187. Cut off My Tongue by Sitawa Namwalie

Cut off My Tongue (StoryMoja, 2009; 80) is a bold collection of poems by Kenyan author who writes under the name Sitawa Namwalie. My first encounter with Namwalie's poems was when I saw her perform this entire set of poems at the Museum in Kampala, Uganda. That performance will live with me for a very long time. I describe Sitawa's poems as bold because of its subject matter. She is not afraid to call a thing by its name. Yet, in been blunt she didn't sacrifice the musicality and artistic requirement of poetry. All these ingredients are present in this excellent anthology.

Whether she is writing about the deeply tribalistic nature of her Kenyan compatriots, an issue that isn't peculiar to that country alone and which has been capitalised by politicians to achieve their personal goals, or she is talking about her identity as a Kenyan and an African, Sitawa minces no words and does so brilliantly. Though her writing covers wide subject matters, the common thread weaving the parts together - that ensured a flawless performance and seamless transitions between poems - is identity: identity of the self, of the tribe, of Africa and of Africans. She writes candidly about the post-electoral tribal violence that engulfed Kenya; here one sees the tribe-based chasms at display. The funny thing is that we all came from somewhere and nowhere. We cannot claim absolute ownership of no piece of land for in our migration we came to meet it. This issue of tribe is the subject matter of Language of Tribe. In this opening poem, the author '...wanted to know/ What is this thing/ That has us all by the neck:/ What does it look like?/ How does it feel?/ How do we live with it?' In this search for meaning and reason Sitawa questions why someone who has friends across all tribes will suddenly be '...glaring at each other/Across a wide abyss, a yawning space/Unbridgeable by the smiles of my former friends.' But did she find out the reason? Did she discover the secret?

But all these issues and problems with Tribe is linked to the issues and problems with lands. In Land of Guiltless Natives, Sitawa explores what land means to the Kenyan and whence that obsession came from. In this, Sitawa sarcastically blamed the colonists for imbuing into us their passion for the land. She writes: 'But let's not blame all the British./ The set that came to Kenya/ Is guilty of this particular mania./ Lords and Ladies of the real/ From a tiny island of 60 million souls/ On only 244,820 square km/ And those lordly few still managed to own large chunks of that!' And truly this is what was replicated when Africa was colonised. Lands in Africa became the gifts for those British soldiers who had been deemed to have served well in Wars. 'They carved out chunks of that empty land,/ 100,000 hectares for this Lord,/ 200,000 hectares for that Lord...'

Cut off My Tongue is a line in the poem I come from everywhere. In this poem, Sitawa shows that we are all from everywhere and nowhere for we have journeyed across rivers and mountains and have settled here; that characteristics that we associate to a given tribe suddenly becomes the characteristics of another tribe in a far off place. The metaphor 'Cut off My Tongue' shows how much rooted she is to everywhere. She writes: 'There is no purity in my people;/ We're a blend from everywhere./ So what should I do with your call to hate?/ Must I cut off my tongue,/ All silky smooth and full of words so sweet?' Science has shows us that we are a product of several gene-combinations and crossings and it is this combinations of different genes that ensures our survival; in fact, it is the very reason why incest is a taboo in every culture. Thus, if you want to be pure, why not marry your sister and allow your children to marry themselves. Since we cannot and don't do these, since we marry across streams and rivers and mountains, we are the product of many. 'There is no purity in my people/ I come from everywhere./ /You now tell me I must hate and kill?/ Must I cut off my tongue?/ Then tell me this,/ How do I mutilate my soul?' 

In all her writings, Sitawa Namwalie's audience is everyone, more especially the politicians who have capitalised on these divisions. But she also talks to the proletariat who is always deceived to carry out the butchering and the burning. This insanity associated with tribal conflict is what is addressed in Would You? and The Carcass of the House. In the former Sitawa wants to know if you 'Would seek a loving wife/ Give her one hour to leave her home,/ Depart from all she knows and those she love?/ And you call that an act of charity,/ When she pleads with you to kill her then,/ To wield a blunt blade...'. Similar sentiments are expressed in the latter, where 'Walls stand brooding alone/ The carcass of a house still stands...'. 

This entire anthology seeks to address the unity of humanity. That humanity has nothing to do with the tribe you come from. What is the colour of a tribe's blood? Interspersing the poems are essays addressing each set of issues. These essays do not deviate from the poems but expand ones understanding and appreciation of them. The themes covered in them matches what the author covers in this book. 

My favourite poem is Say My Name where the author questions the delocalisation of names. It is from this piece that she gets her name 'Sitawa Namwalie'. Nameless is another poem on the same issue. This book - made up of twenty-five poems and four essays - is a must read. It has the power to challenge your thinking and make you look at life with a different eye. It is my ardent hope that those who need this second-look will actually get to read this book or to listen to it performed to them. Alternatively, if possible this book should be translated into every Kenyan (or African) Language and be taught in schools. It is that good and germane to the development of a tolerant society. How do we address the issue of tribe? Is it by teaching your child English at home or by living among non-tribe folks? Sitawa Namwalie addresses all these. 

168. The Famished Road by Ben Okri

Title: The Famished Road*

Author: Ben Okri

Genre: Fiction/Surrealist

Publishers: Vintage

Pages: 500

Year of First Publication: 1991

Country: Nigeria

Ben Okri's The Famished Road entrenches the writer's style of mixing what others might refer to as surrealism with realism. Like the stories in his collected short stories Incidents at the Shrine, Okri capitalises on the African's abundant belief in the spiritual world, or supernatural, to tell his stories, presenting the reader with a cascade of fantastic images and challenging descriptions. To the African the spirit world is not far off from or diametrical to the physical world; the African believes in the fluidity between the two and believes that children come from the spirit world, just as people go to the spirit world when they die. In effect, the African believes that the world we live in now, the one we see and feel, which could be referred to as the physical world, is just a transit in that infinite cyclical journey of birth-death-rebirth. It is such beliefs that makes it necessary, during any traditional African practice or ceremony, to call upon the ancestors. Names also bear witness to the African's belief in the supernatural. Good people who lived are named after so that their goodness will be bestowed upon the individual who has been named after them and people who lived a life not worthy of emulation are not named after or called upon during libation or prayers. To the African, God is part of his everyday life. It is this belief why 'Nyame' (meaning God) begins most of the speeches of the Akans of Ghana especially when referring to a future event over which he or she has no control. It isn't because they were Christianised, it is who the African is. The African also believes because of the fluidity between the spirit world and the physical, movement in and out of the worlds is common. For instance, people believe that spirits come 'shopping' on market days and those 'with eyes' will always tell you the amazing things they see on such days.

It is within this abundant spirituality of life, living, dying, death, and reincarnation that Okri sets this story and it requires a bigger heart devoid of all impossibilities and restraints in belief to understand and appreciate. The Famished Road is the story of an abiku, which is a child whose spirit is still connected to the land of origins such that he will die in his infancy and will die again if reborn. The child therefore 'comes into the world and leaves the world' unless certain rites are performed. Azaro  is an abiku who has caused her mother a lot of grief. Upon his last birth he decided to stay to make his mother happy. However, the spirits will not let him be, they will chase him everyday in an attempt to take him back to the spirit world. It was when he resurrected in the midst of a funeral after he had fought the spirits that took him away and managed to escape that he was named Lazaro, later shortened to Azaro. In this story, Azaro tells of how he struggled not to return to the spirit world and how the pact that he had had with his spirit friends haunted him. The name Lazaro is not the only link with Christianity. In fact, the book itself opens with a statement that is similar to the verse at John 1:1 'In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God'. The transition of one element to the other and finally assuming or becoming the other was employed by Okri at the beginning of the novel as if to praise the word and the power it holds. He writes

In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. [3]

Roads are a fascination in traditional life of people. It represents the entry of Europeans and slave traders and the struggle between Christian and Traditional beliefs, between the peoples' ways of life and the ways of life of the visitors. It also marked the end of the period and the beginning of a new one. Thus, the road is viewed with awe and around it several proverbs have emerged. Most of these proverbs have surrounded its almost infiniteness and one can understand this when one pictures that the mode of transportation during those period - walking - restricts dispersion especially if it is temporary and not migratory.

