Guest Blogs: Colin Caret

[Editor's note: This excellent academic paper by Philosophy student Colin Caret deftly concretizes and extends some of the themes which Trouble Tickets explores in our work on "demonstrations as narrative". Many thanks to Colin for allowing us to publish it here.]

Since 1958, Shell oil operations in the Rivers state of Nigeria have caused untold environmental damage to the land, air, and water that the people of the local community have relied on for survival. The traditionally agrarian cultures of this region have suffered tremendously as a result of Shell's negligence and failure to return any significant benefits to the community, as well as the Nigerian government's unwillingness to seek change for the good of the people. These are hallmark elements of neoliberal political ideology, which places primary emphasis on market growth and promotes corporate greed and government complacency. The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) was founded in the early 1990s to unify the smaller organizations throughout Ogoniland under a large umbrella group. Internationally renowned writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was the influential head of MOSOP from 1993 until 1995, when the Nigerian government executed him. Of the numerous branches of MOSOP, those most actively resistant to the ongoing devastation include the National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP) and the National Union of Ogoni Students (NUOS). I argue that NYCOP and NUOS participated in mass demonstrations in the 1990s as a counter-narrative to neoliberal hegemony, while working to mediate tensions concerning identity, tactics, and the goals of the movement in an effort to promote social justice and improve the quality of life in Ogoniland.

Gerard Sfez claims that demonstration "possesses a formative energy in the dynamic of history" (Sfez: 1999). Demonstration has also been used as a term to signify the revelation or incarnation of a religious truth - a constructive interpretation for political activism. Another approach is to understand demonstration as narrative: "It's possible to theorize these events as theater, as media, as forms of popular sovereignty, and in many other ways... it's helpful to see them as messages: a story someone is trying to tell to someone else" (Phillips). Narrative is any discourse with socially formative power, while Hegemony is the 'narrative of the elite' that is so pervasive as to seem unavoidable and unstoppable. Demonstration is one form of counter-narrative to hegemony that tells the story of the masses; it is successful because, as Strinati says, "the revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups... " (1995). This ties in with Gramsci's notion that the successful reversal of hegemony may be dependent upon establishing networks throughout the society (Stillo: 1999). In 1990, in the fertile Niger delta, such a coalition was formed under the auspices of MOSOP, but mobilizing the Ogoni people to voice a counter-narrative was far from simply achieved.

One factor that hindered the efforts of MOSOP organizers is that "the Ogonis do not have a myth of common origin as do most other ethnic groups in Nigeria... In fact, some sub-groups have rejected a pan-Ogoni identity in the past" (Osaghae: 1995). Ogoni ethnicity is based on common linguistic dialect and tribal affiliations, leading some of the kingdoms of Ogoniland to resist identifying themselves with the rest of the community. MOSOP leaders framed their central grievance against Shell, regarding environmental negligence, which turned out to be a salient theme, because "'Tradition' in Ogoni means, in the local tongue (doonu kuneke), the honoring of the land" (UNPO: 2001). Just as MOSOP unified all the Ogoni people, local/village student groups unified under NUOS, which "has used its position as a pan-Ogoni movement to enlighten non-Ogoni students in high schools and tertiary institutions in Nigeria on the ecological degradation of Ogoniland and the Niger delta" (Wiwa: 1996). Establishing a popular foundation for the counter-narrative is critical to its reformative success. In 1990, Ogoni youth contributed their efforts to create a network of organizations unified under MOSOP that effectively mobilized the people, but tensions still existed within the community that caused resistance tactics to diverge in ways that weakened the success of the movement.

Youth leader John Kpuinen, president of NYCOP until 1995, alongside MOSOP organizer Saro-Wiwa, promoted non-violent resistance tactics derived from a synthesis of traditional Ogoni values and civil disobedience trainings that Saro-Wiwa had received abroad. For the majority of the Ogoni this was seen as a sufficient and good policy, but amongst Ogoni youth there were numerous outbreaks of violent resistance. Nigerian filmmaker Akin Omotoso, speaking about a recent project chronicling the MOSOP activities in the 1990s, says: "From the political and sexual storytelling of Fela Kuti's afrobeat and the brilliant writings of Chinua Achebe, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Wole Soyinka, to the furious energy of the film industry and the oral traditions of the Ogoni and Yoruba people, storytelling is fundamental to everything [italics added]" (Harris: 2002). The contestation of NYCOP and NUOS tactics can be understood as a divergence of opinion about narrative content. Militant youth factions have a story to tell, but theirs is a dialectic of retribution. Divisions within MOSOP appeared, following a government crackdown on movement leaders in response to Ogoni youth violence. Conservative members "claimed that NYCOP had become Saro-Wiwa's 'private vigilante army'" - an allegation that may have contributed to his arrest and execution at the hands of the Nigerian dictatorship (Cayford: 1996). In contrast to these conflicts, NYCOP and NUOS tactics often took the form of carnival: a site of vibrant creativity through music, dance, poetry, and chanting that strengthens social networks and exposes injustice. A popular Ogoni chant says "The flames of Shell are the flames of Hell / We bask below their light / Naught for us to serve the blight / Of cursed neglect and cursed Shell."

