Understanding Our Weakness, Our Powerlessness

After the publication of the article captioned “Between Blacks and Whites: The Issue of Genetics” authored by yours sincerely last weekend a whole lot of divergent views were observed in form of reactions to the article and the logic it sought to convey. From my private email account some readers preferred communicating to me directly and privately with few disagreeing with my point of view and others seeing reason with me. In the interest of cross-fertilisation of ideas I have decided to do this follow-up to the article to put certain things in perspective.

In the piece under focus I had declared that: “I am not holding any brief for any White man neither should I be accused of writing from the circumstance of inferiority complex. None of the above bears any true representation of my inner conscience.” But in spite of this clear declaration some readers out of ignorance, arrogance of hypocrisy simply allowed their primitive emotions to rule their heads with rationality suffering as a casuality.

Take “Palamedes”, one of the NVS ‘Lagbajas’ (an anonymous entity nay faceless minions) for example whose rejoinder included lecturing me on the fact that ‘black’ and ‘white’ is beyond ‘colour’ and calling me “ignorant” for not saying that the likes of late leaders as Marcos, Suharto and Pol Pot are not whites but other colour outside the white world. I was wondering ‘Palamedes’ and I who is a victim of ignorance here! I decided to lump the global villains together because these historic elements could be said to be more white than black in any case. I cannot therefore be accused of ignorance of their roots.

The harshest critique I received came into my private email account and it was authored by one Ernest Egelonu who wrote in from Australia where he claimed he is a post-graduate student.

Hear his argument quoted verbatim: “Mazi Okenwa, I really pity you. This is not a ridicule but a feeling born out of disgust of conscience for your distortion. Out of experience I dare differ. I am right now engaged in some postgraduate studies in Australia, I’m yet to get a white person who challenges me both in the head or relation wise. In reference to your Ali Mazrui testament it is a blatant lie for a white person to dominate the black person. It merely depends on individual differences. It is only black people of your complex(inferiority) that worship white people. That’s the more reason why I contemptously pity you. I grew up in Nigeria where people of your type use to prefer any thing white, but there is a generation that does not think the way you do.

“In fact white people here crisscrossing the white race whom I study with have had to bend and accept my posture. They have had to agree to be under me in many ways . Professors here have learnt to be more respectful. True they always want to dominate if you allow them.
I’ve seen many blacks who are very intelligent and a lot are more intelligent than the whites. One of my friends here is so tall a dreamer and has been building on human resources which is the best investment.

“Dead ruse! Have seen Obama? Mate, he is black. His accent is because of his environment. Instead of bloody junk writers like you to use your intelligence well to propose how Africa could get out of the political quagmire all you do is write poo. I stop here and hope it will help to heal your psychological idiocy. Thanks!”

Well the above attack more than any other nasty comment provoked this follow-up. I wonder the amount of anger in Mr Egelonu’s psychological system as he was hitting his keyboard trying to cut me to size. In my response to the student in Aussi-land however I had told him off thus: “Ernest or Onyii, The nonsense you scribbled was received but it made me really see you as an unintelligent animal in a white man’s world trying to be real and arrogantly asserting yourself! Well, it is not important engaging you but I will definitely give a formal response to your stupid views this weekend in a sequel to the article under focus. Look out for it my dear and accept my sympathy for your hollow bravado in far-away Australia.”

While readers like “Bennie” in NIA website wrote thus: “Excellent piece. Thumbs up for the logic”. And one “NE”: “I always bow before superior logic like this one”, “Rosie” saw it like this: “Although I started out with the idea of refuting your idealogy but I realised in a way you are right. But I also feel our way thinking has a lot to do with leadership. Most African countries have pasts with empires that relied on monarchies. We relied on our rulers to tell us what to do but with the arrival of colonialism and in turn democracy, I think all we have now are growing pains – we are still realising what we are as people in a modern world. We will get there”.

All in all majority saw reason with my logical conclusion drawn without any sentiment. The point worth re-iterating here is that no one is suffering any fool gladly. Before deciding to write the article I knew I would be opening myself up for some hard knocks but what is the essence of idea and its marketplace value if we all agree on one issue? There’s no way we can all agree to agree on any issue, so divergence of opinion is what makes the world see democracy as the best system of governance. No one has any monopoly of wisdom so there’s bound to be differences in reason, behaviour and taste.

Understanding our glaring weaknesses and powerlessness as blacks in a white man’s world is one that must be done with all sense of truthfulness and acknowledgement of our disadvantaged position. Trying to paint a rosy picture in a climate of underdevelopment and retardation would do us more harm than good. As far as today is concerned (one may even dare add tomorrow though tomorrow is pregnant with potentialities and possibilities) the West controls our world and dictates directly and indirectly the current global trends.

One wonders how and why the infrastructural privileges people like Ernest Egelonu are enjoying in far-away Australia are conspicuously lacking back home? That Australia is what it is today, a great nation from every stretch of imagination, is because of the compatriotic compassion, leadership responsibility and just egalitarianism of her leaders and followers. A society becomes what it wants to become when both leaders and followers seek to put in their best.

Mr Egelonu should tell us if the Australian government had ever wasted some 10 billion dollars to electrify the landscape or if their past Prime Ministers had ever been accused by the UN of siphoning some 400 billion dollars of the national resources on account of their greed and graft? Damn it! The whiteman will continue to dominate and show manifest signs of superiority over other races as long as we lack initiatives and the required wisdom to do things right for our people.

I make bold to declare that I assume responsibility for writing whatever is written in the article under mention. Those who accuse me of any complex should examine their heads for they are the real victims of inferiority complex.