IBO - Brian R. Lundin (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

leadership of Odumegwu Ojukwu attempted to secede as the Republic of Biafra and that led to the Biafra War that lasted from 1967-1970. Pictures of children starving to death reached the west and caused international pressures to end the war, but during the upheaval, many Ibo’s living in the north were massacred and consequently many others fled to their traditional homelands in the Southeast. The war lasted until 1970, when the Ibo were defeated and resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties.
My grandfather, Patrice Motovo and the people’s belief in the Spirit made them particularly predisposed to accepting French Catholicism. They approached the colonial religious practices with the intention of only exploring them briefly, but they soon lost their bearings, became acculturated in Western thought, and were easily manipulated. The church spoke of a better life for the people and my grandfather bitten by the bee of curiosity was trapped. He made a deal with the colonials to send my father, Leopold to a missionary school in France to prepare him he thought for a better life. When he got to France there were African from all over the continent at these schools. The purpose of these schools he found out was to convert natives to Christian and the ways of the west while they were still young, susceptible and easy to persuade. The school attempted to make us reject whatever native culture we had acquired and fill it with Western ideas and practices, but it did not work.
My father told me that he did not want to leave the people, but he had no say in the matter and was gone for fifteen years. He told me in retrospect he hated is father for delivering him into the hands of Western teacher. However, that was before his acceptance of the prophecies surrounding his life. You see, my people hold dear a view of personhood that contrasts with modern empirical thinking. The Dagara believe that everyone is born with a purpose and people ignorant of that purpose is like a ship without a sail that wanders around aimlessly in a hostile sea. He said he came to realize that his purpose was to learn how to heal and help the people. He became a prominent doctor and helped the people before he was killed in the War.
Diki and I belong to the Dagara tribe; a group of people traces their origins to the region once known as the Gold Coast now called Ghana. The Dagara are primarily farmers and live in hundreds of autonomous villages ruled by a council of elders, but we are also well known throughout West Africa for beliefs and practices that outsiders find both fascinating and frightening. It is said that we have a connection with beings from the spiritual world and is protected by these beings. The cynical West view these beliefs as paranormal or superstitions. What the west regards as superstitions we have firsthand knowledge of these spirits, for we have seen them with our own eyes, heard them with our own ears or felt them with our own hands. To Western ears the stories of our spirit world sounds fantastic for they lack the advantage of comprehending the interplay between spirit and matter that characterize the Dagara and many other African people.
We are Muslims and we practice the teaching of the Koran. In the west, every since the tragedy of 9-11, Westerners has condemned Islam as some radical religion full of shouting young men wearing head rags but those cowards that committed that unforgivable act are not representative of Muslim. Muslims are largely peaceful and nonviolent. Now I am not saying they will not defend themselves, the Knights Templar found that out during the crusades, but by a large Islam does not sanction indiscriminate killing. Matter of fact there is a passage in the Koran where Muhammad said “If you have defeated your enemy let him return safely to his home so he can provide for his family”. A Jihad is a holy war to protect the people who practice Islam but nowhere in the Koran is there any mention of killing innocent men, women and children. Those assholes may think that their act gave them a one-way ticket to paradise, but I bet they assess are burning in hell.
Long ago, the Diagara practiced head hunting and were fierce warriors, especially with the bow and arrow and the spear. They owned and sold slaves from tribes they conquered to the Europeans, especially the Portuguese.
After my father’s death, my mother fearing the purge of my people living in the North fled with my younger sister, Kisha, and me. I can remember as if it was yesterday the train being stopped by Hausa soldiers, my mother hid my sister Kisha and me under a blanket under the seat and told us to stay there and be quiet. All of the people on board was herded off the train and into the forest, when I peeked out of the window I saw the solders shoot all of the men and young boys and they began to rape the women and young girls. I can still hear my mother and the other women screams, after raping the women they too were killed. After the massacre, the train continued on to Lagos, my mother’s brother, Juwawu, who raised my sister and me, met us at the train station. Uncle Juwawa supported the family by fishing and growing yams, cassava, and cacao, he also grew cotton but the land was inhospitable and the insects were deadly. One bright and sunny day me and Kisha was helping my uncle gather yams when we noticed a black cloud coming towards us from over the swampland. Uncle Juwawa grabbed me and my sister and we ran into the house, he made sure all of the windows, and doors were shut tight. As I looked out the window, I saw this black cloud approaching our village and heard a buzzing sound. In one of the fields was a large, over 300 pounds black bull grazing. All of a sudden, this swarm attacked the bull; there must have been a million of them, because it got eerily dark. Frantically the bull swiped at them with his short tail, but there were too many of them. We watched in horror as they covered the bull from head to toe and in a few minutes, the bull fell to the ground, and then as if by some pre-arranged signal they left the bull and flew away. Shortly after they left my uncle and I, and the other men in the village ran to the bull, he was still alive but shaking uncontrollably and saliva was coming from his mouth. His entire body looked as if little small needles had stuck him and blood was coming out of the wounds. The men gathered branches and dry grass and covered the bull that was then set on fire and put out of his misery, I will never forgot that.
Most mosquitoes are more active at night, but these mosquitoes are active anytime and they bring with them the sickness that has killed many of my brothers and our animals.”
Mr. Montovo appeared tired, he was a strongman, but Malik could see the sadness in recounting his youth. Just in time, a servant announced that dinner was ready to be served. The next day Diki and Nobokina, the head overseer of the property took Eli and Malik on a tour of the land. As they drove, as far as they could see were rows and rows of unattended greenish plants.

