Michael Aromolaran

Editor, Writer, Journalist.

Interested in Religion (New Testament and Early Christianity) and Pop Culture (African film, music, and literature).

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

I’ve heard people say that heaven and hell are “necessary fiction” in regulating human behavior, that if people knew neither exists, they would go berserk.

We can debate the degree to which the claim is true some other time.

But for now: what the claim often misses is the fact that heaven and hell divisions do not exist in many ancient and contemporary religions, and that adherents do not become sociopaths because of this.

Ever since my “Christian-Babalawo” grandfather told me that proto-Yoruba cosmology does not conceive of Hell, I started to imagine that perhaps people did not require portents of a fiery pit to be on their best behavior.

Perhaps if Kunle Afolayan knew my grandpa, his second season of Anikulapo, which is set in 17th-century Oyo Empire, would not have depicted Hell. It’s clearly an anachronism, a case of Afolayan retrojecting his Christian influence onto ancient Yorubas. (I suspect Mr. Afolayan also bears Greek influence, perhaps from watching Hercules or Clash of the Titans, because the pathway to Hell in Anikulapo resembles the River Styx.)

Like Yorubas, ancient Israelites did not conceive of Hell, and thought both good and bad people went to Sheol after death. This is not Hell, but rather a permanent state of unconsciousness. Ancient Jews would only start to develop afterlife concepts from the 6th century BCE after being exiled to Babylon. So it could have been a theodicean response to their predicament, but also because in exile they interacted with Persian/Zoroastrian culture, which had well-developed ideas of heaven and Hell, although scholars debate the degree to which Zoroastrianism had an impact.

Further developments of afterlife concepts in Judaism would happen because of both Greek influence and persecution, especially during the Maccabean Revolt period in the 2nd century BCE.

Even in Jesus’ time, it was not a settled matter, with various Jewish sects having different ideas about the afterlife. The Sadducees, for example, thought death was final. Like Ivan Drago, they thought if you die, you die.

Christianity also did not have heaven and hell divisions from the outset. The earliest Christians, like the historical Jesus and Paul, were Jewish apocalypticists who believed the world as they knew it may end in their lifetime, an event they believed would see the wicked destroyed permanently (not “eternally”), while the righteous live on earth with the messiah-king.

It was only when parousia (the Second Coming of Jesus) did not happen as soon as they thought it would that Christians, who were influenced by Platonism and Greek thought, started to reinterpret their earlier views and develop the concepts of heaven and hell.

So... are heaven and hell really “necessary fiction” if many cultures did just fine without them?

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

“But beyond racism and even the more valid concern about brain drain, what these criticisms reflect is a world slow to reckon with the fluidity of contemporary national identity.”

Check out my World Cup-themed piece in @OkayAfrica.

https://t.co/s7eTDEF7gS

[OPEN COUNTRY MAG @OpenCountryMag]

@michaelaromol @BubeOrji .@SteveDedee, perhaps you’re familiar with Open Country Magazine now? Check us out at https://t.co/oj7ci73wSu for high-quality, long-form writing.

Thanks, @michaelaromol, for the highlight.

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

@light_mart47411 Oya, use dictionary.

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

In Blood Sisters, Nollywood persists in its long tradition of framing homosexual relationships as both exploitative and aberrant.

In a series suffused with sex, the only time it is both non-consensual and disgusting is when it happens between two women.

Exploitative gay relationships exist, as do abusive heterosexual arrangements, and should get its due on screen. But healthy gay relationships also exist. In a country where the law and ad hoc mobs make the lives of gay people a living hell, telling a one-sided story is artistically irresponsible.

All this does is confirm, rather than challenge, biases. No one is saying to show the good bits alone, but rather to show the good and the bad in the same breath, especially given the high political stakes.

It’s also hard to miss the show’s suggestion that homosexuality is unnatural, although, to be fair to the filmmakers, this was probably unintentional. Classic Nollywood usually blamed Satanic possession for the existence of gay relationships, like in Lancelot Imasuen’s Emotional Crack and Moses Ebere’s Men in Love.

