My Oga at the Top…

Had Mr. Shem Obafaiye not attended that fateful interview on Channels TV last week, he wouldn’t have known how lucky he was. He would have wondered… If only…

It was his first interview, it seems, and he got carried away in his elation. Alas he did not know, or remember, that when an able body identifies himself, or herself, with clothing clearly bearing “Press” especially if stationed on a woman’s bosom, (s)he can be just as embarrassing- and confusing… And so it was that on that fateful TV show, Mr. Shem (note: not Shame) was embarrassed as well as confused. Had he admitted his confusion, he’d have been spared of further, but being a Commandant, he wouldn’t let go: Wait! WAIT!

But none of that bothers me. That’s all. What bothers me is this generation of mine. Ridiculers. Scoffers. Yet they’re no better than the generation of their fathers- they’re worse, if anything. While their fathers craved independence, they crave dependence. They want jobs on a platter of gold, they want a well qualified officer relieved of a job he’s spent half his life working for and in, they want to be in charge of everything. But they can only mouth. That’s all!

They insult a man, not because they could’ve done better (their English is even worse), only because a lot of them are jobless- unemployed as well as unoccupied- and in fact, unemployable. And rather than upgrade and endow themselves, rather than look for less congested jobs and plough, they wait for those at the top to leave- like the top will ever be accessible to someone who hasn’t worked hard to get himself there. Rather than study to make themselves acceptable, they prattle- and incessantly too.

Which well-bred, bold, and well spoken First-class graduate of a marketable course d’you know who is unemployed? Virtually none! In our generation, the world has gone past: Go to school, get a certificate and U’ll automatically get a job. Wake up! In the world of today, it’s every man for himself. Be the best or join the rest. When there’re 7 billion people on the same planet that had held 5 billion less than a century ago, and 170 million in a country that had 100 million about two decades ago, won’t there be survival of the fittest?

Yet, our approach to the predicament is certain to differ. A lot of us dragged ourselves into universities when we could have gone elsewhere. In our quest for wealth, fame and position, we chose courses that either waste lives or waste time. We ran after the cheese of “comfort” when all we needed was convenience. We abandoned our talents and flair, we left adventure for cramming, and left fulfillment for graduation. We entered the rat race. For Mr. Shem Obafaiye, it was to attend three Nigerian Universities (how many of his critics have done as much), get his degrees, get a job and be good at it (which he does so well that there’re testimonies as well as enmities) and when’s he’s on the plateau, appeal to his Oga At The Top to not forget him. Now, criticise that! Could you have done better?

While I do not know the man or his family, I sympathise with his wife and children for whatever emotional and social inconvenience the saga has caused them- and I can only wonder if they did (manage to) go to church today… Nigerian youths hounded these innocent people like hounds that have been starved for decades. And, yes, we have been starved while the agbayas at the Top embezzle and bury and share- but only among themselves. But please spare Mr. Shem and his family. They’re just as affected as we are by our Ogas at the Top.

Bottom line, Mr. Shem is good at his job: curbing crime. He may not know his organisation’s website but he knows oil thieves when he sees them. And he knows that to survive in Nigeria, the Oga At The Top must always be acknowledged- with admiration and smiles, swearing his loyalty with a finger pointed towards (God, our) Oga at the Top, as he did in that revealing interview. Abeg, no be Nigeria we dey?

Plus, over 90% of Nigerian youth’s posts on social media are riddled with grammatical grenades- nay, grammatical mines slightly camouflaged under abbreviations- yet some are so ‘enlightening’ that they light your way to them. It is saddening that these same people will raise eyebrows at another person’s misdemeanor.

Catch your fun as much as you like, but as my personal Oga at the Top, the Lord Jesus Christ, observed nearly two millenia ago, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

Ayk Midas Afowoolukoyasire.

Author. Poet. Editor. Novelist. Farmer.

The FOUR Generations: Why You Do the Things You Do!