Several themes run through this book. However, the major one is the issue of politics and its attendant dishonesty, greed, hatred, killing (murder), thuggery, lies, finger-pointing, denial, and any vice one can conceive. Set in the period where the colonial government was just about leaving the country and independence looms on the horizon, two political parties have been formed which must convince the people to vote for them to assume the reins of governance. There is the Party for the Rich, the front runner, and the Party for the Poor. Each of these parties involves itself in deception and lies; however, because the Party for the Rich has the wherewithal, it has more supporters, more thugs, and more money to spend on food for distribution to the people. The behaviour of this party is no different from the behaviour of Eliot's government in 1984 where a negative means a positive and vice versa; for when the Party for the Rich hires thugs to beat people who do not support them, they do so whilst preaching love and affection and caring on megaphones. They claim their love to the people in the midst of unrelenting blood flow. Even when they are beating the people, they will be blaming the other party for a crime they are presently committing. The power of words got hold of them such that Black Tyger - Azaro's father - sometimes got confused as to which of the two parties is committing crimes, though he was vehemently and ferociously against The Party for the Rich.

Along with the nascent politics of thuggery and intimidation came the self-aggrandisement of individuals who aligned themselves to the right political party. Because Madame Koto was a staunch member of the Party for the Rich, she became rich; she got all the contracts to cook for their parties and gatherings, all the customers and she was the first person to get electric power in the community and also the first to drive an automobile. Alternatively, because Black Tyger spoke his mind, which was always against the Party for the Rich, he got into fights often (almost always people descended on him and had it not been is surreal strength he might have been killed) and his landlord - a member of Party for the Rich - increased his rent and became his nemesis. Again, the photographer who went round documenting the activities and atrocities of the parties on the people became a haunted individual and was always on the run. The photographer was the conscience or memory of the society: capturing and saving and collecting and recollecting the happenings in the society.

Another theme was also environmental degradation which moves in tandem with rapid uncontrolled development and urbanisation. Trees and whole forests were destroyed, river bodies were filled with waste and flooding became an issue. The scatology described was similar to what Saramago described in Blindness, but on a smaller scale. Even when Black Tyger went round, with the crippled beggars, to clean the town, the filth came back with vengeance. His sanity was questioned and he was lambasted when he went round talking about the need to clean their environment and help the people.

Central to all these is the theme on poverty. Poverty as experienced by Azaro's parents was extreme and debilitating and almost sent Black Tyger into insanity when he found out that he was practically impotent to change his situation. His head-porter, which earned him little to keep his home running, was threatened by his political affiliation. He became a persona non-grata at the garage where he worked. Her wife also suffered similar fate at the market where the party's thugs would destroy her shed and prevent her from selling at the market. She had to resort to hawking, which became impossible during the rainy seasons. Thus, Azaro's parents descended farther and farther into abject poverty. The little they got were also spent on ceremonies anytime their son returned his spiritual escapades. Later, Black Tyger will become an accidental and occasional pugilist.

Black Tyger's philosophical and prophetic speech, after he recovered from his last and deadliest fight, was like an expatiation of Hermes Trismegistus' popular axiom as above so below. In this long rants to his family, he explained what he would, what must be done, what we should do as humanity to eliminate the evil that has pervaded our lives. For instance, he talked of strange beings having come into our - humanity's - midst and how we are afraid to fight it.

People who look like human beings are not human beings. Strange people are amongst us. We must be careful. Our lives are changing. Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky and change the face of the earth. ... We must look at ourselves differently. We are freer than we think. We haven't begun to live yet. The man whose light has come on in his head, in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated. We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from ourselves. ...
People who use only their eyes do not SEE. People who use only their ears do not HEAR. It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. [498]

Rats also played a significant metaphorical role in The Famished Road. As destroyers rats were used in comparison with the nouveau-riche who appropriates the people and their properties for their personal gains. They were the ones that chewed the little food Azaro's mother had kept and were later poisoned by the photographer. The 'road' in itself is metaphorical. It represents the journey of life.

It was a night replaying its corrosive recurrence on the road of our lives, on the road which was hungry for great transformations. [180]

Everything in Ben Okri's world is colourful. Even the wind could be silvery or blue. In this world inanimate objects assume animistic tendencies and could act on their own. In this world, a three-headed human is a common sight to those 'with eyes'. His use of synedoche and synaesthesia enhanced the beauty and enigma of the write. There never was a line that wasn't beautiful and evocative and to keep this through 500 pages of tiny fonts requires mastery and finesse and an inexhaustible stream of thoughts, sometimes Okri readers can testify to. The Famished Road is like the Harry Potter series where Hogwarts is located somewhere in London but only wizards could see; but this would be a matured and elevated version. Except that in Africa the existence of a Hogwartsian world would not shock the muggles.

Though the story was written in the first person (Azaro telling his story), Azaro seems to know what the other characters are thinking of making it read like an omniscient first person narrator, if there is a thing like that. Azaro's story gives hope when none exists, where the people themselves have given up and have made the exception the norm.

The story is recommended for readers with expansive belief that can take in everything. To us as Africans these are our realities. Yet, others who enjoy words for the sake of their beauty would find a lot of joy in this book. However, if you are a realist who sees nothing beyond anything that could be touched and still not fancy beautiful lines for their own sake, you can skip this book, and a lot of Okri's works for that matter.

_______________

About the author: Okri grew up in London before returning to Nigeria with his family in 1968. Much of his early fiction explores the political violence that he witnessed at first hand during the civil war in Nigeria. He left the country when a grant from the Nigerian government enabled him to read Comparative Literature at Essex University in England.

He was poetry editor for West Africa magazine between 1983 and 1986 and broadcast regularly for the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985. He was appointed Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1991, a post he held until 1993. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002).

His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within(1981), are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), are set in Lagos and London. (Source)

*This story, the first of a trilogy, was read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge and the Chunkster Challenge.

140. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

Title: Palace Walk

Author: Naguib Mahfouz

Translators: William Maynard Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny

Original Language: Arabic

Genre: Fiction/Socio-political

Publishers: Anchor Books

Pages: 498

Year of First Publication: 1956

Country: Egypt

Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the head of the al-Sayyid household on Palace Walk. Ahmad, as he is commonly referred to, is not a man like others. He believes in strict moral uprightness, unwavering respect and obedience and greatly abhors any attempt to challenge his position as the head of the household either from his sons, daughters, or wife. Consequently, he is strict, stern, firm and irascible. And even in a culture where nothing is held in highest esteem than self-preservation and morality of women, he is considered by his friends as extreme. But Ahmad is a man of dual personality: with his friends he is jovial and friendly. He laughs heartily and is known to be a great orator. And when he is with his concubine, the rest of the facade wears off like a rain-beaten make-up. With his family Ahmad is in control. He rules his household with all the strictness he could muster. Amina's relationship with Ahmad is a subservient one where she has to agree with whatever he says and has to think over dialogues several times before approaching him as Ahmad considers women's brain as not fully formed. And unless he is drunk he hardly holds conversation with Amina and suffers no man to mention his daughters' names on his lips (not even the old Shayk who comes once in a while to bless him) or see them before marriage proposals. 

