CONFRONTING THE OSU PROBLEM IN NIGERIA.
By Leo Igwe
There was a time in Igbo land when all human beings were born equal in dignity and right. People lived and interacted with one another in the spirit of brotherhood. Everybody was free to reside and relate with others without discrimination. There were no outcasts. There were no untouchables. Nobody lived in a state of permanent social disability. The Igbo society was a casteless society.
But some centuries ago, things changed. The caste system was introduced. And since then, human rights, dignity and respectability have not been the same again especially for those who belong to the Osu caste. No one knows exactly when this leprous system started.
Some people say that it must have started two centuries ago. Others argue that it has been on for six centuries. But whatever the case, at a point in the history of the Igbos in southern Nigeria, people started being born, described and divided into two groups- the Diala (Nwadiala) and the Osu. The Diala are called the sons of the soil. They are the freeborns. The Diala are the masters. The have and exercise their full rights as human beings.
While the Osu are the slaves, the strangers and the outcasts. They are accorded inferior and sub human status. They are treated the way blacks were treated in America before the civil rights era. They suffer oppression the way Africans suffered in South Africa under the apartheid regime.
The Osu are perceived and regarded as unclean and capable of defiling others - the freeborns. Hence they are called the untouchables. They are the 'dalits' of the Nigerian society
The Osu caste system is a tradition, which has been going on for generations in Igboland. According to this tradition, the Osu relate with and marry Osu and Diala relate with and marry Diala. It is an abomination for the Diala to relate with or marry Osu. The Diala relate with Osu as a master relates with a slave - as a healthy person interacts with a leper -to avoid social defilement and contamination.
But a freeborn person can become Osu by being dedicated to a local god or spirit. Many gods and spirits abound in Igboland, which the people believed in, worshipped and made sacrifices to before the coming of Christianity - even till date. So traditionally, the Osu live close to the shrines of these gods and the local markets. A freeborn also becomes an Osu if he/she is acquired or adopted as a slave. To distinguish the status of the slave from that of other members of the community, the slave and his/her descendents are regarded as Osu. The Osu is not allowed to marry from the community. He or she can only marry an Osu from elsewhere.And the children and all the generations are and remain UNTOUCHABLES.
Today in Igboland, many people are Osu by inheritance. In fact there are no longer `original Osu'. Instead what we have are millions of innocent human beings who are alleged to be Osu just because they were born into a family or a lineage of someone once regarded as Osu. These millions of people in Igboland live with this Osu stigma which haunts, hurts and hamper their lives, self-esteem and development till death. The Osu status is permanent, irremediable and irreversible. Though in some communities there are rituals to cleanse, reverse or redeem the Osu disability. But these have been largely ineffective and have not succeeded in ridding the thoughts and minds of Igbos of this social disease.
Also some Christian churches have preached against the Osu practice. But these sermons have fallen on deaf ears and have not in any way impacted on this despicable belief and practice. In fact the Osu caste system is now practiced in the churches. In some churches, some freeborns avoid sitting or holding hands with those alleged to be Osu during services. And there are reports that in some churches the harvests of the Osu are kept separate from that of the freeborn.
In the 50s, the government of then Eastern Nigeria attempted to eradicate this obnoxious practice. It passed a legislation abolishing the Osu caste system. But this legislation was not and could not be enforced. At best it drove the practice underground. Hence today, many people are afraid of calling or addressing others openly and publicly as Osu. Beside that, the Osu prejudice is very much alive in Igbo communities.
The Osu are still hated, despised and discriminated against as before. The Osu discrimination has caused division, divorce and death in families and communities across Igboland. The maltreatment meted out to Osu has forced many of them to migrate to cities or to other countries or communities outside Igboland. Many development projects have been abandoned, marriages have been dissolved, and pregnancies have been terminated.
In fact so many crimes against humanity have been committed against individuals and groups in Igboland in the name of Osu caste system.
Unfortunately the government has done virtually nothing to address the injustices perpetrated against the Osu in Igboland. Both the Federal and state governments have continued to maintain a criminal silence on the Osu issue.
The irony of it all is that today there are many young and growing Igbo persons who do not understand what the Osu issue is all about and why it is still practiced. Many of them are perplexed to know that such primitive custom obtains in Igbo communities in this 21st century.
Because of the vexing nature of the Osu tradition, three schools of thought representing three different dispositions on the issue have emerged in Igbo commmunities. They are the denialist, the apathetic and the realist.