WISH-LIST

My uncle, who never ceases telling
Me the complexions of the 9-year

History he

Witnesses before me, starts again.
He wants to know if I see

The tournament

In Mauritius, when I was still a nipper
A nipper, who couldn’t decipher

Between go

And come. Though the Black and
White goggle-box, made the

Colourful streets, gaudy, like
What one sees, when

He’s got a

Black-eye. The leather-strapped
Passe TV, made the

Persian-style

Houses tremble, like a convulsed
Child. The rickety TV,

Granddad bought

With coins and still collected coins,
Turned Port-Louis, Curepipe,

Goodlands, and

Other major cities upside-down,
Like an upended crate

Of beer.

It’s been 19 years since the
History became history,

We now

Have a modest flat-screen TV,
And a cable, that

Snoops into

Other countries’ affairs, and
Tender it before

Us, in our

Very own eyes, in our living room.
The football tournament is

Now a teenager on the leaves of
History, but Mauritius

Remains transfixed. Yes! Its beautiful
Beaches, with water, clean

Like the

Abstemious ways of the prophets,
The Pigeon, pink, like

The palms

Of a newly born baby, and the
Thumping tortoise,

Still counting on

Its 150 something years inside
The pond of history, the

Chamarel Park,

The point, where the Earth shows
Seven different faces,

all

Are still

Transfixed. Except some other
Places of interest, which

Nature forgot

To endow on the island. Man of
Course has taken

Charge of the

Planting, and development of
Of nature’s flaws.

Man and

Nature have forced the Island
Of Mauritius on

The list of wishes I’ve written down
With the ink of

Priority.

ISLAND

At the centre of the sandy spot
Encircled by Swards,

Like the water rounds an Island.
You kneel the kneel of a needy, and

Pray the prayers of a prayer warrior.
Some little boys, who

Strive to re-write their family names
With their legs and other

Materials, other than God’s, play
In a field they purchase with

Many doses of temerity,
Sagacity and more importantly,

Acuity. The
Boys score and celebrate.

They celebrate, and you expostulate.
And I look, I look at the

Distance between
you and the boys. You’re

An island of your
Own. I must timely say.

ISALE-EKO

Just a kid with an
Unquenchable libido for
Soccer, and

A mother, supportive, like
The spines aid the primates.
The journey to

Isale-Eko for a premature
Soccer tourney takes a new twist,
Like a laudable fictional

Story. I dump my zest for
A movie, a movie I see through
Nature’s scenic eyes.

Commercial canoes, conveying
A large number of antsy eyes, some
Cramped with living, dead

And living dead fishes.
Ships, about 2 of them, anchored
To the bank of Whitemen’s

Impatience. Some kids, whose
Parents are peonies, come out of
Their wooden houses

With hooks, to fish out
Survival. My eyes is filled with
Too many stories,

I go back to join the
Rest of the team on the mainland,
I receive a warm handshake

From the desiccated breeze,
And no one needs to say it to me,
That I’m beyond the

Island with its seductive calmness

BIO

D.M Aderibigbe is a 23-year old Nigerian. An undergraduate of History
and Strategic Studies of the University of Lagos. His poetry and short
fiction have been published or forthcoming in 10 countries, in
journals such as Wordriot, The Applicant, Red River Review, Ditch,
Kritya, Thickjam, In Other Words: Merida, Cadaverine, Full of Crow,
DoveTales, The New Black Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Torrid
Literature, Rusty Nail, Vox Poetica, Pyrokinection, Commonline, Rem
Magazine and The Faircloth Review among others. He’s a die-hard Inter
Milan fc fan. His poetry is greatly influenced by Poets such as
Octavio Paz, Seamus Heaney, Kamau Brathwaite, J.P CLark, Ilya
Kaminsky, Natasha Trethewey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn
Brooks, His Prose owes much to Toni Morrison, Nuruddin Farah, J.K
Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Helen Oyeyemi, ZZ Packer, Nick Hornby, and
Helon Habila, and his plays would always be grateful to those of Wole
Soyinka and Arthur Miller. His poems have also appeared in a couple of
anthologies including the Kind-of-a-hurricane Press Christmas
Anthology; Mistletoe Madness, edited by poets A.J Huffman and April
Salzano. He has also seen 2 of his poems included in the 2012 Best of
Anthology, Storm Cycle, and his pieces have also been named The
Beachies Award’s Most Memorable pieces of 2012. He lives and schools
in Lagos.

