Tag: Igbo

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ISRAELITES IN AFRICA: All Hail Biafra

The above heading is also the title of a song originally composed by Charles O. Okereke. The lyrics of this song which quickly turned into a classic in a few short years were originally conceived in 1970. Okereke 14 at the time was just a child – a Biafran child, that is. As Biafra’s defeat was announced over the radio waves, the words of the song tumbled into his young mind. Ironically, the prophetic declarations started with insistent urgency in Okereke’s head on the very day that Biafra’s recapitulation was announced; January 12, 1970.
 
Nearly fifty years after, Okereke still remembers the place and moment when the words started rushing through his mind in quick succession. He was lying down with his face on the ground, taking cover from the persistent shelling and bombardment of Biafra interiors by Nigerian government forces. Then the voice of the Biafran General Philip Effiong came on the radio telling Biafrans to cease fire and suspend the battle of resistance which began in May, 1967. Biafra was now defeated on the battlefield. But in the people Biafra lives on, undefeated.
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Biafra War was an unjust genocidal war executed by the government and people of Nigeria against Igbo people in particular who later became known as Biafrans along with some other non-Igbo southeasterners. In total, 3.5 million Biafrans were killed by Nigerian state and its other citizens. Of this figure 3.1 million were Igbo. The number of the murdered Igbo represents a quarter of Igbo population at the time. Ever since, there has been a consensus by all experts that the Biafran War was genocidal because the original intention of the Nigerian government and its people was to wipe out the entire Igbo population from the Earth.
 
The Igbo resisted the attempt and successfully averted that sinister plan. But that the Igbo successfully prevented the total annihilation of their population does not change the fact that a genocidal plan was made and an actual attempt was carried out to execute that plan in reality. That in the end only a partial percentage of the people’s population was exterminated does not vitiate the genocidal fact of the Biafran War. The standard definition of genocide acknowledges that an act qualifies as genocide if elements of planning and an actual attempt to execute the plan are present in the circumstances that lead to the death of a large number of one or more of the 4 recognized genocide groups. Such groups can be ethnical, national, religious or racial. Going by this, there is genocide if there is a deliberate intention and act to systematically wipe out either in whole or in part a targeted group.
 
Nigerian state planned and physically carried out an actual act aimed at exterminating the Igbo nation in its entirety from the Earth. However in the end, Nigeria succeeded in exterminating a quarter of Igbo population. Nevertheless, there was genocide in Biafra.
 
In Biafra Igbo people were nearly exterminated. That was the dark, ugly part of the Igbo Genocide. But Igbo story did not end there. In the midst of death and decay; a new life form that cannot easily be killed sprouted; love and creativity blossomed abundantly among Igbo survivors. Misery, suffering, starvation and the searing heat of hatred and war produced in the young and old of Igbo Genocide survivors the genius fecund which often is brought out from the inner recesses of an endangered people through such extreme hardship. The multitude of prodigious artistic creations (literary and visual) that followed the Biafran War was undoubtedly the silver lining in the horizon of this Igbo’s darkest hour.
 
Charles O. Okereke’s All Hail Biafra and several others came out of this crucible of death and darkness blazing forth with shining hope and futuristic certitude. Especially, when one listens to the marching or martial version of the song, the mood and lyrics contradict the anticipation. As the song begins to play, the invincible and unyielding spirit of the Igbo, the Biafrans comes out clear. The song is triumphal, full of hope and belief. This distinctive feature of All Hail Biafra: Cry of a Biafran Childis in direct contrast to the mood and circumstance in which the song was born. As a song written on the day that Biafran defeat was announced it would have fittingly reflected the mournful mood which the defeat brought on the people who gave the Biafran fight the best that they got.
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In reality, All Hail Biafra should have been a dirge lamenting a people’s lost paradise, defeated dream and dashed hope of a people who had struggled so hard to secure a future where their generations would live in unfettered liberty and life in its fullness. No, instead it is a song of triumph, even celebratory: “We have vanquished our enemies . . . We have emerged triumphant, from all our enemies/Through the crucible unscathed, we passed victorious/Our trumpets pealing . . .”
 
All Hail Biafra
               1.
All hail Biafra
Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish
We have vanquished our enemies, all hail Biafra
God Bless Biafra, in Him we trust
Shout it sing it, all hail Biafra                                    
                    2.
God bless Biafra
We have emerged triumphant, from all our foes
Through the crucible unscathed, we passed victorious
Our trumpets pealing, the glorious song
Play it, sing it, all hail Biafra  
                3.
Oh hail Biafra
We shall always remember, all that perished,
In the struggle for our freedom, all hail our heroes
Our prayers shall bemoan, both day and night
Say them always, all hail Biafra
 
(This reproduction is with the express permission of the original author Charles O. Okereke who is also the copyright owner of the song.)
 
Harcourt Whyte still occupies the very prestigious and enviable position of being the greatest modern Igbo music composer of all genres. Most of his compositions are in Igbo and they are in major part church hymnals. Harcourt was an Igbo Methodist spiritual who like Charles Wesley, the cofounder of the Methodist faith, wrote most of the hymns of that Church in English. Harcourt’s liturgical compositions are deeply philosophical and admonitory. On Igbo cosmological music firmament, whether sacred or mundane, Harcourt Whyte’s star still shines the brightest. His physical body was afflicted with the scourge of leprosy but his mind soared and excelled in the purest of spheres. He worked from the famous Leprosy Colony in Uzuakoli. But by the beginning of the genocidal Biafran War, Whyte had already established his yet unchallenged place in history.
 
