Almajiri Bill: The Masochism Of Integration - Nigeria
Writers Articles And Opinions
28 December 2009
By Attahiru Muazu Gusau
In his analysis of Theory of Love Erich Fromm
describes the passive form of symbiotic union as
masochism. According to him, a masochistic person
escapes from the feeling of isolation and separateness
by making himself a part and parcel of another person
who directs him, guides him, protects him; who is his
life and his oxygen, as it were. The power of the one
to whom one submits is inflated, may he be a person or
a god; he is everything I am nothing except in as much
as I am part of him. As a part I am part of greatness,
of power, of certainty. The masochistic person does
not have to make decisions, does not have to take any
risk; he is not alone- but he is not independent; he
has no integrity; he is not yet fully born.’’
Masochism very much describes the relationship that
exists between the colonialists and the colonized;
between Africa and Europe. In this equation, Europe
dominates by sapping Africa of not only its resources
but of its identity and integrity. Africa sees its
fulfilment only as an insignificant appendage to
Europe. In the contemporary march for relevance and
global equality and prosperity Africa is contented as
the load carrier of Europe. The African elite are
incapable of finding solutions to institutional and
domestic problems outside the default order and
arrangement of colonialism. And thus Africa is
condemned to an eternal circumambulation of Europe.
Euro centrism has become our raison-d’être and we are
glad to ea t from the crumbs that falls from the
master’s table.
The Almajiri Bill called Child Destitution Bill,
sponsored by Senator Umar A. Tafida and some 54
northern senators, is just another melancholy line in
the sombre poetry of Africa’s enslavement. The
masochistic undertone of the bill makes complete
mockery of our independence and the ability of the
senators to face and solve simple domestic problems
like the Almajirci phenomenon has become seriously
questionable. Should the bill pass its second reading
in the near future, having already passed the first in
July 2009, it would be a colossal transgression of the
integrity of the African person; it would have dealt
the final blow to all indigenous institutions and
values a feat that even the colonialists themselves
failed to achieve.
To begin with, it is a complete aberration to table
the question of Almajirci system on the floor of the
senate, because the system is a regional and cultural
phenomenon not national issue. I have never known of
any Ibo, Yoruba or any child from the southern part of
the country who goes to Quranic School after which he
was faced with the hard necessity of roaming the
streets begging for food and alms to survive. This
phenomenon is northern and culturally Hausa-fulanic.
The embarrassment and concern should rightfully be
northern. If the northern elites and the governments
don’t want their children to beg on the streets, I bet
you they know how to stop it and it will not require a
national commission or the wisdom of the senators.
These are governments that have already, implemented
the Shari’ a’, floated several ministries for
religious affairs and established strong Hisbah
commissions and a lot more institution that could be
geared conveniently towards addressing the problem of
almajirci
The second aberration is equating Almajirci system
with child destitution as contained in senator
Argungu’s lead argument and in the proposed bill
itself. This is a deception in that Almajirci is a
local and restricted phenomenon while child
destitution is a general and even global issue. So
while the bill is very clear about integrating the
Almajiri system with the formal western based schools
to eliminate destitution of the Almajiri child, it was
completely silent on the other destitute children who
are equally vulnerable and embrace a broader section
of the society. In other words the national
significance of child destitution was undermined and
reduced to the local issue of Almajiri schools. The
question then remains; is it Almajiri Bill or Child
Destitution Bill? In any case, integrating Almajiri
Schools with formal schools does not constitute
elimination of child destitution even in the Hausa
speaking north much less Nigeria as a whole.
Shelving aside the various inconsistencies in the bill
that make the whole idea of a national commission all
the more absurd, we must query the ideological and
motivational basis of this proposal, particularly
because of the vitriolic spat out by the sponsoring
senator against the Almajirci system. His salvo of
invectives and vituperations against the system
indicate that the underlying motivation of the senator
may be anything but noble or sympathy for the flight
of the poor Almajiri child. One could on the other
hand detect a deep seated disgust for a surviving
indigenous institution that has not fallen under the
sway of colonial and neo colonial estates, which the
senator represents. The image of a hungry Almajiri
child simply evokes the guilty conscience of the
senator, which manifests itself in explosive anger.
The Almajiri child simply provokes the senator’s sense
of insecurity, which is disguised in the bourgeois
sentiments of compassion. May I refer the senator to
Toltoy’s Resurrection – an atonement based on true
life story- to be tried in his immediate constituency
before taking the case to the senate.
The assumptions of the senator on what Almajiri system
is are grossly erroneous and misleading. What Almajiri
system is to the senator is a gory picture of some
wicked Mallams who separate children from their
parents and send them out begging simply for their own
economic interests. The senator doesn’t see anything
positive coming out of the system as he maintained
that the pupils largely end up as ‘”social miscreants,
taking to thefts, pimping, thuggery and other
unwholesome practices as their trade. The senator has
been deliberately mischievous here because he knows
that at a certain level the Almajiri drops begging all
together and takes on to some menial jobs for his
sustenance. He is usually that humble manicurist that
would spend half an hour cutting your dirty nails only
to be given twenty naira on completing the task. He
receives, does not complain and give thanks to the
Almighty. He is that water vendor that quenches the
thirst of your neighbourhood because the government
simply fails in its primary responsibility. He is that
shoe shiner and cobbler who clean and mend your family
shoes. You only pay a pittance, but he does not
complain because he has imbibed the virtue of humility
as an Almajiri. He is the labourer that toils to build
your mansions in Argungu. He is around all your
domestic needs satisfying them one after the other. He
manages and survives on a very meagre income but he
gives thanks to the Almighty and pushes ahead with
life. Yet he is condemned as a social miscreant an
outcast, a thief and a thug? On the contrary those who
turn to be social miscreants are the secondary and
tertiary school drop outs that lack the discipline to
withstand poverty and the humility to take on menial
jobs. But the senator will of course choose not to
look that way. Little wonder then that the only
solution the gentleman could think of is complete
obliteration of the Almajiri system by integrating it
with the western based school system. The language
with which the senator chose to couch his arguments is
quite offensive to the innocent mallams. Phrases like:
dangers of the Almajiri system, rehabilitation of
victims of the system, misconception and
misapplication of scriptural intent, selfish economic
gains etc. These remarks fall short of an objective
assessment of the situation, they are exuded from a
vintage point of presumed self righteousness that we
all know is balderdash.
The Almajiri system is an informal form of teaching
and learning of the Islamic religion that is centred
around the teacher who may be domicile or itinerant
scholar and to whom parents entrust their wards for
training with or without up keep allowance and
pittance. The fact that pupils of Almajiri School go
out begging to survive is not a necessary and
intrinsic element of the system as a lot of exceptions
abound. However, the complete negligence of the
institutions by elites and successive governments that
see themselves as the heirs, custodians as well as
defenders of values of colonialism and colonialist
institutions and legacies and who in the interest of
their estate so much impoverish the Almajiri system by
not only depriving it of state resources but by
ensuring that the only ticket for meal and reward able
employment with the state is a certificate of
alienation or westernization [ western education]
obtainable through state established and funded
schools, forced the Almajiri, whose parents probably
abhors their children being westernised and alienated,
to roam the street begging for crumbs to survive. I am
not trying to moralise begging though, I am only
pointing out the institutional and systemic conflict
surrounding the Almajiri question, which needs to be
addressed. The Almajiri system should not be seen as
an anti thesis of the contemporary western based
school system, because the there isn’t the need or the
necessity for that. The Colonialists may have their
reasons not to allow the Almajiri system and the Ajami
orthography to thrive when they were around; but for
goodness sake we are an independent people! Or, are
we? This servile attitude is so disgusting because it
demeans and makes mockery of our freedom and self
esteem. Between a salary earning graduate, an oil
dollar pursuing Senator and the begging Almajiri, I
consider the Almajiri a more dignified and honourable
person. Why? Because the graduate who becomes a
senator is at best a masochist whose euro-centric
worldview has become, in Kantian language, an a priori
necessary element from which all his knowledge and
decisions are informed and made. Unless we can sit on
the same table and tell the so called master that we
will no longer eat the crumbs that fall from his table
the Almajiri is far more dignified than us.
The Almajiri system, notwithstanding its serious
defects and shortcomings and of course the
embarrassment being felt about it because of the
attendant problem of child begging, which is made
worse by population explosion that is in a stiff
competition for limited and dwindling economic
resources, is nonetheless the only surviving
indigenous institution that has resisted western
cultural invasion and thus maintains its integrity.
