i be naija

Read the Poem, Abiku, by Charles O.

Background

To the uninitiated, Abiku can be a rather daunting piece. This is so because an understanding of the meaning and implications of the Abiku concept is necessary for a proper understanding of the poem.

If the belief in the supernatural is all-pervasive in traditional African culture, then the belief in the inimical and diabolic variant is even more insidiously ingrained in that tradition. Abiku (figuratively “born to die”) in Yoruba lore refers to one such malevolent spirit who appropriates and insinuates a woman’s womb to be born and re-born, for the singular purpose of unleashing recurring tumult on such a woman. The woman, then, conceives, carries the pregnancy to term, delivers, only for the child, Abiku, to die within the first few years of its birth.

In some cases though, the spirit-baby pities her mother and decides to stay permanently.

The poem Abiku explores the travails of a woman who has birthed several Abiku. Each conception brought her an unnerving admixture of “elation and despair”. Indeed, she inhabited, perpetually, the twilight between exaltation and grief: in one year she would conceive, in another, deliver, and in a few more yet, mourn the death of the child. The poem captures a moment when our protagonist, pregnant again, sits on her windowsill and gazes at the night sky. Crying silently, she prays the gods to have mercy on her, and have Abiku stay this time. As though in assurance of a new resolution, the child stirs within.

Imagery & Symbolism

“Death” and “rebirth,” “emergence” and “spiral … into abyssal depths,” “elation” and “despair,” “arrivals” and “departures,” are imageries at odds with each other. We sense antagonistic forces—life and death, emergence and downward spiral, et cetera—engaged in tense battles, as though for their very own continuity.

The “accentuation” of the protagonist’s belly by the night’s full moon provides another striking imagery. For one, both are round; for another, both are, literally, full. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, just as the full moon heralds the dawning of a new day, the woman’s full belly portends the impending arrival of a new being.

Message

Undoubtedly, there are as many interpretations of a poem as there are readers of it. One of the messages I take away from the poem though is that, just as the protagonist, who had suffered repeatedly at Abiku’s hands, clung obstinately to the hopes of having a child that would survive past infancy, we all must remain steadfast to our higher aspirations in spite of (or, even, because of) the odds. We must, indeed, never resign ourselves to the accident of chance, or worse, fate.

Even in the face of forces seemingly outside of her control, our protagonist expressed hope for an eventual breakthrough (“maybe she’ll stay”) this time.

*

Rewritten from the original piece of May 9, 2002.

As early as the first few bible studies, I’d suspected that if I allowed myself to become a disciple, I wouldn’t remain one for long. But though I was convinced that organized religion was not for me, I felt obliged to humor the disciples, to accede to their oft-spurious interpretations of the Bible. Those disciples were driven by a certain curious impetus… and that impetus, I am willing to admit, impelled me to indulge them.

Soon, Dan (as I must call him for the sake of prudence), one of the leaders of the campus ministry, began to impress on me the imperatives of immediate baptism.

Subconsciously, I knew that baptism would be the seal that would bind me to the church. I knew that once I allowed myself to be submerged in those waters, I would, in effect, be entering a contract.

Being baptized in a church, I reckoned, was a marriage between the church and the convert, much like the union between a bride and a groom in which both are to “cleave to each other and become one.” Disengaging myself from the church after baptism, would, I was convinced, not fail to bring its baggage of trauma.

I stalled. I whined that I didn’t feel right about being baptized yet, that I was waiting to set my heart right with God, that I was waiting for the right time…

That phrase turned out to be my undoing. Dan countered that there would never be a “right time,” that there could never be a right time, that I had to make this the right time. He seemed desperate for me to be baptized, but I allowed myself to be persuaded by his rhetoric. It seemed quite plausible.

§

The following Friday was Good Friday, and I had gone to the weekly devotional that was held at their Michigan Avenue location. Dan arranged to take me to lunch the next day. Evidently, he had to complete the string of pre-baptismal bible studies as soon as possible, and add me to the flock of disciples as quickly. Did not Christ exhort his disciples to make disciples of all nations? Was not that the Messiah’s very mandate to his followers? Dan intended to fulfill that mandate, and he was doing a good job of it.

