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"When people are listening, there is no need to shout so loud."
Bernie Grant, black activist and MP: born Guyana, Caribbean 1944; died London 2000. See letter below.

Things Fall Apart

Sir: Listen to Nigerian leaders and you will frequently hear the phrase this great country of ours. Nigeria is not a great country. It is one of the most disorderly nations in the world.

It is one of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun.... It is dirty, callous, noisy, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short, it is among the most unpleasant places on earth.

CHINUA ACHEBE
Nigerian writer


In The Name of Justice

Sir: I wouldn't say I'm more moderate now because I don't want to imply I was some kind of raving loony before, but the circumstances are different.

At the time of Broadwater Farm, nobody believed the police could do any harm, but there have been a lot of miscarriages of justice since then ( including the Tottenham Three). People are listening so there is no need to shout so loud.

BERNIE GRANT, MP
Tottenham, London

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Talking Music

Sir: I am tired of hearing exponents of Juju, Funk, Reggae, or the so-called crossover music call themselves musicians. They are actually instrumentalists. They play musical instruments, but they cannot read musical notes. They are performers like me.

I play percussive instruments like Congo Drums, cymbals, and xylophones but I cannot call myself a musician, even though I've played with great Artists like Usef Latif, McCoy Tyner, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Sir Victor Olaiya. I've also played on the same bill with Dizzie Gillespie when he visited Nigeria.

What I am saying is that, there is nothing to gain musically from Funk, Juju, or Reggae. I will never spend a penny of mine buying them. They're rubbish! Absolute trash! The beat is the same. For instance, if you remove the Kpo, Kpo, Kpo from Shina Peters' bastardised Juju music, there's nothing left to listen to. When you hear him perform other forms of music, you hear the band flat. They don't even tune their instruments.

SUNMI SMART-COLE
Nigerian Photographer, Jazz drummer,
Draughtsman and barber

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Staying young at 112

Sir: Everytime people find out how old I am, they want to know what keeps me so young. I can see they are not impressed when I tell them I eat maize porridge in the morning, followed by fruit, and never eat after it gets dark.

It's when I add that I drink our traditional liquor regularly because It makes me feel young again; and that whenever I see a woman, I have her, that I notice I have satisfied their curiosity.

DANIEL NATHANIEL HAREKEB, 112
Namibia

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Boredom

Sir: Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.

VIKRAM SETH
Indian Writer

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Hysteria

Sir: One always writes at the moment of deepest hysteria.

V. S NAIPAUL
Trinidadian Writer

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Angola

Sir: Do you know the joke about Angola? It was the time of the creation and people were complaining that God had given Angola an unfair quantity of valuable resources - diamonds, oil, that sort of thing.

And so God replied: "Ah, but you haven't yet seen the people I'm going to put there."

JOAO NETO
Luanda, Angola

 

 

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