pretty amazing that things could co so smoothly in Lagos, well, perhaps not so, if you consider the drama I encountered on the way to the airport. At one of the many congested junctions on the way to the airport, I was "arrested" for running a red light. Never mind that I did not actually run the light, because I stopped immediately the oddly placed lights changed. I managed to argue my way out of a possible trip to the "station" by forcefully arguing that I did not in fact run the light! Anyhow, the point to this anecdote is that we must hold faith that things in will ultimately work out; Tom arrived and I was there to pick him up. Needless to say, we had a blast as two old friends would. It was a daily schedule of visits to friends and my family, meetings with interesting people at Bogobiri his hotel and artsy chick watering hole. It was during his visit and through his eyes that I saw what actually made Lagos, "Lagos" for me. Certainly not the beauty of the city, but the energy and complex beauty of the people. By his own admission, he met more interesting people during his short visit than he had met in the couple of years he had spent so far in Amsterdam. After he left, I fell back into the usual grind of problem solving and a series of enervating business trips to Abuja. I think right about now, I am ready to come up for air.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Lagos Jam!
Lagos Jam is the refrain of a song by the reggae group THIRD WORLD, and it is an apt, if not sly description of Lagos. In pidgin English, the verb "to jam someone" is to have a collision with that person, often violently, as in a car accident. But "to jam" in musical terms can also mean to have a free-wheeling but intricately complex and beguiling collision of musical notes, as one would have in an extended improvisational jazz piece. And of course there is the that delicious fruity confection that goes, oh so well with toast or a muffin or bagel. Well, I think Lagos is all of those; infinitely adapting and dancing to the musical complexity and rhythms of its own making, sweet and yet tart, with the inevitability of someone or something jamming you when you least expect it.
It is into this controlled chaos that I returned last week. Each time I re-enter the Nigerian orbit, I am immediately sucked in by its gravitational pull through its own unique reality distortion field. You disembark from the plane and what you see, is well, what you see. I have learnt to peer through the glass darkly at the always fascinating theatrical production that seems staged just for your benefit. From the unruliness at the baggage collection point, through the ornery customs check and out into the bubbling sea of people, all ostensibly there for a reason, Lagos welcomes you with into its hot, humid and frenzied embrace.
The drive from the airport is always predictably fraught with the periodic traffic bottle necks and just a whiff of impending danger. Lagos is a city where anything can happen, and usually does.
But this time the city seemed a little different. There was a sense of it becoming cleaner and just a tad more orderly. There are clear signs that the Lagos State government is clawing back control of the public spaces; Lagos is becoming greener, cleaner and "leaner?" Nah... way too many people for that. I have heard estimates of Lagos fluctuate between 14 million people on a good day, and 25 million on a really bad day. It is truly a mega city in heft, if not amenities.
In subsequent days, my daily runs through the city revealed that Lagos is really changing for the better. The traffic is predicable slow at certain periods, but the uniformed army of Lagos State's auxiliary forces ensues that traffic is kept flowing, there is tepid enforcement on the ban on street trading, and wonders of wonders, all the one million plus Okadas and their hardy passengers are all wearing motorcycle helmets. OK, I use the term "helmets" loosely, much in the same way the helmets are jauntily perched on the heads of both riders and passengers, with the securing straps flapping loosely in the wind.
In taking a closer look at the quality of the helmets, I surmise that they in the main, are mostly cheap plastic bowls with straps attached, and offer no real head protection to the wearer if the Okada should "jam" someone or something. But hey, the larger point here, is that contrary to popular perceptions, Lagosians are law abiding and can be compelled to obey the law, with certain slight adjustments. The other thing that crossed my mind would fall under the law of unintended consequences. Head lice and other health related concerns. I wonder if there will be a spike in the number of cases of skin diseases as a consequence of sharing your headwear with so many other people. But trust Lagosians, I have already seen several types of what might be described as "head condoms" being used to prevent such intimacies. I suppose it gives a new twist to the expression "ride safely."
