The reason no one talks about revolutions these days on campus is that even you, their teachers, are not interested in or teaching it. You are not teaching it because the fervor of Marx has diminished in academia around the world, and it began after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even the Soviets who sponsored some of this energy, are under the capitalist aura. Ditto China that is evangelizing capitalism competing with their American rival. Cuba has no Castro
LAST week, I posted an observation on my Facebook page about how revolutionary ideas which were dominant in our university days have completely disappeared from the university system. Students who are leaders now copy the lifestyle of politicians. University teachers no longer teach revolutions. The reactions which I got have been presented in an edited manner. Enjoy!
Kevbe: In our university days, we believed in revolutions, and our lecturers preached revolutions too. We joined societies and clubs which preached a drastic change in Africa. We read Walter Rodney ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, the Frantz Fanon books ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, and ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ and many radical books. We had radical lecturers in most universities and especially at University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. I remember Patrick Wilmot, Yusufu Bala Usman, Omotoye Olorode, Comrade Ola Oni, Bade Onimode, Dr. Edwin Madunagu, Bene Madunagu, Dipo Fashina, Bala Muhammed, Prof Omafume Onoge, GG Darah, and many more, radicals who the government said were ‘teaching what they were not paid to teach! The current set of teachers and students know no such stuff! Why?
Isi: Big question! Big, big question! Why has revolutionary thinking disappeared from the university system?
Mattu: Walter Rodney, Che Guevera, Professors Ayodele Awojobi, Eskor Toyo, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, and many others served as a source of inspiration. The universities were a hot bed for revolutionary ideas. I was an active member of the Movement for the Advancement of African Society (MAAS). We attended rallies and lectures given by radical lecturers. Professor Awojobi toured Nigerian universities to rouse students on social issues.
Fatoyinbo: Yesterday, I was asking my wife the same question about Yoruba women of today. Where are the likes of Oladunni Decency Juju Orchestra, Funmilayo Ranco Traveling Theatre, Salawa Abeni among our young women of today? None of these women went beyond elementary school. Yet in their time, they made so much positive impact in society.
Funke: So, what happened? Why are current students’ leaders more interested in being establishment guys than revolutionaries?
Isi: Why are university lecturers more interested in government appointments and contracts?
Peter: The present generation is more interested in ostentation and irrelevances. I once met an SA to the president of a students’ union who had a PA!
Kent: When those they trusted speak lies because of political gain, certainly the flame of revolutions will die!
Stephen: The current generation has been brought up by a thoughtless, old desperate generation and they have become imitative of the reprehensible culture of ostentatiousness. That is my point. You cannot isolate them for blame. That have known no love from their country – they have only witnessed political aggression, manipulation, and an ostentatious lifestyle. That, to them, is the culture. It is a very big problem!
Mattu: How did those readings and mouthing of revolutionary rhetoric help any society? Most of those fire-spitting radicals became ice cream eating government officials! The table is very rich, and most people want to feed from it. The socialism that drove those thoughts those days have been found to be a ruse and the global injustices such as racism have been largely addressed.
Kevbe: Globally, revolutions seem to have gone out of fashion. No Bob Marley, no Fela, no Okosun type of musicians. No Walter Rodneys.
Rioux: We had our #FeesMustFall# movement in 2015 here in South Africa. Suddenly everyone was reading Fanon and Steve Biko again. It made me feel quite nostalgic.
Kevbe: Vestiges of the past, of what seems to have slipped out of fashion.
Opubo: Yes, it has gone out of fashion with the demise of communism, and the Soviet Union. The intervening period of neoliberalism swept away any vestiges.
Ihria: What is REVOLUTION? Sloganeering and placard wielding? What’s there to show for it? Every generation tends to rewrite history, blaming the last or the next. True revolutionaries don’t quit. They don’t hang up the boots and leave the battle ground.
Kevbe: This is deep!
Ihria: Villains have become more vicious, and their reach has become much longer. And so has betrayals from transactional global leaders. Think of Navalny. Remember Khashoggi? It’s a rapidly sinking humanity!
Areh: Those who believed in revolutions in the past are the ones currently engineering the failures and decadence of today. They are ensconced in the kitchen cabinet of the governors of today!
Ighovwede: They are the ones conniving to shoot and kill anyone who dares to protest. So, who will come out, get hurt and have his family thrown into mourning while everyone else moves on as if nothing happened?
Sam: The reason no one talks about revolutions these days on campus is that even you, their teachers, are not interested in or teaching it. You are not teaching it because the fervor of Marx has diminished in academia around the world, and it began after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even the Soviets who sponsored some of this energy, are under the capitalist aura. Ditto China that is evangelizing capitalism competing with their American rival. Cuba has no Castro.
Kevbe: Capitalism has won the war over socialism and communism. Erstwhile socialists are still smarting from that defeat, symbolized by the fall of the Soviet empire. I still remember President Ronald Reagan’s call on Mr. Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall!
Sam: China is not looking for any ideological revolution, but hegemony. After all, it is borrowing ideas and systems from the US. BRICS is a coalition for dominance, or if you like, a revolution of power shift, which is Hegelian suspicion of revolution.
Kevbe: People who feel sufficiently aggrieved or fed up with poor governance or failed economic policies don’t have an ideological framework to confront the holders of power. Socialism, which provided a paradigm shift for us in the university, no longer has that attraction.
Sam: There is a certain hubris of innocence about revolutions. Secondly, capitalism has eroded the communalist ethos of the African society and ushered in a fierce individualism that defeats collaboration.
Kevbe: Power of money politics, the power of power itself, the power that anything, everything is possible. These would seem to be powerful attractions, closely associated with AI, that capacity to be superhuman in a scientific way. China is beating the US in the contest. It’s complex, isn’t it, yielding varying and complex mutations.
Isi: Mutations?
Kevbe: We need no revolution. We are mutating. We shall become better if we fit in in order to overtake the others.
Sam: Revolutions have historically failed. An anti-climax!
Kevbe: Expectations were never met. They were idealistic anyway, almost Utopian, akin to what Christian theology propagates.
Ihria: Truth is, all hands should be on deck. There must also be adults in the house. Young people, students, can only do so much. They should be supporting the adults, not the adults waiting on them (with trepidation) to fight battles they are ill-equipped for. The media also has a major role to play. Except that poverty has set the bar so low, real journalists seek their means of livelihood in other skills. Everyone needs to look in the mirror and make the change they need to see.
- Prof Eghagha is of Dept of English, University of Lagos
