Inspiring Literature Review About Mirror Of Minds: Images Of Internally Displaced African Women Through Biographies And Poetry

The lecture, conducted by Dr. Dolapo Adeniji-Neil at the Adelphi University, gives us an insight into the problems experienced by internally displaced people in the contemporary world. The lecture material does not remind an excerpt from the history book about the events unfolding in a certain country, but makes the audience develop a sympathetic and respectful attitude to people who suffer from the situations that do not depend on them. Being internally displaced herself, the lecturer engages the audience into the topic with the help of real life stories that sound truly terrifying for people who do not face similar examples of stern reality in their daily lives. The problem of internally displaced people is discussed from the viewpoint of African women, who are often left alone in their fight against the system.
The lecturer starts her speech with the African proverb stating that when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. The metaphor of various political systems and countries being elephants, which cannot find a compromise and fight for the realization their own interests forgetting about everything that surrounds them, is really thought provoking. On the other hand, there are average people, or grass as visualized by Dr. Adeniji-Neil, who do not have enough strength to secure themselves and their families from the destructive impact of “elephants”. The problem of people being internally displaced is not unique for the African continent, but touches as well many other parts of the world, like Asia or South America. The lecturer, who is originally from Nigeria, talks about the surprisingly high quantity of people, who were forced to flee from their homes because of multiple reasons. In Nigeria alone, these are more than 2 million people, who belong to this vulnerable category of population and seek for others’ support. Honestly speaking, I have never thought that so many people escape from any kind of violence or persecution.
Dr. Adeniji-Neil proceeds with outlining the reason why people get displaced to special camps or have to hide from danger somewhere in the country. The most frequent reason is a war that breaks out is some part of the country or some terrorist acts against the civilians. An example of terrorist group that caused many people run away and get killed is Boko Haran, operating in the northern Nigeria. Another reason for internal displacement is connected with environment issues. For example, rich oil resources in the southern Nigeria caused the pollution of water, which was the main source of livelihood for indigenous people, and, thus, made them move to another place.
Regardless of the reason, the tragic phenomenon of internal displacement has traumatic influence on human lives. It breaks families, separates children from their parents, results in the limited educational and employment opportunities and causes social and cultural discrimination from those people who have never experienced similar situations in their lives. Internally displaced people may even lack such basic needs as food, drinking water, medicine and shelter. Not rare are the cases of innocent people suffering from violent acts or sexual assaults at the places when they are located. Wars, military conflicts and volatile economic situation in the country negatively influence people and urge breadmakers to think about other way of supporting their families, which may sometimes go against law. This way, young men in their twenties join some terrorist groups and women get involved into prostitution or forced to bide soldiers. I think that we cannot justify such actions. All that we can do is to think about the possible ways of changing the system that affects people’s lives.
In my opinion, the most interesting part of the lecture was connected with the life stories of three African women, who experienced themselves the internal displacement in Nigeria in 1966. These women are lecturer Dr. Adeniji-Neil, her mother and another woman that she interviewed in 1985 when conducting a research about aspirations of Nigerian women in Egypt. All the stories are heart-rending and make us think over our attitude to the people that surround us. The stories of Dr. Adeniji-Neil and her mother are connected with the civil war that broke out in 1966 as a result of increased tension between two Nigerian influential groups that wanted to gain control over the country that has just won its independence from Britain in a peaceful dialogue. Their family was harassed because the father was allied with one of the parties and had to escape from the offenders in spite of bone-chilling fear for their lives. The third story tells about a woman, who, once being a small girl, had to run away with her family from the north of Nigeria to the south, from where they originally came. The reason was the escalating crisis between the north and the south of Nigeria and the notorious tribalism issue, which is common in Africa. The most remarkable figure from the story is the grandmother, who was left to take care of children when the father left for military. Due to her immense courage and resourcefulness, the grandmother managed to keep all 12 children alive despite the lack of any secure shelter and food. Such people truly deserve respect and appreciation.