It is into this controlled chaos that I returned last week. Each time I re-enter the Nigerian orbit, I am immediately sucked in by its gravitational pull through its own unique reality distortion field. You disembark from the plane and what you see, is well, what you see. I have learnt to peer through the glass darkly at the always fascinating theatrical production that seems staged just for your benefit. From the unruliness at the baggage collection point, through the ornery customs check and out into the bubbling sea of people, all ostensibly there for a reason, Lagos welcomes you with into its hot, humid and frenzied embrace.
The drive from the airport is always predictably fraught with the periodic traffic bottle necks and just a whiff of impending danger. Lagos is a city where anything can happen, and usually does.
But this time the city seemed a little different. There was a sense of it becoming cleaner and just a tad more orderly. There are clear signs that the Lagos State government is clawing back control of the public spaces; Lagos is becoming greener, cleaner and "leaner?" Nah... way too many people for that. I have heard estimates of Lagos fluctuate between 14 million people on a good day, and 25 million on a really bad day. It is truly a mega city in heft, if not amenities.
In subsequent days, my daily runs through the city revealed that Lagos is really changing for the better. The traffic is predicable slow at certain periods, but the uniformed army of Lagos State's auxiliary forces ensues that traffic is kept flowing, there is tepid enforcement on the ban on street trading, and wonders of wonders, all the one million plus Okadas and their hardy passengers are all wearing motorcycle helmets. OK, I use the term "helmets" loosely, much in the same way the helmets are jauntily perched on the heads of both riders and passengers, with the securing straps flapping loosely in the wind.
In taking a closer look at the quality of the helmets, I surmise that they in the main, are mostly cheap plastic bowls with straps attached, and offer no real head protection to the wearer if the Okada should "jam" someone or something. But hey, the larger point here, is that contrary to popular perceptions, Lagosians are law abiding and can be compelled to obey the law, with certain slight adjustments. The other thing that crossed my mind would fall under the law of unintended consequences. Head lice and other health related concerns. I wonder if there will be a spike in the number of cases of skin diseases as a consequence of sharing your headwear with so many other people. But trust Lagosians, I have already seen several types of what might be described as "head condoms" being used to prevent such intimacies. I suppose it gives a new twist to the expression "ride safely."
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Prelude to History
Prelude to History
Two conversations today helped me frame my thoughts about the historic inauguration Tuesday of Barack Obama as the 44th President of America. Prior to these conversations, I was probing and searching for a common denominator that would intimately connect me with the pomp, pageantry and purpose of this truly historic moment. What else can be said about this moment, about this improbable avatar that promises so much hope in these difficult and uncertain times? More precisely what else could I say beyond my own exposition Barack Obama: Black Man’s Dilemma, written many months ago, and reprinted below for the record. Not much I thought, until I had the conversations.
The one was with a senior member of the Nigerian cabinet, whose personal and professional experience in my books makes him one of the few people that I have encountered lately in government that “gets it.” The call, made on my dime was supposed to be a follow up call on some other matter, but we easily segued into the Obama phenomena and what it means for all of us.
I provided my own take of the heighten state of warmth, hope and even euphoria that has engulfed the US, contrasting the warm feeling of possibility with the arctic temperatures outside my doorsteps. His insightful comment was to point out that there seemed to be a fatal disconnect between our joyous (Nigerian) embrace of the iconic Obama, a black man as the President of the United States, and our sense that it is possible for us to aspire, work and achieve the kind of monumental change that Obama represents.
And in a remarkable act of candor and openness, referencing his own present existential angst added that perhaps our challenge as Nigerians is more of a personal one; personal in our respective inability to resolve our internal contradictions, fight our demons and fully embrace the possibility of greatness, as individuals working toward a great nation. In short perpetual doubts of whether “Yes we can” or as I prefer to phrase it “Yes we fit?”
