Today's theme is prejudice and discrimination and where better to start than with the Nigerians?
Information Minister Ms Dora Akunyili [the Ms being a dead PC giveaway for a start] is up in arms about a film, District Nine, which she says portrays Nigerians as cannibals, criminals and prostitutes.
She's right to be concerned. Ms Susan Whatever and her call to the dearly beloved to give her their bank details because she has a hard life in Nigeria is hardly criminal. A scam to part thousands with their money, of course but hardly criminal.
Malawian actor, Eugene Khumbanyiwa who plays a gang leader with the nickname of Obasanjo, also the surname of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, says of the District Nine furor in Nigeria that the film, which depicts people wanting to eat aliens to gain superhuman powers, should not be taken too literally:
"It's a story, you know," he said. "It's not like Nigerians do eat aliens. Aliens don't even exist in the first place."
I do feel Mr. Khumbanyiwa is being quite Alienist here, spreading disinformation about the Alien community in Nigeria and elsewhere. Aliens have a perfect right to live in our society, free of any discrimination on the grounds of tentacles, cannibalistic propensities, treating humans as prostitutes or because of the green colour of their hide.
Just as the wolf has a perfect right to harass the sheep without fear of discrimination or the cat has a perfect right to harass and worry the mouse and the bird without having to suffer vilification and humiliation, so the Alien should not be subject to the obnoxious and highly prejudiced mental illness of Sigourney Weaver.
Not quite sure I understand this- I know you know that all Nigerians aren't 419 scammers! Not sure about the last paragraphs too.
ReplyDeleteIts supposed to be quite a good film, Mark Kermode reviewed it well on Radio 5.
The point was to ridicule this process, described by Lord T in the comments section of the last post, that there is a portion of the community which instantly labels anything they don't like with an "ism" or a "phobia" tag, when the point being made could be quite valid.
ReplyDeleteTo oppose Islam, for example, with its avowed intent of converting the world in a bloody way is not necessarily and by definition, sick.
In Brown's Britain... No-one Can Hear You Scream.
ReplyDeleteIn Africa, the idea that some African or another would eat an alien to gain his power would be found quite plausible. Why wouldn't you improve yourself?
ReplyDeleteWait for the African protest marches in vain.
It's not all bad. Melville said he would rather sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken white man, and he would know.
Y-e-e-e-es.
ReplyDelete