Kadaria Ahmed: How identity politics is stifling truth

Kadaria Ahmed, managing director of Radio Now 95.3FM, says ”identity politics” is an effective weapon for silencing truth. 

She spoke as a panellist on Saturday at the 16th edition of the Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series in Lagos.

The lecture — held to mark the 90th birthday of the Nobel laureate — was themed ‘The death of truth: Realism, literature and journalism in an age of disinformation’.

Ahmed said identity politics reinforces a hierarchy of race, with black people at the bottom.

“My position is that truth may not be dead, but it is actually on life support as we speak,” Ahmed said.

“And I think the evidence of that is that despite the fact that we think of dystopia as something we watch on our screens, my belief is that we are already in a dystopian world. I want to use two examples to illustrate that.

“They matter because the tools that are being used to kill the truth are tools that have been very effective even amongst us here.

“What are the two examples that I’m talking about? Look at what is going on in Congo and the mining of cobalt.

“It becomes very quickly clear that we live in a dystopian world where we can see clearly young poor black children dying, being exploited in really horrendous ways…

“The second thing that is going on right now is that we are watching for the first time in the history of humanity a televised genocide.

“The Israelis are killing Palestinians on our TV screen. This is the second evidence I have that we live in a dystopia because we keep talking about it and nobody is doing anything about it.”

‘HUMANITY DIMINISHED ON ALTAR OF IDENTITY’

Kadaria said we live in a post-truth world, adding that truth must “be resuscitated and we are hoping it will wake up”.

“In America, it is basically white nationalist racism that is being used. It is what feeds the (Donald) Trumps of this world; and of course, Elon Musk, who we speak a lot about, and who people forget is actually a white South African,” she said.

“You know, from a family that were beneficiaries of apartheid in South Africa. So it is not surprising because people tend to think of innovators and people who do lead in tech as almost like forward thinking.

“But Elon Musk is very much established from his background, his history. So there is no surprise in this politics. The way that translates globally is that of course there is a hierarchy of race with the black man and woman at the bottom of that hierarchy.

“And the geopolitics, again and again, reinforces what we see today, which is that we are being dehumanised constantly. The basis of that dehumanisation is a lie. It is a story that has been told and accepted, which is that one person can be superior to another person on the basis of identity.

“In the world, it is race. When we bring it lower into our African geopolitics, it is the lie we are told that because we speak different languages or worship differently, somehow we are different.

“So our humanity keeps being diminished on the altar of identity; So people will tell you proudly, I am Yoruba before I am Nigerian.

“And in some ways, Nigeria itself is a construct because it is an identity, because we keep thinking about these containers, it has stopped us from actually building values that are based on humanity, which is ultimately the only values that we have.

“So when you bring this home to what we are going through today, and people in my profession and in the literary world, identity politics has seeped into everything.

“I’m not suggesting that there was always this objective truth or neutrality that stood out. But there was always an attempt, at the very least, for balance, which is to sort of say, this is what is happening here, this is what is happening there and we’re losing that.”

Ahmed called for self-examination, emphasising that the truth must be personalised and collective.

Biodun Jeyifo, a professor emeritus of English at Cornell University, described Soyinka as “a beacon of truth”.

Jeyifo, a keynote speaker at the event, said “ordinarily, people don’t support the truth, but Soyinka is not one of those people”.

”Many people tell lies partially or fully; People lie in government, people generally lie a lot either partially or seriously,” he said.

“They lie about age, weight, wealth or poverty. Justice and injustice are the instigators of this unending war between the truth and lies.

“Prof. Soyinka is a beacon of truth.”

Other speakers at the event include Chiamaka Okafor, co-founder of the Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue Foundation (MILAD); Umaru Pate, professor of media history and vice-chancellor of the Federal University, Kashere, Gombe state; and Odia Ofeimun, the renowned poet.