Malik asked Diki,” What kind of plants is those?”
“We call them God's Plants, he replied. You would probably call them opium fields.”
Eli asked, “That’s legal here?”
“Yes, when my people first settled here, most of the land was jungle, inhabited by wild beast and over run by all types of disease carrying insects. The wild beast killed many of the people while tending their crops or gathering wood or water and many of my people died because of diseases caused by the insects. The people cultivated God’s Plants and used it as a tea to treat the illnesses caused by these insects and for some unknown reason the wild beast never bothered anyone who had rubbed themselves with the plant. The plants were believed to have healing, magical powers and were sent by Allah to protect the people; they were also used in our religious rituals. The people believed that God, who took care of the plant, put it here to take care of the people.”
“How was the tea made?” Malik asked.
“The heads of the plants were removed from the stem, breaking the heads off in such a way as to create a hole at the bottom and then the seeds were shaking out. It takes about ten seeds to make enough tea for two people. The seeds were then grounded into a fine powder, which was added to boiling hot water. In a few minutes the brew was ready and it was then poured through a strainer in order to get the majority of the seeds out, the tea was then sipped after it was cooled, the fine powder that was left was opium which was eaten, sometimes the opium which is bitter, was mixed with licorice or some other sweetener. The stems could also be used as a tea but it would require twice as many stems than seed. God’s plant was used for good; it helped to relieve pain and diarrhea, which was very common in the old days and sometimes deadly. A lot of the water was polluted and the food wasn’t properly prepared.”
”Does anyone work the fields or pick the plant?” Malik asked.
“Not originally, there was no work to be done; God provided whatever the plant needed. God’s Plant is annual plant that from a very small round seed it grows flowers and bears fruit once a year. The entire growth cycle for the plant is one hundred and twenty days when it is ready to be harvested. Now, the workers usually in June or July plant the seeds and three months later brightly colored flowers bloom at the tip of the greenish tubular stems. As the petals fall way they expose an egg-shaped seedpod, inside the pod is an opaque, milky sap, that sap is pure opium. The opium is extracted from the pod by cutting the pod vertically in parallel strokes with a special carved knife. As the sap oozes out, it turns thicker and darker, forming a brownish-black gum. A worker collects the gum with a knife, bundle it into bricks, cakes or balls and wraps them in plastic or leaves. The packages are then sent to a refinery, usually close to the field for processing into morphine. At the refinery, which is usually shrouded in a jungle thicket, the opium is mixed with lime in boiling water. The organic waste sinks to the bottom of the drum used for the mixture and a white band forms on the surface, that band is pure morphine. The morphine is drawn off, reheated with ammonia, filtered and boiled again until it is reduced to a brown paste. The paste is poured into molds and dried in the sun, it is now morphine based, which has the consistency of dense modeling clay. Most illegal drug traffickers prefer to buy the morphine-based packages because they are easier to transport and smuggle than bundles of pungent, jelly- like opium.

Malik asked Diki, “There