On Ethnic Bias.
INTERVIEWER:
Fela, you are a southern Nigerian but you recently presented a special gift to
specially thank Inspector General of Police M D Yesufu, who is a northern
Nigerian prince. This raised eyebrows in some quarters especially due to the
fact that many southern Nigerians avoid northern Nigerians. What's your take on
this?
FELA:
I don't care about any raised eyebrows; I care only about the person that saved
my life and my career. During Gowon's regime, a certain policeman known as
Sunday Adewusi made life unbearable for me. He promised me that I will never
rest, and he made sure I never had rest because I was always arrested, beaten
up, and charged to court almost on weekly basis on the orders of Sunday
Adewusi. Now tell me, is Sunday Adewusi a northern Nigerian?
Let it
be known that when Murtala came to power and made M D Yesufu the inspector
general, my house was never raided, not even once. I have evidence of people
going to meet M D Yesufu to raid my house and get me jailed but he always
replied them that "...Fela is not a criminal..."Why do you think
Obasanjo sent soldiers to burn down my house? It was because M D Yesufu refused
to obey his orders to send policemen he controlled to do such an illegal thing.
So is Obasanjo a northern Nigerian, and Murtala and M D Yesufu, are they
southern Nigerians?
Even
when Abiola owed me money, and I occupied his Decca building to force him to
pay me my money, it was the same M D Yesufu that settled the matter. Instead of
paying me my money, Abiola went to court to get a court order mandating police
to arrest me and detain me but M D Yesufu refused to obey court order to arrest
me but instead spoke to me like a brother. So, tell me, was Abiola a northern
Nigerian, or was M D Yesufu a southern Nigerian?
Even
when I sued Obasanjo to court for burning down my house, was Justice Dosunmu
that threw out my case from court a northern Nigerian? Even Tunji Braithwaite
that was my lawyer at that time, didn't he bungle my case from the beginning,
using me to get popular in Lagos? Was Tunji Braithwaite a northern Nigerian?
I will
never join anybody in believing that everything from southern Nigeria is good,
and everything from northern Nigeria is bad. I've been helped by many southern
Nigerians, and I've been victimised by so many southern Nigerians - Sunday
Adewusi, Obasanjo, Abiola, Tunji Braithwaite, you name it. M D Yesufu was good
to me, even though he is a northern Nigerian, so why won't I go to his official
residence to present him the gift?
-
- Extracted from the book titled _Fela:
This Bitch of a Life_ by Carlos Moore, PhD
ON Feminism
and Gender Roles.
I want to tell you about Lady
I want to tell you about Lady
I want to tell you about Lady
She go say him equal to man.
She go say him get power like man
She go say anything man do himself fit
do.
-From Fela’s track ‘Lady.’
“Women
mmmmm! You see, before I used to be afraid of them. That’s how it started. After
that, fear changed into understanding...”
No, Fela didn’t believe in the ‘equality
of sexes,’ at least, not in EVERY sense of the expression. But unlike most of
his ilk, his argument in favor of masculine dominance, arose not from malice or
stereotypical assumptions imbibed through culture. He was a man who liked to
see himself as being guided by reason, therefore his perspectives on the matter
of gender equality was informed through his own personal observation. In ‘Fela:
This Bitch of a Life’ by Carlos Moore, PhD, he explained:
“Men and women are on two different levels.
You can say different wavelengths. Man. Woman.
Two points that can never meet. Women have different feelings than
men. It’s as simple as that. You can’t compare them. Equality between male and female? No! Never! Impossible! Can never be! It seems the man must
dominate.
“Two different levels” should not be
hastily construed as detailing some ‘god-given’ gender hierarchy, for Fela didn’t
believe the male gender to be innately superior. As someone who believed
in equality of all humanity, that would have been counterintuitive. His
perspective, therefore, is that by creation’s design, neither is superior to
the other. But, he ensures to make a semantic dichotomy between the word, ‘superior’
and ‘dominant’- for though he believed in equality by design, he argues that hierarchy
arises in human interaction and social organization, and males are naturally
predisposed towards leadership, and ergo, dominance. What can be described
as An Argument from Natural Order. Quotes:
“The position of women? Do I see man as being naturally superior to women? Naturally. Why? Well, I wouldn’t say superior.
I’d say dominant. Yes, dominant. Dominant is the word I want, not superior. Dominant
means that there must be a master.
Men are the masters,
not women. When you say, the “master of
the house,” you mean the head of the household: the father, not the woman, man.
That’s life, man. Natural life. Life is based on nature. The nature we don’t see
now. You can’t ask me “Which nature?” ‘cause you can’t see nature. You
understand? What I’m saying is that there’s a natural order which says that man
must be dominant. Yeah!
The advantage
is that one has more strength, can carry heavy loads. He can even carry the woman when she is tired. More strength. But the
woman is more subtle. She is more passive and that is the way it’ supposed to
be, ‘cause that enables her to take care of the house. You can’t have two
dominances. One must be dominant and the
other passive. Then you have a smooth life. There must always be a leader. Even
among spirits, there’s a head spirit!”
Hence, is opinion can be nut-shelled
as thus, “Hierarchical structures and the taking of the apex position by a supposedly
‘stronger’ individual is natural consequence, he therefore concludes that “It’s
part of the natural order for women to be submissive to man.”
Of course, this view influenced his
perception of gender roles:
“… what’s the woman’s role? To keep
the home smooth, the children happy, the husband happy. To make the husband
happy, that’s the woman’s job. Woman get no other work than making the man
happy. ‘Cause when the man is happy, he can move mountains. Women today are not
making men happy, man.”
While it is understandable that he is drawn
to this conclusion, by his belief that he each gender is predisposed towards
performing certain functions, what makes this standpoint quite ironic is that
Fela respected and revered his mother’s powerful activism, and understood the
power she wielded as a force for revolutionary change; his reverence for his
mother and the conclusion that he believed a woman’s place to be within the
parameters aforementioned is irreconcilable.
Of course, we can already predict that
when it came to women liberation which is the bedrock of modern feminism, he
was short of affable words:
“What can a woman do to rule the world? You
see to rule the world you have to do heavy work, like agriculture, etc. … Understand?
You have to build. And building is hard work. It’s a man’s job. Producing
babies is a woman’s job. It’s more tender…”
“So what’s all this women lib about?
Let them come and do exactly what men are doing man. Let them come and start to
build roads. What’s the matter with them? Are dey craze, or what? When they7
can do man’s job, then we can talk about women lib, if you want. Not before!”
It is important to note that women
liberation in the context of his argument does not involve struggles against domestic
violence, FGM and other remarkably oppressive structures engaged in discourses encircling
today’s feminism, but merely the women’s struggle, at that time, for more
inclusion in societal facets and roles once exclusive to men.
Much
of Fela’s opinions hinged heavily on the superior strength men possess, men to
him are the ‘Can-do ones,’ the empowered. But how will such an argument fare in today’s world? When technological advancements, has made physicality
vestigial? What would Fela have thought of Women Liberation today?
-
Quotes
for this article have been extracted from the book titled _Fela: This Bitch of
a Life_ by Carlos Moore, PhD.
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