It is true that before the war there were scattered bright twinkling stars on Igbo creative firmament. But the war would release a burst of multiple inventive and ingenious stars blazing with dazzling colors eclipsing the hate and blood the enemy unleashed across the canvass of the Igbo world. So, the periods during and after the war were particularly good for the creative Igbo cultural milieu. They are periods that especially enriched the Igbo cultural, social and scientific life like no other periods. Charles Okereke and many others like him are the products of these eras.
 
Geniuses often run in pairs or multiples and they have a way of finding each other. Soon after the war Harcourt Whyte and Nnamdi Olebara would find each other. Olebara as well as being a music composer is clearly the greatest Igbo poet, both of the Biafran War era or of any other time. (Some of his poems have been translated into English for the benefit of non-Igbo speakers by Chinweizu.) After the war, Whyte with Olebara popularized a unique and attention-demanding musical genre. This duo’s musicology would soon become accepted and has since been adopted and expanded by many others, notably by musicians like Patty Obasi. (Obasi would later do some collaborative works with Olebara along this line.) This particular musical devise is both entertaining and didactic. It tends to criticize social vices and pass commentary on burning social and political issues. Sometimes the criticisms and commentaries work. When the production is successful the songs help to influence and revolutionalize people’s attitude and social behavior. In this area Patty Obasi remains unequalled. His Nwa Mami Iwota phenomenal production remains evergreen and continues to reverberate down through time.
 
This music genre is noted by the way some lines of poetry are interjected at the end of a song’s stanza. The poignant poetry lines serve to further expound and underscore some points in the just performed stanza. The effect is something like highlighting notable lines or passages in a book which one is reading. This musical method works as bold scores, projecting and emphasizing in bright colors in the listener’s mind some pertinent areas of the song.    
 
Golden yellow make up one of the dominant colors on the front jacket of All Hail Biafra CD. The hazy gold, the dark earth and silhouetted vegetation in the background give the CD its somber dusky hue and mood. An evening? Yes. But it is an evening with its yellow-white sun still dominating the horizon, pouring into the distant foreground its molten liquid of mellow light and warmth. A white bird (a dove?) is in flight across the face of the luminous setting sun. The front jacket also has the torso pictures of Charles Okereke the Biafran child as well as Charles Okereke, the Nigerian man. The child except for the chalky facial shades; is rendered in black silhouette. The man’s picture is in colors. He is dressed in printed and embroidered wide turtle neck kaftan with a matching short-round hat.
 
On the reverse side of the CD is a yellow background enclosed in squared gold edges. Map of Africa fills up the middle with the list of the CD songs superimposed across the map. There are eleven songs, including Charles Okereke’s award winning composition: God Bless Africa. This flip side contains the musician’s name and information on how to obtain copies of the CD. It says that the CD is available both in Nigeria and the United States. It is actually available anywhere else through Amazon or the reader can google the title to get more information on how to order.
 
The popularity of All Hail Biafra is enduring and is such that many people mistake it to be the Biafran National Anthem. Some people can swear that All Hail Biafra is the Biafran Anthem but it is not. The Biafran National Anthem; Land of the Rising Sunwas originally written by Nnamdi Azikiwe and set into music in the pattern of Sibelius’s Finlandia. Okereke wrote and produced his All Hail Biafra entirely on a different unique tune. The music and its rendition are well-produced.
 
A few people have sometimes speculated on the possibility of a new independent Biafra adopting the song as its new national anthem. This writer sees that happening as a remote necessity. When a new Biafra or Igbo state becomes free from the Nigerian bondage, the old anthem may still remain valid. Or if there should arise a need for a new anthem for the new republic, the government and people may have to compose a new and different national song. The new national song will be composed to reflect the up-to-date history of the people, the prevailing realities as well as anticipate the individual and collective hope of the then free people.
 
In the end however, it will not matter what the new free Igbo country will decide to do about its national anthem. All Hail Biafra will still remain an important Biafran national patriotic song. Okereke’s All Hail Biafra has carved out an enviable place for itself in the pantheon of notable Biafran artistic creations. All Hail Biafra is a great music. An important feature that distinguishes great music from the mediocre is that great music has clear philosophical theme or themes. The listening audience should be able to either relate with the themes in their individual or collective experience. Or at least the audience should be able conceive in their mind a comprehensive picture of the idea the artist is trying to convey as the storyline musically unfolds. Additionally, it is expected that whatever theme a good song is pursuing should be well-developed and stretched beyond the single-phrase or single-stanza excited children’s sing song. Sadly, up till now the Igbo music horizon has been dominated by such folksy lackluster cacophonous noise where the music makers monotonously repeat over and over an emotive one-line wonder.
 