Ahmad's strict behaviour is a cover-up for his weakness; he is afraid that submitting to this weakness would lead to the destruction of his household. For instance, it is due to his insecurity that made him forbid his wife and two girls - Aisha and Khadija - from going out so that after twenty-five years of marriage Amina has not left the confines of the house unless accompanied by him and only to visit her family; she looks at the minarets with awe and wonders how her neighbourhood and Cairo looks like. It is Ahmad's first wife's extramarital affair with a grocer, which led to divorce that occasioned his decision to 'incarcerate' Amina. However, since Haniya, his first wife, harboured great hatred towards Ahmad but never divulged it, it is uncertain if this 'point-of-view' reason is the whole truth. The boys - Yasin, son of Haniya; Fahmy, the law student; and seven-year old Kamal - are not left out of Ahmad's dreadfulness. In fact, so fearful are they of Ahmad, who wants them to be men like he is, that they would use their mother as the conduit to relay their requests to him.

Another sign of his weakness is that Ahmad hides behind anger and shouting to avoid showing his real emotion of love towards his children so that even when he has the best of intentions regarding a decision to deny something to someone he would not expose this reason to the person but would shout his decision with annoyance. Mahfouz writes

Ahmad did not forbid his son what he allowed himself merely out of egoism or authoritarianism, but because he was concerned about him. [284]

Ahmad's strictness and inflexibility was challenged when the widow of Mr. Shawkat, a long-standing family friend, approached him to inform him that she had already chosen Aisha, the youngest daughter, for her son to marry. This was after Ahmad had decreed that Aisha would not marry before Khadija did; and this decision, though harsh on Aisha, was made with the love of his first daughter in mind, of whom he was afraid that all suitors might not choose. For Khadija was not as beautiful as Aisha and every suitor the family had received had approached Aisha. Yet when Mrs Shawkat approached him with the demand and asked him to think about it, Ahmad relaxed and Aisha married. This is to be contrasted with a previous incident that had threatened to shatter the family when on his annual out-of-town business, Yasin had encouraged her (step)mother to visit the al-Husayn's shrine in a nearby mosque. On their way back - she had gone there with the youngest son, Kamal - Amina had been knocked down by a car, fracturing her shoulder. After recuperation, Ahmad had sent Amina out of his home, bringing her back only when almost everyone in the household silently revolted against him and Mrs Shawkat intervened.

The narrative style Mahfouz adopted to describe Ahmad and his behaviour highlighted the contradictions of his words and his deeds and the inequality that exists between the sexes. Amina's behaviour and thinking, perhaps affected by decades of domination, were puerile. She would quickly blame herself for everything than think evil of Ahmad. 

The first part of the story is about the social dynamics of the al-Sayyid family: the rejected engagement of a neighbour's daughter for Fahmy, Yasin's and Ahmad's nights out filled with drinking and sex, quarreling over household chores (before both daughters were married; Mrs Shawkat again married Khadija to his first son), poetry reading, Kamal's infantile conversations at coffee periods, Yasin's marriage and divorce and more. When Yasin, who was having an affair with a flute player Zanuba, saw his father singing and playing the tambourine with the musician Zubayda to whom Zanuba is a foster daughter, he was shocked. Yasin was so dumbstruck by this discovery that when he recovered he deemed himself a man and came to love and appreciate his father the more. It is ironical that upon Ahmad's philandering and his strict adherence to certain traditional principles, he would not take on another wife. This being the result of a bitter experience when his father lost a greater part of his wealth through divorce settlement and the remainder was shared among the remaining four wives upon his death, leaving him - Ahmad - with pittance. Thus, regardless of his generosity - which, together with his resolve to live in peace with his friends and neighbours appealed him to his friends - al-Sayyid was determined to protect his wealth for his children and to continue to provide the comfort that keeps his family together.

The family's bond remained intact until the arrival and camping of British soldiers at their doorstep, this marking the second part of the story. After about 300 pages the tone of the story changed from the domestic life of the al-Sayyids' household to the effects of the Egyptian demonstrations on the household in particular and on the life of Egyptians as a whole. The story was set during the period when the Ottoman Empire was defeated and Egypt became a de facto British protectorate; specifically it is set around the period when the Saad Zaghlul was exiled in Malta in 1919 and students and activists started organising demonstrations on streets. It was during this period of occupation that Ahmad's power on his family was tested. For the first time in his life Ahmad stayed home on the day of the occupation with his family and held conversations with them during breakfast. It remained so until he was told that the soldiers were there to quell demonstrations not to interfere with his usual duties.

The second event occurred when after Fahmy - who had become a member of the organisers of the demonstrations - saved his family: father, Yasin, and Kamal, from a near-death situation at a Friday prayers in a mosque because Yasin had been pointed out by a Shayk as a traitor for consorting with the soldiers. There Fahmy's involvement, which until then was a secret to every member of his household, was revealed by another member who informed the mob that Yasin cannot be a traitor because he personally works with Fahmy on one of the committees. Incensed by this, Ahmad forced Fahmy to give up his involvement by swearing an oath with the Holy Koran, but Fahmy would not; this being the first time he has gone against his father's will. The third event was when, upon returning from one of his a nightly rendezvous with a neighbour's widow, Ahmad was approached by a soldier and led to a place where people who had been rounded up from their night-outs were carrying soil to fill a hole which had been dug by the revolutionists. There he accepted his weakness but was afraid to reveal it; as he thinks of the danger Fahmy has got himself into

Should I reveal my lack of power to her? Should I seek help from her weakness after my power has failed? Certainly not. ... Let her remain ignorant of the whole affair. [448/9]

Even little Kamal who had been warned not to play with the soldiers anymore - as the young boy had developed a liking for the soldiers, singing for them and all - refused to obey this directive from his siblings and mother. Fahmy also lost Maryam when her dignity and morality became questionable after Kamal saw and reported her for consorting with the British soldiers. Thus as the revolution progresses Ahmad's household also underwent its own mini revolutions.

The family of al-Sayyid Ahmad is or could be a metaphor for the pre-revolutionary Egypt where the people respect the government of the day only out of fear and the power it wielded so that when those fears were challenged the leadership began to crumble. Palace Walk is the rallying point for the Egyptian resistance and the British reaction to that resistance. Today, one might associate it with Tahrir Square. 

This book should be read in its cultural context because any move to supplant one's societal values, mores, and laws onto it would greatly diminish its enjoyment. In fact, it is in this mode of read that one would appreciate what Mahfouz is putting across. This is an enjoyable story but one that is difficult to review. Mahfouz did an excellent work and every piece of the story is a relish to read. He showed his understanding of human behaviour through keen observation expressed in precise metaphors and similes. However, whilst reading this story, I kept for a different translation.

Palace Walk, the first of the Cairo Trilogy, was read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge, the Chunkster Challenge and the Africa Literature Reading Challenge.

_________________

Read more about the author here

128. I Write What I Like by Steve Biko

Title: I Write What I Like

Author: Steve Biko

Genre: Non-Fiction/Essays/Letters

Publishers: Picador Africa

Pages: 244

Year of First Publication: 1978

Country: South Africa

On January 8, 2012, the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa marked its centenary and to celebrate that I decided to read this book. Though Steve Biko ran parallel organisations, The Black Conscious Movement, which was basically to empower blacks to stand for themselves and fight for what they believe in and its political wing the Black Peoples Convention, he has come to symbolise the South Africa's fight against the barbaric and inhuman attitudes meted by the white minority, Boers and even in his writings recognised the ANC has the main group for the old guards like Mandela, Sisulu and others. Thus, instead of talking about Mandela, who is already known, I chose to talk about Steve Biko.

