he 2009 Oil War was a challenge to which Nigeria responded by taking out multi-billion contracts aimed at “re-educating the militants to be non-violent in their demands.” Unless we embrace a civilised and responsible approach to the Niger Delta problem, His Master’s Voice said, the international community will never support us.
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But why are black people so gullible, always parroting phrases without first interrogating their deeper meanings. Lucas Mangope and Mangosuthu Buthelezi made the same mistake. By allowing whites to sell them the idea of “black homeland” or “Bantustan,” total freedom for South Africa was almost defeated. In our days it is non-violence without anyone telling us what manner of non-violence? Gagging people into “non-violent acceptance” is not synonymous with “non-violent resistance,” the former is slavery and the latter freedom. As for your international community, is that phantom not the very banner under which agents of destabilisation hide to destroy Africa? I give you just one instance: Rwanda.
When the 1994 Rwandan Genocide began the international community refused to act. America, China, India and Britain refused to intervene, claiming it was a matter for the very French who masterminded it in collaboration with the Catholic Church of Rwanda. In turn the French declared stopping the genocide was the responsibility of the international community. Africa was back to square one as we suddenly realised the international community never really existed. When these democracies flew in their precious craft such missions were not to rescue endangered Tutsi children but to evacuate their citizens. Tutsis were left on their own as Hutu hatchets rose and fell for one hundred days.
Suppose at the height of the genocide Paul Kagame appeared on the Cable News Network, CNN, claiming that as a “facilitator of non-violence” he did not believe in using force to end it? Of course, whites would have rewarded him as another black idiot. Prove me wrong, but I have come to realise that whites love stupid blacks. It assuages white guilt when they hand you a pair of jeans and you jump up and down in ecstasy like a child. But tell them to help you wrestle your oil wells from Western multinationals and you will soon know what they truly think of you as a black man.
No. Kagame the Great was no idiot. He understood he stood alone in the historic task of saving his people from extinction as no international community or democracy cared. Kagame the Great belongs to the intrepid few who will tell you: Black man, you are on your own! Arming young Tutsis he launched his counter-attack. That was how the few Tutsis who breathed today were saved. I am saying that any measure capable of liberating Black Africa is justified, repeat.
What, exactly, is non-violent resistance? Poignantly, is the non-violence served the youth of Niger Delta the real thing practiced by the highly educated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or a poison brewed by the enemy to turn the recipients into unthinking zombies? Beware: If the voice is Jacob’s, the hand can never be Esau’s. Special warfare might include destroying the minds of these young persons in Dr. King’s name.
In its original and unadulterated form non-violence resistance or civil disobedience is more effective than armed confrontation since it targets specific inhuman conditions on strong moral ground. It attempts change by superiority of argument rather than brute force. Again, I can engage non-violence not as the absence of conflict but the promotion of conditions capable of sustaining man’s well being. Meeting the demands of Niger Delta militants which include job creation, infrastructural development and resource control must be seen as a non-violent measure per excellence.
In all known instances non-violence, I use non-violence here in relation to “resistance” and not “acceptance,” is a mass movement rooted in shared suffering. It begins in the poor people’s quarters where the underdogs and the disenfranchised are to be found spreading uphill to the abode of the mighty. Its trajectory spread is transformatory rather than reformatory and that makes it revolutionary since it seeks to enthrone a just society responsive to all. If started by Moslems, its sheer merit wins over Christians. If championed by blacks, it appeals to whites. Since oppression and tyranny are inherently evil, non-violence begins on a religious tone but ends political. Its very soul is an incorruptible leader who rose from the ranks. In India Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi was the face of non-violence, in America Dr. King served that purpose; but who is the leader of non-violence in the Niger Delta?
Non-violence is nothing new in Nigeria. Chief Ralph Uwazurike modelled his Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, on Gandhi’s non-violence. For all his pains none encouraged him. You now suspect mercenary reason in billions used in enforcing non-violence in the Niger Delta while Uwazurike who practiced it in the same milieu is pilloried (TELL Magazine, No.12, March 19, 2001, Pp. 62-64). The type of non-violence that interests us here is the Kingian taught the youths of Niger Delta. Couched from the circumstances of Dr. King, 1927-1968, we can hardly talk about Kingian non-violence without glancing at the version championed by Gandhi who inspired King.
