By
Obododimma Oha
There is a saying in Igbo discourse
"Mma e jiri gbue ewu ka a ga-eji gbue atụrụ" (The knife used in slaughtering a goat shall be used in slaughtering the sheep, too.)
That suggests that the goat and the sheep have the same tragic fate. It also suggests other things, including
-- it is futile for the sheep to flaunt its difference
-- both animals are not liked
-- it is better for the sheep to join the goat in its protest
-- for the one doing the slaughtering, a difference cannot be seen
The sheep wants to be seen as a better other, what the Igbo call "igochara ihu" (literally translated as "buying a face" ). But, who is fooling who? Those in such buying of face are not fools. They know what the fellow is doing and whoever can betray his kinsfolk should not be trusted. Such a person, like the fellow constantly attacking Igboness in Lagos, is to be filed away as a deceiver.
" Better other"! So, that's the politics? No wonder it is called "igochara ihu". It looks like the sheep doesn't even want to haggle. Its face can be sold cheaply.
"Better others" sometimes become worse others and need to watched closely. "Better others" may be out to wreck.
Sheep buying faces need to be pitied. Sheepness and goatness know the pepper-soup pot and the same knife can do the job. The sheep is chewing the cud and looking on as the goat is slaughtered. It is not a film trick. It is real and the sheep next.
The sheep behaves as if it safer to be a sheep. Soon, very soon, the thinking would change. What is crimson red for the goat is crimson red for the sheep. The same knife!
I think the problem is the thinking. Or is it the thoughtlessness? Maybe. Being able to think - - and to think clearly - - - is behind the project of the creation of human beings. I think many animals, too. Sorry for creatures that hardly think. They are food for others. Thinking animals can use or deal with unthinking ones anyway they like.
Is it not the same with talking animals you encounter in folktales? In one tale in Igbo, a talking bird warns a woman :
Nwaanyị erikwala m, kparanụma!
Anaghị eri m eri, kparanụma...!
("Woman, don't eat me, kparanụma!
I am not the type that can be eaten, kparanụma ...!)
But she stubbornly ignores the talking bird's warning. What she experiences later is terrible. Thinking animals, too, are more than prophecies. They can even help us to avert disaster. They bring us back to thinking and ask us to stop playing sheep.
Doesn't the sheep keep quiet and look on while the goat is being slaughtered? That is the way of the new selfishness. Don't you say in English that silence is golden? But this kind of silence is scarlet red. In multiethnic societies, the selfish path has been, "Oh, it is not for us. This treatment won't get to us." But we now know better - - that the very knife used in slaughtering even pregnant women asleep in Benue is also used in slaughtering people in Enugu. Is the sheep still silent and looking on?
It is unfortunate that it now appears to be the norm in many places that when one group is being attacked or mistreated, the other group looks the other way. "Do not try to get involved in any way" seems to be the instruction. So, members keep off. Even if there are ways of talking to leaders, as ancient mediators did, that won't be done. The work of selfishness and poor thinking, if you ask me.
It is not helpful for the sheep to believe the slaughtering is only for goats, after all, the desire for goat meat is high in this land. But the people in the abattoir also prepare stuff of sheep for sheep delicacies. And by the way, there is no law about the kind of knife that they have to use. If there is one, maybe appetite and liking for the meat.
The knife used in slaughtering the goat being used in slaughtering the sheep is not a cause for concern. What is needed is meat. The desire for a different knife is from those chewing the cud and just looking on.
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