The denialists claim that the Osu caste system has been abolished. That it is no longer practiced in Igboland. Unfortunately this is not true. The law abolishing the Osu caste system has been a paper tiger. It has not stopped people from discriminating against the Osu. So the denialist position in deceptive and misleading and would not in any way help in eradicating this obnoxious custom.
The apathetics tell us to ignore the practice and pretend as if it does not exist. They adopt this indifferent attitude became they find the practice very embarrassing. Hence for them, the Osu practice should be ignored so that it would fizzle out on its own. But they have forgotten that there has not been any case in history where oppressive traditions just fizzled out that way. In most cases they are consciously and conscientiously fought, rooted out and defeated. And that should be the case with the Osu caste system. So the apathetic disposition is cowardly and would not in anyway help in combating this vicious tradition.
Then we have the realists, these are those who acknowledge that this Osu practice obtains and exists in Igbo communities. They admit that Osu discrimination is complex and would require a lot of time, education, reorientation,social, political, and cultural will to stop.
Whatever the school of thought one may belong, we must face this shameful, bitter and brutal fact. Osu caste system is alive in Igbo land. We must admit that Osu discrimination is evil, primitive, inhuman and barbaric. It is the Igbo version of racism and apartheid. The Osu caste system is one practice Igbo communities must do away with in order to experience true modernity, enlightenment and civilization in this 21st century.
And the time to do that is NOW
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Open Thread
Tradition
Submitted by mole333 on 20 July 2008 - 7:51pm.
First off, I am always pleased when we have discussions of such international merit here on Culture Kitchen. From a controversy over construction on what once might have been a Jewish cemetary in Lithuania to a caste system in Nigeria, one of the things I love about Culture Kitchen is that we get readers from all over the world discussing a wide range of cultural ideas. Welcome and thanks for you opinion.
I know little about the Osu caste system in Nigeria, though it is clear to me that it seems little different from the untouchables in India and Japan, which I am more familiar with. The truth is, tradition, though overall important, is not always good.
In America similar arguements as what you make were made about slavery before the Civil War. It was viewed as tradition, as an integral part of Southern society. And it was said that given time it would wither away, though from the signing of the Constitution to 1845 it was showing little signs of disappearing. Truth is, America had to go through a Civil War to get rid of what was a truely dispicable aspect of American society. It was a tradition that we should be embarassed to have perpetuated for so long.
In Japan there was a tradition of the Emperor as divine and it took their defeat in WW II to abandon this Imperial system. They kept the Emperor, but abandoned the system that supported the militarism for Imperial Japan. I love Japan and its tradition, but there are aspects of its tradition that it had to shed. And even in Japan subtle prejudice against the former untouchables and the Korean population forced to come to Japan continues even today. Japanese who I spoke to privately expressed embarassment at the continuation of what they admit is a barbaric tradition.
India continues to struggle with its supposedly outlawed caste system.
Nigeria is no different. As America, Japan and India struggle to overcome the terrible aspects of its past, so is Nigeria. But the first step to overcoming past mistakes is to admit they were horrible mistakes. Germany has done better than Japan in overcoming the baggage of WW II because Germany deep in its psyche has admitted that Nazism was a huge mistake and has rejected that aspect to their society. Japan has had a harder time than Germany facing up to its ghosts, and so it continues to this day to be hated by its neighbors and to feel defensive about its past. Nigeria can learn from the lessons of other nations. Any rigid caste system is a remnant from a Medieval, more primative, society. I don't see that Nigeria is better off clinging to that kind of tradition.
Once again, thanks for your comments.
