By
Obododimma
Oha
Time and the
marking of experiences in time are important issues in the African world. Thus,
it is strange to African citizens when they are forbidden to remember. It is like
asking somebody not to breathe in but to breathe out, or as some anonymous
persons put this Biafran case, “beating a child and telling the child not to
cry.” Also, it is not in agreement with the idea of democracy. Remembering, as
an essential human behaviour, is even one of the fundamental things expected of
a living person and basic to other actions. Moreover, it would be impossible to
ask members of families that lost dear ones (husbands, wives, sisters,
brothers, uncles, etc) not to try to remember. It reminds one of the attempt to
monitor and control the thinking of citizens in Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four! But no one can
prevent people from remembering, just as it would be bizarre to monitor people’s
thoughts.
But why ask
people not to remember? Are you afraid of something? Why try to recreate them as amnesiacs? So, by making efforts to prevent them from remembering, you are
indirectly exposing yourself as someone who wants to hide something, who wants
to suppress the ugly and to continue to deceive the world with a false image!
So, you see, asking people not to remember is a self-accusation and an upstaging
of that which is looking for a hiding from public view.
That pointed
out (to the discomfort of some readers), one would like to engage more fully
the issue of remembering heroes in the Biafran struggle for self-determination.
And one of the preliminary things one wants to note in the discourse is how
Biafrans have tried to remember. This is clearly a non-violent protest, which
does not wait for the Nigerian government to give authorization for the remembrance to be effected. The
pro-Biafra groups simply ask their supporters, especially Biafrans everywhere,
to sit at home on May 30 in solemnity and remember their relatives killed in the course
of the struggle. So, first, sit at home. That would prevent “clashes” with
Nigeria’s security agents and who are ready to shoot to kill! So, how is
avoidance of “clashes” a crime? Is this not better than blocking roads and being
gunned down, as if the gunners are using flag-waving youths to learn how to
shoot! If the law says that staying at home to remember is a crime, does the
law enjoy seeing people come out and get killed?
Second, it
helps people to reflect on the struggle and dead relatives. What better honour can
one give them than solemn remembrance? Obviously, there could be many things
the reflection could focus upon. Is it that a fighter jet nearly killed this
author at the beginning of the war at Uli, when he was just a youngster and not
a Biafran soldier? Is it that his uncle personally went and enrolled as a
Biafran soldier and fought gallantly until he fell at Uyo sector towards the end of the war? Is the
thousands of displaced persons, mostly children, starved to death by their own
country? Is the numerous youths shot dead some years ago at Onitsha Bridge Head
and other areas in Nigeria’s South-east? Is it that this author was almost
gunned down by a machine-gunner at Onitsha Bridge Head, while returning on a
bus after a burial at Abagana? And so on. You see how unfortunate it is to
confront people who want to sit at home and reflect!
As somebody
interested in signs, one is attracted to forms used by Biafrans in their
remembrance activity. I can visualize them waving fags and Biafran colours. Who
is afraid of signification and identity? Anyway, they remember with the images
of Biafra first of all. I know that some chauvinistic fellows in Nigeria hate to
see this. They would like to see Biafra die or be buried in some coconut heads, as it is said in Nigeria. That is for history to
determine. But we know from history that no kingdom, not even the Roman Empire
that was very great and globally overwhelming, can or has lasted forever. All
communities are still imagined identities. We would be worrying ourselves for
nothing in giving our lives to them and wanting them to last forever.
Apart from
Biafra’s flags and colours, this remembrance brings out every other thing that
tells the story of Biafra, from pictures of Biafran soldiers shared on social
media to locally crafted Biafran weapons of war. Memory is interesting and
does invite various narratives. The remembrance, of course, was in stories, in
verbal texts. Language has an interesting way of recording and saving things,
serving as archives and helping humans to remember. So, when next you see a
language walking down the street waving a Biafran flag or other, do not try to
gun it down! You are criminally committing murder by doing so. Killing a
language is multiple murder, multiple crime!
It is not
just because language transmits Biafra and helps people to remember. It is
indeed a genocide to kill or impose a language, as a continuation of war by
other means!
Let me not
end without recognizing how the social media have assisted Biafrans greatly in
trying to remember. When the killings happened in Biafra or in recent times,
maybe it was not possible to have video recordings. But the still-life images
of Biafra and Biafran soldiers (now, sometimes animated) are circulated on social media by subscribers.
This further frustrates the effort to prevent Biafrans from remembering.
Nigerian government, even if it wants, cannot control all social media and
filter out narratives of Biafra. Biafra is even stronger as a big experience
outside Nigeria. So, it is very futile to try to cripple Biafra remembrance at
home. Is it not a paradox that by fighting the memory of Biafra, the fighter is
only helping the Biafran struggle to be strong? It is as couched in the Igbo
proverb, Mmiri mara ugo asaala ugo ahụ
(The rain that beat the eagle has only helpled it to look more beautiful).
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