As a result, over so many years the Igbo music scene has remained famished. Except for the few greats whom we have already mentioned, modern Igbo music arena has been barren of real good music and dedicated musicians. Even more troubling is the fact that some of the few well-made music are not easily accepted into the mainstream. So, in the absence of the Igbo projecting and promoting its bests, modern Igbo music scene remains saturated with the second rate and the absurd. The ear of Igbo listening audience is assaulted with the thematically barren or poorly developed themed songs. Take for example the so-called highlife music genre. Highlife as championed by such musicians like Osita Osadebe are disappointing and less satisfying because what would otherwise have been, with a little more work, excellent music, is turned into mere improvised excitement and almost no music.  
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Connecting the Dots Between the Jews and Igbo

Historians have more often than not tried to convince us of the similarity between the Igboman and the Jews.This is traceable to some remote historical similarities yet unproved scientifically.

There are nevertheless, irresistible similarities accounted in the bible in terms of social and cultural similarities traceable to the Igboman and Jewish counterpart. Part of the similarities are the problem of Diaspora or living outside one’s home land, either by exile or deliberate migration in search of livelihood and its consequences

There is also the enterprising capability found in both .these similarities the Igbos supposedly have with Jews, marginally biblical, should also pose a fundamental challenge to him in his Nigerian circumstances.

The experience of settling outside their native homeland was no doubt a common feature of the Jewish people.This experience was usually linked with religious cum-socio-political antecedents and some negative consequences. Explaining the term Diaspora, John Lawrence McKenzie (October 9, 1910 – March 2, 1991), in his book titled “Two-Edged Sword,”the most significant Catholic interpretation of the Old Testament ever written in English, says: This word became a technical term for Jewish communities settled outside Palestine during the last century BC and the 1st century AD.

The settlement of Hebrews outside Palestine began with the deportation of Israelites by the Assyrians and Babylonian kings in 8th , 7th, and 6th centuries BC.

As a contagiously religious people and Gods elect, the Jews were at times allowed to be deported or exiled to other nations by God as a punitive measure for their disloyalty to the divine  covenant. At other times, as a desperately enterprising people with high instinct for survival,they moved out on their own in search of economic leverage as we see them in Egypt in this account of the bible:

“There was famine in every country but throughout Egypt there was food.But when all Egypt too began to feel the famine and the people appealed to pharaoh for food who told all Egyptians: Go to Joseph and do what ever he tells you.Jacob seeing that there were supplies to be had in Egypt said to his sons,’’ I hear he said that there are supplies in Egypt,go down and procure some for us there so that we may survive and not die’’.So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to Egypt to procure grains in Egypt (Gen.41:54-56.42:1-3).”

In what ever circumstances and for what ever reasons, the Jews found themselves settled outside their land the inescapable consequences were obvious and the experience were horrifying and excruciating to the necking point.These too are the experience of Igbo people of Nigeria today.

Before the civil war , God positioned General Chukwu Emeka Odumegwu Ojuwgu as the military governor of Eastern region, to protect the God elect people of Biafra from the wicked advancing troops whose aim was complete annihilation of Ndigbo, Like at the red sea, just one and last flying ogbunigwe at Abagana miracle saved Biafra from the last and biggest onslaught of the Advancing Murtala Mohamed troop who was bent on the final massacre of Ndigbo, 2OO utility vehicles were blown up with thousands of men and ammunition , Murtala escaped the incident with wound and went to live in uk till the war ended..

There are Many Igbo families living outside igboland whose children cannot speak igbo language but can speak English, house, Yoruba, Efik French, etc fluently. Most of these our children have no sense of our culture and no idea of home land the have blended into the society they find themselves.

I once mate a young man in Cotonou, republic of Benin whom I took for a son of the soil only for me to hear that his last name is kalu, when I asked him, he told me in French that his mother told him that his father is Igbo and I asked where Igbo is? He told me that it is across sme border. It is a common and universal acknowledgement that the Igboman is generally the most traveled, outgoing, enterprising person in Africa.

Though this is inherent in them like their Jewish counter parts but this migration has increased in an arithmetic progression since after the civil war as a consequence of the punishment placed on them for the war, which has left them dangerously destitute, marginalized, deprived, fear stricken, humiliated, with no choice but to seek for survival in any corner of the world that can shield him and family from another kwashiorkor.

Speaking also of their enterprising spirit side by side with the unique marginalization and oppression meted to igbos by the nation that has left the older generation with post traumatic syndrome

The late respected social critic , Gani Fahwehinmi in 2000 Independence Day anniversary stated that the Igbos are the only community that can squeeze water out of stone.

I want to categorically state here that heavy investment outside her territory is where the Igboman has short himself on the foot compared with the Jewish community in Diaspora who is cautioned with a sworn nostalgia to still cherish their homeland and not to forget it while the physical separation and suffering lasts. So he swears ;

“If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.(wither)’’What a great sense of patriotism and homeward and native feeling for one’s soil.What a love for a nation.”

Here is the fundamental difference between the Igboman and the Jews in terms of the positive thoughts of not forgetting his homeland.

The immediate past Nigerian President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on 17 March 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria, inaugurated the 2014 national conference, most Igbo representatives whom i refer to here as ”house slaves” went to the conference in high spirit and one common agenda”Resource control.” When their Northern counterparts who are more versed in politics  reminded them, they are also in agreement with the resource control agenda provided they understand that the entire properties in Abuja and its surrounding lands belong to the North and will form part of their resources since its situated in the Northern territory.

