Some years ago—when he was still living in Poland—political science academic Remi Adekoya attempted to play the now common game of Oppression Olympics with some Polish colleagues.
It did not go well.
When I’d bring up history, Poles would acknowledge Africa had been ruthlessly exploited but then go on to recall their own history. Losing their independence for 123 years from 1795 to 1918, then being invaded by Hitler in 1939 and having their capital reduced to rubble, then being abandoned by the West to half a century of Soviet communist domination which left them poorer and weaker than other European nations. ‘Most of the last two hundred years were pretty crap for us too,’ they’d conclude. In other words: Get over your past, you’re not the only victims of history.
This episode not only reveals that there are some countries and peoples against whom it is unwise for anyone else to play the Oppression Olympics (Jews and Ukrainians, if anything, would be even harder to beat than Poles). It also reveals quite a bit about Remi Adekoya, who has written a book as striking as his own background. Half Polish and half Nigerian, Adekoya has lived and worked as a journalist in both countries, speaks more languages than anyone has a right to, and now plies his trade as a political scientist at the University of York.
Read Full Article »