By
Obododimma
Oha
A serious-minded colleague and Facebook friend, Prof. Tayo Lamidi, recently posted an update on
his wall which stated as follows:
Why do some African teams bear names of animals?
Super Eagles of Nigeria
Indomitable Lions of
Cameroon
Atlas Lions of Morocco
Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire
Squirrels of Benin
The Cranes of Uganda...
Are they all animists?
Prof. Lamidi must be very contemplative and observant!
Otherwise, how could anyone have taken interest in these names and how they
cluster around animals? I am sure that he must have done a simple statistical
count to notice the higher frequency and then to generalize properly.
Anyway, I know that many would be carried away by
another outlook: the humorous. Obviously, Prof. Lamidi tried to poke fun at
this indubitable and evidence-backed observation. That must have prompted the last question,
which tugs at the heart of the wave of ritualism in his social world! I recall
that colonial thinkers were the very first to run African worshippers down as
“animists.” So, if Prof. Lamidi is bringing that sad label into the discourse
of soccer, he is even more interesting,
linking discourse to discourse!
I am no lover of soccer, but discourse about it
concerns me, what more when that discourse is coming from somebody whose life
is characterised by thinking! So, Prof. Lamidi
is bringing me back ! To avoid digression, what are the specific
attributes that he observes in his evidence (which he provides before drawing a
conclusion in the form of a tempting and serious question)? He calls the
attention of friends to such animal naming in the update , as in the following;
Super Eagles
of Nigeria
Those who imposed the aviator, the eagle, on the Nigerian
team, obviously hoping to copy the many positive, cultural sentiments about the bird
onto the Nigerian team, also reinforced excellence or tried to erase a perception of
inferiority by inscribing “super” as a modifying word right at the beginning.
That word, by the way, is just praise-oriented and reminds one of soccer fans
singing Austino Milado’s “Super Eagles Carry Go.” We know the various ways of
patriotically encoding our praises! Yes; the Nigerian government would like such! This time around, Noam Chomsky, the
encoding of praise rides on the back of a pre-modifier (the margins always help, always carry it on their heads!)!
In another blog article recently, I ruminated on
“talking animals” and briefly had to write about Jude Idada’s exploration of
this biosemiotic issue in a narrative that won LNG’s first Prize for
Literature. That was a great narrative, very creatively crafted and properly executed!
I didn’t know that the discourse was only beginning and that Prof. Lamidi would
take it to soccer in Africa. Well, the animalization of African soccer clubsides
only confirms that there is something good in “lower animals” at the margins which “higher
animals” try to exploit. In the case of the eagle, the Nigerian namers perhaps
think they can exploit the bird’s culturally assumed nobility, plus the jara
in words they could afford! Let us hope that the players live up to the
nomenclature on the pitch of play. Let us hope that they are also noble, not
just metaphorically, and do maintain nobility as they play that piece of leather! The name one
chooses to bear may be quite different from other names given to one by other
people around!
Indomitable
Lions of Cameroon and Atlas Lions of Morocco.
Are you
surprised that I am putting lions and lions into a single confinement? Let
lions maintain kinship with lions. Lions are meat-eaters, devourers, and have
no association with vegetarians, except that both are living entities.
By the way, I hear that some Cameroonians spotted
their long-serving president in a hotel in faraway Paris and just had to attack
the old man! They must have frightened all those in the departure lounge of
life! Anyway, lions are devourers and I
am not surprisied. Vegetarians should avoid devourers who attack devourers!
The name, “Indomitable lions of Cameroon,” also has a
praise-oriented word, “indomitable” preceding the whole nominal, as if game
reserve experts do not once in a while cage the large cat, or even shoot it. Sometimes,
“Indomitable Lions of Cameroon” may be walloped so that one is forced to search
the dictionary for an appropriate antonym to use is replacing the
praise-oriented pre-modifier. I have said that I am not a soccer lover, what
more a record keeper of sports or commentator. But I know that, since no condition is permanent,
“indomitable” may be “domitable”!
And, in order not to be carried away in the same
stretcher as its francophone brother, Morocco chooses the route of
domestication in naming its national clubside, “Atlas Lions of Morocco.” A lion
is a lion, whether it lives in Aso Desert Rock or Sambisa Forest. A lion is a
lion, and is a devourer. So, the Arabs of Morocco have not quite escaped, if as
snakes their heads are in the bush while their tails are out there on the naked
and "nudifying" road!
Elephants of Cote
d’Ivoire
Should I forget the “Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire?
Gbagbo will deal with me! (Even that powerful name of a powerful man sounds like I have got a stubborn piece of bone in my mouth) I hope I pronounced his name well. I don’t want any
trouble!
But how can one forget “Elephants” that easily? Even
if one has a problem with memory! Secondly, elephants are large animals and
cannot hide in the grassland. All the grass and leaves accumulated by Robinson
Crusoe cannot cover its huge chunk!
Something tells me that those hunters and gatherers of
ancient Ivory Coast must have been digging deep pits as traps for large animals like
elephants to fall in and later be butchered after a communal rejoicing! Anyway,
elephants are dreaded jungle dwellers. Ask those who have dared these uprooters
of trees. What would wielders of spears and arrows do to the thick hide?
Although the name has no praise-oriented pre-modifier,
the fact that no one messes with an uprooter of trees and breaker of big tree
branches is something to be exploited metaphorically and copied to the
clubside. But we all know that an elephant can fall into a deep pit. Ask
experienced hunters and gatherers! And that falling into a pit can and has been happening to
soccer clubsides. Appropriation of name to instill fear, to promote terrorism
linguistically, is not enough, never.
The Cranes of
Uganda
Cranes? Oh, not lifters of heavy containers from and onto boats. Birds again. So, cranes can
also throw things like football, that small piece of leather? I know that they steal fishes that dare come
to the surface. In other words, they are rogues, even abductors. Criminals!
Anyway, one thought that the clubside could have been
named after Field Mashal Idi Amin, to frighten players of the opposing clubside
and make them lose their wits. Well cranes still have something in common with someone whose least misdemeanor in government was the award of a top national
honour to his young son! Idi Amin was a crane, a criminal crane! Even the “lower”
animals have learnt to keep their distance from the thief!
Squirrels of Benin
Perhaps the most laughable of the names was that of
“Squirrels of Benin.” A confession: I
have not cared so much about soccer and do not know names like “Squirrels.” I
only remember that, as a young boy in our little village, I used to arm myself with a
catapult and used to shoot stupid and noisy squirrels in the neighbourhood.
Fiam! The stone would fly from the catapult towards the barking idiot. But,
seriously, there is some appropriateness in the naming of the national soccer
team. First, squirrels are peripheral noise-makers in the jungle and would be
wise enough to shut up when lions, large cats, show up to feed. So, squirrels
are at the very periphery of government in the jungle. The very periphery of terrorism in the jungle!
Further, look at the map of Africa. Benin Republic
(former Dahomey Empire and great dealer on slaves) is a flattened prostate
gland. It has remained in the backyard of development maybe because the society
is still paying for its past evils in slave trade and may still be involved in
human trafficking. Animistically paying for it!
In the world of soccer, “Squirrrels,” which should be
great nut eaters and noise-makers, are yet to show that the metaphor of
animalization is worth the trouble after all. And so, Prof. Lamidi, don’t mind those
hoping the squirrels would suddenly become lions. They are irredeemable
animists!
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