TED Talks Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

[I Love Nigeria]

Johnny What do you know about Foreign Aid? Can you provide us data to support your assertion about Foreign Aid? Or it is just your "perception" and the recycled garbage by others, which some now take or assume as facts? Please tell us?

This is exactly Ms. Adichie's point... people who "assume" a perception" one perception and erroneous perception. You remind me of Fide as told in the presentation by Ms. Adichie

What percentage of Foreign Aid from Europe/North America, went to all of Africa in the preceding 10 years? Check out the article below and the table of quantum of Foreign Aid per country...

The Truth About Foreign Aid; Where It Really Goes & Not To Africa
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...to-africa.html

[Johntina]

I have just finished listening to the speech of Ms Chimanda Adichie on the danger of single story.
I greatly admire Ms Adichie’s beauty and achievement, but I do not agree with her views in this speech!
I think from the speech that Ms Adichie unfortunately belongs to the group of Nigerians and Black Africans who like to feel good always despite the fact that the realities suggest that we should not!
I believe that supposedly enlightened Black Africans who moan too much about too many negative stories about Africa are doing us no good because we really need more negative news about us to force us all to face our failures and possibly act to change our situations!
I believe there is not even enough negative news about Black Africa and Nigeria in particular and that more and more negative news that highlight every senseless deaths in Nigeria, every act of shamelessness, every Aondoaka scandal, every incident of police brutality, human rights abuses and man inhumanity against man in Nigeria, leaving the so-called middleclass or upper-class Nigerians no place to hide from the shame of being Nigerians.
I believe in telling the truth about Nigeria and the Black race rather than in trying to re-write history like Ms Adichie probably advocates.
I know it is particularly difficult for successful Nigerian individuals and “fortunate” children of both genuinely and dubiously affluent Nigerians in the Europe and America to bear negative news about Nigeria and Africa, but the truth still remains that Black Africa is the most backward continent. We are so backward that the best parts of the best cities in Nigeria do not enjoy a quality and standard of life comparable to the poorest neighbourhood in Western Europe. We all know that some Black individuals who see themselves as very successful want to feel good about themselves by telling good stories about Black Africa, but the truth is that Black Africa (not individuals) is an absolute failure and our failure cannot be remedied by falsehood.
I have met a number of European individuals who apparently had Nigerian friends of affluent backgrounds and thus were given the impression that the average Nigerian lives in the kind of houses you find in posh areas of Victoria Island and Maitama Abuja. I remember telling an English girl in early 2007 that her Nigerian friend might be a daughter of a big thief. I told her the truth that 99% of those that live in the kind of big house she described to me were more likely to be thieves than hard working people. I specifically informed her that there are only two groups of Nigerians who would paint good pictures of life in Nigeria to the outside world – the rogues and the idiots!
My determination in presenting the true picture of Nigeria is not out of hatred for my country, but purely out of passion for genuine development.
I do not fail to appreciate that Nigerian individuals are very highly talented and intelligent individuals, but I will never ever suggest that any progress is being made in Nigeria in terms of development. I will never like Ms Adichie say that what they call Nollywood, an epitome of modern Nigerian imperfection, low standard and laziness is a great success simply because Black Africa’s illiterate and semi-illiterate populations patronise their poorly cooked films. I refuse to see anything impressive about Nollywood not because I do not like to appreciate and support a Nigerian industry, but because I desire a Nollywood or any wood from Nigeria that aspires to equate with Hollywood in all respect! Glorifying incompetence and mediocrity simply because you have to support your own or because you want to feel good is to me most ignorant and or insincere!
I believe enlightened Nigerians and Black individuals should be taking the lead in telling more and more negative stories about us to the world because the world really needs to know the full details of our failures in order to understand us better! I believe the world needs to know that Nigeria has no healthy hospital that can be compared with the poorest hospital in Western Europe. I believe the world should know that the worst prison in England is far more habitable than the best university halls of residence in Nigeria. I believe the world should know that Nigerian railway remains at the level Britain left it in 1960. I believe the world needs to know that our failure is such that if we should experience any major natural disaster that our people would die like animals because there are no hospitals and no emergency services. Nothing works well in Nigeria.
We cannot continue to hide our failures because we are facing a real danger of another slavery and colonialism!
If you are a Black person and you call yourself enlightened, but are unaware that Black people (Ne gros) are the only major racial group that has failed to prove itself, I doubt your enlightenment!
If you are an educated Black person and you are unaware and or unconcerned about the fact that there is no successful and or organised society of Black people like us anywhere on this planet and none in the pipeline, you probably lack proper education!
Escapism by educated or supposedly enlightened Nigerians and Africans will not bring about the change we desire to take us out of our shameful situation.
We must learn how to wash our dirty linens in public especially when everyone is aware that all our linens are dirty anyway. Perhaps, one of the greatest lessons we can learn from the White world is the culture of open self criticism or if you like, washing of dirty linens in public. Perhaps, slavery could have lasted longer than it did if European societies had not permitted internal criticism and enlightened White individuals had not spoken out forcefully against the evil of slave trade.
We must learn how not to shy away from our failures! We must also begin to take responsibilities as a people for our failures!