From that moment , the ”house slaves” went into their shells and never mentioned resource control till today, yes the Igboman own 90% properties in Abuja, while his local government has nothing , even a commercial shop in case what happened in 1966 rears its ugly head.

The tortoise asked his children ,”how many ugly incidents in your life should teach your a lesson?” I ask Igbo Elites who are busy investing in Lagos and Abuja ”Ihe oga eme unu ugbolo ole ka unu muta ihe.”

This is why we postulated our basic problem has been identified hence we appeal to our brothers and those who take advantage of short coming imposed on us by the system to come to terms and know that ‘’divided we fall, united we stand as a rock’’

From the end of the civil war till date , the Igbos have been systematically denied the privilege or right to federal infrastructural presence, besides the indigenization degree which was promulgated to change economic power from the igboman to the Yoruba and their Northern ally. The shattered Igbo returnees were handed only 20 pounds note to start life while the rest of the country was busy buying up all the major industries in lagos and the North.

Not even a functioning federal industry could be found in igboland except the prisons, even the industries that were functional before the war has been systematically allowed to die, example of which are the Nkalagu cement industry and the expanding coal mining industry. 

There are 2 major oil fields in igbo heartland,owned by the Canadian oil giants, Addax Petroleum with 29 pump stations at  at Izombe and 25 pump stations at Ozubolu oil fields .All the directors and senior staff of this company are either Yoruba or Hausa.The Igbos who invested in properties in the south south were given the shock of their lives in the name of abandoned property chaired by the one time senate president, in 1970 when they went back to port Harcourt after the civil war to claim their left overs.

The suffering and suffocation of the igboman in search of economic leverage has left him a constant floating, a constant liquid of pilgrim.This has left in him a complex psychology of living in duality of culture and personality and in complete oblivion of his natural home and its development.

Every Igbo youth at home today is here temporarily, waiting for his brother/uncle in Cotonou, Garbon, Northern Nigeria , lagos ,Abuja Europe and America to take him over for greener pastures .

Since after the civil war, we the people of Mbaise have lost over 100 youths in boat disasters in an attempt to travel to Gabon/Cameroon because they don’t have any choice due to lack of  opportunities for them at home. Even those whose parents want to squeeze their meager income to train in the tertiary institutions, there is serious apartheid in admission procedures in Nigeria with cut-off mark allocated higher for Eastern students while the Northern students gain admission with lower cut-off points.

On graduation, they are sent to the hostile North for one year compulsory youths service corps (NYSC), during which time some of them get murdered in hostilities from the Boko haram Islamic sect and where they survive the Boko haram war, they are faced with toiling the major streets of Abuja and Lagos looking for employment. Sometimes parents have to sell their land to raise bribe up to 200,000 naira to place their wards in federal government opportunity like the police, customs, army, navy federal road safety commission, etc.

The problem the teaming Igbo population face in the project called Nigeria has reached a problematic point of no return that Igbo leaders of thought  must come out now to bring change, yes change for a better home land called Biafra.

While in exile, the Jews were fortified and sustained by a resolute psychological myth founded on racial cum religious patriotism and sense of pride in their personal supremacy. They were filled with sense of self-esteem, self immortalization and the subordination of their individual interest and whims to the exaltation of their race. This became the secret of their sustenance and their collective survival.

It is therefore time for all Igbos to come together with our South South brothers who have always been with us in the struggle for independent state of  Biafra to sing the home bound song, to eschew the burden of self imposed marginalization and march forward as a bunch. 

The elites  should put behind, their selfish quest for wealth and find a way to bring all factions in pursuit of Biafra’s self determination under one umbrella with different and well defined functions.

Our people living not only in the North but in the west African sub-region should be encouraged to de-rig and invest towards home .Our rich men should be made to understand the huge advantage of transferring their investments from the North, Abuja and Lagos towards  Biafraland.

Finally, this germane call for closing ranks between the elites and the youthful Biafran agitators is ripe now that the bold young man who has become the face of the Biafran struggle worldwide is under secret Kangaroo trial and our foe are saying, Igbos are not united enough to come to his rescue.Is that true? Are we finished in the entity called Nigeria? Ka Chineke Gozie Okwua.

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Donald Trump, Israel, and the Potential for a Free Biafra

Most Africa observers believe Donald Trump will ignore the continent or at the most put the relationships Presidents Obama and Bush had built there on the back burner. While it’s true Trump does not see Africa as the central plank to his foreign policy, his black and white views of the world in regards to radical Islam may prove to be a perfect lens on how he will deal with the African continent.

Right now, the main way the USA fights radical Islam on the African continent is through Africom. Africom, is one of six of the US Defence Department’s “geographic combatant commands and is responsible to the Secretary of Defense for military relations with African nations.” Given the fact that Africom works with a number undesirable leaders, the main one being President Buhari of Nigeria, Trump may decide to tweak these relationships due to leaders like Buhari who are compromised by radical Islamic ties.

Israel as a Key Player

As Israel makes serious inroads into both West and East Africa in regards to trade and security, they are the ideal partner in building a force for tackling radical Islam.  Israel already has deep security relationships with Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan as well as Ghana and now Togo.  With these deepening ties, the Trump administration would be wise to connect Africom to Israel’s presence in these areas.

