a wide stance

11/21/2002:
some notes here. it's late. and my sleep has been off:

• had to salvage a sinking lesson, Chemistry of Life, with Year 1 at GTTC. it's tough to teach that class. only 3 students in it! i just said forget it... let me lecture. almost lost my patience. kept cool, though. some parts were tough. i had to answer my own questions. but we moved on... gotta adapt. be flexible.

• finally got my hands on that book in the Saudi fatwa series. the one with the section on the Tijani tariqa. those Wahhabis are merciless, i tell you! they seldom mention the tariqa by name without calling its people the staunchest of infidels, misguided polytheists (i.e. shirk). they say you cannot pray behind them, cannot marry from them, cannot pray on their departed, etc. while i can't deny that i still have some purist tendencies, leftover from ISA and especially on issues of shirk and the seal of prophecy, these fatwas are just too much. [see the following article, in French, on how this conflict plays out in Douala]. you can't just excommunicate people left and right. it takes much more حِلم [forbearance] than that... والله أعلم [and God knows best].

• just back from taraweeh [ramadan evening prayers] at Buba's. they got into another heated conversation after prayer. it was about this same topic / same book above. but to go back to a point from last week. i really enjoy conversing with and hearing these shabab [young men] converse. reminds me of myself and the fellas [shabab] back home. academic debates with influences from Shakespeare to Plato to the Prophet. a foot in the West, and the other in the East. a wide stance, indeed. and, these days, as these worlds seem to drift apart, it feels like we're being forced to choose which side we're on. to lift one foot off one of these worlds or risk being torn in two. but is that right? is that the only way to conceive of this?

• i had two points to make, based on these conversations with the shabab, in terms of education: 

1. come to terms with our ambivalence between "Western secular" education and "Islamic religious" studies. i feel like most educated young mulsim men our age, at one time of their lives or another, feel torn between the two. wanting both, but too often seeing them in conflict, and feeling forced to compromise one for the other. and it makes no sense. i've had friends both here and in the US tell me they want to leave "western/secular" schooling and go off to study religion... be it nigeria or saudi arabia. again, it makes no sense. what is "secular" education, anyway? which brings me to my 2nd point... 
2. come to terms with the fact that our faith does not ask us to choose between it and secular education. in fact, it questions the notion of "secular" knowledge and calls upon us to pursue knowledge in all fields. and so – for the sake of this "torn" generation, the generations to follow, and our faith itself – we need to find (or re-establish) a way to do both. to educate ourselves religiously, and for lack of a better word, "secularly." والله أعلم

at ease with myself

i often felt like wum was a microcosm of nigeria... geographically, we were quite close. in fact, there was some smuggling across the border in terms of trade. the big ticket item being the large honda motorcycle-taxis that plied the roads of wum. again, the motorcycle i’m standing next to in the photo to the top right is one example of that. i know the history of that moto-taxi all too well.

then there were nigerian movies. ubiquitous to the NW province... and beyond. what to say about nigerian movies? feature-length soap operas, basically. melodramatic. highly imaginative. a low-budget look. and, in my humble opinion, reinforcing too many of the ills in modern nigerian culture. from corruption to violence to promiscuity. for many anglophone cameroonians, however, the entertainment factor was simply too hard to resist.

the fault lines in wum were also very much like those in nigeria... ethnicity, religion, culture, lifestyle, indigeniety, etc. i’m thinking of two particular peoples (though many other actors often come into play), the aghem and the fulani. the first is a tribe indigenous to wum. mostly christian now, though with a strong traditional religious influence. the aghem are historically farmers. even those who’ve become traders or civil servants still have a strong connection, cultural or agricultural, to the land.

the fulani, on the other hand, are seen as outsiders to wum. and many other parts of anglophone cameroon. they are largely muslim. ethnically and culturally they are very distinct from many of the tribes of the northwest province. they look different. speak a different mother tongue, fulfulde. the fulani are historically pastoralists. this is the case across much of west africa. they were/are cattle herders, or graziers.

at least two generations ago, as i was told by a fulani, the aghem chief invited a group of aku graziers (as the aghem refer to them) to wum from nigeria, to address a scarcity of meat in the area. their numbers have grown since then and other fulani groups also came to settle in and around wum. what i noted in terms of local issues b/w aghem farmers and fulani graziers a few posts ago are the seeds of farmer-grazier tension in wum.

