4.5.4. DETOUR: NATIONALIST HISTORY HIDES ISSUES NOW

 

IT LETS MODERN POLITICIANS APPROPRIATE THE PAST, LETTING US IGNORE HOW ITS RIPPLES REMAIN  

Statue in Conakry / Internet

The paunch, an invention, is a sign of wealth and prestige when food is scarce and separates the leader from the people. 

Take Boko Haram and its impact on Mandara, hinterland of Bornu and Logone, where adult male prisoners were killed by having a leg cut off. 

A man remembers, "My uncles were taken as slaves. We don't forget, and Boko Haram recalls the time that our elders described."

-- Donald Tada, 

cited in  Au Cameroun, la montagne des persécutés de Boko Haram 

by Joan Tilouine, "Le Monde," May 23 2018 

Indo-Asian News Service

Boko, book; haram, forbidden: The government of Southern Nigeria built few schools in the North, and many youths were excluded from education. Were their ancestors' raids a reason?

# # #

The past has little to do with what politically useful history 

says.

Ignoring the raided hides

what outsiders ignore 

but that victims do not forget. 

*     *     *  
Next,

Une histoire qui souligne l'Occident