Sleeping with One Eye Open in a Time of Insecurity

By

Obododimma Oha

The expression “sleeping with one eye open” is an example of a statement of contradiction in logic. One asleep normally shuts two eyes in order to travel out from the body. Unless one is into witchcraft (if you believe in that creepy spirituality) or one is one strange alien whose idea of “sleep” is different from ours. But if one is at home with our human reality, one would view sleeping with one eye open as a very strange practice. Yet the expression becomes a necessary counsel in a time of insecurity or uncertainty where one may be in one’s hut at night only for invaders to break open the door, rape one’s pregnant wife, slaughter one’s children, and set the hut ablaze afterwards. One has to sleep with one eye open and observe the movement of malevolent shadows in the dark. Did our ancestors not take necessary measures to save themselves from slave-raiders, kidnappers, burglars, invaders, and all kinds of mischief makers? Now, we claim to be wiser, helped by exposure to modern technology, how can we be helpless? If we ask them humbly how they were able to do it in their own time, perhaps, they  would tell us. The fact is that we must be ready to learn. For we are in this galaxy to learn.

The Igbo sage puts it rightly: “Kee nkwụcha, na nkwụcha abụghị ụjọ” (Be vigilant, for vigilance is not an attitude of fear at all”). Another Igbo expression from the mouth of another sage adds: “Dụlaga m abụghị ụjọ maka na onweghị onye n’amaghị be ya (“See me off is not a symptom of fear because there is no one that cannot tell the way to their homestead”). And so, watchfulness is an ancient and all-time requirement. Leadership and the Law in many post-colonial nations may claim to be our protector, but our survival remains our individual businesses. Sleeping with one eye open and sleeping with both eyes closed in time of big trouble only indicate how far one understands one’s reality or environment and the measure of skills (life skills) one has cared to develop.

If I say that “sleeping with one eye open” is an example of a contradictory statement, am I not speaking from an angle of one privileged logic; am I not saying that there is a logic that is idealistic and better left to the books and the logic that flows from one’s understanding of one’s reality? “Sleeping with one eye open” may look like a contradictory statement in a logic taught at school, but not contradictory in a context where judgments are not held down with tough nails. In very strange situations, meaning has to be encoded in unusual ways and the insider has to have the keys to be able to unlock the doors of meanings. “Sleeping with one eye open” becomes the oppositional logic operational in worlds where things stand on their heads. Yes; worlds where things are upside-down, and being upside-down is my own problem, a perspective imposed by my reality or the way I look at things. That reminds one that in Igbo folktales, for instance, whenever the narrative shifts to the land of the spirits, the representation of things changes. The logic changes. The spirits, because they have to be unlike us, are presented as walking upside-down, speaking through their noses, could be given seven heads, process information differently, and made to do strange things. For instance, they could eat through their eyes and may be offended if you frown at that or laugh at them! In other words, if we look at the statement (“sleeping with one eye open”), we could discover that it is inviting us to read meanings differently because it is a strange new world where, if humans have learnt to shoot without missing, one has to learn to fly without perching.

One has to learn to “sleep with one eye open” if cows are rated more important than humans and populations are slaughtered, including babies, because we in the era where communities could be”sacked” and renamed and a gate-keepers would watch this, helpless.

One has to learn to “sleep with one eye open” because cows are free to move free-range and could enter a garden and ruin it, devastating sites of labour from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean. The cows could even move freely in the streets of New York and London in the 17th century pretending to be the 21st century!

One has to begin to “sleep with one eye open” because we are back to being hunters and gatherers across time and no land belongs to anybody. In fact, one does not need be civilized anymore but should turn caves into homes, traversing territories and swinging one’s crudeness.

“Sleeping with one eye open” tells me to stop saying that it is well when it is not. I am either a hypocrite or a liar or even both if I say that it is well, when it is NOT. When logic fights logic, thinking is in trouble! Is thinking not even in trouble if one has to sleep with one eye open, or if somebody is moving backwards while others are moving forwards? 

Lost Civilization

By

Obododimma Oha

Where art thou, now, university

At the beginning or the end?

In the Republic of Freedom

Or the Kingdom of Tyranny?

What are you, now,

A Community of Knowers

Or a Community of Blockheads?

You are

That lost civilization

And also the ambitious future.

You are the wisdom

That conceals foolishness.

Is that a chorister’s robe

That I see

Or a gown that teaches the town?

Look, university, be the horizon of insight

Untainted by ignorance!

Women and the Ownership or Use of Radio and Television in Nigeria

By

Obododimma Oha

Radio and television are important narrators in modern culture. As important narrators, they have to be identified with gate-keeping and their ownership or control also has to align with power or control. In Africa, this can differ from culture to culture. Whereas in some African cultures women can have property, for instance land and houses or have professions that could keep them away from home for a long time, like being a market woman in Yoruba culture (or iyaloja), women, in some cases, have some freedom to maintain radio sets. Previously in many Igbo communities, the narrative power of radio and television was expected to submit to the headship of the family. However, in recent times where cultures shift and many mobile phones have radio and TV as part of built-in multimedia application, ownership and control of these narrative devices are fast changing. Many women in African local communities could tune the radio and listen to news and even other favourite programmes like soccer commentary while waiting for customers in their shops.