Our conversation drifted into his ongoing experience of working in the public sector, and I raised the issue of the tyranny of civil servants, perhaps the most corrupt cadre of the Nigerian elite, and he surprisingly rose to their defense in measured and reasoned tones, explaining that in fact, not all of them as bad as is generally believed. In his experience, there were some competent and dedicated officers embedded in the grime and sordidness of the service, toiling away to hold up the ramparts against the rapacious hoards of politicians and other rent seekers.
So in a sense, his position was that all was not lost and there were increasingly small victories that were adding up potentially to a tipping point. I expressed my perennial concern about Nigeria collapsing under the weight of its own graft and incompetence long before some of the salvage work is done, but he expressed a guarded optimism that all was not lost. I half believed him.
The other conversation was a brief but pithy exchange with my dear friend Chukwudum Ikeazor who called me quite unexpectedly from Atlanta. “Tunji my brother” he said almost breathlessly, “guess where I am calling you from.” I knew he was in Atlanta, but before I could reply, “I am at the Martin Luther King memorial, we’ve just finished the church service and I am standing at his memorial about to sign the guest book.” “Tunji, we must learn to cherish our history” he said as his voice trailed off, “I’ll call you later.”
Anyone who knows Chukwudum would understand the history he spoke about. Not for him this narrow definition of who we are, and against the backdrop of Obama’s inauguration, I knew he would be in the US to partake in some way in this auspicious celebration of the “Rebirth of a Nation,” D.W Griffith be dammed!
So sandwiched between the historical bookends of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, I can understand why this moment is so important for all of us, and even more so for black people all over the world. As for our laggardly compatriots in Nigeria they better wake up and smell the Obama.
BARACK OBAMA: Black man’s dilemma.
Tunji Lardner
As a black man, more precisely as an African born black man, I am a bit conflicted about the exquisitely improbable presidential run of Senator Barack Obama. My ambivalence has it roots in a previous run for president by another charismatic black politician, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
I remember how the news of Jesse running for the presidency of the US in 1984 impacted on our global political consciousness in Nigeria, literally a generation ago. As a young idealistic journalist working for a fledgling weekly magazine, and like the rest of my equally young and idealistic colleagues, the very idea of a black man as the president of the United States was a notion we readily accepted as a possibility After all this was “the United States” —with its self evident truths about the equality of man: the democratic ideal that we all so dearly wished for Nigeria, which was then in the grip of yet another predatory and distinctively vicious military dictator by name Ibrahim Babangida.
Looking back, I marvel at our naiveté and sense of moral certitude about the world ultimately being a good and just place. I suppose we were subconsciously projecting our hope and sense of justice and optimism on that great whiteboard called America. To look too closely at our selves, our country, indeed our continent would have been too painful and depressing. So we cast our eyes far, far over the rainbow to that mythical place where someone like us was running to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.
Even so, a little voice now and then whispered in our ears, the cold calculating facts of American electoral politics, there was no way any Jesse was going to beat the “Gipper,” an extremely popular incumbent Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless we persisted in our little game of self-deception, knowing fully well that given the tortured history of race in America, it was highly unlikely that a Blackman, indeed any black man would ever make to Pennsylvania Avenue in the foreseeable future.
“From the outhouse to the White House.” That prospect was heady and intoxicating for all of us. At a deep personal level we understood the semiotics of having a black man in the White House—no matter how naïve or improbable it seemed. We came back to earth soon enough as Jesse’s theatrical run for president turned out to be, well, the audacity of hype.
But today it is different. A remarkable black American with the improbable name of Barack Obama is running for the office of the President of the United States, and that little voice is telling me that he stands a very good chance of becoming America’s next president. A black man who in his own words boldly declares “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas… I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents.”
And I—even without the colorful heritage of miscegenation and the searing intellect, the laser focused drive, the bold self-assuredness, the charismatic personality, the moral courage, the balance, the poise, the words, or the audacious hope—totally identify with the brother; more or less.
