Selfies With White Dwarfs

By Biko Agozino

This is a series of selfies that I took during the August 2017 solar eclipse in Virginia, USA. The shower of colors from cosmic rays that emerged as bubbles around my African silhouette image made me wonder where they came from and where exactly was the eclipse that I was trying to capture without daring to look the eye of the sun squarely in the face as it raced from West to what Nnamdi Azikiwe serenaded as ‘the land of the rising sun’ in the East, a poem that was later adopted as the national anthem for Biafra.

In My Odyssey, Azikiwe recounts tales of a meteor that blazed across the sky the night he was born in Zungeru near the great water and how tongues wagged about the prophesied greatness of the newborn before he went to live with his grandmother in Onitsha where he swam in the West-East flow of Orimiri and later grew up to challenge the Orientalist colonization of Africa by the West.

The images reminded me of the song by Bob Marley and The Wailers – Natural Mystic. Except in this case, being photographs, you cannot hear even if you listen carefully as Akinbode Akinbiyi advocated in The Sound of Crowded Spaces conveyed by photography. Rather, if you look carefully you will see the mystery of realism in the pictures even without hearing the sound of an eclipse, described with an app for the blind, from pictures.

As in Frantz Fanon’s haunting phrase, ‘Look, a Negro’, I did not make it up. It was not rehearsed and staged with special effects. My smart phone just captured what was not visible to my naked eyes or what you are forbidden to gaze upon, lest the awesome beauty blinds you for staring at, or evoking, what can’t be seen, a la Teju Cole who wrote about being blind-sighted by a 'blind spot' (probably because he had a strange habit of washing his eye-balls with warm chlorinated tap water).

The images also make me conscious of the indigenous knowledge system of the Dogon of Mali who are able to accurately predict the appearance of the Sirius star over cycles of sixty years for thousands of years and celebrate the reappearance. They also accurately identify the Sirius B White Dwarf that accompanies the Sirius on its visits to the earth’s astral path. Some colonial anthropologists dismissed this as a myth and said that the Dogon have no right to know such things unless some Europeans told them.

My ‘Selfies with White Dwarfs’ series of photographs of the fast-moving eclipse appears to be a reminder that certain meanings can be revealed by nature to those who are willing to look carefully and see what may be hidden from the wise and the prudent.

Some people posted on Facebook that evidence of the path of the eclipse from the north west to the south east, unlike the east-west rotation of the earth across the face of the sun daily, proves that the earth is flat and the moon landing was staged. Ha ha ha, my selfies with the eclipse were not staged, halo and all.

I have used one of these iconic photographs as the cover picture for my collection of essays published as a book: Essays on Education and Popular Culture: Massliteracy, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2019. Can you tell which picture was used as the book cover?

The pictures approximate the streams of consciousness that travelled with the eclipse from West to East, unlike the eye of the sun that goes from East to West, but exactly like the course of the great river Niger from the West to the Southeast across West Africa.

The pictures were submitted for exhibition in Recontres de Bamako 2019 and this blog post alludes to the Director’s statement but the entry was not accepted for the exhibition.

Igbo Legal Advice to a European Law Firm

 By Biko Agozino 

  A Paralegal at a Solicitor Law Firm once wrote to me out of the blues seeking advice about a case that touched on Igbo belief systems. I was told that he came across my details while researching the family law proceedings that his firm was handling. They were looking for a court expert to hopefully advise about 'threats' by a "Nigerian father to place a curse on the mother of his unborn child" 

The threats were said to specifically reference a shrine that was suspected to be 'Okija Shrine in Anambra State or a shrine of similar reputation and function.' They were looking for someone with the 'requisite expertise to comment on the culture and beliefs' of the worshippers and 'the significance of the curses the father has laid on the mother through and using his child as the conduit.'

I was told that appointment as a court expert would come with 'a remuneration from the legal aid agency'. Without quoting my hourly rates for such a remuneration, I felt the need to offer immediate advice to the law firm for free. But since they did not acknowledge receipt of my instant response, I guessed that they did not agree with my comments and may have appointed someone else. They must have been overwhelmed with cases to find time to acknowledge receipt of my advice. 

I have therefore decided to blog my advice here to see if I gave them good advice or if people who worship at such shrines or other lawyers would disagree with my advice. 

