₦airaland Forum

From what this person wrote here: https://biafraspot.com/threads/the-amazing-and-advanced-social-values-of-ancient-igbos.106/

"I was thinking of a story some time ago, where woman had to be rescued in Enugu from a mob of men for wearing a short skirt. She was hidden by good Samaritans, but an angry mob were attempting to force their way through and calling for her to be brought out. It read like something out of a horror movie. How could Igbo society go down this low?

I would spare posting the story here, but some people may remember that incident a couple years ago. I remember that some people were asking, how can this happen in Igboland? It must be a mistake, it read like something from an islamic state and not Igboland.

But this terrible incident was simply an indicator of a deeper cultural flaw that had been left to fester and even encouraged in the last several decades."

"Deeply saddened by the continual deterioration of modern Igbo society. I struck up a conversation with an older female relative. I lamented on the fact that Igbos now didn't know their culture. The fact that only several decades ago, women and men walked topless across the country, but now a young woman was being attacked by violent men for wearing a skirt that was possibly even longer than what her great grandmothers wore as a young girl.

My older female relative sympathised with me and claimed that cultures will continue to always change, whether for the good or the worse."

"I continued on. 'It is a shame women are being attacked for showing their bodies now, while men in the olden days looked at naked breasts all day and did not see them as attractive, just lumps of flesh'. My older relative then stopped me there. She stated that they did find breasts attractive. I looked at her, feeling we had diverted from the topic a bit. "No they did not" I said. She looked back at me. 'Yes they did' she replied.

'No they didn't or women wouldn't walking around topless in the first place.' I insisted feeling a bit frustrated. Igboland lay staunchly in hot and tropical West Africa, and it's ancient inhabitants dressed accordingly. Heck, it's a common fact that some young Igbo girls before marriage walked around town with only jewellery on their bodies, so it was obvious Igbos of old didn't ascribe any particular sexual value to most of the female body or that would be impossible."

'That was just their culture and they did find [the female body] attractive', she only responded. With that she went back to what she was doing. I paraphrased quite a bit, but that was the gist of the conversation.

She had already gone back to doing what she was doing previously, unknowingly leaving me still sitting down shocked. With one simple conversation, my core perception had shattered. Unknowingly, I had imbibed the colonial perspective of my ethnicity's society and culture that was imported from invaders.

The colonial understanding of life was as follows. Men are naturally attracted to the female body, so their natural urges will cause them to attack women if women are in any state of nudity. In order for that not to happen, the only option was to force women to cover up. Much like in several religious societies today.

To colonial invaders, the only way that Igbo women weren't being forced to cover up their bodies, or Igboland (to their astonishment) didn't have a widespread problem of rape; was simply because Igbo men weren't attracted to the female body the same way as foreign men. In their mind these Africans possibly hadn't reached a level of 'civilised development', to where looking the opposite sex with lust was a concern.

They thought of all this, but the one thing they failed to consider was that Igbos had already reached a level of social understanding that was otherwise unknown to the foreign culture that was then being newly forced upon them.

Igbo society greatly admired and uplifted the human body, this was not a topic that they shied from.

This admiration was open and benign, and consequently not covert and malicious like in more repressed cultures. Igbo women could even be said to encourage it by regularly wearing body art, jewellery and clever clothing choices to accentuate their bodies such as their waists or breasts.

The core difference then, was that there was a explicit understanding of not entitled to the object of your desire. Unlike some other cultures then, there would be little tolerance if a person attacked a girl, and claimed that it was what she was wearing that tempted them . From infancy unto old age, ancient Igbos imbibed values that constantly pushed this form of self-control, and practiced it without a second thought. It would have likely been horrifying to them that there were cultures out there were this was not the norm.

A close example is this.

Have you ever watched a Hollywood superhero movie? Put a couple on and see how many times that actors take their shirt off. Using the same logic from the colonists, we can say that western women just naturally aren't attracted to male chests, otherwise men would be covered up. The colonists, who had a more regressive way of thinking, would have been completely unable to comprehend that women could be simultaneously attracted to male bodies while understanding that their attraction didn't entitle them to push for men to 'cover' or 'hide' themselves away.

In an ironic turn of events, the criminal incident at at Enugu pointed out that Igbo social values were fast deteriorating; to the point it was rapidly reaching the level of 'civilised development' that the colonials were looking for when they arrived in Igboland.

Rethinking on the turn of events, I still feel saddened on the dramatic decline of the Igbo societal fabric, but some circumstances like this make me appreciate out ancestors even more.

Narcop:
In an ironic turn of events, the criminal incident at at Enugu pointed out that Igbo social values were fast deteriorating; to the point it was rapidly reaching the level of 'civilised development' that the colonials were looking for when they arrived in Igboland.

