Archive for 2024

I KEEP GETTING A HOWARD DEAN VIBE OFF OF KAMALA’S POTEMKIN CAMPAIGN:  Kamala Harris’ campaign team is editing news headlines in her favor — without outlets’ knowledge: report.

Maybe there really is enthusiasm for her, but maybe they’re shuttling empty busses around to make the MSM think there’s support.  Though are even so called journalists so dumb they don’t spot the crowds filled with people tragically endowed with extra hands or eyes who welcome her at every airport? I mean, AI images are not that hard to see.

 

WHILE BRITAIN AND EUROPE COMMIT SEPPUKU IN ATONEMENT FOR THE ALLEGED EVILS OF COLONIALISM: Nigeria Reverts to Its Old Colonial Anthem: The song represents the patriotism present at its independence.

Nigeria ditched its indigenous national anthem in May and restored the old colonial one. The decision by the country’s National Assembly to revive a song written and composed by two white British women has caused predictable meltdowns in polite society. But it is the latest evidence that the shine is off decolonization.

The British assumed colonial rule over the first part of the territory that is now Nigeria in 1861. As the peaceful and carefully planned shift to Nigerian independence in 1960 approached, contests were held to decide the lyrics and music of the national anthem. The winners were a British social worker temporarily living in Nigeria and a piano teacher from London. Both women were white, but nobody seemed to care. As a Nigerian commentator wrote in 2009, “our national anthem ‘Nigeria we hail thee . . .’ opened me and I believe millions of Nigerians up with pride and the feeling of patriotism.”

After a few years, Nigeria collapsed into a vicious civil war. Three decades of dictatorship followed. In 1978 the military government decided to swap out the “colonialist” anthem for a new one. Five poets and one police-band musician delivered a clunky, unmemorable tune called “Arise, O Compatriots,” with no refrain and Soviet-sounding lyrics like “The labor of our heroes past shall never be in vain.”

As corruption and misgovernance continued to plague Nigeria even with a return to democracy in 1999, the original anthem became a reminder of how far short the country had fallen from the feelings of nationhood and unity present at the country’s independence. By reinstating it, legislators hoped to move Nigeria closer to those ideals. “This anthem, with its familiar lyrics and stirring melody, evokes a sense of nostalgia and patriotism,” said Philip Agbese, deputy spokesman for the Nigerian government. Senate leader Opeyemi Bamidele similarly said that the original anthem “played quite a significant and crucial role in shaping Nigeria’s national identity” and “was symbolic of Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage.”

Decolonization was pushed too soon by proto-woke Westerners, Soviet and American geopolitics, and the ambitions of local politicos. The consequences in many places were much worse than a more measured approach would have produced. Unsurprising that we’re seeing a bit of nostalgia for the past.

Of course, now places like Nigeria are sending missionaries to Europe, Britain, and even the United States, so. . . .

OPEN THREAD: Happy Tuesday.

ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD:

Backstory here.

ALL THE BEST PEOPLE TOLD ME THIS NEVER HAPPENS:

FATHERHOOD AT FIFTY: A Growing Trend.

JOSH TREVINO: This Sceptred Isle. Reflections on the revolution in England. “The British Museum apparatus of commerce also, it so happens, has two sections purveying for purchase materials helpful in ushering the purchaser into the occult. As for the single most-important influence on all British history, which is to say Christianity, it has nothing in particular. This too is a regime choice. . . . Among the American misapprehensions of Britain is that it is becoming Islamic. That is in fact happening — it is notable that a mosque is the only religious structure seen on the train from London to Oxford — but it is consequence rather than cause. Islam did not eradicate Christian England: that was the work of the English themselves.”