Additional unresolved tension within the Ogoni counter-narrative concerned the teleological underpinnings of movement activity. Two spectra of purpose can be identified, categorized by short-term and long-term goals. Regarding short-term goals, the Ogoni were unified in their hope to bring an immediate end to environmentally devastating oil extraction processes. The long-term goals of the movement were less cohesive, but all variations involved some form of compensation for past harm and a greater degree of autonomy for the community. The keystone MOSOP document is the Ogoni Bill of Rights, drafted in 1990, asserting both political autonomy for Ogoniland within a confederation of Nigerian states, and a fair distribution of benefits from Shell oil operations (Cayford: 1996; Osaghae: 1995). Elements of MOSOP have been criticized for reading this articulation of autonomy too strongly, and attracting military rebuke by urging secession. Clifford Bob argues that pressure from transnational NGOs may have motivated Saro-Wiwa to radicalize movement activities in ways that were inappropriate to domestic opportunity structure, the effects of which could be seen as an obfuscation of the counter-narrative (2002). After four conservative Ogoni leaders were allegedly killed by NYCOP members in 1994, Saro-Wiwa, Kpuinen, and seven other prominent organizers were jailed and eventually executed by the Abacha regime for treason. MOSOP insists that the murders were carried out by the Nigerian military and were in no way connected to resistance leaders.

The most potent affirmation of Ogoni counter-narrative was evidenced in the 1993 uprising of nearly three-fifths of the population of Ogoniland (over 300,000 people). This demonstration marked the first Ogoni Day, which continues to be celebrated annually to rejuvenate the peaceful discourse of the movement. When all hope seemed lost after the execution of the Ogoni nine, NUOS "mobilized itself, women, men and children, and marked the day" (Wiwa: 1996). The government crackdown on Ogoni leaders fostered doubt about the movement, but a swift international reaction to the unjust executions and the subsequent removal of Nigeria from the African Commonwealth eventually led to significant reforms and the first democratic election Nigeria had seen in almost forty years. Owens Wiwa, the exiled brother of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, returned to Ogoniland in 1999 after the installation of President Obasanjo. He reported that the counter-narrative continues to be told: "Twenty-two communities of the Niger delta took part in the Carnival of the Oppressed...there was carnival dancing, masquerades, music everywhere, everyone in the streets" (Wiwa: 1999).

I have argued that NYCOP and NUOS participated as important elements in the larger MOSOP activities and mobilizations of the 1990s. Ogoni youth took part in mass demonstrations as a counter-narrative to neoliberal hegemony, while working to mediate tensions concerning identity, tactics, and the goals of the movement in an effort to promote social justice and improve the quality of life in Ogoniland. The execution of the Ogoni nine, in 1995, may have inhibited the momentum of the movement, but the return of a democratically elected government to Nigeria promises hopeful reforms. Perhaps now the Ogoni will have an opportunity to tell their story to a more receptive audience.

References

• Bob, Clifford. "Political Process Theory and Transnational Movements: Dialectics of Protest among Nigeria's Ogoni Minority". Social Problems. Aug, 2002. v49 i3 p.39
• Cayford, Steven. "The Ogoni Uprising: Oil, Human Rights, and a Democratic Alternative in Nigeria". Africa Today. June, 1996. v43 n2 p.18
• Harris, Iain. "God is African: the Guerilla Tactics of Akin Omotoso". Afribeat. 2002.
• Osaghae, Eghosa. "The Ogoni Uprising: Oil Politics, Minority Agitation and the Future of the Nigerian State". African Affairs. July, 1995. v94 n376 p.325
• Phillips, Mark "Narratives". Trouble Tickets: An Activist Web Project.
• Sfez, Gerard. "Demonstration". Dictionaire Critique du Marxisme. Georges Labica and Gerard Bensussan, eds. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999. pp.691-692. translated by Ted Stolze for Trouble-Tickets: An Activist Web Project.
• Stillo, Monica "Antonio Gramsci" 1999
• Strinati, Dominic. "Gramsci's Concept of Hegemony". An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1995. pp.160-162.
• UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and People's Organization). "Ogoni Culture" 2001.
• Wiwa, Charles. "Ogoni Students play Vital Role in Struggle at Home and Abroad". 1996. Essential Action.
• Wiwa, Owens. "Carnival of the Oppressed". Art Activism: We are Everywhere. 1999.

Colin Caret is a student of philosophy and sociology at San Jose State University. This paper is republished here with his permission.