My Candid Opinion on the Osu Caste System practiced in Igbo land
My Candid Opinion on the Osu Caste System practiced in Igbo land
So much has been said about the ‘Osu’ caste system in Ibo land and each time I come across an article on this subject matter, I’m forced to wonder why there’s so much controversy surrounding an issue which in my own opinion is quite clear. Have we ever asked ourselves why only one family is entitled to the all the royalty in England? Do not forget that this family does next to nothing and lives luxuriously off taxes paid by its populace. Culture! That’s the simple answer and so is it the answer to the Osu caste system in Ibo land. No amount of modernization or education can fully explain or more specifically change what existed before most of us were born. The English who have one of the most advanced socio-political and economic systems in the world could easily have opted for a ‘more democratic’ and ‘free and fair’ process of electing the King or Queen whilst throwing it open to ‘equal men and women’ who of course are all of the same socio cultural origin. They did not and are neither planning nor willing to do so, yet we imbibed civilization from them. Ibo’s, preserve your cultural heritage no matter how painful it seems. That is the only way we can honor those who lived before us and who made it possible for us to be in existence today. Or are they not worthy of it? The people of Yoruba land don’t play around with Odua tradition neither do the people of the Great Benin kingdom with their prestigious Oba. Or do we talk about the Hausa’s and Fulani’s who their religion (Islam) is an integral part of their culture? Have the Northerners ever set out on any campaign against amputation as a punishment for stealing or death by stoning as a punishment for adultery? All these are crystal clear provisions of the Sharia law to which they have full allegiance. Don’t get me wrong, I have not and am not judging this subject matter on the basis of right or wrong but trying to share my candid view on how best I believe we should approach this matter. Only when we accept the Osu system for what it is shall we begin to share any merits that come with it.
Today, I ask a number of questions. Why was there ever a move to abolish the Osu caste system? Are we saying today that we know better than our fore fathers? If yes, what do we know better, modern culture or ancient culture? Are the people (Diala) born and living today with less sin than those (Osu’s) who lived many years ago? Were there NO Osu’s that became Osu by conscious choices they made? In other words, was there not more than one way of becoming an Osu? At the inception of the Osu caste system, was there a law that stated that it was eternal and irreversible? (Of course not, Osu’s were made to perform certain rituals to be accepted back into society as freeborns). If it is ‘wrong’ to classify people as Osu, why do we have ‘anti Osu’ authors and campaigners who come up with disclaimers like “the author of this document does not belong to the caste system”. How many Christian pastors and clergymen would let their own sons and daughters get married to an Osu if they themselves are not? These and many more have made me come to the conclusion that the Ibo man has allowed a false sense of modernization erode his ancestral culture which was in place to serve as a guide in the Ibo traditional society. Now is the time for us to face some of the realities of our existence as Ibos and stop wallowing in self deceit. Different forms of discriminations still exist in our modern day societies and some if not all of them are based on firm historical beliefs held by different groups of humans. Discriminations exist along racial (black and white), tribal (Ibo, Yoruba, and Hausa etc), religious (fidel and infidel), health status etc lines and we still coexist.
I sit back and I ponder with so much amazement, how much sanity we may have enjoyed in our Ibo traditional system if the Osu caste system were still upheld. 419s, drug barons, a good number of our Ibo politicians would long have been branded Osu (and banished into the evil forest). What touches me most is the sensitivity and consciousness this issue gets wherever it is raised. The merit of this sensitivity is one of the things I see us loosing out on today. I do not know any right headed Ibo man or woman who at the moment fully appreciates what being an Osu means in Ibo land that would carelessly and consciously walk into it. Many who are branded Osu today would readily give up all their material possessions to be unbranded (become Diala’s). If we had allowed the Osu caste system progress unhindered, it would have been like every other self correcting and self adjusting system and that way, would have been able to play its intended role in our traditional society. Perhaps, some of us may have become outcasts today by our own choices or actions. (Who knows it may have become so widespread that it may have turned to norm??)
The Ibo culture was built on a bed rock of truth, honesty, hard work, bravery and other great virtues but today what is left of our culture is but a mockery of itself. This cannot be totally isolated from our false sense of modernization and civilization. It is very appalling where we have dragged our own culture to. Today we read ‘scholarly articles’ written by Ibos and distributed everywhere on the internet where our own ancestral gods are associated with scam and deceit. Do we have to go that far in trying to prove to ourselves and the world that there’s no place for the Osu caste system in our modern day societies and that we were all born equal men and women? I have read articles and comments that made baseless comparisons between the so called Osu families and the freeborns (Diala’s). These dissertations went as far as saying that Osu families have generally done better than the Diala’s and attributed their successes to their suppression in the early days which made them be the first to embrace the colonial masters and hence their early exposure to civilization. So be it! If this is true, why then are they still bothered about their status in a supposedly irrelevant traditional Ibo society?
In conclusion, I believe we should accord our Ibo traditional institution the respect it deserves by firstly accepting the fact that a caste system exists, secondly, refraining from comments and actions that mock our traditional institution. Who knows, if we allow the system to chart its natural course, the caste system might just fizzle out on its own. The world is not a very fair place so we should accept our fates and simply make the best out of our stay here on earth.