My Peacemaking advice may be supported by The Book of Forgiving by Tutu and by Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community. The Pepinsky and Quinney editorial on Criminology as Peacemaking that claims to be influenced by indigenous philosophies of non-violence may also be supportive of my advice. Finally, Carol Smart has reported relevant research evidence that lawyers who seek mediation and reconciliation were said to be better lawyers by clients than lawyers who seek adversarial approaches under the Family Law Act where there is no guilty party though the ruling may be in favor of one party; and any criminal matters, like violence against women, can be tried separately in a criminal court where the defendant would be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

What do you think about my anonymized and slightly edited response below, Dear reader? Did I say something wrong?

 Dear Paralegal, 

 Tell the expectant mother that I wish her all the best with the baby. She must not allow any stress to give her the impression that the baby is a conduit for a curse. The baby is a blessing who deserves to be loved to bits. Forgive the father if he says things under stress, love him and bless him as much as you can for he is also struggling with the huge responsibility of bringing another life into the world. 

Nobody can curse a mother who is bringing another child of Chukwu into this world. Make sure that the mother (and father too) gets 8 hours sleep every night and starts each day early with a healthy breakfast. Forgive those who curse you and love your enemies as yourself because sometimes, you are your own worst enemy. Forgive yourself too and love yourself unapologetically. 

 The Igbo do not believe in curses as threats to people who are upright. The neighbors of the Igbo believe more in witchcraft but the Igbo believe in good or bad Chi or personal God; and we say that if your Chi does not agree to any temptation, you will never be tempted or you will triumph in the name of the great God, Chukwu. 

The Igbo survived a genocidal civil war in Biafra where 3.1 million were killed in 30 months and they left it all in the hands of Chukwu without seeking revenge or laying curses on their enemies. As a result, the Igbo have been immensely blessed to the envy of many of their neighbors who still threaten and kill the Igbo in large numbers, according to Amnesty International. 

 Okija is a truth shrine where people in dispute could go to swear that they are telling the truth (as people swear on scriptures in court while many lie through their teeth; whereas sworn liars are afraid of being punished by the shrine). It is not a Voodoo doll for cursing anyone. 

In other words, if due to the stress of Covid, racism or economic precarity, the expectant father is pissing his pants and wondering how the hell he is going to raise this blessing coming to a world struggling with climate warming, the mother should show understanding and forgive him, treat him with tender loving care, and transform him with kindness into the more loving person she fell in love with. 

 But if the couple are determined to split up for their own sanity or safety, they should still aim to remain friends so that they can cooperate to raise the baby who deserves to have relationships with both mom and dad even if they cannot stand each other (unless they are considering giving up for adoption, or going for reproductive healthcare in the interest of the mother's legal and medical rights to choose). 

 Here is an article by Professor Nonso Okafo of the University of Nigeria Law Faculty with 53 references to alusi 'Ogwugwu Isiula' in Okija but with no reference to a curse, in the context of indigenous non-state law in AJCJS, a peer-reviewed academic journal that I edit for the African Criminology and Justice Association: https://www.umes.edu/uploadedFiles/_WEBSITES/AJCJS/Content/6%201%202%20okafo%20proof.pdf

Thanks for asking for my penny thoughts. Best wishes to the expectant mom and dad. 

Here is my reply to a comment on a different social media platform:

I agree, mental health services may be needed by the couple. My advice may contribute to the mental healing but I do not believe that being stressed as expecting parents means that they are crazy, it is normally a stressful experience, albeit a joyful one, to most too. The mother has the right to choose what to do with her own healthcare just like every other adult. The parents are required to contribute to the upbringing of their children but where they fall short, society should be there to support them with good publicly-funded schools, healthcare, housing, and well-paying employment opportunities.

And this to another comment elsewhere:

Getting mental health services is a call for them and the national health services to make, not for this doctor who has only a Ph.D. in Law and Society. The law firm asked for my knowledge of the culture and advice on the case for the court as an expert.

And this:

We have only heard one side of the story from the mother. Who knows if the father only swore that he was telling the truth and if he was lying, Okija should punish him, just like Fela said Na Truth I want talk again o, and if he dey lie, make Ogun punish him? I was asked for a legal opinion and knowledge of the culture rather than for a recommendation of a religious ritual in far away Europe. But you are right that it can be settled out of court with love and forgiveness like I said.

 Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA, and the Editor in Chief, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies.