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Wikipedia articles *do very little to accurately convey cultures/situations one doesn't actually have experience with. The clear majority of Igbo people live in

Wikipedia articles *do very little to accurately convey cultures/situations one doesn't actually have experience with. The clear majority of Igbo people live in their homeland in Southeastern Nigeria. Even with the quarter to a third of Igbos that live in other parts of Nigeria I find the Western arrogance in calling people living in their own country a "merchant minority" rather dull. (For more context, there are three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria, and none of them form a majority. The largest group - the Hausa - doesn't make up even 30% of the population, and the Igbo make up over 20% in current estimates) > The Igbo tried to secede from Nigeria after independence and it was an utter bloodbath. This was far, far more complicated than is being made out here.

barry-cotter 7y ago
I’m sympathetic to the claim that it’s complicated, most things are, but the Igbo are clearly a merchant minority, and they’ve clearly been subjects of mob mass killings, aka pogroms as well as government sponsored mass killings based on their ethnic identity. Like every other merchant minority they also emigrate disproportionately looking for economic opportunities. If you guessed the ethnic makeup of Nigerians based on US or British populations you’d think Igbo were at least half of the population, not a minority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_anti-Igbo_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_anti-Igbo_pogrom The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres committed against Igbo people and other people of southern Nigerian origin living in northern Nigeria starting in May 1966 and reaching a peak after 29 September 1966.[1] These events led to the secession of the eastern Nigerian region and the declaration of the Republic of Biafra, which ultimately led to the Nigeria-Biafra war . The 1966 massacres of southern Nigerians have been described as a holocaust by "Greene -1975 . The Struggle for Secession 1966–70: A Personal Account of the Nigerian Civil War by N. U. Akpan. The Nigerian Civil War 1967–70. The Royal African society in January 1975 and others have variously been described as genocide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War Persecution of Igbo Edit From June through October 1966, pogroms in the North killed an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Igbo, half of them children, and caused more than a million to two million to flee to the Eastern Region.[77] 29 September 1966, was considered the worst day; because of massacres, it was called 'Black Thursday'.[78][79] Ethnomusicologist Charles Keil, who was visiting Nigeria in 1966, recounted: > The pogroms I witnessed in Makurdi, Nigeria (late Sept. 1966) were foreshadowed by months of intensive anti-Ibo and anti-Eastern conversations among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northerners resident in Makurdi, and, fitting a pattern replicated in city after city, the massacres were led by the Nigerian army. Before, during and after the slaughter, Col. Gowon could be heard over the radio issuing 'guarantees of safety' to all Easterners, all citizens of Nigeria, but the intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then, was painfully clear. After counting the disemboweled bodies along the Makurdi road I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely that they were doing me and the world a great favor by eliminating Igbos.
- filleduchaos 7y ago
  > the Igbo are clearly a merchant minority Do you actually have anything to back this up that isn't a cursory read of Wikipedia? Who exactly of the over four hundred ethnic groups in Nigeria do you think is the majority to the Igbo "minority"? How on earth are you classifying populations in diaspora to people who, again, are living in their own country? > they’ve clearly been subjects of mob mass killings, aka pogroms as well as government sponsored mass killings based on their ethnic identity Ethnic discrimination does not automatically equal "merchant minority" (or a minority at all, in fact). The ethnic discrimination against the Igbo in Nigeria is a more complex situation than "foreigners bad" or "minorities different"; it's rooted more in colonialism than in anything else. Which is understandably difficult for people in the West to understand, but it would probably be easier if they stopped trying to fit everything into the boxes they know and actually engaged with what was before them. > If you guessed the ethnic makeup of Nigerians based on US or British populations you’d think Igbo were at least half of the population, not a minority. And the other half would almost entirely be Yoruba, but I don't see you leaping to call the Yoruba a merchant minority.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    The Igbo may have many different subgroups but they’re conscious of their own existence and other groups are conscious they exist. I’m sure there are liminal groups who are Igbo enough to be discriminated against in Hausa or Fulani areas but different enough that in majority Igbo areas they wouldn’t be considered “real” Igbo. Having fuzzy boundaries doesn’t disqualify an ethnic group from existence or we wouldn’t have any. This consciousness marks them as different and in areas where they’re a minority that makes them a minority. They’re also clearly disproportionately involved in commerce. As you said > there's an ethnic group in my country - the Igbo - that are so pervasively, aggressively[0] entrepreneurial that it's become a meme. If they’re a minority that’s disproportionately involved in trade that makes them a merchant minority. They also have non-central features of being a merchant minority, like being subject to pogroms but as I said previously Yankees are another example which were never subject to that experience. In Ireland the Protestant minority used to fill a similar role. > And the other half would almost entirely be Yoruba, but I don't see you leaping to call the Yoruba a merchant minority. If the Hausa, Fulani and Yoruba had been put into one state by the British, the Igbo had not abc there was enough inter-state hostility to prevent migration the Yoruba would be that *Nigeria’s merchant minority. The Yoruba are clearly more commercial than either of the other groups. But that didn’t happen and the Igbo are Nigeria’s merchant minority. Classification as a merchant minority is a matter of degrees. Protestants in Ireland, Yankees in the US, Germans along the historic borderlands with the Slavs, all of these groups were a lot more involved in trade than the majority popular but they also engaged heavily in primary production. Classic merchant minorities like Jews, Armenians or Parsis didn’t. Igbo are clearly closer to the first group than the second in those areas where they’re a majority.