Biafra Will Be The Test for Trump

If Trump is serious about fighting radical Islam then the first thing he needs to do in Africa is to break direct relations with the Buhari government in Nigeria.  Buhari is a known smypathizer of radical Islam and supports the spread of Sharia Law south of the Sahara. Furthermore, Biafra, the region made up of a unique Judeo-Christian culture dominated by the Igbo tribe was forcibly fused together by the British with the Yaruba and the Muslim Hausa in the North to form Nigeria in 1914.

Map of Biafra

Biafra has been continuously oppressed by their Muslim rulers for not following Sharia.  Buhari utilized his friendship with Obama to gain powerful weapons and instead of using them to destroy ISIS affiliated groups he has turned his guns on the south through proxies like the Muslim Fulani herdsman.  Thousands of Igbo have been put into jail, including IPOB leader Nnmadi Kanu for treason.

Trump can roll back radical Islam by using Israeli networking, relationships, and weapons to help liberate Biafra from radical Islam and create the first Judeo-Christian republic in West Africa.

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South Sudan’s Independence and the Irony of Defeat in Victory

For more than 25 years the people of South Sudan fought their powerful common enemy to a standstill. The enslaving Arab Islamist forces of north Sudan were matched fire for fire until the northerners acknowledged that the southerners who are Animists and Christians have rights to live free and on their own cultural and religious terms. The southerners fought valiantly as men, they fought as one people; they fought long and won their freedom from the oppressors on July 9, 2011.
 
Vicariously, those of us who are fighting to free Biafra from the vicious grip of the Islamic state of Nigeria participated in the South Sudanese victory like it was our own. Yes, in more ways than not, the Sudanese victory tends to foretell how the eventual Igbo freedom from Nigeria will look like. Why the Biafrans saw in the South Sudanese victory their own is because in Nigeria Igbo people are also faced with the same Arab-Islamist forces of Hausa, Fulani and Yoruba oligarchies which are bent on the total extermination of the Igbo. So, since the South Sudanese withstood similar enslaving forces and defeated them, the victory has remained an evergreen source of inspiration for the Igbo in Nigeria.  
 
While they fought in the trenches, on the hills and in all the many battlefields; the South Sudanese leaders had some squabbles and disagreements. But they always found ways to settle their differences and disputes and sustained the fight against the enslavers. At the end of the battle they won a country but now this is 2016, they need to win a nation.
 
Unfortunately, by 2013 the people lost their hard won country to personal interests and power flexing of their leaders. The leaders’ individual interests and show of power plunged the entire country into a civil war which has raged on to their shame and the disappointment of their admirers. These leaders need to put aside for one moment their pursuit for personal prestige and show some example of caring and benevolent leadership styles. Urgently, they must find solutions now; find ways to end childish things and begin the onerous and matured business of governing and managing a country and the welfares of its people.
 
Earlier on, at the southern tip of the continent, South Africans who had also fought long and arduous against those who oppressed them through Apartheid system, celebrated their freedom in 1994. Some of the leaders of the fight were imprisoned for more than 25 years. But their fight for equality had lasted for about a century. In the end the South Africans also won freedom and the right to be equal participants in the affairs of their country. But perhaps that is where the similarities of the two fights end. Today, and unfortunately so, the leaders of South Sudan are turning their laudable and prideful victory into a tragedy and nightmare. The attitude of the South Sudanese leaders toward leadership and power is largely to be blamed.
 
In South Africa there were Nelson Mandela and others like him who to a greater extent understood the nature and concept of victory and power – altruistic, magnanimous, camaraderie; transient and flitting. While in South Sudan there are Salva Kiir, Riek Machar and others who believe that victory is personal, individualistic and an end in itself. And that power should be held onto permanently and used vindictively to witch-hunt opposition while the opposition egoistically asserts that it is not weak, after all. That it also has influence. But the truth is that good leaders, whether in opposition or not cannot be vindictive and sour or constantly trying to prove some points.
 
The big guys of South Sudan are shamelessly flexing unattractive and unimpressive muscles, trying to prove personal superiority while their lowly citizens to whom the victory and power truly belong continue to suffer in pain and devastating impoverishment. In the mind of these leaders, they have come to erroneously think that because they were opportune to be present at the moment of the people’s victory therefore they have become some divine beings who are now infallible and indispensable. This attitude shamefully violates the memory and honor of those heroes who also fought and died before July 9, 2011. Sometimes one wonders if these leaders have ever considered that old saying of leaving the stage while the ovation is still loud.
 
Down through time, history has not lacked noble and honorable achievers and victors who left exemplary records which those that care can imitate. In the following story we learn that sometimes, because of the feelings of others that good leaders learn to let go of personal pleasures and comfort, even when they can afford them. In other words, true leaders cannot always take it just because they can. The biblical David was a military commander of ancient Israeli army who is still recognized as a successful leader of his people because he understood how to handle victory and power without being sucked into the twilight zone of those two impostors. It is reported that at one point during the heat of a battle, when an enemy force occupied Bethlehem his hometown, David thirsted for water from a well in Bethlehem. When he made his wish known, three of his officers volunteered and risked everything by cutting through the ranks of the enemy to fetch the water from the well. On their return, David would not drink the water but poured it out as libation, saying that there was no way he could drink it because the water equated with the blood of these men who risked their lives in order to satisfy his personal fancies.
 
