Friday, February 15, 2008

Soyinka's doc on cults

Here. For some reason, you can't post YouTube videos straight onto blogger anymore, unless I'm being thick. Be warned, its pretty gruesome.

8 comments:

obinna izeogu 8:46 pm  

Nigeria has such a long way to go, it's really frightening. I probably grew up in a bubble where everyone was pretty much educated and did not harbor such barbarism (on a university campus mind you).

Chude! 11:06 pm  

OMG, I know this is a serious ,matterr - but WS voice ... ah, it's a filmmaker's dream. And the way he slowly sucked that stupid man into making damning confessions... a class act.

Chxta 12:15 pm  

I like the part about being thick, Jeremy's part that is...

Anonymous,  1:54 pm  

WS takes no responsibility for introducing the first campus cult. What was he thinking? Now he seems at a loss about the solution.

Nija is a 'mafia' country, where membership of cliques/'cults' is woven into the very political/power fabric. Someone once said that cultists are merely doing what you do in university - prepare yourself for a career beyond. Given that many of our leaders are 'cultists' (literally and figuratively), what better way to prepare one's self for the world beyond uni?

Anonymous,  4:52 pm  

At anonymous 1:54, WS is no more responsible for the madness of cultism in Nigeria than Thomas Edison is for the death of a man who dies from electric shock as he changed a lightbulb. You can begin something harmless and indeed benign - a sick society like Nigeria's alters its very nature.

RJ 6:40 pm  

@ Anonymous, why should WS take responsibility for "introducing the first campus cult"? The poor man introduced a harmless fraternity and we need to understand that there is a difference between the two. It’s so typical of the Nigerian govt. and some of its people to always want to blame someone else for the wrong doings in the society rather than look for ways to eradicate them. Someone please tell me what steps has been taken? What they need to understand in that country is sometimes it takes more than pastors and vigils to end a problem, sometimes it’s just proper governance and good policing. But alas, they obviously don’t care because their children are all in foreign schools and don’t have to deal with that mess....but what about the man that can’t send his kids abroad, would he always have sleepless nights wondering if his kids would come back during the next holiday?

Anonymous,  8:42 pm  

WS didn't invent cultism, for sure. He did make them sexy and introduce them to the academic environment in Nija.

Very often (including on the video) campus cultists defend themselves by claiming to be intellectuals and top students. This is a reference to WS, indirectly. He lent cultists that air of superiority/legitimacy, which follwed him through his experiences in jail and all the way to the Nobel.

WS was the poster-boy of cultism and gave the phenomenon cover (not thru anything he did or said, just the fact that he started the first one) through its incubation years, when otherwise it would have died or been crushed.

Once again however 'Naijbloggers' have it as Nigeria's fault. Two weeks ago 'Nigeria' was to blame for 'letting down' Achebe and forcing him into exile.

How will anything change, when everything is no one's responsibility?

nneoma 6:28 am  

someone needs to show this documentary to secondary school student before they enter university - i think prevention may prove key to stemming the increasing popularity of campus cultism.

and i agree with chude - WS's voice is amazing.

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