1. The characters often say how Biafra would be further with foreign aid-- support, supplies, or even just recognition. How do you think the Nigerian civil war would have played out differently if it happened in the 2010s?
2. Ugwu's personality changes depending on his situation. With the same mentality, how do you think Ugwu would act different if he was white? If he was rich? And what about if he was Hausa or Yoruba?
3. Kainene was introduced as the ruder, rasher twin, while Olanna was introduced as the gentle and "perfect" one. How has this first impression been developed-- and possible even challenged-- through the story?
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The World Was Silent
The world was judging us when we cried
When the North began firing
on its own brothers and sisters.
When our accents became a maker,
and being Igbo became a death sentence.
When the people we dined with
became the ones that sold us out.
When we watched pregnant women lying
on the ground, their bellies cut open like melons.
When we saw the bodies, bodies of family, friends, strangers, filling the streets
the world judged our tears.
The world was criticizing when we suffered
"Savages," they called us,
sitting from their perch of colonizing moral superiority.
"Uncivilized," the papers and radios yelled,
ignoring the destruction of our civilization Europe had brought.
"What more could you expect from Africa?" The white man asked,
rejecting journal articles that didn't fit the narrative they wanted.
"Will Biafra succeed?" the West questioned
as their government sent guns to shoot us, supplies to bomb us.
As we died of their oppression, pleaded for recognition, watched each other fall,
the world criticized our pain.
The world was watching when we fought
We didn't have many supplies
but we had heart, we had hope.
We didn't have any support
but we couldn't give up, because that meant death.
We got used to the shrill alarms piecing our quiet
and then running from bunkers as they rained fire on us.
We tore down social borders, opened our hearts
and helped everyone around us, because we knew no one else would.
We saw mothers cry over their sons' bodies, boys ripped off streets, forced into war.
The world watched our fight.
The world was silent when we died
Eventually, they closed us off from the world,
leaving us supply-less and starving
Eventually, the fires in us began to dim,
seeping out of the wounds we didn't have supplies to treat.
Eventually, we got used to the wailing of families
as another member fell to the weakness, to the hunger.
Eventually, we stopped fighting at the supply buildings
because there wasn't much left to fight over.
Children died, the elderly cried, and we lost our pride, and then eventually,
the world ignored our death.
