Chukwunonso Onyema
Reading and comparing the works of Antonio Gramsi and Louis Althuser on Aristocrats, bourgeoisie and the Proletariat, you will understand the essential Apparatus that these parties engage.
However, the only factor that connects the two is the economy (money). The battle for money the only independent variable that compels the two. While the Aristos use the Represesive Apparatus like the Army and police to maintain hegemony, the Proletariats uses the Ideological State Apparatus like the family, School, Religion, Trade Unions, media and law to battle hegemony.
Please indulge me that I have to be philosophical but you must be if really you want to understand what freedom fighting is. And to know when you are shooting yourself instead directing your guns to the enemy.
MNK has done a great work by arousing the dying notion of igbo identity, I think the IPOB should not take their sympathisers as joke or else, they will be abandoned.
Many Igbos including myself are not members of IPOB but we have read books about the Nigerian Genocidal war and the pogroms and we are still seeing these systemic ethnic cleansing, so these make us sympathetic to MNK and the Biafran cause but that cannot make us unreasonable not to understand when to cease fire, negotiate and move on to fight another day.
The recent announcement by IPOB on market closure on Mondays to mount pressure on government to release MNK is an Act of self immolation unto the organisation and will definitely deflate the popularity the group is enjoying now. MNK is already loved and so much loved by many. Please don’t attract hatred to him.
The Alaigbo needs the economy to prosper and shutting down our economy on a threatening mandate is one of the most unreasonable decision from IPOB and I am really concerned.
I’m not even a good writer that can pontificate diction but I’m writing with pains in my heart. There is hunger and poverty already impacted by COVID-19, is it still wise that you want the people you are fighting for to be dying out of poverty and starvation because of your asphyxiating economic mandate? Check it naaa. That’s not freedom fighting, rather an economic holocaust unto your own people.
A nation with a strong and healthy economy has a vantage position to negotiate and do battles. This is even evident if you read the 48 Laws of Power and the Act of War treatises on power, authority and influence.
An Igbo is known to be intelligent, meticulous and adept in his process and not belligerent in a slight provocations. This is a time we use our intelligence, build on our economy and spread prosperity. The closure of market on weekly basis can never be sustained. Igbos must feed to fight. Remember: A hungry Man is an Angry man and an Angry man is a very violent and unreasonable man. Hunger swings emotions, who knows what this your directive might cause IPOB.
Jesus was a freedom fighter, when he was arrested Peter protested and cut the ear of Malchus but reprimanded Peter and told him to sheet his sword (Matt. 26:51; Mk 14:47; Lk. 22:51 & Jn. 18:10-11). Today we have more than 1 billion Christians all over the world and name Jesus (Yeshua) is still pronounced today by the adherents of Christian religion. MNK understand that arrests, litigation, prison and even death is what awaits him and he has gladly given himself up for the struggle. Many of his sympathisers are already fighting, soliciting and supporting him in their respective and desired way so don’t make it look like IPOB is forcing us
Now, to my first paragraph, as the state is using their repressive Apparatus, can we fully employ the Ideological State Apparatus to fight and influence opinions. I think that will be better.