[abdulmumin]

Originally Posted by Igboamaeze

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Notice how she intelligently "yabbed" Nigeria's leadership (or lack of leadership) while praising the Nigerian spirit.

A genuine beauty with brains. That's what she is...

This is about the first time that I completely agree with Igboamaeze. Me thinks our views have also been largely constrained by 'a single story'.

[valteena]

Originally Posted by Johntina

I have just finished listening to the speech of Ms Chimanda Adichie on the danger of single story.
I greatly admire Ms Adichie’s beauty and achievement, but I do not agree with her views in this speech!
!...

I believe you didn't really take in the essence of her speech. Pls go and really listen to it again. I did not understand her to say or even imply like you claim that negative stories of Africa should not be told. She only said that there isn't just one story to Africa. That there is another and that, that other story of Africa should be told as well.

We all no that there are two sides to a coin and both side of the coin needs to seen for one to better appreciate its value.

As grim as we all think the issues of Africa is, good things still does come out of that continent you know. And the story of those good things needs to be told as well.

No one but you are trying to rewrite the history of Africa by eclipsing whatever positives exist probably because you're disillusioned. Telling the truth about Africa means exactly that. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth which includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that is all this gem of a lady is advocating period.

[Auspicious]

+

Ah, finally.

With the advent of "Johntina",

Chimamanda's "single story" gets divided.

Auspicious.

[Johnny]

This is in response to “I love Nigeria’s” rebuttal of my earlier comments.

I'm not here to debate you on which countries get the most foreign aid. It is what we have done with the money we get. We get foreign aid because if you follow Nigerian dailies regularly like I do, you will see that there’s always a foreign minister of a European or Asian nation in Nigeria to hand over funds their government has pledged to Nigeria. Whether it is an aid or grant, it doesn’t matter. The same scenario is repeated all over Africa. Never have our government said no; Thank you, but we don’t need your money. They gladly accept the funds and very little change is seen in the life of the average Nigerian. And even if we weren’t taking foreign aid, what tangible things have we done with our own oil money? The answer is nothing. Our infrastructure is broken, crime is rampant, and corruption is, well, I’ll leave it at that. And you and I are stuck overseas for possibly the rest of our lives all because of poor governance. I think the Western world knows there is a small middle class in Haiti, but that doesn’t change the fact more people in Haiti are poor than are rich. Same goes for Nigeria and a lot of the other African nations.

Coming back to Ms. Adichie’s “single story” perception, I know her intentions are good, and I admire her for trying to be a good ambassador of Nigeria - to sell the Nigeria that most Westerners hardly see. She wants to show that there is a middle class in Nigeria, just like the one she grew up in. She wants to put a human face to our people. The problem is that there are not enough of those middle class. Majority of Nigerians are poor. Ms. Adichie’s effort to change the minds of the European or American is a hard sell. She can never convince a large number of people until Nigeria and Africa begin to change their continent. Dora Akunyili’s effort to rebrand Nigeria is well meaning, but is lost on the same objective. Barack Obama has said this a few times, “Africa’s future lies with Africans”. The Western world won’t develop Africa. We have to start the process, and only then will they join.

[Iyke]

Chimamanda is really brilliant. most of us a witnesses to the danger of a single narrative. however, we should also strive not to buy into the logic of single stories.

[abdulmumin]

See below an exchange I had with Jaga Jaga 2+ years ago (September 18, 2007) on the NVS. I hope he has watched the Chimamanda's speech @ Oxford and followed up on the mega-flop of the 'U-21' Team in Egypt.
Enough said!

JAGA-JAGA
Villager
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Canada

Gender: Male
Posts: 373

Re: Let’s field our first eleven

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Originally Posted by abdulmumin

Messrs Eja and Jaga-jaga,

The first thing I did upon reading your comments was to check out your locations which turned out to be London and Canada respectively. That to a large extent explains your peculiar afflictions.

You need to have something to celebrate about your nation or people. You will therefore go to any length to create your heroes to fulfil some intrinsic raison d'etre. On this, I can only empathise with you for this. As for me, I shall continue to be fanatical about football, true football. Not the one whereby the superstars of the U-17 cadre fade away into nothinness after the tourney. I hope names like Phillip Osondu, Nduka Ugbade, Peter Ogaba and Dimaji Lawal ring a bell.

Searching for Nigerian heroes? I can provide you with one whose recent achievements are highly worthy of celebration and who should readily serve as a signpost for our youth and a rallying point for a Greater Nigeria. Her name is Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie, the 30 year old Nigerian author who recently won the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for fiction. She is a true heroine and her likes I celebrate.

Incidentally, I cannot recall anything about her receiving a national award or ownership certificates of some building in Abuja. This speaks volumes about the kind of people we are.

Jaga-Jaga wrote:

Abdul,

It's realy a pity that you would reason in the path of negativity. How come you know Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie is precise 30 years and you don't know of our U-17 boys ages? I believe you are one of the parents of this Lady? If you are not then you must be an interesting character.

From the foregoing comments it is certain that you have no concrete evidence to support your assertion. You're just beating about the bush to make a point and attract attention. Enough show stopper!

[K_Station]

Brilliant! In one speech, Chimamanda has done more for the dignity and glory of Nigeria than all those morons in Abuja has done anything in a decade! God bless you sis & with folks like you in the horizon, there is still hope for Nigeria.

[.bebi]

Chimamanda makes me proud of my generation.I had a long chat with her once and couldn't stop gushing about how proud I was about what she had achieved.2nd time I met her was with her bobo on a flight(I wonder if its the guy she's rumored to have married?)
Anyway,this na major digression(all na to claim her lol!).Seriously though,I wish that talk at Oxford had gone up to one 1hr.She is a joy to listen to.
I am massively proud of her and wish I had nutured my writing skills as a child(I used to write before but laziness wanna kill me die?)
Johntina,u and her r saying different things.She is not saying we should supress our negative stories.She is simply encouraging everybody to not stereotype.
It should be a wake up call for us in Nigeria 'cos we r massively guilty of it especially when it comes to marrying from a different tribe or State or town gan gan.
Dora Akunyili and her cohorts should stop wasting the billions we don't have in pushing this rebranding issue,Chimamanda has kickstarted it with a single speech.

[Igboamaeze]

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If anyone knows Chimamanda, pls tell her to avoid Abuja completely and in all ramifications: "national honour" in any shape or form, merit award, presidential dinner, break fast or break slow, land, appointment, rebranding consultancy, and just anything that has to do with Abuja. No one ever goes to Abuja and remains the same.

Abuja destroys, it does not build...

[omaks]

This was an absolutely brilliant masterpiece by Chimamanda, just like her novels. She told a story, and captivated those who appreciate the truth, for what she said was nothing short of the truth. I hope the World media were watching , indeed listening. I hope too that our gready leaders were listening, and have the balls to act wisely. What a better way to REBRAND Nigeria, than to tell the 'COMPLETE STORY' about Nigeria and Nigerians, and not the single , negative story that maligns all of Nigeria.

[Ikhide]

Many thanks to NVS for sharing. My reaction? On the surface, thoughtful and inspiring. The supercilliousness rankles. We should take a deep breath, stop the navel gazing and reflect on why 50 years after Things Fall Apart we are still lecturing the white man on the need for respect. I guess my views are colored by my last trip home where one gets the strong feeling that Nigeria is actively hawking self-disrespect ;-)

In any case, there is the implication that the single story is mostly the product of the other (aka white person). In my view, lately the single story has been bred, watered and nurtured for profit by African hustler-writers. I am talking of people writing to the test of Western hunger for the stereotypical. ... I am still kicking myself for buying this horrible book called Nollywood by Pieter Hugo; you would think that, thanks to the collusion of Chris Abani et al with Pieter Hugo that we are in the dark ages. Bad, bad, Abani. Sad. I am afraid Adichie is also sometimes guilty of what she preaches against, See my essay on the subject, The Balance of Our Stories: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...r-ikheloa.html

I wrote that piece in 2007. I believe it is even more relevant today. In that essay, I called Adichie and some of our writers on some of their stories. In any case, you must agree that any visitor to today's Nigeria will have a hard time writing anything but a single story. It is hard to respect what the eye sees. I am reading Michael Peel's delightful new book about Nigeria, A Swamp Full of Dollars.. I cannot put it down. It is a brilliant analysis of the environmental and human pogrom that the Niger delta has become in the hands of our misrulers. He writes with respect but you can see he is struggling. There is not much to respect in the shame that has become our nation. If we urinate in our living room, how can we demand that visitors respect said living room? Anyway, my point is this, we are our own worst enemies and we protest too much. Be well my friends and if you are currently in Nigeria be safe in that country.