On the other hand, Blood Sisters explains it with prison life. Underneath the clang of batons and the ruckus in the prison refectory is the quiet suggestion that, outside the prison walls, with the freedom to choose, the incarcerated women would choose men. They are, it is implied, only Gay for the Stay.

The uneven hand with which the show handles homosexuality comes into sharper focus when ranged against its heterosexual couplings. The disgust it evokes in the former is absent in the latter.

Even when it portrays heterosexual relationships that transgress norms—a woman dating her late son’s best friend; a man on a cuck wheelchair, watching another man have sex his own wife—they manage to retain emotional content and remain sexy, even approaching romance sometimes. The setting also lends dignity: the heterosexual couples have sex in air-conditioned opulence, in clean rooms and on clean, immaculately white bed sheets.

However, just before the female prisoners engage in non-consensual sex, we are first shown a dark, dank hallway, suggesting both literal and figurative dirtiness. Then there are the soiled walls, bloodied faces, and rumpled prison outfits. We are asked to imagine unwashed bodies, foul smells, and the very real risk of contracting STDs.

The language is just as vulgar: an inmate, with a hiss and a scowl, tells another to "chop toto." It is anything but sexy. It is just sex, dirty sex, stripped of style and emotional content.

Meanwhile, sex talk between the heterosexual couples borrows the low poetry of erotica: the cuckold, for example, asks the bull to kiss his wife's neck, to trail slowly from her thighs to her navel. The language and tone are both as soft as the pillows on which the wife rests her elated head.

It would be unfair to lay all blame on the filmmakers, though. They too are constrained by the same law that persecutes gay people—the same law which, as often enforced by NFVCB, regards even the slightest flattering portrayal of homosexual relationships as contravening the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act.

But this is ultimately no excuse for filmmakers, whose duty it is to tell full human stories.

I should expound on this in an essay...

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

@tonyzyyang @OkayAfrica Thanks, Tony!

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

“But beyond racism and even the more valid concern about brain drain, what these criticisms reflect is a world slow to reckon with the fluidity of contemporary national identity.”

Check out my World Cup-themed piece in @OkayAfrica.

https://t.co/s7eTDEF7gS

[Tony Yang @tonyzyyang]

@michaelaromol @OkayAfrica Good stuff!

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

I beg to differ, but there are tons of Nigerian culture journalists who can pull this off. Tons!

The good people at @OpenCountryMag, for example, like Paula Willie-Okafor (one of the most talented literary journalists I know) and @BubeOrji, who is brilliant to boot. (Check out his profile of @Tai_Egunjobi).

Then there is @esomnofu_e and @officialtodah.

The real problem is that there is no inspiring reward system for this kind of work, which is connected to the fact that there is little demand for it. But I'm also convinced these talents can effectively translate their work into audio or video form to meet audience needs, provided there is a sufficient reward system.

[Steve Dede @SteveDedee]

What's worse is that I consume Nigerian media extensively, and I can't even think of more than two journos who can deliver this type of content.

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

This website is owned by a "nonprofit Christian ministry." So they will only describe Theological Jesus.

It's like visiting an APC website for an accurate account of Tinubu's presidency.

If you want accounts of Historical Jesus that stay as true as possible to the available evidence, I would suggest reading research by critical scholars, Christians and non-Christians alike, and then weighing their arguments to see which and which are more cogent.

[Idomagirl @idomagirl]

Your claim about Jesus & hell is inaccurate
Jesus spoke about hell more than anyone else in the scriptures.

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

I’ve heard people say that heaven and hell are “necessary fiction” in regulating human behavior, that if people knew neither exists, they would go berserk.

We can debate the degree to which the claim is true some other time.

But for now: what the claim often misses is the fact that heaven and hell divisions do not exist in many ancient and contemporary religions, and that adherents do not become sociopaths because of this.

Ever since my “Christian-Babalawo” grandfather told me that proto-Yoruba cosmology does not conceive of Hell, I started to imagine that perhaps people did not require portents of a fiery pit to be on their best behavior.