I Write What I Like is a compendium of articles, essays, letters and memoranda by the freedom-fighter-turned-martyr, Bantu Steve Biko. In this collection, put together after his death in police detention in 1977, Steve Biko shares his views and aspirations for a country under apartheid. He visualises and cuts the path that would see blacks move from their lethargic acceptance and grumbling to an energy state where they would see themselves as the only saviours they have and need. As a do-it-yourself person, Steve Biko, early on, saw the struggle against apartheid not as a liberalist fight. For the liberals, mostly white, through no fault of theirs have been born into a system that gives them privileges and rights not earned by any other South African, black or coloured. It is this realisation and his philosophising of the black man's conditions that would become the core of his actions. He saw the liberals as not doing enough to change the status-quo they enjoy, as trying to tell the black man what is good for him. 

Nowhere is the arrogance of the liberal ideology demonstrated so well as in their insistence that the problems of the country can only be solved by a bilateral approach involving both black and white. [21]

As a testimony to their claim of complete identification with blacks, they call a few 'intelligent and articulate' blacks to 'come around for tea at home', where all present ask each other the same old hackneyed question 'how can we bring about change in South Africa?' The more such tea-parties one call the more of a liberal he is and the freer he shall feel from guilt that harness and binds his conscience. [23]

The liberal must understand that the days of the Noble Savage are gone; that the blacks do not need a go-between in this struggle for their own emancipation. [27]

Liberal organisations such as the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) whose executives were mostly white and which push 'no harder' the problems blacks faced were seen as ineffective in the struggle against apartheid. It was only fitting that the first organisation Steve Biko would form would be a Students' organisation, for he saw the lacuna between the old and young black South Africans. Whereas some of the old were afraid to act, were torn between the Bantustan policies that was trying to divide and rule the country by diverting black South African's attention from the fight against apartheid to a struggle amongst themselves, and some were too slow for young, Biko saw an opportunity to bridge this gap. The South African Students' Organistion (SASO) was formed as a platform to address and push problems facing non-white students.

Biko's ideology was to awakened the catatonic soul of the black man that has made him unresponsive to the daily abuse he receives at the hands of the white man in South Africa. He challenged a system that deemed it best to preserve jobs for a certain category of people based on their skin colour. He criticised a system where blacks were deemed to be illiterate even though the system prevented them from receiving proper education. And his expansive knowledge of issues made him walk in and out of courtrooms and trials a happy man even though he received several detentions and bans. He saw the social vices of blacks, like stealing, murder, fighting, sexual promiscuity, not as an inherent or congenital trait - as preached about by the Nationalist party and some Priests - but as a consequence of the system; a system where the influx control or 72-hour clause restricts Africans to a given district and prohibits movement from one district to the other without government permit to last for more than 72 hours. 

Again, Biko - though religious in a broader sense of the word - saw the harm that Christianity was causing. According to him, the black man does not find himself in the bible and the preaching does not reflect his situation. He made several statements that highlighted the incongruity between the Christianity the white missionaries brought and the practice of that Christianity. For instance, he bemoaned the daily atrocities meted out to blacks in South Africa and intimated

The anachronism of a well-meaning God who allows people to suffer continually under an obviously immoral system is not lost to young blacks who continue to drop out of Church by the hundreds. [34]

To him the bible must be seen to preach against white supremacy and allow blacks to see the evilness of that system rather than making them 'soul-dead' citizens who are seen to be eternally carrying the cross of Christ, waiting for their reward somewhere in heaven. He writes

The bible must not be seen to preach that all authority is divinely instituted. It must rather preach that it is sin to allow oneself to be oppressed. The bible must continually be shown to have something to say to the black man to keep him going in his journey towards realisation of the self. [34]

It is in view of this that Steve Biko advocated for Black Theology, which according to him

... seeks to depict Jesus as a fighting God who saw the exchange of Roman money - the oppressor's coinage - in His father's temple as so sacrilegious that it merited a violent reaction from Him - the Son of Man. [34]

Because a larger population of the South African society were Christians and because the individual priests - black or white - wield enough power in their communities, Steve Biko avoided antagonising them but rather prep them with what is wrong, to work to awaken the self of the African rather than continuously preaching the of Jesus walking water, among others.

Later, Biko formed the Black Conscious Movement, with its political wing the Black Peoples Convention, whilst still working for the Black Community Programme. With BCP Biko worked with the people to build clinics, to let them know that there is more they can do for themselves. All these were done under the watchful eyes of the security system. There several arrests, several deaths in detentions, several demonstrations and several shootings and deaths.

Steve Biko also fought the Bantustan policy where about 13 percent of the land were given to over 80 percent of South Africa population (the non whites) to form homelands. Though some of the leaders like Gatsha Buthelezi, Lucas Mangope, Kaizer Matanzima accepted and later ruled the Zulu, Tswana, and Transkei territories, Steve saw a divide and rule tactics inherent in the system. He saw how the National Party was fighting to divert the struggle to among the people so that instead a united Azania, Steve's name for South Africa, they would be approaching the struggle as different units of people making it ineffective.

After 101 days in detention under Section 6 of the Terrorism, Biko was again banned and restricted to his locality of King but not before he sent a memorandum to a visiting American diplomat, Senator Dick Clark, on American policy towards South Africa. In it he made some demands; but before those remarks, Steve wrote:

Besides, the sin of omission, America has often been positively guilty of working in the interests of the minority regime to the detriment of the interests of black people. America's foreign policy seems to be guided by a selfish desire to maintain an imperialistic stranglehold on this country irrespective of how the blacks were made to suffer. [159]

His restriction to King meant that he does not talk to not more than one person at a time, that two people in addition to him is a crowd, that his name is not mentioned anywhere that nothing he writes is ever to be read at any place. These were to wipe his name from the minds of the people. But Biko survived it all, including death. In August of 1977 he was arrested and through the usual police brutalities sustained brain injuries. Here the evil of apartheid was seen in all its 'glory'. For after the police had hit his head against the wall he was left, chained to the window grille, to recover so that the interrogation would proceed. On September 11, 1977 he, he was loaded in the back of a police Land Rover, naked and chained and was driven on a 1100-km journey to Pretoria to a prison with hospital facilities. He died on September 12, 1977 at the Pretoria prison.

This version by Picador Africa includes a memoir, Martyr of Hope: A Personal Memoir, by Aelred Stubbs an Anglican Priest Steve had close friendship with, sharing his fears and aspirations and considering him as his father.

Steve's death, at the age of 31, caused international protests leading to the UN arms embargo on South Africa. I Write What I Like was a column Steve Biko wrote in SASO newsletters under the pseudonym of Frank Talk. It is through these writings that he shared his visions. This book is recommended to all those who love international politics, who want to know more about a young man's quest for equality. 

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Brief Bio: Bantu Stephen Biko was born in Tylden in the Eastern Cape on the 18 th December 1946, the third child of the late Mathew Mzingaye and Alice Nokuzola “Mamcethe” Biko. He attended primary school in King William's Town and secondary school at Marianhill, a missionary school situated in a town of the same name in KwaZulu-Natal. Steve Biko went on to register for a degree in medicine at the Black Section of the Medical School of the University of Natal in 1966.