THE ONE WHOSE FACE IS VEILED

I sit in the bus, en route to Ibadan to deliver an assessment to my
boss. Tears besiege my eyes, big though they are. Big tears preparing
to experience gravity; who dares defy? Yet you could not see on my
face any signs of lacrimation… We Nigerians are masters of
concealment, maybe even deception; deceit even; we’re modern-day Mona
Lisa. Veiled as our faces are, we suffer and smile, we beat and smile,
we are beaten to smile; yet there is one suffering one cannot smile
through… As I endure the journey (what’s there to enjoy? the
potholes on the expressway? the preacher’s convictions pounding in my
ears while the true culprits are yet to be convicted? the local girl
acting ‘touche’ two seats away?) I think back to a time long before
now. A time now long ago; a time long before men hawked…

In the tradtional African setting that ours used to be, men where
breadwinners, women were homekeepers, children were just happy to be
children. There was plenty of food, concrete security, and no, as the
preacher just said, “bribery-corruption” or not so much as a billionth
of that which we now witness. The preacher easily attributes the
modern-day Nigerian situation to demons: demons govern all: greed and
selfishness, the very things that brought us here. Yet I know better.

Our men hawk for lack of jobs, our women die of AIDS or suffer in
contentment, our youths are delinquent or unemployed, and lately, our
four-year-olds spend eight hours in school! All for greed and
selfishness? I beg to differ. Our companies are dead or moved to
Ghana, our ports are congested, yet our Port Authorities ask for
bribes: Pay N120 000 or your containers won’t be cleared. To send
goods into Nigeria is a daytime nightmare for the whole world knows
that our ports are the messiest and our Customs, the greediest! The
whole world knows, save our President who seeks to empower them the
more.

As we enter Ibadan, Nigerians sprint to sell their meagre wares to us
passengers, yet Nigeria is never good at the Commonwealth Games nor
the Olympics. Greed and selfishness. For in Nigeria, neither ascension
nor recognition is not by qualification, even qualification is not by
qualification. It is by self, then relatedness, then by familiarity:
it’s ‘all man for himself’! Each man caters first for himself, then
for his family, then friends, then neighbours; however unqualified
they are. It is no wonder then that the best companies in Nigeria are
owned by strangers more often than not. No wonder that a group of
people can unilaterally recognise an individual as the Father of the
Nation. No wonder that the same Federation that threatened to sack
Keshi else impose a foreign technical adviser on him quicly changed
skin, chameleons, that they are, and threw dances and songs and
coughed out swallowed funds once he won.

It is rather incontrovertible that any group of Nigerians in general
deserves to be heard. But not just to be heard, but to be listened to.
Alas we find ourselves under rulers whose acquired (?congenital; as we
say in Medicine, “query congenital”) partial deafness prevents them
from perceiving subtle pleas but not blatant threats. Rather
unfortunately, the hospitals in Nigeria are unequipped to treat such
conditions. A situation well testified to each time any of our rulers
goes overseas for treatment, or admits their relatives into the
National Hospital, Abuja. Alas, we’re the one whose face is veiled.

In weddings, the bride’s face is veiled until the groom acquires the
authority to unveil it, usually after taking his vows. I thought
little of this until I realised that in those Indian societies where
the bride pays the dowry (as the groom pays the bride price in our
society), it is the groom’s face that is veiled. It therefore stands
to reason that the one is face is veiled is invariably the one whose
price is paid; after all, he calls the tunes who pays the piper.
Little wonder in Africa where the groom pays, he is allowed to have
other wives, polygamy; while in those parts of India where the bride
pays, she likewise is allowed to have other husbands, polyandry.