The next day, Dan picked me up from my Lake Meadows apartment at about 4:00 p.m. We then drove to Hyde Park to look for a place to eat and study the Bible. We found an Italian restaurant that suited our purpose, parked the car, and went in. Dan ordered a medium-sized pizza and the waiter brought some bread moments later. He sprinkled some cheese on the olive oil he’d poured on the saucer, dipped a piece of bread in it, took a bite, and said it was good. I tried it, and agreed.

The minister then produced his NIV Bible and began the systematic process of converting me to the faith. I listened, nodded and answered his questions in the affirmative. I asked a few questions of my own—questions that were either unsatisfactorily answered or entirely evaded. Dan told me that tomorrow was Easter, that Jesus arose from the dead on that day, and that the full implications of that resurrection were beyond the grasp of any single man.

Wouldn’t it be the absolute best thing for me to be baptized tomorrow, to be submerged in water, and to be raised, like Jesus, to a new life? Wouldn’t it be all too cool to say that I was baptized on Easter? I silently contemplated Dan’s modest propositions, and like the quixotic (sic) that I had become, agreed that it would, indeed, be cool to be baptized on Easter. Though I harbored reservations about baptism (in fact, I asked him if there was a way around the actual submersion, he said no), I neither committed myself to it nor expressed my reservations. We prayed, and he dropped me off at home.

The next day was Easter, and I brought myself, somehow, to go to the church. I had in my attendance of other baptisms heard the converts say they were “fired-up,” “sold-out” to God, and that nothing could be more “awesome.” Deep down, I had no such experiences. I was, frankly, in a trance, and the most important motivation for continuation on the path I’d set out on was the sheer novelty of being baptized on Easter.

After the worship service, I told Dan of my resolution to get baptized. He was ecstatic. He spread the word (you must marvel at the efficacy of word-of-mouth), and arranged, with a few snaps of the finger I think, to have the baptismal bath ready. Everyone was overjoyed. Hugs and congratulatory messages almost suffocated me.

By the time I arrived at the Michigan Avenue baptismal venue, almost every disciple in the campus ministry was already there and I was greeted with another round of hugs and congratulations. Apparently, I had made the best decision of my life, and everyone was happy for me.

I was asked to go and change into the T-shirt and jogging pants I’d brought for the purpose of the submersion in water, and was subsequently led to a back room where I was to be faced with the final, this-is-it, no-turning-back round of questions. In a solemn ceremony, Dan and two other patriarchs of the Campus ministry asked if I would be willing to be committed to the body of Christ, to attend every meeting of “the body,” and to forever live the life of a disciple. I answered all three questions in the affirmative. We prayed.

Our emergence from the back room was to rapturous applause and ecstatic cheers. Then began the obligatory flattery about the object of the convention: some said I was one of the most brilliant persons they’d ever met, others, that they’d never seen anyone so willing to study the bible, and that they were sure I’d make a fine disciple. Others, yet, couldn’t wait to see what God would do with me. Everyone had such kind words that, to tell the truth, I might have cried if I had one less drop of testosterone running through my veins. In all, everyone thought I would make one heck of a disciple.

I was still deep in my trance when somebody led me towards the baptismal bath. I stepped into the bath, waded to the deep end of it, and sat on the raised steps, the water circling my lower torso.

“Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead to grant you eternal salvation?” I vaguely heard Dan ask.

“I do.” I said mechanically. If someone had looked into my eyes, they might have suggested that we postpone the event. Though I was sitting in that bath, I was really far away. Deep down, in whatever remained of my consciousness, I was asking myself, what am I doing? Why in the world am I doing this? I certainly wasn’t fired up.

But it was too late to withdraw now. Surely I did not intend to climb out of the water and declare to these incredibly awesome people that I’d changed my mind about being baptized in their church. To have done so would be to have committed an atrocity, a barbarity, and in fact, an abomination deserving of eternal damnation!

“What is your good confession?” Dan asked, jolting me out of my reverie.

