Ruyi's World of Books & Stories

I was on a national radio program here yesterday to offer my thoughts on the recent tragedy of black slave auctions in Libya. Here we go. 1) I am shocked and outraged like everyone else but I am not surprised. 2) I am not surprised that black Africans are being auctioned in broad daylight in Libya because I am not divorcing what is happening now as we speak from the overall history of the Arab Slave Trade in black Africa. 3) It is more fashionable to talk about the trans-Atlantic slave trade which moved millions of black Africans to the Americas. The history of Arab enslavers of black Africans is not well-known. It is hardly present in the school curriculum in Africa. 4) Yet, Arab Slave slave traders and hunters preceded European slave traders and hunters in black Africa by seven centuries. 5) For seven continuous centuries before the Europeans, Arabs traded in black bodies, routed them through North Africa to be sold all over Arabia and the Middle East as slaves....

The Arab slave trade is a fact of history, and anti-black racism in the region is something that must be addressed. Migrant workers from African countries often face abusive conditions in the Middle East [AP] In response to an essay I wrote recently regarding the "essential blackness" of the Palestinian struggle, I received this reaction, among others: "What about Arab anti-black racism? Or the Arab slave trade?" The Arab slave trade is a fact of history and anti-black racism is a fact of current reality, a shameful thing that must be confronted in Arab societies. Though I claim no expertise on the subject, I think that applying notions of racism as it exists in the US will preclude a real understanding of the subject in the Arab world. I spent much of much of my youth in the Arab world and I do not recall having a race consciousness until I came to the United States at the age of 13. My knowledge of Arab anti-black racism comes predominantly from ...

So, when did polygyny become a distasteful arrangement in Nigeria? I am confused. This entire side-chick syndrome didn't exist a decade, or so, ago because most of you did come from a polygyny setup. And if you weren't aware of it initially, you were fully informed when your father died. Branches of his polygyny sprouted from the family tree at his burial, and you met new siblings that lived just as well as you did. We despise polygyny because it isn't "woke" enough. That's the stuff our fathers did. Polyandry is being applauded in some quarters because, well, it sounds different. It's the same way we embrace feminism without having a clue what to do with it. While you are all slashing the cheek of some side-chick for trespassing, realize that polygyny is going nowhere. As long as the Nigerian masses still live below a dollar daily; as long as there are no jobs, no water, poor institutions that meet our health, legal, educational needs...

Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke The just-concluded Reinhard Bonnke's farewell crusade taught me a great lesson that will remain with me all the days of my life on earth. The preparation for the crusade centered around heads of churches and ministries, officers of the Christian Association of Nigeria ( CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria ( PFN). Committees were drawn from these groups to cater for accommodation, IT needs, counseling of new converts and transportation. At the committee level, a number of heads of ministries and churches were particular about the finance, how much will be available to them in cash but the Deeper life church was particular about the souls. I'm not a member of Deeper life but as a top officer I watched on. Others kept on demanding for money to work but the officials of the Deeper life Church were encouraging the brethren to sacrifice. The Deeper life church supplied about 50,000 counselors and provided their camp free of charge t...

Nigerians just like to trivialize issues unnecessarily. Frankly, it's annoying. Okay, I am annoyed. I don vex. Shey una happy now? I have been following arguments on Ogbeni Ganduje's empowerment of the Mai Shai people in Kano. There has been some very powerful advocacy for the economy and the economics of Mai Shayism. Those sympathetic to Ganduje's gesture have made seductive and persuasive submissions in favour of the legitimacy of the Mai Shai as a cornerstone of the informal and SME sectors, especially in the North. I've been reading and following the arguments and wondering: who exactly is quarreling with any of these submissions? Who exactly is saying that Mai Shayism is not a legitimate pillar of the informal economy that should be encouraged? Who exactly is saying that the Mai Shai is not running an SME? Why do people like to set up a submission that nobody is making and spend two days demolishing it? I even have a cultural stake in the Mai Shai...

Today, the convoys of Rotimi Amaechi and Nyesom Wike clashed in Port Harcourt. Tomorrow, the airwaves will be flooded by their aides. There will be narratives and counter-narratives. Colourful lies will clash with colourful hyperbole. Aides will be locked in a competition to win public sympathy for their bosses. On all sides, the scramble for the winning story actually starts tonight. Citizen, let me advise you. Let the aides do what they are paid to do. You have no dog in this fight. It is just two irresponsible Nigerian leaders involved in a street fight. Who is right and who is wrong between Wike and Amaechi is none of your business. Both men are mountains on your back. They are your oppressor. In these tough economic times, do not be misled by aides to waste your precious data taking sides with one man against the other. The only way this applies to you is that you are the grass beneath the feet of the two elephants going at it naked in public. You want to know how you ar...

For Africa of tomorrow, we creed, for the love of our father's land we must fight a fight worthy of praise. We have learned to mask the sun, we have learned to cover the sky for our creed to be heard by all and all. For Africa of tomorrow, we must not cry again, For Mandela shall come again for free. Our cries shall not again break the dawn, for the whispering of cricket is heard far and wide so shall our laughter silence sorrows. New era has come with a palm wine of smiles, Streaming the fate of every African to goodness. For the love of Africa, we shall sing again, plant trees of faithfulness and understanding. We are born with tradition and culture, we have pregnant lands waiting for tomorrow, and we must handle every tide that brings memories into the bosom of our breastful heart. And history of agonies must not go back with the loneliness in our mouths. For the brightness of our surrounding is hope, the black race of our minds is t...

Joe sez:  This blog originally appeared in 2010. It's extremely prescient about the future of ebooks, but that isn't the reason I'm reposting it. I'm reposting because I got my very first DMCA Takedown notice. Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again. Apparently my infringement, according to the website Lumen, was including an Amazon link to auth...