I hesitate to fully identify with Barack Obama because I am still negotiating my way through the dark labyrinths of my own fears and self-doubt—the scars that I, along with, doubtless, millions of other Neo-Diasporan Africans, bear from the painful experience of unfulfilled ambitions at home in Africa, as well as in America. In the dark, arms outstretched I am tentatively feeling my way out by hand, even as I attempt to scrape away one sordid layer at a time, the baked accretion of the fears, uncertainties and doubts of being a black man in this world. With one hand, fingers splayed, I scratch at the indeterminate distrust that others project upon and that periodically shrouds me; with the other hand, claws drawn, I grate at the tectonic uncertainties that seem designed to keep me perpetually off balance; and with both hands, I rip away at the past setbacks that shadow me whenever I reach out to succeed.
Somewhat like Barack Obama, but quite literally, I inhabit multiple worlds as I commute between the US and Africa, and have to constantly weigh and balance my engagement in both. But unlike Obama, who clearly has found his way out of that maze, unified his universe, taken a firm hold on the three fates, woven his own design on the tapestry of his life, and lately stunned the world with the audaciousness of his hope; the worlds I inhabit, inhibit my aspirations in many ways. Or do they?
As I look back at my own continent’s fitful struggle for development and real independence I also wonder about my own culpability in my country and continent’s plight. No, this is not a quixotic desire to want to be like Obama. This cannot be, for after him, the fates broke the mold. Instead, this is a simple and all too human moment of reflective doubt, again, about my place in the world as a black man.
In urging Americans in his seminal speech on race in America, Obama states inter alia that “for the African-American community that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past... And it means taking full responsibility for our own lives…” He might as well have been speaking directly to us in Africa. He certainly resonated deeply with me.
That we have at this point in time another avatar rising from our collective blackness is quite profound. Obama is much more than the poster child that some in the mainstream US media so blithely describes, he has become the whiteboard or is it blackboard upon which the grand narrative of the black man is being written, and will continue to be so until another comes our way.
Nelson Mandela once remarked about how African men (and by extension Black men) are tentative about fully embracing their potential greatness, but not this brother.
As I marvel at the sheer chutzpa of the man, trying hard not to “hate the player, but to hate the game”—almost like loving the sinner and hating the sin—that niggling little voice is back, again. It is saying, and I render this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, and bearing in mind the properly contextualized, albeit widely misunderstood rhetoric of Reverend Wright, “Damn you Obama… Damn you! Damn you for blowing our collective alibis as black men… Damn you for kicking away our pathetic crutches, now we must stand tall, with no excuses, and grab and shape the destinies of our people!”
This time I am responding to the imperative rather than the fearfulness beneath the surface of this dubious little voice. It is a new day. And there is work to be done.
Two conversations today helped me frame my thoughts about the historic inauguration Tuesday of Barack Obama as the 44th President of America. Prior to these conversations, I was probing and searching for a common denominator that would intimately connect me with the pomp, pageantry and purpose of this truly historic moment. What else can be said about this moment, about this improbable avatar that promises so much hope in these difficult and uncertain times? More precisely what else could I say beyond my own exposition Barack Obama: Black Man’s Dilemma, written many months ago, and reprinted below for the record. Not much I thought, until I had the conversations.
The one was with a senior member of the Nigerian cabinet, whose personal and professional experience in my books makes him one of the few people that I have encountered lately in government that “gets it.” The call, made on my dime was supposed to be a follow up call on some other matter, but we easily segued into the Obama phenomena and what it means for all of us.
I provided my own take of the heighten state of warmth, hope and even euphoria that has engulfed the US, contrasting the warm feeling of possibility with the arctic temperatures outside my doorsteps. His insightful comment was to point out that there seemed to be a fatal disconnect between our joyous (Nigerian) embrace of the iconic Obama, a black man as the President of the United States, and our sense that it is possible for us to aspire, work and achieve the kind of monumental change that Obama represents.
And in a remarkable act of candor and openness, referencing his own present existential angst added that perhaps our challenge as Nigerians is more of a personal one; personal in our respective inability to resolve our internal contradictions, fight our demons and fully embrace the possibility of greatness, as individuals working toward a great nation. In short perpetual doubts of whether “Yes we can” or as I prefer to phrase it “Yes we fit?”