Rethinking on the turn of events, I still feel saddened on the dramatic decline of the Igbo societal fabric, but some circumstances like this make me appreciate out ancestors even more.

But, no vex, Do you go to church?

AlfaSeltzer:
But, no vex, Do you go to church?

?

Strange question.

Narcop:
In an ironic turn of events, the criminal incident at at Enugu pointed out that Igbo social values were fast deteriorating; to the point it was rapidly reaching the level of 'civilised development' that the colonials were looking for when they arrived in Igboland.

Rethinking on the turn of events, I still feel saddened on the dramatic decline of the Igbo societal fabric, but some circumstances like this make me appreciate out ancestors even more.

Apparently, the fact that Igboland allowed people to wear what they wanted meant they were underdeveloped. For the colonists to consider them civilised, they should have been like Afghanistan.

Narcop:
?

Strange question.

A very simple question.

See breast everywhere.

Make I take seat because OP may have some points.

@OP, I've gone through your posts ...
My brother this topic is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond the reasoning capacity of most Africans.
Sorry to say it.
The ancient Igbo were faaaaaar more socially developed than any European social system that replaced it.
If you scratched the surface of the PRE-EUROPEAN/PRE-COLONIAL Igbo SOCIAL system, you will be shocked at how Europeans essentially pulled a "bait and switch" on Igbo (and other Africans for that matter).
They demonized the original Igbo culture as much as possible in order to destabilize Igbo socially enough, making it amenable to enslavement and colonization.
Without scrambling/confusing/destroying Igbo culture and values, it would have been impossible to take them slaves or colonize them.
Think about that.
They used "the church" to finish the job. Note that I didn't say Christianity (or such), I mean EUROPEAN (nay ROMAN) church.
Ethiopia has an "orthodox church". Why? If you watch an Ethiopian church service, you'd think you are watching a Judeo-islamic ritual.
Today we have Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in our land instead of Igbo orthodox church.
You should start from there.
Our culture will get worse until we lose every sense of Igbo... unless of course we halt the drift.
The educated illiterates among Igbo don't help matters, sadly.
My brother abeg leave matter.

AlfaSeltzer:
But, no vex, Do you go to church?

am I blind or something? I can't believe you are asking if someone do go to church. probably you are asking of the church of satan

.

Lastmessenger2:
am I blind or something? I can't believe you are asking if someone do go to church. probably you are asking of the church of satan

Any church.

All the anti colonialists in this thread are currently in a colonial church worshipping a colonial god. The irony.

AlfaSeltzer:
All the anti colonialists in this thread are currently in a colonial church worshipping a colonial god. The irony.

God existed long before “the white man” ever wanted to attach himself to anyone like God. Colonialists just happened to be the vehicle to (re)introduce it to Nigeria but the story of the Bible was never anything to do with whites. Ethiopia probably played a key part in it (as far as at least one corner of sub.-Saharan Africa is concerned) so just know that. The mistake is painting Jesus as a white man but that’s not the fault or mistake of ndi-ojii.

Probz:
God existed long before “the white man” ever wanted to attach himself to anyone like God. Colonialists just happened to be the vehicle to (re)introduce it to Nigeria but the story of the Bible was never anything to do with whites. Ethiopia probably played a key part in it (as far as at least one corner of sub.-Saharan Africa is concerned) so just know that. The mistake is painting Jesus as a white man but that’s not the fault or mistake of ndi-ojii.

Haha. The lies we tell ourselves.

It can also go like this:

Garments existed long before “the white man” ever wanted to attach himself to anyone like cloths. Colonialists just happened to be the vehicle to (re)introduce it to Nigeria but the story of the clothing was never anything to do with whites. Ethiopia probably played a key part in it (as far as at least one corner of sub.-Saharan Africa is concerned) so just know that. The mistake is painting dressing up as a white man's invention but that’s not the fault or mistake of ndi-ojii.

AlfaSeltzer:
Haha. The lies we tell ourselves.

It can also go like this:

Garments existed long before “the white man” ever wanted to attach himself to anyone like cloths. Colonialists just happened to be the vehicle to (re)introduce it to Nigeria but the story of the clothing was never anything to do with whites. Ethiopia probably played a key part in it (as far as at least one corner of sub.-Saharan Africa is concerned) so just know that. The mistake is painting dressing up as a white man's invention but that’s not the fault or mistake of ndi-ojii.

What are you even trying to say, hm? What are you saying?

Probz:
What are you even trying to say, hm? What are you saying?

You can't adopt a foreign god without adopting their culture.