“Jesus is Lord.” I said as we had rehearsed in the back room. Obviously, that utterance was not, by the most elastic definition of the word, a confession—never mind whether it was good or not. For my intellectual detachment from the process, I might as well have been reciting the rosary. At any rate, a thunderous applause rent the air as I made my “good confession.”

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” Dan said as he clasped his hands over mine, which were firmly covering my mouth and nose, and lowered me, backward, into the water.

I re-emerged to reverberating shouts and applause, and to the beginnings of the refrain, “We love you with the love of the lord…”—one that I came to understand was, for lack of a more apt description, the induction anthem.

As I climbed out of the water, someone wrapped my towel around me, and directed me to the men’s rest room where I dried myself, and changed back into my clothes.

When I returned from the bathroom, it was to another round of by-now-asphyxiating hugs and congratulations. There were two cards that had been signed by about every disciple in the campus ministry, congratulating me on making the best decision of my life.

§

It was at this point that I slowly began to emerge from the trance that had enveloped me all week, into the reality of my just-forged commitment. I knew I would eventually joist my way out of it, but I was presently involved in an intimate relationship with The Church.

With that, I became a bona fide member of The Church, a membership I was too willing to relinquish, but too ambivalent to; a membership that in retrospect was a veritable waste of my time and energies; a membership that allowed me to witness an admixture of hypocrisy, conformity, and servility, the likes of which I never wish to witness again.

[undated c. 2002 - 2003]

I should have gone fishing or skinny-dipping or window-shopping for that matter. I should have broken my resolution to abstain from clubbing… in fact, I should have done anything but sit through Bruce Willis’ latest yarn of an action movie. The experience was exasperating in its milder parts, and revolting at its crudest. I should have been watching SNL reruns.

Tears of the Sun is another Hollywood attempt to nurture the notion held by more than a few Americans (and, even more largely, Westerners) that Africa is one huge jungle, where man and beast co-exist in close proximity, and whose people are incapable of conducting the business of government without resorting to wanton massacre. Of course, it’s largely a matter of capitalism: Hollywood churns out features that sell, and features that align themselves with romanticized notions happen to sell very well. It’s a matter of giving people what they want, what reaffirms their smug convictions, and whatever makes them declare in self-adulation, ‘there goes us but for the grace of God’.

In the approximately ninety-minute feature, an “African nation” represented as Nigeria is portrayed as a massive forest (which, coincidentally, fits snugly into the West’s notion of Africa). “Nigerian” politics is reduced to a primordial tribal bloodbath perpetuated by the “Fulanis” against the “Ibos.”

Supposedly, the “Ibo” President (who, it appears, holds a part time job as a “tribal king” of sorts) is murdered by “Fulani rebels.” His son, who is “heir” to “the throne,” suddenly becomes the burden of the U.S. Navy SEALS dispatched to extract an American doctor from the “hostile” region. The juxtaposition of “presidency” and “tribal kingship” in one single man is an anachronism at best, and an aberration at worst. The variant of tribal politics depicted would have been more appropriately ascribed to another time and place.

At the very least, the plot could have been based on a fictitious nation, like Coming to America’s “Zamunda”—although this approach does not altogether address the fundamental issue at hand. Because it arbitrarily uses “Nigeria” as a label for its pitiful contrivance, Tears of the Sun is abrasive, offensive, and insolent. Additionally, it betrays the ignorance of the writers. (There are no “kings”, per se, among the Ibos, for a start.)

The people in the movie were most assuredly not Nigerians, the “native” language spoken was decidedly not a Nigerian language (and I might contend was not even a real language at all), none of the sound tracks had the faintest connection to a Nigerian ethnic group, and the quixotic jungle location was, I’ll bet, not anywhere near the Nigerian geographical space. So the epistemological question, then, is: why ascribe such an obnoxious plot to Nigeria?

To have people represented as Nigerians clad in tattered rags, referred to as refugees, and benevolently offered bits of American soldier food made me feel like running to the front of the theatre to repudiate, on the spot, the movie’s premise. If not for the release of the exasperation caused by the assault on Nigeria, I would have at least disabused the minds of viewers of the assault on their collective intelligence and sensibilities.

