@kellorah

And you are happy about that! FYI the rightness of a cause is not measured by how many people join with you, but the principle behind it and your means of achieving them. At least that is the way I see it. It is not a popularity contest.

Unnecessary things you say. Well, I 'll like to participate in the necessary things you are addressing to help Nigeria's cause. I am waiting.

Thank you.

naijamini

kellorah:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

You'll be lucky if u get 50 petitions!!

Some people know how to bother themselves with unnecessary things. Don't have HBP sha.

Use this time and energy to petition against important things pls. This movie is selling elsewhere, and the people are enjoying their money.

naijamini:

@kellorah

And you are happy about that! FYI the rightness of a cause is not measured by how many people join with you, but the principle behind it and your means of achieving them. At least that is the way I see it. It is not a popularity contest.

Unnecessary things you say. Well, I 'll like to participate in the necessary things you are addressing to help Nigeria's cause. I am waiting.

Thank you.

naijamini

There's nothing I will say that will make u change ur mind about ur petition, so Imma save myself the energy of basically repeating what some people have already said!!

But, please, do use ur time to petition for/against IMPORTANT issues.

This movie should be the least of your worries.

No, there is nothing you could say that will change my mind about this petition.

And if you don't think I know that Nigeria has serious problems and have thought about how to contribute my quota then you don't know what you are talking about. This is one small quota I could contribute. Lend a helping hand IF YOU CAN, but resist the temptation to distract. I would rather have everybody supporting the petition, but it is not a necessary condition for pursuing a cause. It may only make a tiny contribution, but it would still be positive.

Contribute your own quota and see if I don't join you. What is important to you may not be important to me due to many reasons, but the aggregation of our various contributions is how we will help our country.

Thank you.

naijamini

kellorah:

There's nothing I will say that will make u change your mind about your petition, so Imma save myself the energy of basically repeating what some people have already said!!

But, please, do use your time to petition for/against IMPORTANT issues.

This movie should be the least of your worries.

Pls petition for the ASUU strike to be over. . .for the sake of many Nigerians who will be benefitting from the cause. Thank you.

kellorah:

Pls petition for the ASUU strike to be over. . .for the sake of many Nigerians who will be benefitting from the cause. Thank you.

y can't you start it yourself?

ayusco:

y can't you start it yourself?

Well, seeing as someone is into petitioning, he might as well add this to his causes.

I'm not in Nigeria, so don't see how I'm gonna be able to get as much people as needed to sign the petition, and when the petitions are ignored, I wont be able to gather people for a protest.

I have had a draft of notes on the District 9 movie for quite a while, but was motivated to post it by the following thread:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Tells The Nigerian Story- A Must Watch
« on: Today at 01:24:34 AM » 
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/652

The talk by Chima at the above site parallels my concerns and reason behind the call for a petition about the District 9 movie. Take the time to listen to this talk, and to read the District 9 notes below.

Also you can still sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/ddd2009/petition.html

DE-CONSTRUCTING THE MOVIE DISTRICT 9
'Debo Oladosu

District 9 is a movie about a group of aliens stranded and floating above Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a movie that talks from both sides of its 'mouth' as it were. It is what you would describe as an animal without head or tail. This characterization fits almost every aspect of the movie EXCEPT one - look for this exception below. Let me start with two innocuous  pointers at the opposites that characterize this movie:

1.  The movies' name District 9 is derived from events surrounding an area named "District 6" in Cape Town, South Africa . Here 6 is turned on its head to make 9.
2.  The movie's posters carry two different messages. On one poster a giant alien is depicted along with the phrase "No Humans Allowed"  and "You are not welcome here". On another, it says "For humans only: Non-humans banned".

