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The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory, and the Nigerian Civil War
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About The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory, And The
Product Description In October 1967, early in the Nigerian Civil War, government troops entered Asaba in pursuit of the retreating Biafran army, slaughtering thousands of civilians and leaving the town in ruins. News of the atrocity was suppressed by the Nigerian government, with the complicity of Britain, and its significance in the subsequent progress of that conflict was misunderstood. Drawing on archival sources on both sides of the Atlantic and interviews with survivors of the killing, pillaging and rape, as well as with high-ranking Nigerian military and political leaders, S. Elizabeth Bird and Fraser M. Ottanelli offer an interdisciplinary reconstruction of the history of the Asaba Massacre, redefining it as a pivotal point in the history of the war. Through this, they also explore the long afterlife of trauma, the reconstruction of memory and how it intersects with justice, and the task of reconciliation in a nation where a legacy of ethnic suspicion continues to reverberate. Winner of the Oral History Association's 2018 Book Award. Review Just like another day in Asaba, the people woke up one october to see soldiers on their streets. The 2nd division soldiers under the leadership of Col. Muritala Mohammed were going from house to house picking out able bodied men and shooting them on the premise that were Biafran sympathizers. In a last effort to stop these killings, the leaders of Asaba organized a rally were the people were showing support for the troops and a united Nigeria. The 2nd division soldiers separated Men from women/children, lined them up and fired at will. An estimated 800 people died in a period of 4 says in October, 1967. This book highlights the plite of the Asaba people, pre-war and post-war and their walk towards healing. The book is well written and referenced with excerpts from interviews with survivors. If you are interested in the events of the civil war in Nigeria, the book fill the blanks in some of the books we have out there about the civil war which has always been from the perspective of generals and soldiers of the FMG. This is a book from the perspective of civilian survivors. Absolutely enjoyed it. - Ola Ogunsegha, Goodreads This book is a bold and laudable attempt at several simultaneous tasks; documenting important facts of history- the Asaba massacres, analysing the context of those events, attempting healing through catharsis and acknowledgement of trauma and charting a way forward for reconciliation and healing. The authors have brought an academic approach to these tasks and, in my view, skirted the thin line between necessary objective detachment and the inevitable emotional involvement in the processing of the gory details under consideration.The first chapter explores the history of Nigeria, from a disparate collection of contiguous nationalities welded into a politically convenient structure by a foreign colonial power, itself primarily acting in the interests of commerce and self-interest. The role of an emergent political elite and economic middle class in the evolution of the new country is briefly explored although a more accurate picture would have included the role of the ethnic minorities in these affairs. The role of the Independence-era political arrangements and the political tensions of the First Republic were outlined and a clear path traced between these early tensions and the subsequent military coups of 1966 that led to the pogroms and Nigerian Civil War. The meat of the book is in the next two chapters which outline the events at Asaba from October to November 1967. The 'Asaba massacre' was more than a single orgy of wholesale and premeditated slaughter of civilians but a series of mass killings over several days, preceded by brutality from the invading 101 Division, and separated by a background level of occasional murders, rape, looting and destruction/expropriation of property including houses. Still unresolved is why Asaba was singled out
