231. Dead Aid - Why Aid Makes Things Worse - and How there is another Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo

Dead Aid - Why Aid is not Working and How there is another Way for Africa (Penguin, 2009; 208) by Dambisa Moyo takes a revolutionary look at how Africa's development is financed and whether aid has had any significant impact in Africa to merit its continuous existence.

Divided into two parts - A World with Aid (Part I) and A World without Aid (Part II) - Dambisa argues, with researched facts and figures to support her argument, that aid, instead of lifting the majority out of poverty, does nothing of that sorts and that  it could even make countries become poorer and become encumbered and frustrated with debt and its servicing. In Part I, she discusses the Myth of Aid, provides A Brief History of Aid, shows why Aid is not Working, and why it could be The Silent Killer of Growth. Her arguments are compelling and would make the reader think twice. Though I'm not capitalist in thought (I'm what one might refer to as a Social Capitalist - using a country's resources - human and material - to generate the necessary capital to trigger development, instead of relying on globalisation which can destroy a country) Dambisa's argument made me think some more. 

She describes the changing focus of aid as it shifted from infrastructure to poverty reduction in the late 1970s so that almost 50 percent of aid went to poverty reduction compared to 5 percent in the previous years. Regardless of this, poverty rates over the succeeding years skyrocketed and growth rates plummeted. The premise for Dambisa's Dead Aid thesis is that though several trillions of aid money have been pumped into the continent, there is nothing to show for it. Rather, African countries are so much riddled with debt that between 1987-1989 the cost of debt servicing became more than aid inflows to the tune of US$ 15 billion resulting in the net outflow of finance from poor countries to rich countries. According to her, donors give money to whoever is there to be given to. It matters not who the person is. In the Cold War, aid was used as an incentive to attract and maintain alliances (or allegiances); so that leaders like Mobutu Sesseseko, who was an American ally and who replaced Patrice Lumumba - after the latter's assassination, got enough aid money that he is famed to have been richer than his country. Idi Amin, regardless of his tyranny, was supported. Mengistu of Ethiopia was provided with aid by the Russians to keep his allegiance. Even 'emperor' Bokassa, whose coronation cost US$ 22 billion, was 'aided'. Thus, the character and the type of government was irrelevant. This, coupled with the long-term  repayment period of such 'soft' loans and their below market interest rates meant that most leaders saw such funds as extra money, instead of loans that are repayable at a point in time. Consequently, they became corrupt and appropriated the funds to themselves with nothing to show for. Yet, this didn't prevent them from receiving more money from developed countries. The greater the poverty, resulting from misuse of aid funds, the more aid was doled out to alleviate poverty. Furthermore, most of these donor agencies worked within a financial period and any unspent funds means that one's budget will likely be reduced in the new financial year. This unfortunate situation created a scenario where donors chase begin to countries for loans.

In the 2000s aid became a rockstar project with Bono, Geldof, and co playing lead role. These individuals appealed to the conscience of guilt-tripped developed countries, who see the contrast between the rich and poor too stark to be comfortable, to provide more aid to release the masses from the clutches of poverty. The solutions to Africa's problems were searched for from all sorts of sources except from Africans. Everybody thought they had the magic wan to cast poverty into oblivion and this magic wan is more aid, which according to Dambisa, led to more debt and graver poverty and then back to more aid. 

In discussing why aid has not worked and is likely not to work, Dambisa traced aid from when it was used to lift Europe out of poverty after the Second World War in the Marshall Plan. But she provided the reasons why that aid worked for Europe. Europe had institutions that worked effectively; their GDP to aid ratio was minimal, sometimes 2 percent, unlike what most African countries have at the moment where it is around 70 percent in some countries. Again, the aid was targetted and was provided for a duration. However, in Africa all these are lacking. Aid has become the main source of money; the institutions are not working and governments misuse loans because they are assured of its flow. She further argued that even the so-called International Development Assistance (IDA) graduates - countries which used to depend on aid but no longer does, including Equatorial Guinea, Swaziland and Botswana - Dambisa argued that the aid-GDP ratio of such countries were small. Besides, they also embarked upon aggressive open-market policy and trade that made them competitive and that aid in itself has nothing to do with their current state.

