Monday, February 12, 2007

A New Approach

"A whole neeew wooooorld"

Ekaaro, Bonjour, Kedu, Etcetera Etceteroo... Hope everyone had a good weekend?

To all "silent revolutionaries" out there ;-P we wanted to thank you for participating thus far by accepting the invitation (not everyone we invited did, so thank you sooo much). We also wanted to say that we understand how time-consuming it can be to read long articles, and how daunting it can be to compose a response to be shared with others who seem to know a helluva lot more about a subject than you do.

We're working on a website at the moment which will allow more participation from all members, in terms of project ideas/articles/video clips you want to share, and all sorts of things. We feel The Afro Beat should be a community under the umbrella of which groups of you can get together to pursue one project or the other that you are passionate about. For example, you may be passionate about working with children or with health care or AIDS or alleviating poverty or education. We want you to be able to use The Afro Beat to link up with others with similar passions to yours, who may not even be in your part of the globe, but who will exchange ideas with you and encourage you to push on with your initiatives.

When the website is up, we will be able to provide you with the diversity you've demanded by (a) your silence on the Blog ;-P and (b) your private comments to us. But for now we ask that you pleeeease be patient with us, as working from a Blog has really restricted our plans for The Afro Beat. We have found ourselves having to cope with being nothing more than a talkshop, which was not at all the main aim of The Afro Beat.

To adjust to the fact that for the timebeing we will have to make do with being a talkshop, in its 2nd week (the best time to make changes ey?), The Afro Beat is taking on a slightly different approach. We've come up with what we hope is a more interesting way of diversifying the issues we put up for discussion every day. For the moment we're suggesting covering one of these areas per day of the week:

1 - A member's commentary on an issue (in the news currently, or otherwise)

(This week we're starting with Kome's perspective on MEND's disclaiming of the Koinange Interview. Bravo Kome for stepping up to the plate! Hehe!)

2 - An article (like the ones put up last week) that is either relevant to the 2007 Elections, or is a member's or journalist's reflection on the mistakes of the outgoing regime

3 - A profile on any dynamic individual in the music, literary or revolutionary fields

(Possibilites are Ken Saro Wiwa, Fela Kuti, Omotola Jalade [Did anyone know she was a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador??], Sefi Atta, Okonji-Iweala, Wole Soyinka, even randomers like Majek Fashek [where the *bleep* is HE now?])

4 - A critical event in Nigeria's past and its impact on Nigeria today

(Possible topics at the moment are June 12, The Biafran War [Its different phases - the Igbo coup, the Northern revolt, the war, the aftermath], Independence in 1960, The Slave Trade etc)

5 - Any other thing that comes our way (if it fits in with the general direction of The Afro Beat of course)

Please "Boo" or "Yaay" any of these ideas in the comments section. We really need to hear back from all of you so that we can get the direction of this Blog right (whilst we wait on our website). The Afro Beat will still be the place to come for constructive debate about ways to move Nigeria forward, but we just feel this needs to be done in a less intimidating and more diverse atmosphere. Let us know what you think about this new approach - ABEG leave a comment -------->

P.S. If you know a good/cheapish website designer ---> theafrobeat@gmail.com

5 comments:

Unknown said...

They don't make cartoons like they used to...

Bitchy said...

Lol... Thank you!! I tried to argue that the other day and had people talking about things like "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Madagascar". I was appalled

o.n.a said...

hahah you guys are jokers....btw i like the direction Afro beats is heading in...gives us more variety of topics to speak and learn about...we've all got our different passions...woohoo!!

Unknown said...

Did anyone see the Minister of Information accuse CNN of staging the Koinange piece? What's your take?

Bitchy said...

Lol @ Kome

@ Olamide - nope didn't see that. Will google it now before I respond to Kome's piece about the whole scandal