the debate with Agbonkpolor I
*****************************************************************************************
"I am already getting serious thoughts about the sheer ignorance and subjectivity of discourses being paraded by some on this forum"
-Thomas A, while engaging Chom B on Adams O
"We can make progress in our advocacy by placing commentaries in historical context"
-TA, posted Wed Aug '08
Dear TA,
I do sincerely wish you a very happy new year. I was slightly amused when I read your posting in response to my view on the "colonialism is better than corruption" thesis of Osita. Since you have not only addressed that issue but raised questions pertaining to the theoretical perspective I stand on and the application of "its principles to the contemporary world", I was faced with the twin tasks of; responding to you on the issue at hand & making my view on the broader context you set explicit.
The first task was simple enough. But since it was tied to the second, I decided to address them together. The second entailed my going through each of the 54 postings you had made (based on the results of the email search machine + some discussions that flowed from your postings and google searches on you as you suggested to Oyebisi in one of your postings), to establish what -if you ever had been explicit about it - your theoretical perspective is. I do not stand on a dais and say "hey anybody, what theory guides you?" in my discourse on this forum or any other. That would be sectarian, I rather provide a "concrete analysis of concrete reality" with theory as a guide to action. But since you have called my theoretical perspective to question it was necessary to establish what yours is and more importantly how it has pertained to addressing concrete contemporary problems.
Thus, I wish to appeal for some understanding if this particular posting of mine turns out to be a bit longer than my , "unfortunately" not necessarily short postings..To save time though and also to show your positions utter bankruptcy, with all due respect, I will answer you in the main with your own words and positions from the >100 postings I have made in about the same time with you here...starting with the opening quote from you above...
First on the issue of corruption, colonialism, "C" caution, etc.
You start with "One only needs a simple comparative analysis" to establish your case, and then "the current carnage on Nigerian roads in any particular year, those that die from 'generator fumes', wastage arising from class warfare between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' (read victim of armed robberies, policemen, militants, rank and file soldiers and others battling to sustain the status quo)" becomes what is used to contrast "colonialism".
=>While it could be arguably put that corruption is related to those phenomena, it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition talkless of them adding up to corruption itself. Neither would the carnage on German roads lead a German to prefer the less tenuous times of Fredrick the Great, nor make an American prefer the idyllic days before 1776 to the "class warfare" of the armed robberies and high murder rates.
The conclusion of this; "Statistically, such wastage in say 2008 dwarfs the Iva Valley 21", substitutes quantity for quality. The differences between colonialism and corruption, I argue are rather qualitative.
You wonder "why has Nigeria not grown since independence if corruption is that benign?"
=> i. Nigeria has "grown" in so many ways. The problem is that we are underdeveloping instead of development being enthroned.
ii. I do not consider "corruption" as being benign or not a problem -I have never done this and I challenge you and all that tend to imply this to point out one single place where I have done such- What I am against is the fetishism of corruption as the end all and be all of our nation's tragic story.
iii. Indonesia, for example is a country that has as outdone Nigeria on the inter. corruption index time and again (I'm fairly acquainted with the socio-economics of India -which you gave as an example-; it reeks of corruption, as well). This itself suggests fault lines in your argument and calls for our looking out for other things along with or deeper than corruption, as the reason(s) why we have not been able to found the kind of post-colonial Nigeria that those who fought and died for SGN fought and died for.
I have used broad strokes in addressing your view vide Osita, not to delay us from a voyage into the murkier waters of theory & theory-praxis relations which you raised. In short; I believe it will be correct to say that the the socio-economic realities of post-colonial Nigeria is worse than that of Nigeria in the colonial era and corruption is a key factor in this. To however put the thesis you defend here forward is reductionist, ahistorical and in your words (14/09/06) defies "serious philosophical scrutiny" and is as well "jaundiced, unreaserched and intellectually shallow" (see; 25/03/08). And beyond that, which more than any other reason I insist on my intransigence on this issue; wrong diagnosis can hardly ever lead to the correct prognosis. It really is important that we situate our views and arguments in "historical context" for not only advocacy but indeed all the strands of our struggles and particularly our country to make progress; that is all I ask and stand on my right to do.
I will be taking the trouble to engage you on the second and very fundamental aspect of your submission because from your posts (or at least a few of them) you have tried to make yourself out as concerned with "serious thoughts" in one way or the other. I was bothered by your view of my alternative or as you rightly put it "Marxist" views as being suffocative. Considering your being "against...monistic (uni-directional) analysis.." on this 'serve (28/09/06), and your defence of "pluralism", why should any view be considered suffocative.
You further implied an interest in anti-neoliberal politics (see 24/02/09...on Utomi) and a predilection for ideologically sound debate (see your asking about the ideological bent of people to speak at the planned FOIC summit; 05/04/09). I then wonder why a discourse on; "corruption" that while not being unreal also hides a neo-liberal ideological construct muck akin to "good governance" and all those other ideological devices with which the West continues to maintain its hegemony in the world and fulfill its imperialist interests decades after "colonialism" becomes a plank for your "jaundiced, unreaserched and intellectually shallow" interpretation of my interventions and Marxism as well.
