Skip to main content

Is Michael Obi a villain or a hero?

While Michael Obi is not really a hero or a villain, he comes closest to being a villain. He hopes to be a hero, bringing modern ideas to the villagers; he acts, however, with "misguided zeal," and to the villagers, he would likely be seen as a villain. 


Michael Obi, who has just been named headmaster of the Ndume School, sees the school as "backward in every sense of the word." He is young, energetic, and modern and hopes to bring a positive change to the village. Yet his inability to respect the villagers and their customs and beliefs shows arrogance and makes him appear as more of a villain to the community.


Despite the fact that the footpath has sacred importance to the villagers, Obi insists on blocking the pathway with sticks and barbed wire. When a villager explains that the path is used by the dead to depart and visit the living and by children being born, Obi responds, "The whole purpose of our school [...] is to eradicate just such beliefs."


While Obi believes that he is acting admirably by teaching the children to laugh at the ideas of their ancestors, he is being insensitive to the culture and heritage of the community he has entered by trampling upon their customs, just as the villagers trample upon the schoolyard.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more