Pius Adesanmi, Ph.D Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, The Pennsylvania State University, responds to an aspect of No. 334:
"...and refuses to cover the increasing devastation of the continent by
AIDS, poverty, wars and other easily solvable problems"
Sylvester Ogbechie's statement is news to me. My own problem on the East Coast is how to convince the people around me, especially students, that I am not AIDS, poverty, and war personified, those being the three primordial attributes of the "Africa" of the Western media,
reported to the point of iterative superfluity.
On reparations, Ogbechie stops short of addressing the touchy question of modalities and logistics. As far as I know, there is no concrete African/Black diasporic consensus on the issue. Germany's reparations to the Jews is funnelled through scrupulously laid out institutional
modalities which ensure that the money reaches holocaust survivors, their families, and the descendants of those who perished. The money does not go to the private pockets of government officials in Israel. How should Africa and its diaspora proceed? What percentage goes to Africa and what percetage goes to the diaspora? Wole Soyinka, I believe, has raised this question in *The Muse of Memory*: "Just what is this Africa for whom reparations is being sought", he asks. The question is pregnant with meaning. I shudder to think of reparation funds in the hands of Omar Bongo, Gnassingbe Eyadema, and Sassou Nguesso! I shudder
to think of reparation funds landing in Abuja: more food for the boys!
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