Very early in his academic program Biko showed an expansive search for knowledge that far exceeded the realm of the medical profession, ending up as one of the most prominent student leaders. In 1968, Biko and his colleagues founded the South African Students' Organisation (SASO).

With the seeds of Black Consciousness having been sown outside of student campuses, Biko and his colleagues argued for a broader based black political organization in the country. Opinion was canvassed and finally, in July 1972, the Black People's Convention (BPC) was founded and inaugurated in December of the same year. Inspired by Biko's growing legacy the youth of the country at high school level mobilized themselves in a movement that became known as the South African Students Movement (SASM). This movement played a pivotal role in the 1976 Soweto Uprisings, which accelerated the course of the liberation struggle. The National Association of Youth Organizations was also formed in order to cater for the youth more generally. (Read more here)

Rating: 6.0/6.0

110. Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

Title: Death and the King's Horseman

Author: Wole Soyinka

Genre: Play/Tragedy

Publishers: Spectrum Books Limited

Pages: 77

Year of First Publication: 1975

Country: Nigeria

For  Amy's Nigeria Independence Day Reading/Reviewing Project and for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge.

Death and the King's Horseman is one of Soyinka's best known plays. Voted as one of Africa's Best Books of the Twentieth Century, it has been more admired than it has been performed, according to a 2009 Guardian article. This play, according to the Author's Note, 'is based on real events which took place in Oyo, ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946', though certain changes have been made in 'matters of detail, sequence and ... characterisation [and the setting taking back] two or three years... for minor reasons of dramaturgy.' An important note, before present readers make the same mistake, sounded by the author was that this work should not been seen as a 'clash of cultures', which is 'a prejudicial label which, quite apart from its frequent misapplication, presupposes a potential equality in every given situation of the alien culture and the indigenous, on the actual soil of the latter.'

The Elesin Oba, the King's Horseman, by tradition, has to follow the King, upon the latter's death, to the afterlife. And this must be done willingly and at a particular time, using the moon as a guide. Failure on the part of the Elesin Oba to follow the King would spell utter disgrace and shame for him and his family and upon his death is bound to live a degraded life in the hereafter. Meanwhile for the larger community, Elesin Oba's failure means showers of catastrophic events perpetrated by the King's spirit, which unable to cross into the afterlife, would wander amongst the people, torment them and cause cosmic disorder. 

Death and the King's Horseman begins with the Elesin Oba, amidst drumming and dancing, walking through the market, on expensive clothes of damask and alari spread on the ground by the market women, as he prepares to leave the earth after the death of the King. The Elesin Oba has come to understand the meaning of this step and has willingly accepted his fate. He knows that greater is his reward if this deed of ritual suicide is carried through. His praise-singer eggs him on, reminding him through metaphors, fables, and riddles, the reward of this step and why it must be done.  The Elesin Oba, as a final request and perhaps a fortuitous gratification one, on seeing a young woman walked into a market stall, asks the girl be given to him. But because 'only the curses of the departed are to be feared. [And] [t]he claims of one whose foot is on the threshold of their abode surpasses even the claims of blood [for which] It is impiety even to place hindrances in their ways', Iyaloja granted the Elesin Oba his final wish, even though the girl is betrothed to her son. However, before handing her over to the Elesin Iyaloja warns him

The living must eat and drink. When the moment comes, don't turn the food to rodents' droppings in their mouth. Don't let them taste the ashes of the world when they step out at dawn to breathe the morning dew.

IYALOJA: You wish to travel light. Well, the earth is yours. But be sure the seed you leave in it attracts no curse.

And to these the Elesin expresses shock at how the 'Mother of the Market' 'mistake [his] person. And that when he is gone they should let 'the fingers of [his] bride seal [his] eyelids with earth and wash [his] body'. 

The news of the ritual suicide reached the British Colonial District Officer, Simon Pilkings, who sent his men to arrest the Elesin, deeming the act as barbaric and counter to the law. Thus, the Elesin who had promised the women that nothing would hold him back when the time comes found himself in custody at the DO's house where his wish could not be fulfilled. Iyloja blamed the Elesin Oba, for loving the earth too much, and Pilkings, for misunderstanding the traditions of the people. Iyaloja to Elesin:

You have betrayed us. We fed your sweetmeats such as we hoped awaited you on the other side. But you said No, I must eat the world's left-overs. We said you were the hunter who brought the quarry down; to you belonged the vital portions of the game. No, you said, I am the hunter's dog and I shall eat the entrails of the game and the faeces of the hunter.... IYALOJA: We called you leader and oh, how you led us on. What we have no intention of eating should not be held to the nose.

To District Officer Pilkings, Iyaloja says

Child, I have not come to help your understanding. (Points to ELESIN) This is the man whose weakened understanding holds us in bondage to you. ... 

Elesin's son who had come home, from his study abroad, to bury his father when he heard of the King's demise 'proved the father..'. To avoid the shame of the father and avert any calamity that would befall the people as a results of his fatehr's failure to perform the ritual, Olunde took his father's place and committed ritual suicide. The King's body with Olunde, the son who became the father, was brought to Elesin for a final ritual to be performed; however, seeing his son by the King, Elesin also committed suicide. But Elesin's death has become useless and 'his son will feast on the meat and throw him bones.' Refusing to go at his appointed time he is bound to live a lowlife in the afterlife.

All through the texts the reader discovers that whereas the people and Elesin understood the essence of what he has to do, Simon and Jane Pilkings did not. For instance, Olunde argued that it is not different from the war being waged by the British and that their greatest art 'is the art of survival.' Yet they have not the humility to let other's survive. Shocked Jane asked 'through ritual suicide?' and Olunde responded:

Is that worse than mass suicide? Mrs Pilkings, what do you call what those young men sent to do by their generals in this war? Of course you have also mastered the art of calling things by names which don't remotely describe them. ...

OLUNDE: Mrs Pilkings, whatever we do, never suggest that a thing is the opposite of what it really is. In your newsreel I heard defeats, thorough, murderous defeats described as strategic victories. No wait, it wasn't just on your newsreels. Don't forget I was attached to hospitals all the time. Hordes of your wounded passed through these wards. I spoke to them. I spent evenings by their bedside while they spoke terrible truths of the realities of that war. I know now how history is made.

Through the arguments between Olunde and Jane Pilkings and between Iyaloja and Simon Pilkings, Soyinka showed how much similarity exists between these two cultures and their attendant religions. It is all a matter of how you look at it and from where you stand when looking.

Soyinka's plays are often times difficult to explain, for though on the surface they may seem easy to grasp, beneath them would be simmering something powerful. Thus, I would recommend that, if possible, one reads this piece himself/herself.

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Brief Bio: Read about the author and his body of works here.

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0

105. Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah

Title: Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism

Author: Kwame Nkrumah

Genre: Political Non-Fiction

Publishers: PANAF

Pages: 283

Year of Publication: 1965

Country: Ghana

Read for Amy's Bloggers' Alliance of Non-Fiction Devotees, BAND

CAVEAT: This review has been delayed for several reasons. First it is to afford the reader enough time to think about the subject matter deeply and present it lucidly. However, after several days, it became clear that no amount of thinking would lead to a clearer review. Thus, to understand the wealth of facts and figures, of information within this pages, kindly get a copy. What is presented here cannot even be described as a pin-prick of what the book offers. The second reason is that today is Kwame Nkrumah's birthday. He would have been 102 years.

When Kwame Nkrumah published this book in 1965, it was banned in the United States. A year after, on February 24, 1966, he was overthrown in a coup d'tat, which according to declassified files or documents, was sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. During this period several African nationalists were assassinated. And the UN's attitude, especially in the Lumumba case, is there for all to see. Thus, even then, the UN has only worked to help a handful of countries and individuals. 

Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism is a step by step guide to unveiling, exposing, denuding, the factors, individuals, countries, and corporations working against Africa's development and unity. From chapters such as Africa's Resources, Obstacles to Economic Progress, Imperialist Finance, Monopoly Capitalism and the American Dollar, The Truth Behind the Headlines, The Oppenheimer Empire, The Diamond Groups, Mining Interests in Central Africa, Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, Economic Pressures in the Congo Republic, The Mechanisms of Neo-Colonialism, among others, Nkrumah sought to make the world know the kind of forces we are facing as Africans (and non-Africans) on the path towards development (and the people that rule our world).

Corporations, which stole Africa's resources from the beginning by making chiefs sign papers they know very well they cannot read and in most cases papers which talk of a different contract only to turn out that these chiefs have signed off their resources, have come to control Africa's extractive industries, or broadly, Africa's primary resources and have enriched themselves - creating empires - through colonisation. These corporations, even after independence, had done everything necessary to keep the status quo. Through  vertical and horizontal integrations they have formed monopolies that control the production of the raw materials, its transport outside the country, its transformation or value addition, its price on the international market and the manufacture of the finished products. In effect, they control the demand and supply of products. And consequently, prices.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, did a diligent job with this book in unmasking the demons against Africa's development and unity with hard facts. Appropriately, the book opens with 'Africa's Resources', where the author shows the volume of Africa's raw materials and those who control it. The chapter opens with the paradox that even though the continent is rich its resources go to enrich, mainly, non-Africans.

Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below her soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups of and individuals who operate to Africa's impoverishment. (Chapter 1, Page 1)

After the second World War, most African countries began the fight for independence and colonialism became unfashionable. In places where the granting of independence was resisted, the natives took up arms. As disaffection towards the colonial government increased, independence became the only way out. However, post-war European countries have seen a boost in their economies that would fall should total (economic and political) independence be granted. The colonialists in granting the independence fashioned out a systematic method of dominance that would still keep them in control of the resources that is needed to drive their economies back home. This burden of keeping growth and development in developed countries became a burden of developing countries:

It is the less developed countries that continue to carry the burden of increasing development of the highly developed. (Chapter 4, page 66)

This new form of control meant to grant quasi-political control (in terms of the physical head and not the politics), while keeping economic-control, is what the author refers to as Neo-Colonialism. 

Neo-colonialism is based upon the principles of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security. There economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonials ruler. (Introduction, page xiii)

This system was much preferred even by the French who, granting independence to Guinea removed every single-piece of investment in that country including office equipment such as light-bulbs to prevent the remaining countries from fighting for independence. This is because with Neo-Colonialism, any social and economic failings and disaffection by the people in the 'independent states' are blamed on the government of these states. And these disaffection are easily created through influencing prices.

In neo-colonialist territories, since the former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control, if the social conditions occasioned by neo-colonialism cause a revolt the local neo-colonialist government can be sacrificed and another equally subservient one substituted in its place. On the other hand, in any continent where neo-colonialism exists on a wide scale the same social pressures which can produce revolts in neo-colonial territories will also affect those States which have refused to accept the system and therefore neo-colonialist nations have a ready-made weapon with which they can threaten their opponents if they appear successfully to be challenging the system. (introduction, page xiv)

From the control of raw materials, manufacturing plants, financial capital, finished products, markets for finished and raw materials, through mergers and acquisitions these individuals and corporations have gained enormous power against which neo-colonialist countries, with their small size and little income, can hardly work against or be victorious in any bargain. Capitalism's irony is that, even though it is supposed to be a free system that breeds competition, its practitioners have sought ways to be prevent that very 'advantage' from materialising through mergers and acquisitions, with the giants in the industry swallowing one another. With their control over different industries they control the pulse of most countries, the world even. Today, monopolies have been created for almost every type of industry. So that the mining of Gold is controlled by a few (mostly two) organisations which have shares in each others organisations. And so effectively are a single unit with multifarious appendages (like an octopus). These industrial monopolies have also become the properties of a few individuals, like a pyramid. What is frequently observed is that about five directors of five major corporations would also be directors in over two hundred other corporations in different industries, serving the same interest groups. From their control of industries and new-found raw materials they seek to

...deprive rivals of their use. The manipulation of artificial scarcity is another of monopoly's tactics for maintaining profits. For three years between mid-1964 the big copper companies were running at between 80 and 85 percent of capacity to keep up prices. Steel production, too, was held back to something like 80 percent of capacity.  (Chapter 4, page 62)

In countries where nationalists fight to gain control of these resources, secession is first advocated and then war is instituted. One only needs to look at the Congo DR, a country currently managed by mining corporations, to understand how this strategy works. Where investments are made, the enormous capital flight these corporations and countries embark upon leave the producing-country crippled.

Direct private American investment in Africa increased between 1945 and 1958 from $110m. to $789m., most of it drawn from profits. Of the increase of $679m. actual new money invested during the period was only $149m., United States profits from these investments, including reinvestment of surpluses, being estimated at $704 m. As a result African countries sustained losses of $555 m. (Chapter 4, page 62)

In Chapter 5, Nkrumah showed us 'The truth behind the headlines'. This chapter is dedicated to unravelling the goings-on behind news headlines. According to Nkrumah to 'really understand what goes on in the world today, it is necessary to understand the economic influences and pressures that stand behind the political events. So that an innocuous headline such as 'Morgan Grenfell participates in new French bank (Financial Times, London, 18 December 1962) has more to say than the headline.

Morgan Grenfell & Co. acts effectively as the London end of the important American banking house J.P. Morgan & Co. which, in 1956, already owned one-third of the British company. It should not, therefore, surprise us to learn that the new 'continental' bank in which Morgan Grenfell is participating is called Morgan et Cie; more especially, since 70 percent of the capital of 10 million new francs is held by Morgan Guaranty International Finance Corporation, and 15 per cent by Morgan Grenfell. What about the remaining 15 per cent? This is divided between two Dutch banks - Hope & Co. of Amsterdam and R. Mees & Zoonen of Rotterdam - with both of which the Morgan group has had close association over many years. This association has been drawn even closer by the acquisition in March 1963 of a 14 per cent in both of them by the Morgan Guaranty International Banking Corporation, a subsidiary of Morgan Guaranty Trust. (Chapter 5, page 70)

Using different methods and strategies we are made to accept that we are incapable of doing anything for ourselves. From the Hollywood movies the covert operations of their cultural attaches/ambassadors, peace corps, information services that publishes their own bulletins, the war against united Africa and against development is fought. Not long ago, the Chinese (and even Japanese) were looked upon as we are now; fastforward to today and China and America have mutual respect for one another. It is such examples that we can point at that shows that, at least, hope exist and that is what this book seek to provide: hope.

After reading the introduction of this 283-page book, France's intervention in Cote d'Ivoire - a country it has vested interest in in terms of its resources and financial capital - and US cum NATO assault on Libya would be clearer. Readers would no longer perceive these two events as interventionists but rather a calculated attempt to keep Africa 'apart' and its resources to them. For what would the newly-supported and installed government do when businessmen from these countries troop in to ask for mining and drilling concessions? Most at times, because the powerful families and corporations behind these wars also control the media, we are presented with falsities, half-truths, staged-news and complete lies about what goes on in these countries. Obama's call for military intervention to 'protect civilians' in Libya is a veil for his real intention. However, if we use blanket names such as America, France, Britain etc. we refuse to see the bigger picture. For behind these countries are multinational corporations, the empire of a few individuals, fighting to increase their control of the world's resources. So that the problem is not unique to only Africa but to other countries as well, even in Europe. These corporations, through lobbying, election funding, control over institutions, have infiltrated governments, placed their 'men' (bootlickers) in strategic positions and so are able to influence policies.