As the leader, nothing prevented David from drinking the water but he resisted greed and insensitivity and instead poured the water away. We can play the story forward and contrast it with the attitude of the present South Sudan generals who it seems would rather impoverish and drink the blood of their fellow country men, women and children merely to hold on to power and prove how right and indispensable they have become.
lev-haolam-building-israel

The Monster is in us

 
My poet friend Jonathan Wilson said that as a little boy he looked for the monster under his bed. But now as an adult he suddenly discovered that the monster was himself. These South Sudanese generals fought so gallantly to win their many battles only to be defeated by mere selfish pursuit of personal glory and the unwillingness to let go and concede personal fancies in the interest of peace in the country for which they have already sacrificed so much. The present arch rivals President Salva Kiir and his former Vice-President Riek Machar fought side by side in the military until the enemy was defeated and the people of South Sudan became free and independent. Now, they are finding it impossible to defeat the enemy in their individual selves. Good leaders aim to leave behind legacies which acceptably, are more difficult to do than winning battles. In trying to win wars the aim is to defeat the enemy, while in building legacies true leaders must defeat their selves. At first it was believed that the problem of the South Sudanese people was the hegemony and evil devises of the Islamic Arabs in the north. Sadly, due to the selfish interests of their leaders, the people seem to be doing a rethink.
 
To many observers, that victory over the bigoted fanatical forces of Islamic Arab feudalism will not be complete until the leaders are able to defeat their personal demon. But they still have the time and opportunity to save themselves, the country and the people in it. These leaders must come to the realization that power as everything else is only a means and not an end in itself. All powers and attained positions are transient and temporal and should be treated as such.
 
Nevertheless, we are not pretending to believe that sentiments and emotions may be all there are in making these men to do the right thing. Sometimes there may be need for something extra. So, while we are appealing to the conscience of these men, to reconsider and solve this problem in the same way they had solved other disagreements they had when they fought for their liberation, we are not ruling out the need for genuine external assistance in helping solve this problem. The international community should find a way to use sanctions and other forms of economic and political pressures to force these men to do the right thing.
 
Part of what I consider to be the right approach in solving the problem is to avoid an obtuse and blanket kind of condemnations and approvals. Let the guilty be blamed and those who out of a sincere and honest heart have done the right thing should be praised and encouraged. It will be more beneficial, especially in the interest of posterity for those who do intervene in this matter to be specific when dealing with all aspects of the issue. There is the need for a comprehensive and holistic approach in trying to solve South Sudan. As an example, in my opinion, I think that the time has come for the review of the country’s political and social structure. The prevailing National Constitution was drawn under the circumstances of strife and war with an external force. As a matter of necessity, since the country as an independent state is now under a civilian regime, it may be a good idea to produce another constitution which takes cognizance of present realities.
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Decolonizing Israel and Other Indigenous Peoples

This last week I hopped on to the Lowell Yosef Galin Show for a short interview and discussion in connection this very magazine and its role in presenting an alternative approach to geopolitics and Israel’s connection to other indigenous peoples around the world.

We discuss:

  • Israel as an indigenous people
  • Other indigenous people we should partner with
  • Western and Arab colonialism
  • Vision of Israel Rising

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Break the BDS

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REDEMPTION WATCH: Nnamdi Kanu, the Slave Trade, and Why Israel Still Mourns for the Temple

Every year we we find ourselves at this time again.  The darkest moments in Jewish history and really the collective Israelite history can be boiled down to the 9th of Av, the day of mourning of the destruction of the two temples that stood at the exact location of today’s Dome of the Rock.

Exile cannot be quantified and there is no other people in the world who have been exiled, enslaved, and brutally oppressed as much as Israel.  We have been scattered to the four corners of the world and only because the Almighty deemed it time to come home, did Jews begin to stream back to the Land of the Israel.  Liberation was achieved against the British and subsequent wars of defense and liberation of our homeland were also fought and won.  All of these events occurred against impossible odds.

Yet, despite Israel’s standing there is a vacancy in our nation and our hearts. The location of the Temple is the point where the world was created from.  It is the point where Abraham our Father binded Isaac.  Kabbalah teaches the temple mount is point that connects this world to the upper worlds.  The Almighty entrusted his Children with this spot.  We built two temples there and both times they were destroyed and we were exiled.  The first exile brought us to Babylon, Egypt, and Syria.  Some Israelites returned 70 years later to rebuild the Temple and establish sovereignty, but many stayed in exile and built communities across the Middle East and Africa.

When the Romans destroyed the second Temple, forcing us into exile again, many fled or were sold into slavery into Africa and many of us were brought to Rome and other parts of the Roman Empire in Europe.  

Our sages teach us the second Temple was destroyed due to intramural hate and only tremendous unity can rebuild it.

The prophet Ovadia clearly states that although the people of Israel were scattered they will return at the end of the days and mentions both the house of Yosef returning from France and the house of David from Spain.

We are clearly in the middle of this as we speak.  But there are other locations.  The prophet Isaiah mentions Cush. We have already witnessed our brothers and sisters return from Ethiopia, but what of the other Israelites found there? Millions fled or were sold into slavery to Africa after the destruction of both Temples. These Jews are only supposed to resurface at the end of days, after we the ones exiled into Rome trigger the awakening by returning first.