The above should convince the reader that the conflicting messages related in this movie are deliberate. In case you are not convinced this is how writer and director Blomkamp (an English speaking South African) puts it: "It wouldn't be clear whether or not I actually had a message, but rather that all of these themes that interest me are being presented to the audience, and you can make up your own mind and you can view this hopefully in a somewhat honest environment." (see http://www.cinematical.com/2009/08/14/interview-district-9-director-neill-blomkamp/)
Walking into the theater, I expected  to see the typical alien movie: the human spirit triumphs against all odds in the face of alien superior technology and aggression, that kind of thing. What I found was double-speak after double-speak. The list is long:

Double-speak 1:
The aliens had superior technology alright - a massive hovering aircraft with no visible source of energy. They had individual weapons too, 10,000 times (my estimation) more powerful than anything seen on planet earth. It was clear that these aliens could take Johannesburg and the planet if only they wanted. Instead District 9 aliens were largely benign creatures. In fact, it was humans that went up to the ship and saved the aliens from a dying condition. During interrogation an alien even said: "we mean you no harm", "we had no choice". Whoever, heard of a peaceful civilization that relies on massively superior weaponry. I guess, the disease that forced these aliens to planet earth also implanted a violence-forgetting/what weapons-are-good-for virus in their brains, transforming them into a docile set of cockroaches to be pushed around.  The excuse Blomkamp gives is that they were worker drones who lost contact with their command center, and therefore unable to make decisions - far-fetched if you ask me.

Double-speak 2:
The "rescued" aliens were camped and 28 years later had grown to almost two million, their camp a slum, and their criminal activities beginning to chafe the South Africans who then called for the aliens to leave their land.  These calls for eviction from District 9 are made by both black and non-black South Africans. However, the sentences "they mus go, they mus jus go" and "at least they are keeping them separate from us" were uttered by only blacks. So now black South Africans in Blomkamp's District 9 world are depicted as xenophobes and segregationists. Sure there have being xenophobic attacks in South Africa recently, but the approach in the movie is especially appalling. This because, though supposedly based on actual events that happened in District Six ("an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, was declared a "whites only" area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed and relocated to Cape Flats, 25 km (15 mi) away." Blomkamp finds no room for the GREAT CRIME of APARTHEID that actually took place in South African in his movie. Yet, he used words uttered by black South African victims of that era today to paint them in the light of xenophobia and segregation - note that this is not an endorsement of xenophobia or segregation in any form or even the kind of actions Mugabe of Zimbabwe has carried out.  Common sense, honest writing and lack of a hidden agenda would dictate that Blomkamp pay close attention to the crime of apartheid in South Africa and the untold suffering that it produced, even if he also intends to suggest a human side to it. Instead in Blomkamp's world and movie the true victims are accused of exactly the same crime, because they asked for their land back and engaged in rioting. Blomkamp equates death to sleep! In his world a  slap to the face is equal to to a cutting-off of the head.

The rest of the movie largely depicts the "adventures" of a MNU operative, Wikus van der Merwe, tasked with effecting the evacuation of the aliens to a more remote location. MNU - Multi-National United is a private military group.

Double-Speak 3:
Wikus is portrayed as a good-natured operative who at once wants to ensure that the aliens are evicted legally and treated well, but at the same time leaves no one in doubt about his views of the aliens. He repeatedly refers to the aliens as "prawns", a derogatory term based on their appearance. In a scene he is seen walking into an alien breeding room (sort of a human nursery) and disconnecting nutrition from the embryos. In another he gleefully steps on alien babies like cockroaches - "no more prawn he says".

Double-Speak 4:
Even in his insistence on legality Wikus accepts the protest smack of the eviction notice by alien fingers as good enough signature of acceptance.
In his search for aliens Wikus ingested a fluid and began to slowly turn into an alien. This marked the beginning of his role as a victim and eventually a defender of the aliens.

Double-Speak 5:
Wikus' father in-law had used his position at the head of MNU to appoint him to oversee the eviction process. However, he soon discovered that Wikus was growing an alien arm that could also fire alien weaponry. Without hesitation he committed to harvesting Wikus' organs for research - alive, towards acquiring alien weaponry. Such loving father, such wicked businessman.