Our conversation drifted into his ongoing experience of working in the public sector, and I raised the issue of the tyranny of civil servants, perhaps the most corrupt cadre of the Nigerian elite, and he surprisingly rose to their defense in measured and reasoned tones, explaining that in fact, not all of them as bad as is generally believed. In his experience, there were some competent and dedicated officers embedded in the grime and sordidness of the service, toiling away to hold up the ramparts against the rapacious hoards of politicians and other rent seekers.
So in a sense, his position was that all was not lost and there were increasingly small victories that were adding up potentially to a tipping point. I expressed my perennial concern about Nigeria collapsing under the weight of its own graft and incompetence long before some of the salvage work is done, but he expressed a guarded optimism that all was not lost. I half believed him.
The other conversation was a brief but pithy exchange with my dear friend Chukwudum Ikeazor who called me quite unexpectedly from Atlanta. “Tunji my brother” he said almost breathlessly, “guess where I am calling you from.” I knew he was in Atlanta, but before I could reply, “I am at the Martin Luther King memorial, we’ve just finished the church service and I am standing at his memorial about to sign the guest book.” “Tunji, we must learn to cherish our history” he said as his voice trailed off, “I’ll call you later.”
Anyone who knows Chukwudum would understand the history he spoke about. Not for him this narrow definition of who we are, and against the backdrop of Obama’s inauguration, I knew he would be in the US to partake in some way in this auspicious celebration of the “Rebirth of a Nation,” D.W Griffith be dammed!
So sandwiched between the historical bookends of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, I can understand why this moment is so important for all of us, and even more so for black people all over the world. As for our laggardly compatriots in Nigeria they better wake up and smell the Obama.
BARACK OBAMA: Black man’s dilemma.
Tunji Lardner
As a black man, more precisely as an African born black man, I am a bit conflicted about the exquisitely improbable presidential run of Senator Barack Obama. My ambivalence has it roots in a previous run for president by another charismatic black politician, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
I remember how the news of Jesse running for the presidency of the US in 1984 impacted on our global political consciousness in Nigeria, literally a generation ago. As a young idealistic journalist working for a fledgling weekly magazine, and like the rest of my equally young and idealistic colleagues, the very idea of a black man as the president of the United States was a notion we readily accepted as a possibility After all this was “the United States” —with its self evident truths about the equality of man: the democratic ideal that we all so dearly wished for Nigeria, which was then in the grip of yet another predatory and distinctively vicious military dictator by name Ibrahim Babangida.
Looking back, I marvel at our naiveté and sense of moral certitude about the world ultimately being a good and just place. I suppose we were subconsciously projecting our hope and sense of justice and optimism on that great whiteboard called America. To look too closely at our selves, our country, indeed our continent would have been too painful and depressing. So we cast our eyes far, far over the rainbow to that mythical place where someone like us was running to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.
Even so, a little voice now and then whispered in our ears, the cold calculating facts of American electoral politics, there was no way any Jesse was going to beat the “Gipper,” an extremely popular incumbent Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless we persisted in our little game of self-deception, knowing fully well that given the tortured history of race in America, it was highly unlikely that a Blackman, indeed any black man would ever make to Pennsylvania Avenue in the foreseeable future.
“From the outhouse to the White House.” That prospect was heady and intoxicating for all of us. At a deep personal level we understood the semiotics of having a black man in the White House—no matter how naïve or improbable it seemed. We came back to earth soon enough as Jesse’s theatrical run for president turned out to be, well, the audacity of hype.
But today it is different. A remarkable black American with the improbable name of Barack Obama is running for the office of the President of the United States, and that little voice is telling me that he stands a very good chance of becoming America’s next president. A black man who in his own words boldly declares “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas… I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents.”
And I—even without the colorful heritage of miscegenation and the searing intellect, the laser focused drive, the bold self-assuredness, the charismatic personality, the moral courage, the balance, the poise, the words, or the audacious hope—totally identify with the brother; more or less.