Note that Kwame Nkrumah, in this book, did not speak against foreign investment. What it is against is exploitation and the overarching objective of these investors to make super-normal profits while impoverishing the countries in whose land the resources are.

While foreign private investment must be encouraged, it must be carefully regulated so that it is directed to important growth sectors without leaving control of such sectors in foreign hands.

Nkrumah propounds African unity as the solution. A united African would have the economy, the resources and trading amongst itself would become a force to reckon with. China's importances stems partly from the size of its economy. But it is this unity that is being fought from all sides with all manner of weapons to the extent that we have, today, African leaders who prefer to live in countries whose GDP is ten times less than a corporation working in their boundaries. Others who just want to be 'presidents'. Similarly, the Angolophone-Francophone colonialist blocks has done little to aid unity. In fact, every attempt at uniting is hampered by these blocks using baits such as aid (which only serves as a revolving credit, taking ten times more from the 'aided' country than was given), debt-cancellations, and the like. But then again, the book proffers hope and rightly so for this is their last gasp for breath.

This is a book that everyone must read. Especially so if you are an African. It aims to give facts and figures rather than dazzle you with exquisite prose; yet every topic has been painstakingly explored to its logical roots. This should be a required-reading for every African leader (Presidents, Head-of-States, Military/Rebel Leaders, Juntas etc.) and also for anyone who wants to enter into governance. Like I earlier said, this review could not do justice to the volume of information in the book's pages. Thus, it would be better for one to read the book for himself/herself to really grasp what Kwame Nkrumah is talking about. What makes this book worth the read is that the very same 'demons' unveiled as hampering Africa's development are the same problems we are grappling with. Some derided his method of solving it, yet they have come up with no better solution. Recent events on the continent and in the world at large is enough to show that nothing has changed. If anything at all, the wheels have been oiled and the spinning is faster. Would the recently-discovered oil lead to development? 

To end this incomplete review, remember that:

The change in the economic relationship between the new sovereign states and the erstwhile masters is only one of form. Colonialism has achieved a new guise. It has become neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism; its final bid for existence, as monopoly-capitalism or imperialism is the last stage of capitalism. And neo-colonialism is fast entrenching itself within the body of Africa today through the consortia and monopoly combinations that are the carpet-baggers of the African revolt against colonialism and the urge for continental unity.

And in order to halt this foreign interference in our affairs

... it is necessary to study, understand, expose and actively combat neo-colonialism in whatever guise it may appear. For the methods of neo-colonialism are subtle and varied. They operate not only in the economic field, but also in the political, religious, ideological and cultural spheres.

Before you become complacent of this, ask yourself what would happen to us if we should run out of these natural resources? Or if substitutes are found as they are being considered for diamond, rubber, crude oil and others? Development is now.
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Brief Bio: Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unityand was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. (Read more here)

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0
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Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (I)
Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (II)

89. Underground People by Lewis Nkosi

Title: Underground People
Author: Lewis Nkosi
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke
Pages: 308
Year of First Publication: 2002
Country: South Africa

Lewis Nkosi's second novel coming after the award-winning debut Mating Birds is a unique story. Its uniqueness lies not in any attempt to create something which has never been done. Nor does it turn every sentence into a literary masterpiece, though each word, sentence, paragraph is a relish to read. The uniqueness of Lewis Nkosi's Underground People lies in its beautiful, fast-reading, and tension-building prose. And his ability to satirise South Africa's apartheid system whilst still keeping its seriousness, its human suffering closer to the reader.

Cornelius Molapo is a high-school teacher, amateur poet, speaker, a jitterbug dancer, a passionate lover and a lover of cricket. He is also a peripheral member of the National Liberation Movement, the movement fighting to end apartheid rule in South Africa. When the Pretoria Government began ceasing lands from the natives of Tabanyane for the white farmers and the NLM wanted someone to lead their field operations being carried out with the local resistance group in Tabanyane against both the Pretoria Government and the usurper to the Tabanyane throne, Sekala Seeiso, the NLM called on its most unlikely candidate, the high-school teacher, amateur poet, speaker, jitterbug dancer, passionate lover and lover of cricket, Cornelius Molapo. So when Cornelius was not seen for many days, people reluctantly suspected that he might be one of the many individuals who are being 'incommunicado' by the Johannesburg Government. The NLM, however, made a formal proposal to the Human Rights International to help them find Molapo, a party member. Anthony Ferguson, a representative of the HRI, was born and raised in South Africa but has been away for fifteen years. Having carried out successful assignments across most warring countries in Latin America and other parts of Africa,  Ferguson found that there are several reasons why this home-assignment would be no small an assignment. First Ferguson was not sure how far things have changed in South Africa and there is her celebrity twin sister, Hazel, to deal with. There is also the several winding South African laws that, though white, could entangle him.

What happens when a Tabanyane-born university-trained school teacher who has lived most of his life in Johannesburg is thrust into the mountains to fight the armed-to-the-teeth apartheid government and its local stooges for several months? Naturally, Cornelius Molapo, came to appreciate the predicament of his people; he identified with them in a way far different from what he had been inciting his listeners to do; he lived their lives and understood what it was to be a native. With time, this jitterbug dancer shed all traces of his 'city flesh' and his timorousness, taking on the hardened life of a guerrilla fighter and prepared to fight to death than give up on his people.

Set in the years - perhaps the very late 1980s to early 1990s - leading to the release of Nelson Mandela, whom in the book was referred to as Dabula Amanzi, during a period where the Immorality Act has been suspended and mix marriages were taking place with increasing frequency after forty years of apartheid and the government was losing the fight against the freedom fighters whilst finding it increasingly expensive to implement discriminatory laws, this story differ from many others that treat the subject of apartheid. In most of such stories, the struggle is peripheral to the story, shown through a broken home, through the arrest of the family head and the disintegration of the family. In such stories, the effects apartheid is what is told not the struggle, not the intentional and willing sacrifices people made to create a 'new social order'. In Lewis Nkosi's Underground People this 'struggle is the story'. However, the story is not only about THE struggle. It is also about the people in the struggle: their fears and aspirations. The breadth of Nkosi's paint brush was equal on all sides. Besides, though the subject matter is serious there are several humorous lines found scattered in the text. Describing her uncle, Sekala Seeiso, to Cornelius, Madi Seeiso said

The day you come across my uncle Sekala no-one will need to point him out to you! Try to imagine a monster six-foot-ten, with a face like a train locomotive or the front of Mount Taba Situ, and you have the exact image of my uncle. Children have been known to cry when he has but looked at them; an attempt at a smile from him is likely to send children running for shelter behind their mother's skirts. When he makes a joke he smiles so hard that his eyes seem to close up and vanish, bringing to perfection his exceptional ugliness! (Page 195)

Even the way the whites expected the natives to behave was comically presented and to know that this was actually how they were expected to behave made it all the more funny and absolutely mind-boggling. So that Joe Bulane, a lawyer by profession had to dress like a 'native' in order to outwit the authorities.