in nigeria (again, wum being a microcosm of the situation there) this underlying farmer-grazier tension has flared into conflict... if not fueled civil war. i began to sense this tension in wum soon after my arrival... in large part b/c i moved across the boundaries, or fault lines, so easily. i was an outsider, but thoroughly anglophone. and yet a muslim. i was an educated westerner, but also an easterner. i was a teacher, and respected b/c of that, but a young person that children and youth could also relate to.

as usual, i won’t go into much more detail here... though i’m afraid i already have. my intent was to introduce this issue, another big cross-cultural theme in the blog, and give some background to the story that will slowly play itself out in my journal entries. indeed, i often felt like it was playing itself out within me. for this is a theme clearly symbolic of my own struggle to come to terms with all facets of my identity. if i could be at peace and at ease with myself, why couldn't wum?

no longer at ease

also 9/19/2001:
as for No Longer at Ease. it's set a little further back in modern Nigerian history. GB is still there but on its way out. the novel is a sequel to Things Fall Apart in that the protagonist is Okwonko’s grandchild. and the theme is the same. a man with all that it takes to succeed in this society tragically loses everything (“all that promise...”) b/c of a character flaw... a stubbornness, an all too impulsive tendency to do things his own way, and go against his own chi (see the theme of chi here), if you will.

what was interesting in the book was the little connections it had with Anthills of the Savannah actually. Achebe alludes to more than a few details in this latter book (Anthills, 1987) from the former (No Longer, 1960). i happened to read them out of chronological order but it made no difference, really. he names children the same very symbolic names, he repeats sayings almost to the t, etc. it’s cool. i like it.

No Longer at Ease is told in a flash back. it begins in court. the scene of Obi Okwnoko’s downfall and ends there. in the middle it recounts the story of his life as it builds up to the climactic moment where Obi is arrested for corruption... the very thing he sets out against in his country’s system.

again, the ending here left a little to be desired. it wrapped up too quickly. i was surprised there wasn’t more to say. even the characters, Achebe’s strong-suit usually, were somewhat underdeveloped. i suppose like all sequels it’s tough to top the original.

i’m in the midst of lesson prep and SOW development now... not sure what or when i’ll pick up next in terms of literature. i’ve got my eyes on The White Man of God.

anthills of the savannah

9/19/2001:
i’ve been meaning to write a thing or two—put some thoughts down—about the Achebe books i just finished. Anthills of the Savannah and No Loner at Ease. both are set in more modern day Nigeria. Anthills being the most recent; a modern day state and the political issues that are a backdrop to the story of 3 or 4 well developed characters who play a major role in these politics.

still Achebe makes them very human. and in many ways they represent different aspects of modern Nigerian society. the book is deep. rich with detail about the players involved in this political drama. Achebe cuts back and forth in the story’s timeline. he changes points of view completely in some chapters. allowing each main character to develop his/her own self as much as the others.

the choppy effect keeps the book interesting and engaging. he’s got a way with words. rich, in this case. not simple like in Things Fall Apart. maybe b/c life is no longer simple now??? all the similarities with what i’m experiencing here made the book that much richer. pidgin spoken throughout. bush-taxi rides that take you on mental journeys and, generally, a culture very similar to the one here.

i was only a little unimpressed by the ending. wrapped up a little too Hollywood. not really an intriguing, thought-provoking denouement. people die or are martyred and those left represent some sort of symbolic community that is to lead the country (all figuratively, of course) on.

not sure why i wasn’t all that happy with that. maybe too idealistic from someone i know knows more about how things really are here. but what’s wrong with idealism? and since when have i not been down with it myself?

kola brings peace

6/17/2001:
met our neighbor Caroline’s father today. an intelligent, well-spoken man. chief of port police in Douala. asked me why i was being so introverted as we sat there amongst the men paying their respects at the house. needless to say, i felt like a fish out of water during the whole thing.

the good man basically lectured me on being more proactive about picking up french and learning cameroonian culture. something i really needed to hear, given how i was fairing on both. he said i should inquire into something once, retain it, and then not ask about it again.

like the kola nut he was given to share. according to him (and Chinua Achebe was certainly mentioned over the course of explaining this to me), in Nigeria they say “whoever brings kola, brings peace.”

kola nuts have many pieces and they’re meant to be shared. since you cannot eat your enemy’s offering, if you share kola, you are expressing your satisfaction with the people in whose company you’re in. thus, if you bring kola, you bring peace.