Month: February 2013

disease has no morality
and antibodies
are blind to whom they protect
cellular insurance
bought with a wince
and a cry

that small pain, forgotten
in minutes
buys a lifetime without braces
and canes, free
of the hiss of ventilators

or rooms
still full of toys
echoing absence

but they say these shots
are poisoned
with western interest

and there is a politics
that prefers death
to sterility
though dead children
can’t make babies
and immunized ones can
eventually

sugar cubes and needles
were never the enemy
but ignorance and fear–

those things kill
and spread faster than any virus

In America, all men are believed to be created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. But Nigerians are brought up to believe that our society consists of higher and lesser beings. Some are born to own and enjoy, while others are born to toil and endure.

–        Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

The Nigerian writer, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is at it again. Her February 9, 2013 op-ed piece in the New York Times (In Nigeria, You’re Either Somebody or Nobody) in which she referred to some Nigerian house helps as “smelly” and “feral” is living rent-free in my head. I wish it would just go away. Nwaubani’s piece, on the fate of “househelps” or “servants” in Nigeria, is a profound commentary on how the West continues to view much of Africa, with the active connivance of many African writers, who traipse the West, hawking tales of…

Post by Cheta Nwanze*
In 1989, an unknown Dutch manager, Clemens Westerhof happened upon the job of managing the Nigerian National Team, known at the time, as the Green Eagles. A year later, the team was meant to compete in the African Nations Cup, hosted by Algeria. Before the tournament, all hell broke loose as the usual issues of “fights to the finish”, “match bonuses”, “player power”, came to the fore. As a result, the senior players in the team, led by a certain Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, led a boycott of sorts by making outrageous sounding demands before playing for the country in Algeria 90. Westerhof called their bluff, and led the team consisting almost entirely of home-based players (Andrew Uwe, Rashidi Yekini and Friday Elahor being the exceptions) to the silver at the tournament. Bear in mind that this second place finish came after a 5-1 loss to the…

Full text of Pope’s declaration

 

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last…

The writer V.S. Naipaul recently published a book, The Masque of Africa that is supposedly based on his recent visits to African countries like Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Gabon and South Africa. These travels were allegedly to discover the “nature of African belief” according to this review of the book by Sameer Rahim in the UK Telegraph. Rahim gives the clear impression that this book does not improve upon the silence. It is the same tired, stereotypical garbage about Africa and civilizations of color. You wonder if at 80 years of age, Naipaul is finally losing it.

The drama Naipaul records in the book is cringe-worthy: In Gabon, his legs give way and someone attempts to transport him in a broken wheelbarrow. Give us a break! The sad truth is that ever since Naipaul was born among the wretched of the earth, as he would probably put it…

Do you chase that other Eden,
ruled by nine sisters, that dreaming place
that swims just past wave-kissed vision,
where women pose as mermaids
and stretch their arms over the Atlantic?

This is the heart of legend, spawning the ore
used to forge the sword in the stone:
the land of mist and promises,
where kings are made,
where all journeys end.

There are no more golden apples.
We know earth is earth, stone hard
and bone-breaking beautiful
if we take our eyes from the grail,
from the ideas that swallow us deeper
than any big fish and do not release us,
spat up on the shore
where we are called to be prophets,
gasping, wet, stinking of the sea;
but instead break us down,
acid eating even our bones.

The magic of all quests is the quest,
the things learned along the way,
not the won object winking and whispering
eternal salvation, immortal…

it stared them in the face As if daring them to be rid of it it made a mockery of them every step of the way One garment day in and out in the midst of flashy Colors and spring like pastels It haunted them in the dark when power was out for lack of payment it taunted them as if daring them to do something about it and laughed in their faces when they sat motionless Unable to speak or refute its presence Unable to move or break from its crippling effect breaking them in pieces night after night when empty refrigerators stared them in the dark It called out to them in the night when stomachs rumbled and tiny tummies ached from hungry days and starved nights that had Lost count and begun to feel "normal" It made a mockery of them as a whole And individually from…

Note: Reproduced here for archival purposes only. First published in 2006.

I write this for James Meredith, the distinguished first black student of OLEMISS, and for John Hawkins, the distinguished first black Cheerleader of OLEMISS. Courage counts for something. Yes!

My time is no longer mine and I miss my Muse running alongside my railroad tracks urging me to say something, anything. In between stealing sideways glances at my Muse and struggling mightily to satisfy demons born of my life’s choices, I have managed to hold on to just one passion – reading. I just finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book, Half of a Yellow Sun and if I don’t read another book for a long time, memories of this epic tome will keep me warm in the hibernation of the coming winter. But first, before I slink off into the trenches of my own doing, I must rise…