barry-cotter 7y ago

I’m sympathetic to the claim that it’s complicated, most things are, but the Igbo are clearly a merchant minority, and they’ve clearly been subjects of mob mass killings, aka pogroms as well as government sponsored mass killings based on their ethnic identity. Like every other merchant minority they also emigrate disproportionately looking for economic opportunities. If you guessed the ethnic makeup of Nigerians based on US or British populations you’d think Igbo were at least half of the population, not a minority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_anti-Igbo_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_anti-Igbo_pogrom The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres committed against Igbo people and other people of southern Nigerian origin living in northern Nigeria starting in May 1966 and reaching a peak after 29 September 1966.[1] These events led to the secession of the eastern Nigerian region and the declaration of the Republic of Biafra, which ultimately led to the Nigeria-Biafra war . The 1966 massacres of southern Nigerians have been described as a holocaust by "Greene -1975 . The Struggle for Secession 1966–70: A Personal Account of the Nigerian Civil War by N. U. Akpan. The Nigerian Civil War 1967–70. The Royal African society in January 1975 and others have variously been described as genocide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War Persecution of Igbo Edit From June through October 1966, pogroms in the North killed an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Igbo, half of them children, and caused more than a million to two million to flee to the Eastern Region.[77] 29 September 1966, was considered the worst day; because of massacres, it was called 'Black Thursday'.[78][79] Ethnomusicologist Charles Keil, who was visiting Nigeria in 1966, recounted: > The pogroms I witnessed in Makurdi, Nigeria (late Sept. 1966) were foreshadowed by months of intensive anti-Ibo and anti-Eastern conversations among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northerners resident in Makurdi, and, fitting a pattern replicated in city after city, the massacres were led by the Nigerian army. Before, during and after the slaughter, Col. Gowon could be heard over the radio issuing 'guarantees of safety' to all Easterners, all citizens of Nigeria, but the intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then, was painfully clear. After counting the disemboweled bodies along the Makurdi road I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely that they were doing me and the world a great favor by eliminating Igbos.

filleduchaos 7y ago
> the Igbo are clearly a merchant minority Do you actually have anything to back this up that isn't a cursory read of Wikipedia? Who exactly of the over four hundred ethnic groups in Nigeria do you think is the majority to the Igbo "minority"? How on earth are you classifying populations in diaspora to people who, again, are living in their own country? > they’ve clearly been subjects of mob mass killings, aka pogroms as well as government sponsored mass killings based on their ethnic identity Ethnic discrimination does not automatically equal "merchant minority" (or a minority at all, in fact). The ethnic discrimination against the Igbo in Nigeria is a more complex situation than "foreigners bad" or "minorities different"; it's rooted more in colonialism than in anything else. Which is understandably difficult for people in the West to understand, but it would probably be easier if they stopped trying to fit everything into the boxes they know and actually engaged with what was before them. > If you guessed the ethnic makeup of Nigerians based on US or British populations you’d think Igbo were at least half of the population, not a minority. And the other half would almost entirely be Yoruba, but I don't see you leaping to call the Yoruba a merchant minority.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  The Igbo may have many different subgroups but they’re conscious of their own existence and other groups are conscious they exist. I’m sure there are liminal groups who are Igbo enough to be discriminated against in Hausa or Fulani areas but different enough that in majority Igbo areas they wouldn’t be considered “real” Igbo. Having fuzzy boundaries doesn’t disqualify an ethnic group from existence or we wouldn’t have any. This consciousness marks them as different and in areas where they’re a minority that makes them a minority. They’re also clearly disproportionately involved in commerce. As you said > there's an ethnic group in my country - the Igbo - that are so pervasively, aggressively[0] entrepreneurial that it's become a meme. If they’re a minority that’s disproportionately involved in trade that makes them a merchant minority. They also have non-central features of being a merchant minority, like being subject to pogroms but as I said previously Yankees are another example which were never subject to that experience. In Ireland the Protestant minority used to fill a similar role. > And the other half would almost entirely be Yoruba, but I don't see you leaping to call the Yoruba a merchant minority. If the Hausa, Fulani and Yoruba had been put into one state by the British, the Igbo had not abc there was enough inter-state hostility to prevent migration the Yoruba would be that *Nigeria’s merchant minority. The Yoruba are clearly more commercial than either of the other groups. But that didn’t happen and the Igbo are Nigeria’s merchant minority. Classification as a merchant minority is a matter of degrees. Protestants in Ireland, Yankees in the US, Germans along the historic borderlands with the Slavs, all of these groups were a lot more involved in trade than the majority popular but they also engaged heavily in primary production. Classic merchant minorities like Jews, Armenians or Parsis didn’t. Igbo are clearly closer to the first group than the second in those areas where they’re a majority.