The one whose face is veiled. Ours is a democracy where the
legislature seeks immunity even as the executive misuses it. Where the
President will have to be dragged to visit a Benue State that he will
not declare unsafe for civilian residence but will nevertheless avoid.
Where our judiciary is accused of laziness. Where the First Lady is in
fact a First Dame, and all those things you very well know. Where a
political party is formed overnight to frustrate the opposition. Where
the ruling, nay, lording, party forms its own Governor’s Forum. Where
our treasury is deflated and our Naira is shamed just so their loots
abroad can acquire interest as well as value. Where schemes are made
to retain power rather than empower the populace. Where a chameleon
Federation is expected to cater for the Eagles, Green, Flying Or
Super, and outrage escapes each time the Eagles are in effect
chickens. Where assasinations go unsolved as clashes of interest go
unresolved. Where all that changes is nomenclature, not attitude, not
strategy, not personnel; and we’ve had the same ruler since the early
years of Tafawa Balewa’s tenure save a few times.

It is therefore unarguable that our face is covered. That we are
indeed paid for, or perceived to be. That our rulers, the piper
payers, will not but call the tunes, as long as we allow them to have
other interests, as long as we do not call them to account and hold
them responsible. As 2015 approaches, we must make sure that we are
given freely in marriage to the man, or woman, we love, for gone are
(or should be) the days when youths are forced to marry a particular
person, and gone should be the days when the Nigerian populace is
sold, face veiled, to the heightest bidder, or crook, only to become
lording husbands, rulers, “Flat narrow pieces of plastic, metal, etc.
with straight edges, that you use for measuring things or drawing
straight lines.” Alas, short rulers that they are, poverty cannot be
measured with them, nor can un-education; yet they are too crooked to
rule straight lines. Isn’t it then safe to say that these rulers are
useless?

In the mean time, one can only hope that our veil is removed, or rent
in halves as the one in the Temple of Jerusalem, or that our husband
falls in love with us as some enforced husbands have been reported to.
That those responsible for rearing the Boko Haram become a rarity in
our land as well as our affairs. That the god who raised The Dame from
the dead may cure all the deafness, ineptitude and/or apathy that
afflicts our rulers and their cronies and their lords, the
piper-payers cum godfathers cum cabal.

Ayk Midas Afowoolukoyasire is a penultimate-year medical student at
OOU/OOUTH, Sagamu, Ogun State.

Joy Cometh in the Morning

In the bitter chill of that early spring, it appeared that all life form had ceased; from the heavens blue to the undergrounds black ice terrain, the natural and supernatural had come to a halted place; in those dark three days, the world was without the music of human laughter, devoid of divine manifestations such as the sighting of an angels wing or a lame man leaping with joy…the heavy drapery of sorrow and mourning hung over the souls of His beloved followers; even his skeptical neighbors, cynical relatives, and arch enemies could not enjoy their mockery and revenge against a God they both feared and rejected.

The people again sat in great darkness; even those whom he had touched and healed and broke bread with; for the bridegroom was gone, and there was no wedding without him. Once again they were in captivity as if the star had never appeared to the magi and the shepherd; as if Lazarus had not been raised from the dead after all. The real purpose for rebirth and the true meaning of scriptures eluded even the most enlightened in those three days of foreboding. Though the darkest parts of his intense and seemingly surreal crucifixion were unbeknown to all save the Christ and His Father, his disciples could not endure the grave images of his contorted features, crimson tears and mangled bruised body hanging on that crude tree, utterly weakened and defeated (so they thought) by death.

Here they were, the big strong fishermen and the disciple whom He loved, crying like babies in the night; their hearts sinking into them like their own boats slipping into the cold murky abyss. Why hadn’t he stood up to our leaders; those viperous snakes who plotted to kill him and entrap him with their clever words?

Peter in his flailing and anger over the injustice of it all, sickened by his own cowardliness, and vain boasting, sank to despair, as he nearly did when walking on the waters. Mary the mother of Jesus, though broken in heart opened her arms out to John, treasuring in her heart and revering the exhortations of her young man as he looked down at her from the cross, with eyes of compassion and gratitude. Woman, behold your son.”

There was always room at Mary’s inn, for a weary traveler, or a pregnant young girl full of wonder and fear.

Early on the first day of the week, the other Mary was the first to see the stone rolled away, and the tomb empty. After summoning Peter and John to come back and witness this heart thundering moment with her and after they left her there to go back to their lives, Mary waited, determined not to leave without knowing where they placed him. Even the angels in their brilliant white, did not detour or intimidate her; for such was her longing and thirst for her brother and such was her insistence that she see him again and be near him dead or alive. She had sat transfixed and enthralled at his feet, anointing him with perfume and her own tears, as she heard about God’s forgiveness; now as she turned from angels, her search for truth was rewarded as the risen Lord appeared to her. She knew him not at first sight, yet she again asked the question, that no one had been able to answer.

He called her by name, and she knew Him. She cried out with the strands of joy that knew no bounds. “Rabonni!” How she longed to feel his strong embrace, his sacred heart beating against her own. He told her that she must not hold onto him ; He, who was no longer human and forever divine. He must go now and return to His Father and he told her to tell the others.” Go to my brothers and tell them I am returning to my Father and to your Father!”

Cynthia Lamanna is a writer from California, and may be reached at cynthialamanna@yahoo.com

Posted early in honor of March as National Women’s History Month

Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Have Shaped Our Times is a treat and an essential read for any woman out to make history. Written by Lynn Gilbert with the help of Gaylen Moore, Particular Passions brings together forty-six profiles of accomplished women such as Betty Friedan, Julia Child, and Gloria Steinem. With every chapter, the reader gets the opportunity to meet and become intimately acquainted with the life, decisions, and experiences of a woman accomplished in her own right, in fields as disparate as science and dance. Gilbert’s black and white photographs show each woman with dignity and honesty, and her decision to use the oral history format is a stroke of genius, allowing each woman to speak for herself in first-person.

Gilbert’s chapter on Agnes de Mille is no exception. Rather than merely covering de Mille’s background—an American choreographer and dancer whose work elevated dance in musical theater from mere accessory between acts, to the story-telling function it serves today – Gilbert’s oral history brings out de Mille’s self-effacing humor, stubborn perseverance, and drive to make things better for artists.

Selected excerpts from the Agnes de Mille chapter:

“I think it is a miracle that I turned into anything of worth…I was the petted daughter in a fairly wealthy household, in which being a lady was the thing.”

“It was very rough going out into the world…my work wasn’t good enough, my technique wasn’t sound enough, my hair would fall down, my stockings were wrinkled. It just wasn’t professional…I didn’t have a classic body. I had a long torso and shortish legs. They are pretty legs, but very short. What I did have was a real acting ability and inventive, creative thought. I couldn’t fit into the mold so I made my own, that’s all.”

“I didn’t set out to change the world of dance. I had to do it because nobody cared a damn about dancing and I got fed up with people’s ignorance and indifference; particularly the American men scorned it. “

Even though the oral history format effectively removes Gilbert from the transcript, the expansiveness and gleam of each profile testifies to her ability to ask questions and to draw meaningful stories out of her subjects. Particular Passions is a rare gift to the women’s movement, providing forty-six unique role models to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Joy Ding is a writer living in San Francisco. You can reach her at joy.j.ding@gmail.com.

Readers, contributors, ladies and gents, dancers and twirlers, seamstresses and ruffians, welcome to March 2013’s issue of Synchronized Chaos International Magazine. This month our theme deals with an issue all too familiar to many of us, something common to most life forms on this planet: facing and dealing with our fragility and limitations.