I note that while you wrongfully charged Chom with propagating "Trotskite extremism" (I defer taking on your ill informed view on Trotskyism for another time...), refer to Hegel in the discourse on Oshiomhole, talk of ideology and against neo-liberalism as I've pointed out earlier, you have not anywhere defined either your theoretical framework or whence it came from. Wolfgang Sachs, one of the greatest thinkers on Global Environmental Politics who I have the privilege of passing through here started his lectures with us by asserting that every thinker has a master, a source, a chain of shoulders on which you learn and stated his. Who is your teacher? What have you learnt from him/her/them and how do you relate this to seeking to change our present backward realities?
On Nov 19, 2006 on this list serve, while engaging another member who insinuated Marxism as "ideologies" & now irrelevant, I made bold to call a spade a spade and state my position thus;
"I also would not agree with him that "those" ideeologies (I daresay MARXISM!) died. My position on that is, if the BBC (by no stretch of the wildest of imaginations a fan of the left side) could accept Marx as the greatest thinker of a Millennium that witnessed Adam Smith, Ricardo, Hegel, Faraday, Newton, Einstein,Spencer, Washington, Shakespeare, Shaka, Moremi,etc, etc, and his thoughts are "false", "outdated", etc, then I daresay, the the Newtonian laws of motion are balderdash, the Einsteinean laws of relativity are hogwash, Faraday's principles on electricity are bunkum. And that is to say the least."
All I will add to that for now is the simple fact that there is a renaissance of Marxist ideas globally and in parts of Africa in the wake of the financial crisis...even "right" brains in the mainstream press and electronic media across the world have had to refer to Marxism in the past few months....many more persons will in the forthcoming months.
You have reduced the "Marxist" views I suffocate you with, with "the elementary Marxian theories" you studied in school. NO SIR! in your position on the need to re-theorise the state which in your elementary Marxism stopped with Lenin's formulation almost a century back, you showed the limitations of your understanding of MARXISM to those cheap books classics (which would not be unuseful if one could read and understand them, that is...). You obviously left ou the decades of thoughts through Bukharin, Burham, Healy, Gramsci, Cliff, Althusser, Foucault, LeFort, Laclau, Bonefeld, Holloway,Hirsch, Clarke,Polanyi, Poulantzas, Slovo, Jessop, Onimode, Toyo, Pelaez, Portes, Cardoso, Hardt to mention a few. I state this not because people have to read everything, but when you challenge something as an intellectual which you portray yourself as, you should know what you are talking about. It might interest you to know that I met Marxism as a rabid anti-Marxist almost a quarter of a century back (obviously after the elementary classes which you don't seem to have learnt much from, with all due respect, please). But I was honest enough to "test all spirits" and concur with the powerful tool of dialectics for analysis. In the same light, I do not take Marxism s a dogma or a religion. I have learnt from Marxian and other critical thinkers (as the abridged list above shows). I thus ask that engagement should not be on the basis of labeling but one of how consistent is one's argument? is there an internal coherence or not? does it add to our collective body of knowledge or not? could it be useful as a guide to action or not?
With regards to if or not those who have read Das Capital relate it to contemporary situation...? I laugh in Spanish!!!
I think if we are to go through the postings of both of us on this 'serve and relate them to practical action it would be clear who seems more committed to and has demonstrated such to action. But alas! that even only tells an iceberg of the story.....we won't delay you here as there are other issues to engage with.
I want to say though that on suffocation you could speak for yourself. I have had interactions off the Forum with Nigerians from diverse places as RSA, Australia, North America and here in Europe, not to talk of home, many of whom I never knew and who never contributed to discourse on issues I have raised, but who through these came to find a node for deeper theoretical and practical interactions at the political and personal spheres. I thus will uphold my write to write what you can think of any way you want to. Freedom of Information doesn't mean you must access every thing on offer....you can always turn off the dial
In summing up here all I can say borrowing again from your words (22/11/08) is that "unfortunately your types are incapable of understanding let alone appreciating" the nuances of theory and the living relationship between theory and practice.
I hope you have a more enlightening year ahead.
My regards,
BA
Baba Aye,
Between sterile dogmas and productive theories: Reply to Baba Aye
Dear BA,
Many thanks for your piece sent as an attachment to IW on the FOI listserv. I sincerely apologise for the delay in responding.
The piece came as I was putting finishing touches to some 76 000-word thesis and at the same time doing a law and finance paper at the Amsterdam Centre for Law and Economics. Since the issues raised in your write up had little to do with the core of my research, your piece could not have been a worse distraction which is why I had to put it aside until I have disposed off more pressing matters.
Cutting through your usual verbiage (with due respect), I found the objectives of your exchange as trying to elucidate the theoretical platform from which you fire your canons, make explicit your positions on the ‘colonialism is better than corruption’ debate, and using my words show the ‘bankruptcy of my position’.