Born 1869, Gandhi presided over the liquidation of the British Empire in India. After training as lawyer in London he lived briefly in South Africa helping Indians brought there as indentured labourers by the British. On returning to the Orient he led the Indian National Congress preaching “satyaghra” or non-violent resistance. Gandhi encouraged Indians not to cooperate with the British, but never to employ physical force doing so. British cotton, salt and taxes were boycotted. The British responded by branding him a terrorist before hauling him to prison in 1922, 1931 and 1933.
Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, 1889-1964, questioned why the British dragged Indian into World War 11 without first seeking their opinion. From this moment they initiated their “quit India” campaign against the British. Things came to a crisis when the British, rather than allowing food into Bengal and risking such falling into Japanese hands, decided to starve the entire population thus creating the artificial Bengal Famine of 1943. One and half million Bengalese perished and Gandhi was discredited before ordinary Indians who questioned his non-violence in the face of bare-knuckle violence. Gandhi succeeded in winning independence for India in 1947 but a disgruntled Hindu murdered him on the 30th of January 1948 to put an end to his movement which couldn’t stop the British from dividing India on religious lines.
While Gandhi was alive his satyaghra was roundly condemned by the international community who saw him as a threat to the existing colonial order. His death effectively killed non-violence but the armed struggle that rose from its ashes horrified the world. In North Korea Kim II Sung blasted his way to power in 1948, Mao Tse-tung followed suit in 1949 in China, Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk of Egypt in 1952, Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista regime in Cuba in 1958 and also exported violence. White intellectuals who demonised Gandhi now saw him as a saint. From this point everything was done to encourage nationalist movements in Africa to embrace Gandhi and shun Castro.
In South Africa where Gandhi was well known white liberals told the African National Congress, ANC, to adopt non-violence or lose their sympathy. People like Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela got so fed up with non-violence that the former parted ways with the ANC forming the militant Pan-African Congress in 1959; while the latter organised the militant wing of the ANC called Umkhonto we Sizwe, MK, or Spear of the Nation.
Throughout the ‘70s in Salisbury, known today as Harare, white intellectuals cautioned non-violence if the black people of Southern Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, were to be free. But the guerrilla fighter called Robert Gabriel Mugabe continued with his onslaught from the bush till he pushed the racist cabal headed by Ian Smith from power in 1980. Since 2000 the same intellectuals have been encouraging Zimbabweans to “violently overthrow” Mugabe for returning lands stolen by Cecil Rhodes and other white farmers back to their original black owners. How unstable people can be.
In the Kenyan highlands the British also encouraged Jomo Kenyatta and his Kenyan African Union, KAU, to shun violence and emulate Gandhi. But non-violence proved ineffective and a disillusioned Dedan Kimathi launched full scale armed insurgency called the Mau-Mau Rebellion in 1951. That was how Kenya won its independence.
Two black thinkers who clearly saw the trap in non-violence were Frank Fanon and Steve Biko. As colonialism was a product of violence, Fanon argued, decolonisation can only be accomplished by equal violence as property (capitalism) never listens to reason (non-violence). Fanon went a step further by fully identifying with Algerians fighting to push France out of Algeria.
Biko who lived and died under Apartheid had no love for non-violence. His retort to white liberals who preached non-violence was for them to carry their own message to the white camp where all forms of violence originated. For Biko it was simply unthinkable for one white man to kick a black man while another white man arrogates to himself the privilege of dictating to the black man how to respond to the violence of the first white man. Rather than reacting to white aggression in a civilised and non-violent manner, Biko encouraged the oppressed black man to react “in any manner he deems fit.”