Double-Speak 6:
In his mad desire to reverse his transformation, keep his love, and avoid capture by MNU soldiers Wikus appeals for the help of an alien named Chris. Chris had escaped from the same house where Wikus ingested the alien "fluid". Wikus discovered that the jar of fluid that caused his transformation, the only one Chris could muster in 20 years of search, was actually fuel for the alien control ship that would allow them to leave the planet - don't you wonder how they came about the urge to leave all of a sudden. As pointed out these aliens had lost contact with the mothership, and as worker drones are incapable of making decisions - that is Blomkamp's story! Under the promise that he would somehow be cured Wikus agreed to a mission to help recover the fluid from MNU headquarters. Once they had the fluid, and Wikus discovered he cannot be cured immediately he knocked Chris out cold and decided to take the ship for himself. Long-story short, he saved the day for the aliens by defending them as the control ship and Chris beamed up to the mothership - after a lightbulb came on in his head or something. This is the so-called redemption message Blomkamp wants us to take away from the movie. As he puts it: "So at the end, it's really a story of redemption, and hopefully it should be about the guy who made wrong decisions in his life and been an indirect racist, is laying waste to this group that has been oppressing another group for a whole bunch of years. So hopefully it works on an emotional level first." (see http://www.cinematical.com/2009/08/14/interview-district-9-director-neill-blomkamp/). To tell you the truth I couldn't see this so-called "redemption" story as I watched the movie.

After the above parade of double-speak the reader is probably wondering about the one EXECPTION I promised above.

Well here it is - THE NIGERIANS were the only group of REAL WORLD people REPEATEDLY referred to in District 9. The NIGERIANS were also the only group in District 9 who were collectively named and had NO GOOD SIDE to them.

Here Blomkamp reveals his true heart. It is the same heart that failed to find room to teach the world about the REAL sordid sins of apartheid South Africa in his movie, yet created an alien race with the gentility and appearance of the cockroach, while aiming to teach a message of redemption about an "indirect racist". If Blomkamp was aiming for a catharsis of his own indirect racism while growing up under the protection of apartheid South Africa, his job is not done.

By the lack of sense displayed in characterizing a nation of 150 million black Africans (Nigerians) as thugs, mercenaries, alien-servicing prostitutes, and witchcraft practicing cannibals who believed that eating the aliens would give them greater power and cure illnesses Blomkamp's heart is colored with racist thinking at the best. Blomkamp even took his show as far as to call the Nigerian gang leader ‘Obasanjo’ - the name of Nigeria's immediate past president. One might have missed this slight of hand in the movie if it had been brief. But no, gory scenes of this group of thugs were repeated again and again. And to be sure, these particular scenes were interlaced with a sort of "Newscast" where a white woman describes in English what you see on the screen.

There is enough caricature of Nigerian citizens floating around without having to deal with a medium of culture in the Western world, which though supposedly for entertainment, has become one of the main means of information and cultural transformation. People take messages from these movies. This, and the money of course, is infact why Blomkamp made District 9, and the message about Nigerians is not only unpalatable, it is untrue and most of all RACIST.

If Blomkamp has a message about bad people he needs to look at recent revelations in the West where  daughters and stolen girls are kept in cages for decades, and produced children for their captors (some of them unrepentant after being caught) like animals. I bet Blomkamp would not make a movie depicting this type of behavior and call such a  family Australians, New Zealanders or  Americans since that would be ridiculous and amount to hate. Most of the population of these nations do not behave or agree with such acts, but more importantly ABHOR it. The same is true for the NIGERIANS. WE ARE NOT thugs, mercenaries, prostitutes or witchcraft practicing cannibals.

Lastly, there is precedent for mass generalization of anecdotes and the result was Hitler and the decimation of 6 million Jews, not to talk of Blomkamp's apartheid South Africa.

its unfortunate that blomkamp failed to see things thru ur lens that nigeria is perfect country which permits freedom of speech and tolerates criticism, that there are no witchcraft practising cannibals, no thugs, no prostitutes.

^^^ I think what is unfortunate is that some of you are too steeped in self-hate to see the whole picture.

Even though I'm not directly nigerian, I'll sign it aswell. I'm tired of any misinformation that is given around.
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NIce one Naijamini

impressed