I hesitate to fully identify with Barack Obama because I am still negotiating my way through the dark labyrinths of my own fears and self-doubt—the scars that I, along with, doubtless, millions of other Neo-Diasporan Africans, bear from the painful experience of unfulfilled ambitions at home in Africa, as well as in America. In the dark, arms outstretched I am tentatively feeling my way out by hand, even as I attempt to scrape away one sordid layer at a time, the baked accretion of the fears, uncertainties and doubts of being a black man in this world. With one hand, fingers splayed, I scratch at the indeterminate distrust that others project upon and that periodically shrouds me; with the other hand, claws drawn, I grate at the tectonic uncertainties that seem designed to keep me perpetually off balance; and with both hands, I rip away at the past setbacks that shadow me whenever I reach out to succeed.
Somewhat like Barack Obama, but quite literally, I inhabit multiple worlds as I commute between the US and Africa, and have to constantly weigh and balance my engagement in both. But unlike Obama, who clearly has found his way out of that maze, unified his universe, taken a firm hold on the three fates, woven his own design on the tapestry of his life, and lately stunned the world with the audaciousness of his hope; the worlds I inhabit, inhibit my aspirations in many ways. Or do they?
As I look back at my own continent’s fitful struggle for development and real independence I also wonder about my own culpability in my country and continent’s plight. No, this is not a quixotic desire to want to be like Obama. This cannot be, for after him, the fates broke the mold. Instead, this is a simple and all too human moment of reflective doubt, again, about my place in the world as a black man.
In urging Americans in his seminal speech on race in America, Obama states inter alia that “for the African-American community that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past... And it means taking full responsibility for our own lives…” He might as well have been speaking directly to us in Africa. He certainly resonated deeply with me.
That we have at this point in time another avatar rising from our collective blackness is quite profound. Obama is much more than the poster child that some in the mainstream US media so blithely describes, he has become the whiteboard or is it blackboard upon which the grand narrative of the black man is being written, and will continue to be so until another comes our way.
Nelson Mandela once remarked about how African men (and by extension Black men) are tentative about fully embracing their potential greatness, but not this brother.
As I marvel at the sheer chutzpa of the man, trying hard not to “hate the player, but to hate the game”—almost like loving the sinner and hating the sin—that niggling little voice is back, again. It is saying, and I render this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, and bearing in mind the properly contextualized, albeit widely misunderstood rhetoric of Reverend Wright, “Damn you Obama… Damn you! Damn you for blowing our collective alibis as black men… Damn you for kicking away our pathetic crutches, now we must stand tall, with no excuses, and grab and shape the destinies of our people!”
This time I am responding to the imperative rather than the fearfulness beneath the surface of this dubious little voice. It is a new day. And there is work to be done.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Happy New...Yeah
HAPPY NEW…YEAH …RIGHT!
Well for whatever it’s worth… A Happy New Year to you and yours.
I know it is a tad late, considering that we are already some ways into 2009, but better late than never.
Over the years, I have often wondered about the perennial fuss we all make of the incoming year. Typically there is a sense of expectancy about the coming of the New Year with the consensus being our collective expectation that the New Year will be better for us than the preceding one.
As I grow older and perhaps more cynical, I have given more thought to this hypothesis and now have new dimensions to ponder. Considering the fact that truth to tell, there are many cultural variations of the timing and significance of a “New Year.” Chronologically speaking we are caught in the warp of the Georgian calendar, really nothing more that an arbitrary milestone in the space-time continuum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
Even so, I suspect we all need a psychological or even psychic cut-off point that signifies the end of an older order and the beginning of a new, something like the life-death-life cycle of the proverbial Phoenix. And so, I also have to ponder the meaning and importance of the New Year, especially “this” New Year. For me and my ever wandering mind, always flittering from one seemingly disconnected node to another, always seeing and seeking patterns, always connecting the dots, the transitive significance of 2008-2009 is of global proportions and more. The easier proposition to ponder is of course the global economic down turn, the climate crises, wars, poverty, disease all framed within the prospects of hope and change embodied by America’s (World’s) President-in-waiting, Barack Obama.