The system has a great potential on which development
in mass literacy can be built. It should be a great
merit that a huge population of people at the grass
root send their wards for the pursuit of knowledge,
whatever colour one may give it even with the
unfortunate reality of begging. What is more
unfortunate is that our successive governments before
and after independence have fail to realise the great
potential of the Tsangaya system for the achievement
of a grass root oriented mass literacy and the
attainment of a knowledge based society. Regrettably,
today, all sorts of know ledges and human
accomplishments are considered alien and foreign to
our cultures because we have failed to domesticate
knowledge due to our masochistic tendency. The
repercussions are obvious and devastating. It is
therefore catastrophic to float a national commission
with the aim of obliterating the system and replanting
it with the western based system that only distance
and alienates the grass root population from knowledge
acquisition.
The Almajiri system should be seen as a shining jewel
of our freedom and integrity. The system persists to
remind us that we still have chance of greatness and
prosperity if only we can act truly independent. That
the Almajiri begs should of course be a cause for
concern and must be stopped. But we must not forget
that it is just a reflection of the fact that the
white man had been around, defeated our great grand
fathers and reduced our institutions and integrity to
shambles. That we must all succumb and follow the
status quo instituted by our conquerors i.e. imbibe
western education by abandoning our own home grown
institutions should, to me, be seen as nothing short
of a blatant failure of reason and imagination. It is
also a gross disregard for the African person. That
the system needs reformation, yes, but not
integration, which is just another word for complete
eradication of the system.
How do we reform the Tsangaya system [ Almajiri
system] without resorting to the destructive measures
proposed by the senators? It is essential that the
northern state governments realise the uniqueness of
the system as a home-grown institution that still
enjoys the patronage of a sizeable portion of our
rural populace. Besides, the Almajiri system has some
peculiar attributes that can be exploited for
achievement of mass literacy and mitigating
underdevelopment. It is for instance a system that
uses Hausa language as a medium of instruction. Even
at the advanced level popularly known as Makarantun
Ilimi the Hausa language is retained as the language
of instruction. This makes the system a perfect
platform for the implementation of the vision of the
Asmara Declaration of 2000. This singular
characteristic of the system, i.e. its ability to
provide a launching base for the Asmara Declaration
makes it a priceless and indispensable component of
the local culture that all should be proud of. And
what is the Asmara Declaration? The Asmara Declaration
is the first and most important declaration of
independence of the African nations. It is the point
at which Africa tells the world that it will no longer
eat of the crumbs that falls from the master’s table.
It is the declaration that shatters all masochistic
and servile tendencies and adorns Africa with the garb
of freedom, self esteem. It is a declaration for
African languages.
The Asmara declaration is the response of African
intellectual, scholars and writers on the devastating
impact of colonialist languages on Africa and role
they played in under developing indigenous language to
an incapacitated condition such that these languages
became quite irrelevant in the national affairs of
Africans. Indeed the dominance of colonialist
languages as languages of instruction and diplomacy
has been decried as the most significant contributory
factor to the underdevelopment and consequent poverty
and stagnation in African countries. This concern led
African writers and intellectual to gather in Asmara
Eritrea, in the year 2000, for an international
conference dedicated to restoring the relevance of the
African languages in the national and international
affairs of Africans. The Almajiri system is the only
system that holds the potential for the implementation
of the resolution of these African intellectuals known
as the Asmara Declaration. Yes, Sciences, technology,
mathematics etc can be taught in a reformed Almajiri
school,not in English or any foreign colonialist
language, but in the Hausa language. The Almajiri
system provides an only and irreplaceable opportunity
to uplift the standard of an indigenous language to
acquire the capacity to convey modern knowledge to the
people. Until such dream of conveying knowledge in
local languages can be achieved, knowledge will
continue to be seen as western and foreign and the
English language will continue to thrust us deeper
into the pit of irrelevance, of poverty and
stagnation. Some will continue to see boko [western
based schooling] as haram and many more will continue
to believe that it is an agent of Christianization.
Language is the principal agent of subjugation because
it is the most important feature of culture and
identity. Foreign colonialist languages like English
serves as an obstruction to education on a broad scale
and at the grass root. The Almajiri system is the only
opportunity for breaking the shackles of linguistic
barrier in education because of its grass root and
broad base characteristics. A little free thinking
could put us on the track.
.By Attahiru Muazu Gusau
Ministry of Housing and Town Planning, Gusau, Zamfara
State. attamuazu@yahoo.com
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