Delta Farce: Nigeria's Oil Mess, Squabbling Rebels, Corruption Cast Doubt on Peace Plan – by Bill CoSat, 19 Sep 2009
Nigeria News
THE NIGER DELTA, Nigeria -- Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua unveiled an offer in June for rebels to turn in their weapons in exchange for amnesty. Militant leader Ateke Tom watched the news conference on a flat-panel TV at his remote camp deep in this oil-rich expanse of wetlands."We want to observe the government's moves before coming out," Mr. Tom said a few days later in an interview at his outpost.Outside his concrete residence, young men in camouflage tank tops watched American movies and smoked marijuana in cigar-size joints, their AK-47s lying in the mud beside them.Mr. Tom, a squat man sporting a G-Unit T-shirt and a gaudy medallion around his neck, said he was negotiating with federal officials, not the state government, which he doesn't trust. "The governor wants me dead," he said.Mr. Tom and other militant leaders have wreaked havoc in recent years on Nigeria's oil industry -- and consequently its economy -- from this vast network of densely forested creeks that fan out to the Gulf of Guinea. Now they must decide whether to stop their costly attacks on oil facilities and come out of the creeks once and for all.
Hip Hop Reinvents DuBoise's Talented Tenth
5 comments:
Evidently hip hop also taught you how to spell "Du Bois."
Ooops. "Dubois". My fault. Good lookin' out Undercover.
Interestingly enough, WEB thought ya'll corporate Negros were going to be the Talented Tenth too didn't he?
Surprise.
Ya'll might not want to be free, but you can spell your asses off.
DV
I'll assume your funky li'l headline and endlines on hiphop were just for the giggles and to get folks' attention.
Nah.
Actually Kay Duub. It's a direct personalchallenge to you ... to post or link any evidence to the contrary.
I lay my cards flat.
Hip Hop is a much greater ideological influence upon actually armed combatants on the African continent ... than any other ideological influence.
It is Fiddy Cent, Tupac and Nas played on bootleg CD's all over Africa. Not Frantz Fanon, Nkrumah or Jomo Kenyatta.
The same paradigm exists in America. Educated Plantation Negros wax nostalgic about Malcolm, H Rap and Huey ... yet vote Democratic and borrow money to send their children to be educated by exactly whom Malcolm called "Massa".
... while the cats who actually carry guns and use them are channeling Young Jeezy from iPods connected to their brains.
Hey DV,
Young Veezey said:
"Hip Hop is a much greater ideological influence upon actually armed combatants on the African continent ... than any other ideological influence."
No, money and power is. Hiphop simply presents the lure of money in as attractive a package for the young urban misfit, socialite or rebel. On a global level; it's appeal is the same but to suggest that it's the biggest influence misses the point of war and civil unrest its a struggle over money and power not Fiddy's latest mixtape or a G-Unit medallion. Hiphop is simply a material and cultural accessory, the trend of now; not the motivation.
MNR bandits in Angola or RENAMO bandits in Mozambique in the 80's were listening to Tosh and Bob chanting abt getting free. But those dissidents were dreaming of money and power. Had they read Fanon and Kenyatta or let Bob and Tosh's words truly sink in, their material ambitions and method of execution would be alot more different.
Ateke Tom's rage would be directed at neo-colonial forces like Shell in Nigeria. He and his rebel army would talking about power for the people, chanting down the government for their selling their country to these bloodsuckers, but they're not. They're only out to get theirs and for them alone.
If, for the giggles, hiphop's got any influence over their C.R.E.A.M modus operandae then it's a sad indictment on the music; for influencing rebellions that create more civil unrest and tribal divisions rather than curtail them to unite against a common enemy.
If that ideological influence translates to America's Black gangs in the hood then you're saying DeLores Tucker was right. And that ain't so.
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