It was the late Dele Giwa of the Newswatch fame who first introduced the concept of Afghanistanism in Nigerian journalism. It simply refers to the act of writing on a distant and remote topic when one’s country is inundated with crises. When renowned writers disregard their vicinity and look elsewhere for topics to comment upon, it either suggests insensitivity or cowardice or even the idea of wearing a mask, which is my preoccupation in this post.
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a poor land-locked country in Asia that is known for its notoriety in war and Islamic fundamentalism. By the time Dele Giwa had overlooked the problems of Nigeria’s military dictatorship in the early 1980s and focused his attention on the US-backed Talibans fighting to oust the government of Afghanistan, most of his readers questioned his courage and patriotism. They were reminded of Achebe’s story of an absurd man who chased after lizards while his house was burning. It however took the ebullient journalist himself to explain to them that going to Afghanistan itself was a ploy to comment on Nigeria in an aesthetic way. It’s a way of wearing a mask and putting up a show that could be understood and appreciated across the world. Who says journalism is merely a local practice without universal application? In fact, Dele Giwa until his death by a parcel bomb in October 1985, had no business with cowardice or chicken heartedness.
We are in an era of wearing masks, if not for anything, but to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. Some of those who wear masks do so to hide their identities. Armed robbers, hired assassins, rapists and other heinous criminals belong to this group.
The mask is an instrument of make-belief. It is used in African traditional societies to actualize the spiritual world that is otherwise abstract. Local gods, ancestors and legendary spirits come alive in form of masquerades. In this regard, it acquires the attributes of a theater.
Life itself is a theater, so says William Shakespeare. The characters we come across on the world stage adorn various masks or costume generated by makeups and cosmetics, computer games, voice manipulation, political gimmick, religious exhibitionism or fetish choreography and many other processes to create a certain impression.
By far, the greatest contribution of Africa to the world theater has been in the area of masquerades, even as the wearing of masks is no longer the exclusive preserve of spiritualist Africans.
The Afghans being a predominantly muslim country may not have a culture of masquerades, but may have woken up to realize that wearing a mask is now a culture they should share with their American adversaries. Thanks to the Coronavirus which arose just within their neighborhood, in China, but benevolently devastated their foes the Americans, apparently for wearing a mask of deceit for so long.
How else could the God of Afghanistan have fought for them if not through the virus. It is on record that Afghanistan is the only country in the world that had never been conquered or colonized. The Russians had invaded them in 1979 and installed a government that was unacceptable to them.
The United States CIA wearing the mask of muslim friends, worked with other radical Islamic groups from Pakistan to sponsor the Talibans take over government in the early 80s. By the time the US came to invade Afghanistan in October, 2001 to remove the Talibans from power for ostensibly hosting Osama bin Laden, they had probably adorned same mask of deceit but enacted different dance steps.
Nobody really knows the mind of the man behind the mask. Five thousand American lives were wasted in the meaningless war which only proved the rapidity of the change of disposition of mind of a big masquerade.
I have deliberately left our country alone as it grapples with a seemingly new benevolent mask called the #endsars. The youths, like the what the Americans did to the Talibans, had worked hard to install the PMB government into power.
The government has also responded swiftly by scrapping SARS to gratify them, but still like the American benefactors, the youths have adorned a mask which dance steps are rather confusing to the Buhari administration. There are threats of a crackdown on the demonstrators from the government and its supporters.
There are also speculations as to who the masqueraders are. Political and religious elements are being fingered which only goes to prove how ambivalent African masquerades are known to be. African masquerades have a knack for irrationality. If really, the people wearing the #endsars mask are the pentecostalists as can interpreted through the public statements of Bishops, Oyedepo, Adeboye and Dr Enenche, isn’t it a contradiction that they have their very own as the s vice-president of the Buhari government?
Another bizarre move of the mask is its growing linkage with politicians like Tinubu, Atiku, Kwankwaso and others known to have presidential ambitions for 2023. It will definitely be disengineous for such masquerades to scuttle the festival in which they themselves are scheduled to appear.
The late novelist, Achebe had warned that no offense was as grievous as unmasking a village masquerade at the market square. But who knows the man or the idea behind the mask? Please wear your mask to avoid Coronavirus.
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