yi barci
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 18/Nov/2010 14:22, 34 days ago
There’s lots about living in Nigeria which makes me think about life in early medieval England. Partly, that’s probably because doing more or less anything provokes that part of my mind, from which I usually have to yank myself back into whatever I’m supposed to be thinking about: like the sad cownear where we live, which trundles merrily towards some new grass, only to be jerked back by the rope around its leg. Here, though, I think many of my flights of fancy are justified.I should note that I don’t regard this as describing Nigeria as a backwards or primitive place. I can’t buy into the notion that human history is one perpetual upward progression, ascending to some manner of extraordinary future where everyone dances all day and eats nectar from the sea. That is (it seems to me) something that naturally emerges from the eschatological faiths that dominate most cultures at the moment, and has been harnessed by governments and money makers to further their own ends with amazing efficacy. So saying that one culture reminds me of a past one (only a thousand years ago, at that: a dropin the ocean of human existence) means no more (for me) than saying that the shape of the rear legs of the yellow headed lizards here remind me of frog’s legs; or that the unspeakable frustration of waiting for a car to collect us which we were told would arrive four hours ago reminds me of the feeling of watching Liverpool stumbling their way through another failed attack, like baffled flies trying to find their way outside through a closed window.Anyway, here are some of the things that have tickled the inner recesses of me.There’s a hugely exciting conflict here between different faith systems, and it’s one that (broadly speaking) has been integrated into society. Just as in England there were (for a little while) competing versions of Christianity and fairly persistent echoes of the pagan systems that had existed forso many centuries beforehand (many of which are still throbbing dimly in modern Britain – barely surprising given that they probably held sway for rather more than 1,500 years before 597), so here Christianity and Islam spread their dominant wings across the country, while underneath many, many people remain connected to the traditions and behaviours that have defined their communities for generations. I find it fascinating (and, whenever it comes remotely close to touching me, really quite terrifying) that the two Abrahamic faiths live alongside with a massive degree of mutual respect and tolerance: being taught together even in the very rural schools in exclusively Islamic areas that we visited early on. And yet it’s a division and a tension which runs very, very deep and always has the potential to burst into utterly terrifying violence – which is all the more disturbing becausethe combatants have lived shoulder to shoulder –eaxlgestealla– before the match is dropped which sees houses being burned and the inhabitants being hacked apart with machetes. That last isn’t terribly like Anglo-Saxon society – but it’s that sense of terrible tension: the ethnic group who killed your parents are now trading partners, neighbours, godchildren – which is not at all far away from the acceptance of Danelaw, or the rule of Cnut. Tolerance and hatred go hand in hand in a manner which I can’t equate to my own comfortably flaccid communal relationships.They’re both also very comfortable with death and bloodshed – or very much more comfortable than we are. At home, it kinda feels like we’ve all become real life Voldemorts: all that matters is that we don’t die, no matter what. I’m neither a doctor nor a philosopher, but I don’t think life at all costs is what Hippocrates meant. Perhaps it’s arisen because, if we have an endemic belief in progress then death becomes a terrifying enemy: the proof that progress can’t continue forever (there’s no boom without bust!) and existence is actually cyclical. Anyway, the point here is thatthe death of family members or close friends is a sad thing – a genuine loss – but it’s no more than a day off work.  And the death of animals, of course, is routine: the chicken slaughterers hard at steaming work right next to the grain sellers in a market.We’ve built what a former boss of mine called a ‘deodorized’ world.  We don’t like smells At All and would generally rather not be reminded of our animal-ness even as we bang on about it in theological arguments.  I’ve no idea how Nigerians feel about living in a thoroughly odorized world – any more than I know about how Anglo-Saxons felt about it – but it’s certainly (to me) a constant reminder that Things are Alive here in a way that nothing’s really very alive in an antiseptic ceramic London home.English people are famously utterly crap at‘other’ languages – but of course not so very long ago many (not most) people had a working knowledge of at least one variety of English, Norse, and bits of French and Latin – educated people biasing their conversations towards the last one.  That’s the same here: the large mass of people, of course, speak their local language (there are literally hundreds of these) – but most people with any kind of education or profession speak at least that plus pidgin, ‘proper’ English, and at least one of the three dominant tongues (Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo).  I have no knowledge of the impact of this on thinking or culture or communities at all (beyond a very, very small amount on status and common sense economics), but it strikes me as interesting nonetheless.There’s also the massive impact of an outrageously powerful and technologically more advanced empire – in Nigeria’s case, Britain; in England’s, Charlemagne’s vasty fields – which dominates much thinking and provides a model towards which to constantly aspire, with an attendant odd combination of fiercely combative pride and gently embarrassed self-dismissal. The durbahs (seriously, guys, how is that supposed to be spelt?) here (parade-y type things that happen at the two big Sallahs– the end of Ramadan and the celebration of Abraham not killing Isaac) are really profoundly medieval: conspicuous consumption on a vast scale; military and agricultural tribute being paid to a local leader; horses and glamorous clothing; mock weapons and tools; combinations of really ancient andabsolutely up to date presentations (we saw one on Tuesday where traditional musicians came in front of a group of young acrobatic martial artists / break dancers); real seriousness combined with the self-mockery of hobby-horses and Morris dancing (in reverse) type whited-up characters.  Even the hats and costumes of the peasant groups (the ones representing agricultural labour and what-not) look like a film makers fantasy of the medieval.  Love it.Anyway, those are just some suggestions that occur to me this afternoon.  It’d be, I think, an interesting thing to study more systematically for anyone with time on their hands and more brains at their disposal than at mine.