In this respect, I fear the new year will me much like the old, an admixture of crisis and hope, hope and despair, the usual Ying and Yang of our lives.
But consider these other scenarios totally out of the radar of sensible, balanced, grounded and reasonable folks, unlike myself. Many years ago, I visited Tikal, one of the remarkable archeological remnants of pre-Columbian Maya culture and civilization and was introduced to the Mayan Calendar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal
Not to want to bore with my understanding of this intriguing chronology, I was fascinated by one aspect of their cosmic time keeping, the year 2012: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-maya-2012_n.htm
In a nutshell, according to the Mayans, the World as we know it is scheduled to end just before Christmas 2012, which leave just two years for you all to bequeath your worldly possession to me. You wouldn’t need them after 2012 after all.
The other apocalyptic thing I stumbled upon is the story of the discovery of a huge black hole four million times the diameter of our Sun, near the center of our galaxy, just 27,000 light years away… wow… too close for comfort… way too close. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm
I shared this factoid with my life long buddy, my brother Chris Coker and we both gave that knowing look of “Great…just another thing to worry about this new year”
So as you contemplate this New Year, spare a thought for these other important bits of information you might have missed out. Just add them to your worry list this year.
And oh…yeah, Happy New Year!
Well for whatever it’s worth… A Happy New Year to you and yours.
I know it is a tad late, considering that we are already some ways into 2009, but better late than never.
Over the years, I have often wondered about the perennial fuss we all make of the incoming year. Typically there is a sense of expectancy about the coming of the New Year with the consensus being our collective expectation that the New Year will be better for us than the preceding one.
As I grow older and perhaps more cynical, I have given more thought to this hypothesis and now have new dimensions to ponder. Considering the fact that truth to tell, there are many cultural variations of the timing and significance of a “New Year.” Chronologically speaking we are caught in the warp of the Georgian calendar, really nothing more that an arbitrary milestone in the space-time continuum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
Even so, I suspect we all need a psychological or even psychic cut-off point that signifies the end of an older order and the beginning of a new, something like the life-death-life cycle of the proverbial Phoenix. And so, I also have to ponder the meaning and importance of the New Year, especially “this” New Year. For me and my ever wandering mind, always flittering from one seemingly disconnected node to another, always seeing and seeking patterns, always connecting the dots, the transitive significance of 2008-2009 is of global proportions and more. The easier proposition to ponder is of course the global economic down turn, the climate crises, wars, poverty, disease all framed within the prospects of hope and change embodied by America’s (World’s) President-in-waiting, Barack Obama.
In this respect, I fear the new year will me much like the old, an admixture of crisis and hope, hope and despair, the usual Ying and Yang of our lives.
But consider these other scenarios totally out of the radar of sensible, balanced, grounded and reasonable folks, unlike myself. Many years ago, I visited Tikal, one of the remarkable archeological remnants of pre-Columbian Maya culture and civilization and was introduced to the Mayan Calendar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal
Not to want to bore with my understanding of this intriguing chronology, I was fascinated by one aspect of their cosmic time keeping, the year 2012: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-maya-2012_n.htm
In a nutshell, according to the Mayans, the World as we know it is scheduled to end just before Christmas 2012, which leave just two years for you all to bequeath your worldly possession to me. You wouldn’t need them after 2012 after all.
The other apocalyptic thing I stumbled upon is the story of the discovery of a huge black hole four million times the diameter of our Sun, near the center of our galaxy, just 27,000 light years away… wow… too close for comfort… way too close. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm
I shared this factoid with my life long buddy, my brother Chris Coker and we both gave that knowing look of “Great…just another thing to worry about this new year”
So as you contemplate this New Year, spare a thought for these other important bits of information you might have missed out. Just add them to your worry list this year.
And oh…yeah, Happy New Year!
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