The Almighty has hidden from us our brothers’ location, but now it is clear at the end where they have been. The Jews who went into Egypt with Jeremiah and the Jews who were sold into slavery into Africa eventually found their way to the Gulf of Guinea mainly in Biafra. They eventually became known as the Igbo.  There they kept circumcision and the dietary laws as espoused in the Torah, but something happened.  First Islam came and began to forcibly convert the non-Jewish tribes to the North.  These tribes fought against the Jewish tribes living in Mali.  Many of these Jews fled south merging with the Igbo and other Israelite tribes already there and still others were lost and blended into non-Jewish African tribes. Yet, many stayed true to the Torah as much as possible.

When the Europeans arrived to missionize and enslave the inhabitants living on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea they found that the Igbo of Biafra and many other tribes in the coastal region kept certain laws from the Torah.  In their minds this would not do.  The solution was to enslave and deport, decimating what was there and nearly erasing the memory of what once was.

The Igbo and their related brethren were brought to America. So many Igbo were brought there that it is said that up to 60% of African Americans can trace at least one side of their family to being Igbo. This explains the affinity both  Jews of European descent African Americans had with one another during the Civil Rights era.  

What happened to the Igbo is not dissimilar to the Spanish and Portuguese Jewry who were either forcibly converted or chased into the New World where they started to forget who they were.

Now there is a great awakening and the movement to reverse the enslavement of our past is happening.  In Biafra, where the Igbo still reside, synagogues are being built, prayers are being said, and Torah is being learned.  There is a struggle to free the Igbo from the mental slavery of the past.  This struggle has taken many forms.  Politically it has inspired the free Biafra movement whose leader Nnamdi Kanu, rots in jail for no apparent reason than he acknowledged his Hebraic origin and sought to activate it in order to free his people.  

Unity will bring the Temple.  Understanding that we Israelites were exiled and enslaved and brought to far flung places. Exile has been brutal to us yet we are awakening and realizing all of us together can unify and return the Holy Temple to the Mount Moriah. All of us black, white, yellow, brown can one way or the other trace ourselves back to the Land from which we were taken.

The nations of the world have confused us and turned one side on the other, but we can if we want end the exile once and for all by creating a unity that will reverse our collective exile once and for all.

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REDEMPTION WATCH: Amar’e Stoudemire, Black Hebrews, and the Messiah

Amar’e Stoudemire is coming home. After travelling back and forth to Israel since 2010, he has experienced what many African-Americans have noted as a sort of realization that somewhere in their past a Jewish ancestor is rooted. Stoudemire confirmed that his Jewish roots reach back through his mother’s side, linking him to the Jewish people. To many observers this sort of awakening is surprising, but it has been going on for quite a while.

In the early days of the Black Hebrew movement, there was a decidedly racial line drawn.  In fact, an idea was posited that it was in fact the Africans themselves that were the Jews and not those of European descent. The myth of the Khazars superceded more traditional understandings as well as factually sound that European Jews came to Europe both as traders in the times of the Romans and were brought there as slaves.

This line has begun to fade as a new crop of younger African-Americans find interest in Hebrew customs and beliefs. This Hebrew awakening is beginning to ripple across the African-American world. Influential leaders like Rabbi Capers Funnye are publicly advocating for Black Jews to become fully integrated members of the broader Jewish world, dropping the racial division. In the past traditional Jewry shunned such overtures, but something is occurring now for the first time throughout world Jewry: tacit acceptance.

The affinity that many Black Americans have for Judaism is not without historical merit.  Most Africans that were taken as slaves to the Americas came from the West coast of Africa.  A majority of these slaves were Igbo.  Igbos have a clear connection to the broader nation of Israel to the point that many rabbis in Israel have begun to come out in support of real outreach to Igbos in Nigeria.  In fact, Igboland already hosts 47 synagogues and a 10,000 person strong and growing population of observant Africans.

In Isaiah 11:11 it says the following:

Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.

Cush is mentioned as one of the locations of the Israelites. Cush in biblical parlance does not only mean South Sudan and Northern Ethiopia, but essentially anything south and soutwest of these locations.  The Igbo and many of the tribes like the Guin tribe express parallel customs like circumcision, kosher observance, and in many communities a wedding canopy. Josephus, the Jewish historian at the time of the revolt against Rome writes clearly that the Jews were not only taken to Europe, but fled into Africa as well.  Of course in Europe Jews found their way to the Jewish communities of France and Italy and blended in as well taking in Roman converts.  But in Africa they were seemingly “lost” to the rest of the Jewish world.

The Jewish exile has often been connected to European and Middle Eastern Jewry, mainly because West Africa and Africa as a whole was so decimated by European and Arab colonialism. Many of these communities that thrived in these sub-Sahara areas lost their cohesive expression.

Now, with this tremendous awakening underway, a piece of of the redemption is unfolding in front of us.  Jews from all over the world are meant to return. Amar’e Stoudemire’s return to his roots is not only his personal journey, but in light of clear documentation, his journey is part of the redemptive process of the people of Israel.

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Niger Delta Avengers state the Obvious, “Buhari’s government is a fraud!”