At first, Anthony did not recognise the man from the central committee. Bulane was dressed in faded old khakis, somewhat soiled and torn and sprinkled with mud, and although this was the height of summer on the highveld and the sun would soon be scorchingly hot, he was swathed in a thick army coat that looked frayed and moth-eaten, like something which might have been bequeathed to an importunate servant by a jokey employer. His face concealed behind dark glasses framed in red plastic which made him look like a friendly gargoyle. In spite of the sombreness of the occasion Anthony could not stop himself from laughing. Helpless, he leaned against the door of the car. 'Oh Mr Bulane, what a sight to greet the plains of Tabanyane!'

 Bulane peered shortsightedly at his fellow traveller: 'Perhaps you might start off by addressing me properly,' he said gravely.

'Yes, sir!' Anthony responded, unable to stop laughing.

'From now on', Bulane said, 'I am not Mister Bulane. Just plain Bulane, your native boy.' 

This is a novel that would make you laugh and think in equal measure. Its representation of life leading to the overthrow of apartheid is very vivid. Highly recommended.

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Brief Bio: Lewis Nkosi (Dec. 5, 1936 to Sept. 5, 2010) is known chiefly for his scholarly studies of contemporary African literature, and is the author of the novel Mating Birds (1986). Critics enthusiastically praised Nkosi's prose style and narrative structure in Mating Birds, and several have compared the work with Albert Camus's The Stranger. Nkosi was born in Natal, South Africa, and attended local schools before enrolling at M. L. Sultan Technical College in Durban. In 1956 he joined the staff of Drum magazine, a publication founded in 1951 by and for African writers. In his Home and Exile and Other Selections (1965), Nkosi described Drum's young writers as "the new African[s] cut adrift from the tribal reserve--urbanised, eager, fast-talking and brash." According to Neil Lazarus, the description fitted Nkosi as well. "Nkosi's whole bearing as a writer," he wrote, "was decisively shaped by the years in Johannesburg working for the magazine." In 1960 Nkosi left South Africa on a one-way "exit permit" after accepting a fellowship to study at Harvard University. Now living in England, he teaches and writes articles on African literature. In addition to the novel Mating Birds, he has also produced several plays and collections of essays, including The Rhythm of Violence(1963), Malcolm (1972), The Transplanted Heart: Essays on South Africa (1975), and Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature (1981). (Source)

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0

87. Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Title: Weep Not, Child

Author: Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Genre: Fiction/Colonial

Publishers: Heinemann

Pages: 143

Year of First Publication: 1964

Country: Kenya

For the Africa Reading Challenge

To begin with, this is a book I last read almost seven years ago. It is also one of the very few books I have re-read. Though I only review books I have just (within the year) read I feel the need to share this with you.

The story revolves around Ngotho and his children and their relationship with Jacobo and the Howlands. Ngotho was a man filled with emotions and loneliness. The type of emotion one cannot do anything to assuage its excruciating pains. As a patriarch Ngotho hurts from the knowledge that even though his children show great potential he cannot help them to fulfill. Worst of all is his inability to stand against Jacobo, the anglicised local man for whom he works. And when he remembers that his son, Boro, fought in the second Big War, his impotence becomes hurting sore; it stares starkly at him. When Boro ran into the bush to fight with the fighters, Ngotho finally gathered some Okonkwo-like bravery and attacked Jacobo. This attack led to a series of disasters. As Ngotho became spiritually alienated and emotionally disturbed; as he became weaker, his enemies, Jacobo and Howland became stronger.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Weep Not Child is a story that examines the relationship that existed between blacks and whites and within blacks themselves prior to independence. It explores several socio-economic issues such as access to education, jobs and the universal right to life. It also explores the Mau Mau bush-fighters and their struggle for an independence in Kenya. When access to social amenities is unequal and others have rights that are lost to others, there is a class struggle and a type of caste system is created. For instance, and here note the play on words, whereas the Ngothos were dead-poor and representative of the Kenyan proletarians, the Jacobos were rich farmers who worked for the white farmers, the Howlands. And names become important. From a very typical and native name of Ngotho, the poor and the masses, we move to those who have sold the land to the whites and serve them. Those who bow before them and in doing so shame the black race. These are called the Jacobos - a localised name for the English name, Jacob. Then the Lord of Lords, the colonialist is represented by Howland... How Land?

This classification were strongly implemented by all the individuals involved. So that even though Kamau wanted to learn carpentry and his 'black' master would not show him all he needs to know he complained bitterly, insinuating that this was the reason why - Ngotho - his father prefers to work for the whiteman;

Blackness is not all that makes a man ... There are some people, be they black or white, who don't want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to other less endowed. That is what's wrong with all these carpenters and men who have a certain knowledge. It is the same with rich people. A rich man does not want others to get rich because he wants to be the only man with wealth ... Some Europeans are better than Africans ... That's why you at times hear father say that he would rather work for a white man. A white man is a white man. But a black man trying to be a white man is bad and harsh. (Page 22)

And this is where the crux of the issue lies. The Africans in the novel who adopted the lifestyle of the colonialists were harsher and brutal in their treatment of fellow blacks than the colonialists themselves. Thus, Ngugi here is not piling up the blame at the doorsteps of the colonialists or Europeans but also showing that the ability to do good is inherent and that it is not necessarily true that the oppressed race is always vulnerable and pitiable. But most times that they inflict the pain by themselves on themselves. That on several occasions, in order to please their masters, those who pretend to have the masters' 'colour and manners' go to the extreme in their maltreatment of their very own tribesmen. This observation by Ngugi is not different from many other views, like Mia Couto's The Russian Bride in his short-story collection  Every Man is a Race, where the slave boss treated the others harshly to impress his Russian boss.

Again, this novel could be a precedence to Matigari, even as it precedes it in publication. For in Matigari, which was set in the period following Kenya's independence, we see that it was the rule of the Jacobos and not the Ngothos, even though it was the latter who had fought with their lives for independence. The Ngothos (or Matigari ma Njiruungi) remained an oppressed group and even though there was a change in government (in Matigari) the land was still being misappropriated by the same Jacobos (or John Boys) for their friends, the Howlands (or Williams).

Are these symbiotic relationship different from what prevails in most countries on the continent? Are they different from the today, where governments sell national assets for nothing, if only the capitalist entrepreneurs would promise their children good university education abroad? Or where governments refuse to see the harm being wreaked upon its country because that's where his personal sustenance comes from? Is it different from the present era, where the paunch is put before development or where the "I" supersedes the "We" even when the resource is a Common Resource?

To really understand the development quagmire, within which most African countries seem to be stuck or better still wallow, a reading of these two novels would suffice. For it is only when our present actions bestow positive externalities on posterity that we can hit our chest and say 'yes we've done well'. However, as it is now, we are light-years away from attaining such feat. Ngugi by this book alone has provided us with the solution to our problem by diagnosing what the problem is.

If you have not read this novella, whose title was taken from Walt Whitman's On the Beach at Night, perhaps well-chosen for the subject it addresses, then kindly do so. It is one great novel.

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Brief Bio: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. He was educated at Kamandura, Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools; Alliance High School, all in Kenya; Makerere University College (then a campus of London University), Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Leeds, Britain. He is recipient of seven Honorary Doctorates viz D Litt (Albright); PhD (Roskilde); D Litt (Leeds); D Litt &Ph D (Walter Sisulu University); PhD (Carlstate); D Litt (Dillard) and D Litt (Auckland University). He is also Honorary Member of American Academy of Letters. A many-sided intellectual, he is novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist, editor, academic and social activist.

The Kenya of his birth and youth was a British settler colony (1895-1963). As an adolescent, he lived through the Mau Mau War of Independence (1952-1962), the central historical episode in the making of modern Kenya and a major theme in his early works. (Source)

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0