Perhaps if Kunle Afolayan knew my grandpa, his second season of Anikulapo, which is set in 17th-century Oyo Empire, would not have depicted Hell. It’s clearly an anachronism, a case of Afolayan retrojecting his Christian influence onto ancient Yorubas. (I suspect Mr. Afolayan also bears Greek influence, perhaps from watching Hercules or Clash of the Titans, because the pathway to Hell in Anikulapo resembles the River Styx.)

Like Yorubas, ancient Israelites did not conceive of Hell, and thought both good and bad people went to Sheol after death. This is not Hell, but rather a permanent state of unconsciousness. Ancient Jews would only start to develop afterlife concepts from the 6th century BCE after being exiled to Babylon. So it could have been a theodicean response to their predicament, but also because in exile they interacted with Persian/Zoroastrian culture, which had well-developed ideas of heaven and Hell, although scholars debate the degree to which Zoroastrianism had an impact.

Further developments of afterlife concepts in Judaism would happen because of both Greek influence and persecution, especially during the Maccabean Revolt period in the 2nd century BCE.

Even in Jesus’ time, it was not a settled matter, with various Jewish sects having different ideas about the afterlife. The Sadducees, for example, thought death was final. Like Ivan Drago, they thought if you die, you die.

Christianity also did not have heaven and hell divisions from the outset. The earliest Christians, like the historical Jesus and Paul, were Jewish apocalypticists who believed the world as they knew it may end in their lifetime, an event they believed would see the wicked destroyed permanently (not “eternally”), while the righteous live on earth with the messiah-king.

It was only when parousia (the Second Coming of Jesus) did not happen as soon as they thought it would that Christians, who were influenced by Platonism and Greek thought, started to reinterpret their earlier views and develop the concepts of heaven and hell.

So... are heaven and hell really “necessary fiction” if many cultures did just fine without them?

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

I saw your other more snarky tweet, but chose to respond to this because, at least, it presents an argument.

I think you are not seeing the multiple things that are simultaneously true here.

It is true, as you said, that the series shows the kind of sexual abuse that is common in Nigerian prisons. But it is also true that the means by which it develops this theme, wittingly or otherwise, feeds into skewed, harmful narratives that are part of a long tradition.

In "Men in Love," one of the films that I mentioned, a queer character drugs and rapes a man, which is a depiction of sexual abuse that is true to life, while also being a part of a broader cinematic practice that routinely associates queerness with evil.

To borrow your logic, "Men in Love" then is not a representation of queerness since rape is involved?

[🍉🍉🇸🇩🇸🇩The Yassification of Chinua Achebe @Ethereal_ilo]

Ummmm...no. What happened in the series is a depiction of sexual abuse and rape which happens in Nigerian prison. It's not a representation of a queer relationship. Rape, all forms of rape, is about power and has nothing to do with sexual attraction or desire.

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

@J_Chiemeke @lalspeaks Yeah, I re-read that piece and tweeted about it days ago.

https://t.co/OzOjxO1gVk

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

This writer argued 4 years ago that female nudity in Blood Sisters is both gratuituous and inequitable, that a hierarchy of bodily exploitation exists even among the female actors.

The thesis holds true for the new show.

https://t.co/BitlaHWeAf

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

@OlannaOli Right, right. Thanks!

[Michael Aromolaran @michaelaromol]

It is Akin's wife who accuses him of raping her by proxy, but that cannot be reasonably inferred from what the series establishes. What we do see is her consenting to her husband's "gift."

He does physically assault her to extract information from her in one scene, but that is different from rape. It's clearly a case of bad screenwriting, and so doesn't count.

Also, though Kola physically assaults women in season 1, he is dead in season 2, which is the scope of my critique. I think it's valid to evaluate the sequel as an independent unit not only because it functions as one, but also because many people will watch it without having seen season 1.

[MABEL IS A WEBSITE DESIGNER @mabeldesigns1]

Akin hired someone to rape his wife,Kola is an abuser.

[Dami Ajayi @JollyPaps1]

@michaelaromol 🔥👌🏿

[IRETOMIWA @ireoluwa_e02]

Please expand on this in an essay because I will read it