She further argued that conditionalities, which was attached to aid to make aid work by focusing loans, never worked and that in most situations where compliance to these conditions were far below 50 percent, disbursements would be over 90 percent or almost complete. This clearly shows that the main idea of aid is to give aid. In discussing this she stated that economic growth is a precursor to development and not the other way round as most donors and developed countries are wont to think. She argues that people hardly think of the type of government if they are hungry and it is only when development takes place that people will begin to think of the type of governance they have. Dambisa boldly stated that even democracy, at an early stage of a country's development, can hamper development as "democratic regimes find it difficult to push through economically beneficial legislation amid rival parties and jockeying interests." According to her "what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving (unfortunately, too often countries end up with more dictator and less benevolence.)" This is an argument I completely share with and that which resonates with my thinking. For instance, Dr Mahathir, credited with transforming Malaysia's economy served for 22 years and during that period transformed the the basic structure of the economy. Imagine what might have been had his leadership been curtailed by any of those elections he won. Again, no one can doubt China's development now. The cynics can say all they want but China's aggressive growth - responsible to the drastic decline in world poverty rates - cannot be denied by anyone. The linkage between aid and corruption was lucidly discussed. Besides, a country that is heavily aid-dependent is not accountable. This is because since the people didn't contribute to this revenue, and the government knows this, the people are unable to demand accountability from the government and the government remains unaccountable to the people, leading to financial misappropriation. Logically, because most wars are fought over control of resources, aid can and do influence civil wars; it also has its inflationary consequence to the recipient country.

However, Dambisa didn't leave off there like most writers do: she didn't just diagnose the problem; she offered solutions. Though the reader - like myself - may not completely agree with her solutions, they are - again - compelling. First, she argued, that countries should seek high credit-rating and borrow at commercial rates. Here the risks alone will force governments not to misapply the funds. Besides, since it's tax revenue that would be used to finance it at maturation, the people can demand accountability. For instance, failure to repay will mean a downgrade in credit-ratings leading to a higher cost of borrowing. Another solution proffered is the development of a country's domestic and international bond markets to raise the necessary capital. Again, if a country fails to repay its debtors, those from whom it has sold this promisory notes, it loses out of the market. Improving investor climate through the provision of infrastructure, removal of bureaucracies, improved legal system and others will attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which will boost a country's resources. Here she discussed why China is becoming more attractive than the traditional West; the Chinese offer something for aid. The rails, roads, housing units are built and the people see them, unlike the West who will request changes in governance system knowing that people will need to eat first before they will begin to ask questions. However, in all the solutions Dambisa discussed, the one bothering on levelling the field for trade was what I leaned to the most, especially when she discussed the negative market-protection practices by the US and Europe where huge subsidies given to their rice and cotton farmers distort international prices, pushing poor African farmers out of the market. She writes

In the United States alone, the total annual amount of farm subsidies stands at around US$ 15 billion, and that number is rising. As a share of farmers' income, subsidies rose from around 14 percent in the middle of the 1990s to around 17 percent today. The 2002 US Farm SEcurity and Rural Investment Act gave US farmers nearly US$ 200 billion on subsidies for subsequent ten years ... The Europeans are just as protective. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) eats into around half the European Union's budget of Euros 127 billion (direct farm subsidies alone are worth Euros 40 billion), and EU subsidies are approximately 35 percent of farmers' total income. [115]

The effects of these ginormous subsidies means that African farmers, who are poor and receive no such subsidies, are unable to compete with these farmers and are therefore crowded out of the market leading to chronic poverty. She writes

In 2003, US cotton subsidies to its farmers were around US$ 4 billion. Oxfam has observed: 'America's cotton farmers receive more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso, three times more in subsidies than the entire US aid budget for Africa's 500 million people.' Yet, the livelihoods of at least 10 million people in West and Central Africa alone depend on revenues from cotton, including some 6 million rural households in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Mali, and Zimbabwe. [116]

Dambisa's book will move the reader to think and think again. She also discussed why donors continue to give aid though they know it isn't working. This is a classic book that all finance ministers in Africa should read, even if they disagree for then they can disagree with cogent reasons and not mere speculations about the role of aid in development.