“A pontiff smile veils his disgrace, at never knowing more than second place. ‘Seven wonders’, crowed the man, knowing six are gone, is it any wonder, how the sad confusion lingers on.” — Bluegrass band Nickel Creek

“A todos los que han nacido en un mundo así no olviden su fragilidad (To everyone who’s been born in this world here, don’t forget your fragility” — Sting

Science writer Leena Prasad describes the physical limitation of aphasia in her monthly column, Whose Brain Is It?,  looking into how and why the condition occurs and how losing the capacity for intelligible speech would affect someone’s life.

Poets Sam Burks and Samantha Seto deal with everyday aspects of our fragility, death, loneliness, nostalgia, loss, and heartbreak, through their poetic collections, “Sister Meadow” and “Darkened Moon.” We see the direct lament for a relationship lost, and the emergency-room scene, but also the quiet melancholy of an elderly person touching her fraying quilt and staring out the window, and the bitter taste of unripe persimmons.

We can move from the specific to the general, from the individual to society and life itself, with Darren Edwards’ poetry, including “Sandcastles” and several other pieces. He uses humor, wry observations, and colorful images from childhood, mythology, and popular and literary culture to advocate authentic communication, compassion, empathy and balance. And he pokes fun in creative ways at the bombastic and powerful among us, thus highlighting our human and societal fragility.

The external and social world comes into even sharper focus when we read journalist Martin Rushmere’s review of the Marin Theater Company’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Often described as a tragicomedy, the play depicts ordinary people who sit and watch the world going by, all the people thinking and learning and hurting and oppressing each other, while waiting for some event they vaguely hope will change everything. Is this all we can hope for as human beings, with our limited understanding? Are we ennobled by the search for meaning itself, even when we never find it? Perhaps we could create meaning, rather than simply waiting.

Political essayist Randle Pink also tackles the force of social conformity in his interview with journalist and broadcaster Dacia Mitchell.  In her program, “This Week in Blackness,” and through private conversations with friends and roommates, Ms. Mitchell explores how racial stereotypes affect our choices. As Ms. Mitchell explains,  our social subgroup membership affects our experience of the world. Sleeping in a public park at night as part of a protest could be very different for a black woman than for a young athletic white man, for example. And if we wish to build a cohesive social movement, we need to address the different challenges and experiences of different groups and individuals within the coalition.

Sara Rodriguez mourns the loss of her friend, whom she refers to as “D,” who passed away at a young age because of some of the same societal oversights Dacia Mitchell critiques. Upon release from prison, D. faced severe barriers to rebuilding her life, and was unable to receive the individual, consistent support she needed to heal psychologically and physically and find stable work. Sadly, although she possessed a strong spirit, kindness, and creativity, she found herself sucked down back into addiction, incarceration, and suicide.

This young woman was clearly fragile, and broken as a result of her life experiences. And, as Sara explains, her death illustrates how we cannot apply a one-size-fits-all paradigm to social problems, any more than we can to race relations or to putting together social movements. We must look at the lives and struggles of those within the system and adapt our approach to fit what we see and learn.

When faced with our inevitable weaknesses, whether physical, moral, intellectual, or psychological, we can attempt to transcend our limitations in various ways. Danish poet Kamila Boegedal draws upon nature and the cosmos to express the depths of her feelings, with the sun and moon as metaphors for the intensity of love and the desire to experience and participate in life. She aims to create her own drawings and not just take part in someone else’s cartoon, and finds she can reach beyond herself with creative writing.

Linda Allen’s short story “Shamrock” invokes the myth of the hero figure to symbolically overcome human fragility. A brave gentleman physically rescues Allen’s protagonist from her cruel, violent family and whisks her away to his native Ireland. Some criticize this kind of  ‘knight in shining armor’ tale for encouraging weakness, reinforcing that all we can do is wait for rescue. But perhaps we can take on the qualities of the hero, become Godot ourselves rather than simply waiting for him.

Synchronized Chaos Magazine’s editors invite you to bring your inner heroism to a reading and discussion of March’s issue and the work of each of our contributors. Thank you very much to those who have helped put this publication together, and please enjoy the issue!