- Ikhide

[denker]

thank u my small bruder, Ikhide, you took dos words direct right from my mind...!

[purple]

Stellar presentation by Ms Adichie. This morning I got my children to listen to her speech and used the content for a pedagogic moment. Great stuff! How I wish Nigerian educational institutions will expose our upcoming scholars to the message she brings. We need to tell our own story and define our own identity.

[Balo]

I love it when people like Johntina come up with a differing view, it is exactly what enlightened minds like Chimamanda would have welcomed - the dangers of a single story.

Having said that though, I find Chimamanda to be a very charming and thoughtful woman with a great spirit of hope. At this stage, I will have to say Babine, please step aside - you have a serioussssssssssssssss rival!

[Unregistre]

Originally Posted by Balo

I love it when people like Johntina come up with a differing view, it is exactly what enlightened minds like Chimamanda would have welcomed - the dangers of a single story.

Having said that though, I find Chimamanda to be a very charming and thoughtful woman with a great spirit of hope. At this stage, I will have to say Babine, please step aside - you have a serioussssssssssssssss rival!

Are you real? you gonna divorce Babine based on this one story from Chimamada? Babine; one less boyfriend to worry about.

[Igboamaeze]

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I hate middle grounds but here am I standing on one.

I think that John's position is not too far from Ms. Adichie's. My reading of Chima Adichie is that she is as disappointed and disillusioned with the Nigerian situation as John and the rest of us. I have watched a few of her interviews and must confess that she has never shied away from expressing it as it is, only that she is such a composed, pleasant and engaging speaker that never punches the air nor shows anger.

Even in this TED speech she summed the whole Nigerian story up by admitting that there is no government in Nigeria. That one single line takes care of everything that is wrong with this chaos that they call country. And if you read between the lines you'll see that she said much more.

That said, I don't understand why John should be "hanged" for disagreeing with Chima. I hate hero worshipping and this whole idea that not accepting a popular view is sacrilegious.

Enough of this sheep mentality...

[Bode Eluyera]

Black, Beautiful and Brilliant/Brainy!!!


Nigeria is Proud of you!!!

Africa is Proud of you!!!

The entire Black race is Proud of you!!!

Thank you for making us Proud!!!

The sky is the limit for you!!!

Where are waiting for another Nobel award in Literature from our ONLY, UNCOPIABLE, UNCLONABLE CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE!!!

MORE GREASE TO YOUR ELBOW!!!

[Bode Eluyera]

I love the way you deliver your address/paper with witty. Lest I forget sef Miss Adichie, I am not sure if you are aware of the fact that I am looking for a FEMALE EDITOR to edit my articles and help me improve on my writing skills. I tookeeded up writing recently, and I still have a lot to write. Unfortunately, the bullets or should I say the MISFIRINGS coming out from my articles are very very very disturbing. Could you imagine that an NVS villager FAINTED after reading my first article, and it took the divine intervention of Ogunlakaye, the god of iron, and Sango, the god of thunder, to bring the poor guy back to life. The Russian winter has wiped out my memory. Could you imagine that sometimes I have problems remembering some basic grammar rules?

By the way, don't mind those OVERFED oyinbos present at your speech. I don't blame them. I put the blame on our EDUCATED ILLITERATES who studied in the west but came back home to suppress their people with their knowledge - looked down on them and turned themselves into small gods - instead of using their knowledge to enlighten the people about the west. On getting home, they speak with fake American and British accents; wear WINTER BOOTS in hot African weather; condemn African culture, values, e.t.c. Nigerians that left the country for the west have not made things better too. Instead of being proud of their African heritage, they get rid of it on reaching the shores of western countries, try to be more European and/or American than their hosts.

Furthermore, the problem is compounded by our FLAWED EDUCATION SYSTEM which is built around western values. You just can't imagine how irritating it is whenever I watch Nigerian films to see that practically all the female actresses have their hair FRIED. Gone are our traditional hair plaiting. Imagine the pain our beautiful ladies go through and the damage they subject their hair too just to look like Europeans. It really does not worth it!

Would I be asking too much of you if I asked you to go through my articles - available on this site - and give recommendations on how I can improve on my writing skills? I will be obliged if you could. On my part, I will be glad to share my knowledge in Russian literature with you.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION AND UNDERSTANDING.

GOD BLESS!!!

P.S. I need to warn you to put on your BULLET PROOF VEST before reading my articles just to be on the safer side. Please don't take chances. My articles contain HIDDEN BULLETS.