 Also, as a way of managing daily stress in their daily lives and with the hold Nollywood films have on their lives in their typical narrations, they may have favourite television programmes like comedy series, sermons, or African Magic (which enacts s new form of magic in their lives, exchanging fiction for reality or presenting what they consume as reality, to reinforce the powers of falsehood in the African society.

Another interesting angle: yes, this ownership or control of the media is comparable to that exercised by governments and some very rich people in society. Don’t ask me whether they influence views or shape them for they do. Don’t ask me if they influence popular thinking and dominant logic for they do. They package and shape and disseminate meanings. The meanings suggested by ordinary and poor folks do not “hold water” and influence little, if they ever do, in society.

Yet, another interesting angle: the ownership and control of the radio set need to be seen also in relation to the ubiquity of mobile phones which many wives can buy and possess. They operate radio apps from these mobile devices, too, even while they work in the streets (sweeping, for instance) and while cooking. Of course, if they are not careful, the distraction from the phones could cause them to add too much salt or too much pepper to the food, Or even add the phones mistakenly to the boiling water! That means, calls and music while they work could be risky!

Whatever may be the case, it is getting very outdated to construct masculine authority as dominant narrative power that can even harness the gramophone, turn-table, television, radio, mobile phone, etc. Such a construction is also laughable. I believe that masculinity may have started leaving radio and television, or even the  computer, to look for other allies!

Being Gifted with Buttocks and not Knowing How to Sit Down

By

Obododimma Oha

Some Igbo proverbs can be very expressive and amusing, and I suspect that this applies to proverbs in many other languages that can be found in Nigeria, especially the Volta-Niger family where Igbo is currently classified. Proverbs are amusing to us, partly because we apply our real-life human situations to the context they literally contain and because of what we find ridiculous in them. One such proverb in Igbo that we can find quite amusing is the saying attributed to the dog: Nkịta sị na ndi nwere ike amaghị anọ ọdụ (The dog says that those who have buttocks do not know how to sit down). So, the dog has been watching us! I thought that it is merely squatting as a “long-throat” as we wrestle with the bony part of the meat! So, the thoughts of that dog can be verbalized; in other words, somebody in the room knows what it is thinking? Also, so the dog speaks our own language but something in its barking makes the deciphering difficult! Dog trainers and vet doctors should hear these!

I wonder why the sage chose to put these human thoughts and human words into the mouth of the barking dog. What more, making the bloody squatting animal a satirist of human behaviour. Who knows whether the dog has applied to USAAfricaDialogue to become a member! Then, it can also watch the shapes of our tongues and the colours of our teeth. In fact, one has to be careful, for (not Big Brother) that dog, that mongrel, that poodle, that bulldog, the terrier... may be watching out for one’s posts!

Animals speak for animals. That is normal. Only when animals speaking for animals and like animals is a strategy of entrapment. The dinta (or ode in Yoruba) knows that very well. Sometimes he pretends to be an animal by imitating the sounds associated with the animal and easily deceives its mates. The get closer, thinking the sound is from a friend, not knowing it is from the worst enemy. Then, BANG! And the mumu animal is down and out. Its life is over among enemies that pretend to be friends. Its journey in the jungle is over.

Some would classify proverbs of this nature attributed to an animal under wellerism, or a statement which contains a known proverb or quotation, a fresh use, and an utterer, which of course adds to its humour and strangeness. So, using those criteria, let us just accept the classification tentatively. The point remains that the lower is positioned to teach the higher, which is perfectly in line with the idea that those who are gifted with buttocks do not know how to sit down!

But why is it so? Is the dog right? Does this apply to individuals as well as large groups like countries. Is the conclusion of the squatting down valid or is the dog merely jealous? Is it not in the province of irony that those that have buttocks do not know how to sit down?

Given that buttocks are for sitting down, whatever “sitting down” means. Given that the dog, literally speaking, is in the fictive situation saying so after comparing itself with those who have buttocks. But the dog has buttocks. Except that animal is denying it, seeing the presence of a tail it wags often as the absence of buttocks. In that case, it sees the tail as a disadvantage, as a symbol of lack! No wonder it prefers to squat here and there.

Igbo culture uses it and its logic as a paradigm for appreciating wise use of resources, or what one is gifted with. It is clearly shown that those who have an advantage ironically turn it to a disadvantage sadly. Are some individuals not misusing (or not using) opportunities? Are some people that subscribe to USAAfricaDialogue actually reading others and do they learn from this virtual classroom? Do they really use the opportunities (fellowships, conferences, workshops, etc) for academic growth or do they stockpile them like any other social media luggage?

No; don’t talk about some shithole countries. It could be very obvious that they misuse resources, and worse still, hardly care about human resources. Oh; why shouldn’t millions be slaughtered or rendered homeless? Are these countries not greatly overpopulated? Is it not better to slaughter the populations as a way of reducing the populations? After all, a country is not its citizens; it is just the map.

Dear dog, keep squatting and learning human language. Keep criticizing the absurd human behaviour. Every observer needs to squat, not sit!