By
Obododimma
Oha
The speech act of blaming in most discourses is
performed with at least one or most of the following assumptions:
(1) The
experience is a negative one.
(2) The
experience is regrettable.
(3) The
experience is not to the advantage of self (or other).
(4) The
blamer has come to the realization that the experience would not favour self.
(5) The
blamer uses the act of blaming to try to save face for self, to give others the
impression that the self is disposed to another choice.
Generally, we direct
blame to others (another person, group, organization, etc.), hoping to win
sympathy or support; hoping to be exonerated. Thus, the closeness of the act of
blaming to the rhetorical appeal to emotion (to sympathy, precisely) could be
gleaned. The addressee is being asked indirectly to pity the assumed person or
group in disfavor and judge an alignment by so doing. In that case, one could
easily be trapped or swept off the feet in giving sympathy.
In this regard, one
could see the act of blaming as already part of the strategies in the politics
of otherness. Even though in the contextual humility of the Catholic prayer of
Act of Contrition, one is expected to blame the self for the addresser (God) to
be assuaged; blaming is often directed as a weapon against the other. That
prayer of self-blame is presented again here for the sake of those not familiar
with it:
Act
of Contrition
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended
thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just judgments but most of all
because they offend thee, my God, Who art good and deserving of all my love. I firmly
resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more, and to avoid the near
occasions of sin. Amen.
This is a very
important prayer in the Catholic mass because it is a vocalization of a change of
heart. One makes that act, expressing a change of attitude and commitment. It
is not, as we can see, an occasion to blame others or the devil, but to blame
oneself and to take responsibility. Let us call it an exceptional self-blame;
one cannot tell one’s conscience lies; one can deceive others, blame others to
win sympathy, but one cannot blame the maker who is able to see even our
unexpressed thoughts!
But very often
blaming is based on a fault we find in others. Other people are culpable but we
are not. Oh, Europe and America underdeveloped and exploited Africa for one
million years or more! THEY enslaved US. They carted away our treasures;
destroyed our cultures. Your ancestors were asleep when this was happening. Oh,
no! They merely accompanied others to this world. Their role was to play
masquerades and waste their resources in lavish festivals. Oh, Europe! Oh,
America! You have almost killed us. But your cities built with our blood is the
Heaven we can see and going there is equivalent to going to Heaven. We can
leave Hell behind us once we are armed with your visas and passports! Look, see
it is a mark of achievement for our “governments” to build bridges, repair
roads built by past regimes, etc. Europe and America (plus China) are also
responsible for this.
As I reflect on the
inclination to blame another, I see lack of readiness or will for the blamer to
cease being a blamer and to achieve something worthwhile. My little Igbo
knowledge configures this orientation to blaming the other as Ike oru gwu nwata, ike ogu aka ya mma (A
child that has no stamina for work goes round spoiling for a fight). The child
wants to fill the shameful gap of not accomplishing his or her task with fights
or quarrels, as if it is fighting people are looking for. No! They are looking for
a concrete accomplishment. Wait; it is not considered a child abuse by the Igbo
to give a simple task like sweeping the courtyard to a child. For the Igbo, this is
an important classroom in the education of the child and we have to combine the
skills dispensed by the parents (the first professors in life’s school) with
the skills gained and certified in a formal school context. So, whether the
child likes it or not, let him or her continue going round looking for the
person with whom to fight! Mmiri dooro n’eju
dooro nwankita (The stagnant water in the broken pot is waiting for the
dog).
Yes, you can see that
the experience is a regrettable one. What experience? The task not being
accomplished! We have to have somebody responsible. That person to be held
responsible must:
(1) Be
sufficiently vulnerable; must be blameworthy, by the simple logic of being near
physically or functionally, like a previous government;
(2) Be
incapacitated by exit or distance to defend self; we can give him a matchete
cut when he has turned his back!
In addition, because
the blamed entity is not close by, the tendency for a verification is almost
nill. So, the tendency for the audience to look for the easy way out instead of
frustration is there. Once a mumu
(incurable simpleton in popular Nigerian discourse), always a mumu! The mumu audience would always accept the blame. It does not have to
hear your own side! If it does, it is no longer a mumu audience!
I indicated earlier
that blaming is also a (lame) face-saving strategy. The blamer hopes that the mumu audience would start viewing the
blamed person or entity differently, i.e. to the disfavor of the one blamed. In
could be that person's skills, especially those we would look for in individuals
in order to trust them and to associate with them.
But as the blamer
points the finger at the imagined culprit, the folded four also point at him or
her, as it is said in popular Nigerian discourse. The blamer is also being
blamed. It takes deeper than normal thinking to understand the culpability of
the blamer. The blamer may even expose the culpability of self and the idiocy
of believing it. It is even worse when the act of blaming is serial or has
lasted a long while. Good thinkers would ask: For how long would he continue to
blame the other, to practice this victimage? Does he or take us for fools? In
that case, blaming can back-fire and destroy the blamer!
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