Previous comment (No. 8):

"Sincerely speaking, I cannot see black nations rising up for many years

to come. Here in Nigeria, many of us have lost hope"

Response

It depends on what we mean by "nation". This statement seems to equate "nation" with "nation-state". Nigeria interpellates me as nation-state, Yoruba interpellates me as nation. What has failed tragically in Africa is the nation-state because it was not designed to work. Its essentially foreign, Euromodernist nature, its totalitarian ontology spelt out in the neutralisation of difference and the submission of all to overarching symbologies of identity such as the flag and the anthem, its blind subscription to the teleologist mentality of its Western inventors (i.e Nigeria's official discourse always describes its democracy as a "learning process". Read: someday, we'll crawl out of infancy and attain the maturity of British/American democracies) and, finally, its incredible capacity to perform its assigned neo-colonialist functions
while crushing the nation (Ogoni, Odi, etc)explain the tragedy of the nation-state. The nation has not failed. It simply has never had the chance to even begin to aspire to its potentials and possibilities after contact. The black nation-state cannot rise as is because the cards were

delt before it even emerged and the terms of engagement are always externally determined. The point now is to begin serious reflection on the alternative possibilities of the nation.

Pius Adesanmi, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature
The Pennsylvania State University
311 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802
USA
814 863 4933 (office)

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A second, and shorter response

" I happen to think that there has to be a massive cultural revival in Africa for her derailed development goals to be hurled back on track. For example how come, as  demonstrated by the recent Okija episodes in Nigeria, are  majority of Nigerians (the rulers in particular) more

interested in shrines as forums for arbitration than official recourse procedure

[Ndubisi Obiorah.  a Nigerian lawyer and currently Executive Director of the Legal Defense Center, LDC, a law-based non-governmental organization in Lagos Nigeria. ]

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