But one black leader who embraced Gandhi’s non-violence was Dr. King who entered black struggle in America at a time when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, was in comatose. In 1948 President Harry Truman allowed Blacks to enlist into the American army. In 1954 the American Supreme Court desegregated Southern schools making it open for Blacks also. Through their Citizens’ Councils White America brushed aside non-violence and responded with murder and arson. In 1957 black kids enrolling for education at Little Rock, Arkansas, were manhandled by white mobs who feared black education will usher in black emancipation. Such was the case when King finished his PhD from Boston University and seized the leadership of the alternative Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
In response to America’s continual discrimination against the Negro whom emancipation and reconstruction failed woefully, King told his fellow Blacks to boycott and sit-in white businesses. Negroes must never resort to violence in the demand for their civil rights but they must never obey America’s racist laws because such laws were against the Supreme laws of God. In 1963 he led protests against segregation in Birmingham, Mississippi and Washington. “Burn, baby, burn” became the familiar face of America in 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968 as crippling poverty fuelled black fury.
Against the escalating violence of the white police that jailed him for a record sixteen times many blacks became disenchanted with King’s endless preaching. From the ranks of his followers emerged those who established militant black movements like the Black Panther. In the end, “De Lawd” was murdered on the 4th of April 1968 by James Earl Ray who maintained into the 1990s that he never killed King. Ray’s denial shifted the spot light on America itself as the possible killer.
My number one problem with non-violent resistance, Gandhi’s or Kingian, is that it is the Slave’s unconscious response to the Master’s double standard. Whites believe that free men own guns while slaves don’t. They don’t teach their kids non-violence; they teach them to use firearms with deadly accuracy. Whites did not respond to the bombing of the World Trade Center with non-violence, heads rolled. None raises eyebrow when the white man builds nuclear bomb to protect his wife from being raped. But just attempt a crude bomb to protect the black woman and reap condemnation from the international community. When I think more deeply about the imposition of non-violence as condition for the emancipation of the Niger Delta, I tend to believe there’s attempt to resuscitate in the 21st Century an outdated plantation tradition that gave whites a monopoly of violence.
Secondly, non-violence imposes on the victim of violence the burden of maintaining an improbable peace leaving the perpetrator uncensored. The victim is blamed for resisting violence with violence despite his humanity. Gandhi and King at some point lost the respect of their constituencies in the face of mounting violence from the governments of the day. Non-violence for non-violence sake, elliptically, encourages more violence as morality demands active resistance against evil. Henry Smith who traded his AK 47 for Kingian non-violence thinks training the military Joint Task Force, JTF, in non-violence will balance the equation. The guns still smoking in the creek belong to the JTF but those quarantined for non-violent training are their victims.
Thirdly, it is safe to assume that Nigeria prefers a very narrow definition of violence and this could defeat the ends of justice. Armed militancy is just a form of violence, so too are starvation and poverty. If you agree with me that the Land Use Acts of 1978 is an instrument of oppression, it logically follows that non-violent measures must include the abrogation of all legal instruments inimical to the welfare of the people. Those who preach non-violence this rainy season must first relocate their families from Abuja to Rex Lawson, Okujagu Polo Abo-Ama and Bonny waterside slums and watch their new born babes eaten by giant rats.
Historically, non-violence is a product of social conflict and its success to a large extent depends on the commitment of the two protagonists. In India the British got the message and stepped down for Gandhi. In America the White House signed the Civil Rights Bill. In South Africa, however, patrons of Apartheid undermined black legitimate demands and there was an explosion.
In 2004 I was privileged to attend Comrade Jacob Zuma’s lecture in the Great Hall of the University of the Witwatersrand (also called Wits University), Johannesburg, where he explained the political condition that forced the ANC to discard non-violence for armed struggle. He said, “In the African culture peaceful approach to conflict is accepted. But when an enemy pursues you right into your own hut, the last place you can run to for refuge, then you have the duty to pick up your spear and strike back. That was how those of us in the ANC embraced armed struggle. When we had nowhere else to run to we picked The Spear and fought back. It worked for us.”
“Msholozi!”
The thunderous ovation was deafening.
“100% Zulu Boy!”
Ijaw (ex)militants are meekly lapping up non-violence not to rock the boat for their illustrious son, Goodluck Jonathan. Have you ever pondered what their reaction will be if the belligerent North scuttles Jonathan’s presidency in 2011?
Only the birds have their own wings.