In the end, we are left with the impression that, once again, the caucasoid demigod has succeeded in saving the confounded African negroid from himself, as the helicopters rise in messianic ascension into the clouds. Indeed, the scene was reminiscent of the very Christ ascending into heaven, after saving wretched man from eternal damnation.

Tears of the Sun does nothing but unleash a demeaning onslaught on an African nation, and an unflattering abuse on the minds of a generation of Americans, with misrepresentations of the social and political realities of today’s Nigeria.

And, oh, the movie, if I were to assume the role of movie critic for a moment, has no real morals, hinges on warped principles, and would be receiving a rather charitable assessment if it were compared to, say, Schwarzeneggar’s Commando (which, itself, was a bad movie). Tears of the Sun is, to put it as it is, a lie.

My only regret is that my $9 (price of movie ticket) goes towards enriching a band of lying connivers.

Ever since my introduction to the philosophy of the human nature in Dr. Lichtenbert’s class, I have generally sided with Jean Jacques Rousseau (pictured). Rousseau contended that man (i.e. the human species) is inherently good; that it is society’s crassness that corrupts and imbues us with a propensity toward evil. In effect, the argument was that, left to his devices, man would comport himself.

In spite of my inclination toward Rousseau, I saw merit in Thomas Hobbes’ assessment of man as brutish, base, and essentially evil.(Hobbes was Rousseau’s major antagonist on the issue of the essential human nature). Every day, I saw evidence in favor of the argument that man is evil, rather than good, by default; and that it in fact takes concerted effort to be good. Hobbes’ evaluation of man, though bleak, seemed to correlate more closely with my daily observations of the human species. Nonetheless, perhaps because I wanted man to be essentially good, I sided with Rousseau.

Allow me then to tell you about the singular incident that caused me to rethink my position on the subject of the human nature.

§

For as long as I could remember, my buddy Ben had been raving about one of the clubs in the Wrigleyville cluster around Clark and Addison streets, so I agreed to go with him to John Barleycorn one Friday evening. While I doubt that Barleycorn qualifies as the best thing in the Wrigleyville area, I will affirm that you probably will never find better tasting Long Islands elsewhere.

Anyhow, after the obligatory round of drinks and a few overtures at some of the girls around the bar, we proceeded upstairs to the dance floor. It appeared that we were relatively early; we were still able to move from one end of the floor to the other with relative ease. Invariably, the room’s temperature began to rise as more people crammed into it, as the evening wore on.

Ben and I were standing at the bar, drinks in hand, surveying the environment much the same way a lion in search of prey would. I was wearing this incredible, Morpheus-ish leather jacket (à la The Matrix) that never failed to inspire me with an increased sense of confidence. Succinctly, I loved that jacket.

By midnight though, the dance floor on that upper level had become so crammed with party revelers drinking and gyrating to assorted contemporary urban music, that the temperature in the room had risen dramatically since when we first arrived. I had to take the jacket off.

At the other end of the room, there were a set of wall hooks that were meant, ostensibly, to hold jackets. I told Ben I’d be right back and squeezed my way through the throng of people towards the wall bearing the cloth hooks. When I got there, I took the jacket off to reveal the hunk of masculinity that lay beneath, and hung it on one of hooks. I removed my wallet and cell phone, but not wanting the latter, a rather bulky contraption (this was 2003) bulging out of my pant pockets, I returned it into the jacket’s flank pocket. Bah, I thought to myself, no one’s gonna steal your jacket… Man is essentially good.

I went back to meet up with Ben, and we did what two buddies out for a night on the town do: we grabbed a few more drinks, bumped-n-ground with a couple of babes, took a few telephones numbers (a good number of them bogus, it would turn out), and generally tried to have a good time. By the end of the night, exhausted, sleepy, and slightly inebriated, I returned to the wall to get my jacket. It was gone.

Worse yet, by the next day, the jacket thief (who serendipitously found my cell phone in the jacket pocket) had placed numerous international calls to Ecuador and Peru. My phone bill that month was over $350!

So, with that incident I lost my last shred of faith in man, and defected from Rousseau’s school of thought.

Man, as far as I am now concerned, is base, base, base!

Initial: 12 June 2003; Revised: 29 June 2006.