Saiks and Latjor,
    I tend to incline more towards your explanations of the unnecessary
haggling between Mazrui and Soyinka. I believe it has more to do with
Soyinka's inflated ego than with the self serving nonsense that he is a
tribalist and a nationalist. Lets face it; Soyinka is a very pompous person.
But Soyinka a tribalist...? .......a Yoruba Mafia?  That is stretching it to
the extreme brothers.
    On the Joseph Gates saga, there is no doubt that Africans in the latter
part of the slave trade contributed in the capturing, shipment and
enslavement of their compatriots during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Especially
African traditional rulers. The degree to which they [African rulers]
contributed CANNOT ever downplay the huge role that the marauders [European
invaders] played to commit the first Holocaust ever.  Virtually every
objective African Scholar agrees on the role Africans themselves did play out
of greed during the slave trade. And these Africans are in a minority. The
danger with the Gates project [I have not seen it just the arguments], is
that it could play into the hands of the enemies of Black people; right wing
revisionist Historians and Racists alike, as a tool for exonerating the
heinous crimes of their ancestors.
     I wonder out loud whether these so-called 'interpretative journalists'
have really done their homework on Soyinka especially his debunking of the
Romanticising of the African dilemma? I'm tied up with things right now,
which is why my contribution would be only that of an onlooker.
Have a good day.

Hamjatta Kanteh

hkanteh

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