It is interesting you embarked on this arduous task because I made a side kick in one of my posting characterizing your discourses as elementary Marxian theories, and you probably felt uncomfortable with that word ‘suffocation’. But others on the listserv have described your postings as boring, pedantic etc, and I have refrained from taking you on when you described my view of Nigerian journalism as ‘unfortunate’ etc simply because such exercise would fast degenerate into the type of interminable ideological quibbling published by the late MOK (incidentally your hero) in his Letters to Nnamdi Azikiwe. To accomplish your objectives, in your wisdom, it has to use of my words to dismiss my position the way the typical rural ‘tailor’ in Nigeria patch clothing of different hues, colour, texture and fabric (pilfered from different clients) hoping to make an elegant dress. It never occurred to you that those words of mine you fished from the web were used in different contexts, on different issues raised by different people. It was tempting to dismiss the analysis from such flawed methodology and I resisted the urge.
Let us now go to the issues. You now argue that the differences between colonialism and corruption are rather qualitative (your emphasis). This of course is restating your obsession with semantics. What advocacy purpose does this distinction of yours serve? You have already been corrected by someone that both colonialism and corruption represent a form of subjugation and subjugation whether by the local or foreign elite remains subjugation.
In your view, Nigeria has ‘grown’ in so many ways by underdeveloping. As a financial economist without training in sophistry; I am unable to engage you on this but I know corruption is not a recent phenomenon in the Nigerian polity. What did late Major Nzeogwu say about the enemies of Nigeria in his coup speech as far back as 1966 and who in his opinion are the enemies? Indians and Indonesians invest their corrupt proceeds in their economy to generate employment etc, one reason India is grouped among the BRIC emerging economies. Instructively none of you ‘from the trench’ – CB, EE etc have come down hard on corruption but would rather prefer to invent slogans to rationalise it. In fact so many now work for NGOs (read Western Government Organizations) begging for crumbs falling from George Soros and Warren Buffet’s tables while railing at imperialist interests with muffled voices.
Saying corruption is a key factor in the post colonial problems of Nigeria on the one hand and being against the fetishism of corruption on the other sounds in my mind like speaking from both sides of the mouth. Such equivocation makes sense only to an armchair theorist who cannot connect the level of corruption in the society to the political brigandage, armed robberies and other indices of state failure. What type of change agent will you consider someone who sits ‘wine in hand’ gloating over the corrupt taking their pound of flesh from Nuhu Ribadu? I belong to the group who maintain that it is possible to acknowledge the triumphs and excesses of the man and that the journey of restoring power to the people in Nigeria must necessarily begin from somewhere. Many realists have underscored this position as you can easily confirm by visiting Nigeria village square. This is the position Prof Said Adejumobi articulated in his most recent entry on the Guardian.
That brings me to the rhetoric of your group and the second fundamental issue of our exchange. You managed to identify my position in my various postings thus
§ A pluralist,
§ Against neo-liberal philosophies,
§ Against corruption hence the stress on accountability in the ill-planned and not-to-be FOI summit,
§ Having a predilection for ideologically sound debates etc.
Is there no logical structure to the above world view? Let us first recognize that the above are what you have been able to identify as my position. And you ask who my teacher is? The question needed to be framed properly. BA, who are your students? Having plied a trade for 25 years in your words, if you are successful shouldn’t you have students? You need to revisit your list (of teachers) and discover how long many lived and the age many of them wrote their magnum opus. The colouration of that list throws insight into your seeming incapacity to transcend a single ideological /philosophical tradition in the 21st century world where different ideas are in contest dialectically. Even then a little perusal of the journals – New left Review or Post Keynesian Economics would have acquainted you with the state of knowledge in that narrow field. It is no surprise that thinkers like Benjamin Disraeli, Waldo Emerson, Adam Smith, Karl Popper, Emile Durkheim or Alexis de Tocqueville did not make your list. So, if your question must be answered, sorry, I do not have teachers in your sense as my type of scholarship is to critically evaluate and synthesize what is on offer and pick that which accords with my definition of reality.
You relish being called a theorist (in one posting by a member of the coalition) and covet the title of being the Karl Marx of the listserv (awarded by a retired soldier). Only few would envy these. It is interesting that the research conducted by Karl Marx largely in the British Museum while on exile in Britain have more connection with contemporary social problems than the hackneyed phrases and sterile dogmas that litter your postings on Nigeria. If there is a ‘renaissance of Marxist ideas’ as you claim, where does that leave the current catastrophic prospect of Nigeria being a failed state during our life time? In any case, Marxist ideas have always been a tool-kit of social analysis as any serious scholar (whether left-, centre-, or right-wing) will attest to.
In closing, let me invite you to Kurt Lewin’s injunction that ‘there is nothing as practical as good theory’. To you theory is synonymous with obfuscation, semantics and hair splitting; erudition is equivalent to verbiage, waffling and imprecision. These you have copiously displayed on the FOI listserv and in your opinion make your postings more committed to action than mine. That is your evaluation. Mine is not forthcoming as I am engaged in a more rewarding enterprise at the moment.
This closes my exchange with you on these issues. Thank you.
Thomas Agbonkpolor.
**********************************************************************************************
Comments