Niger Delta Avengers

“Mr. President you can purchase all the drones in Europe and Untied State. It will not stop the Niger Delta Avengers from bringing the country’s economy to zero. The worse you can do is to kill poor innocent people which the military is good at, but know the Nigeria Economy will suffer.”

– Niger Delta Avengers

Although the Niger Delta Avengers are often times depicted by the Nigerian regime as a terrorist organization, many Biafrans who have suffered greatly at the hands of the Buhari led Islamist government in Nigeria. view the Niger Delta Avengers as freedom fighters.

The Niger Delta Avengers released the following statement through their spokesman, Mudoch Agbinibo:

The NDA intelligence agency gathered that the said peace talk or dialogue by the federal government is a delay tactic employed by the federal government to enable their purchased drones that are said to arrive latest end of August from the United State.

This whole thing makes us to wonder what kind of country is this. We can all see that President Buhari- led government is a fraud. They are not serious about any dialogue and made it seem the Niger Delta Avengers are the ones not ready for dialogue.

Mr. President you can purchase all the drones in Europe and Untied State. It will not stop the Niger Delta Avengers from bringing the country’s economy to zero. The worse you can do is to kill poor innocent people which the military is good at, but know the Nigeria Economy will suffer.

Also note that you will not be able to export one litre of crude in the Niger Delta. Just intensify the oil exploration in the north-east as for the ones in the Niger Delta forget about it because the Nigeria government won’t export a drop from our land.

The statement makes it clear that the Niger Delta Avengers as a group are only responding to provocations initiated by the Buhari led government. In the coming months these sort of attacks can be expected to increase. As Buhari and his Islamist regime continues to inflict damage on the Igbo and the other tribes that make up Biafra, patience is wearing thin.  The Niger Delta Avengers are correct, oil is the key to Buhari.  Disrupting the sale of the oil to the world will certainly bring the country to a stand still.

In Israel’s fight for independence, the Lehi captured the imagination of the Jewish youth oppressed by British forces and Arab mobs.  The Lehi as well as the Irgun bombed the British rail lines, targeted officials, and at the end brought the country to a standstill causing th British to leave. The Niger Delta Avengers appear to be few in number, but like the Lehi they are capable of bringing Nigeria to a halt. The Nigerian government will have to think twice before sending the army into the Biafran heartland. What Lehi proved and the Niger Delta Avengers are figuring out is that force of arms is the only tactic that works.

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Bruce Mayrock and the Hebrew Roots of the Free Biafra Movement

Bruce Mayrock

When 20-year-old Bruce Mayrock set himself on fire in front of the UN Building on the 30th of May 1969 to protest the world’s silence in relation to the Biafran genocide, little did he know he would be the most publicized non-Igbo activist to be killed during the 3 year Biafran struggle for independence from Nigeria.  The struggle ended in loss. Millions of Biafrans, mostly Igbo were systematically killed at the hands of their enemies.   Women and children were raped, tortured, killed, and starved to death. Nigeria was aided by the British and the Americans through a blockade, which prevented needed supplies from reaching Biafra.

It is doubtful that Mayrock attached a Jewish connection between himself and the Biafran struggle. In those days the Hebrew roots of the Igbo were fairly unknown in the West.  Mayrock was doing as a Jew what he felt was right. But like all things there are some cosmic connection to Bruce Mayrock’s immolation.

We now know that before the British and other European countries colonised, enslaved, and missionized the West Coast of Africa, tribes like the Igbo had a plethora of Hebrew practices and still retain obviously Jewish practices. Many of these have surfaced in recent years: brit milah (circumcision), chupah (wedding canopy), ritual slaughter, separation of meat and milk, day of rest, and many more. Many practices were forcibly suppressed by European missionaries, with those same missionaries telling the Igbo that they were pagans.

The Biafra struggle has many facets to it.  One of the most fascinating is the struggle has awoken the ancient connection of the Igbo and many of the other smaller tribes around them to their connection the people of Israel.  The free Biafra movement is as much about spiritual and cultural freedom as it is about political independence.

Understanding for a moment that 60% of African-American have Igbo ancestry, it is not by accident that the power structure in America wanted to drive a wedge between the civil rights movment and the Jewish community.

As the awareness is spreading that the Igbo and Jews are actually long-lost brethren, both enslaved and abused by European and Arab cultures, the immolation of Bruce Mayrock takes on a far more powerful iconic symbol than ever. Understanding for a moment that 60% of African-American have Igbo ancestry, it is not by accident that the power structure in America wanted to drive a wedge between the civil rights movement and the Jewish community. These forces are essentially the same forces that have created separate narratives between the Igbos and Jews keeping the first from recovering the roots stolen from them and the latter from embracing their lost brothers and sisters. These lost brothers and sisters in America may just be some of the very same African-American neighbors Jews regarded as outside of the Hebrew National consciousness.

Bruce Mayrock maybe have killed himself, but his immolation revealed the deep despair that was occurring in his heart, witnessing another genocide of a Hebrew people, so shortly after the European Holocaust.  Freeing Biafra and the Igbo from their cultural, spiritual, and political occupation is a cause the Jewish world must take on themselves both as a rectification of the past and a need to restore a more complete Israelite and Jewish nation.