Coincidentally, I read Kofi Annan's Interventions - A Life in War and Peace after reading this book. In some sections Annan tried responding to some of the issues Dambisa has addressed, most importantly why aid is dead. In fact, so direct were the responses that one could say that Annan was directly referring to Dambisa's work. According to Annan, Dambisa's Dead Aid thesis might have been reasonable if it had been posited by 1975; currently, according to him, it is no longer valid. He stated that the data post-1975 shows that aid is working and that more aid is needed (contrary to Dambisa's view, needless to say). According to Annan, Cold-War aid was aimed at obtaining allegiances (agreeing with Dambisa) but post-Cold-War aid comes with conditionalities. However, Annan failed to address Dambisa's argument that even when these conditionalities have not been halfly implemented, the loan would have been almost fully disbursed. In this argument and counter-argument, I believe Dambisa is more convincing though her arguments have merit it is also difficult to completely agree with her. These are excerpts of Annan's responses

Some are of the view that aid does no good and is frittered away by corrupt governments, or that aid can actually do harm. They quite rightly question the impact of, for example, over $1 trillion of aid transferred this way to Africa over the last fifty years. Between 1970 and 1998, when the majority of aid these transfers were made, the share of the world's poor people living in Africa rose from 11 percent to 66 percent. The implication is that aid is without value and should end. Trade and private investment should replace it, the argument goes, given these have proved the prime means through which countries have achieved sustained economic development in the modern age. [Interventions; 247]

He went further to state that

There are significant flaws in this argument that must be exposed. First, the characterization of aid as without value is based primarily on pre-1990 figures, when most of the total aid sum was transferred. These figures utterly misrepresent the current role of aid. There is a fundamental difference between development aid given during the Cold War and aid given since. Before 1990, most aid money was designed to buy allegiance in the context of the superpower struggle, not international development. Foreign donors showed little interest in the ruling styles of the benefactors and saw no reason hold them to account for corruption. [Interventions; 247]

Annan proposal is more aid, at least 0.7 percent of the GDP of developed countries should go to aid; further he talked about the involvement of 'Hollywood actors and rock stars' in aid. These are two extremely divergent opinions for the same objective - development.

Yet, this is a book, that needs to be read by all. She comes from a point of understanding. She knows her numbers and knows her Africa. She talks as a businesswoman who believes that Africa needs to do business will talk. She is a complete capitalist and after having worked with Goldman Sachs et al. it comes as no surprise.

______________

About the author: Dambisa Moyo holds a Doctorate (D.Phil) in Economics from St Anthony's College, Oxford University; her 2002 dissertation is titled "Essays on the Determinants of the Components of Savings in Developing Countries". In 1997, she earned a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Chemistry from American University in Washington DC.

Moyo worked for the World Bank as a Consultant and at Goldman Sachs where she worked in debt capital markets and as an economist in the global macroeconomics team. In addition to this work, she is the author of How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly - and the Stark Choices that Lie Ahead (2011) and Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What it Means for the World (June 2012).

Moyo has travelled to more than 50 countries over the last decade, during which time she has developed a unique knowledge base on the political, economic, and financial workings of emerging economies, in particular the BRICS and the frontier economies in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Her work examines the interplay between rapidly developing countries, international business, and the global economy, while highlighting the key opportunities for investment. 

In 2009, Dambisa was named by TIME Magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World," and to the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Forum. Her writing regularly appears in economic and finance-related publications such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. (Source)

230. Fathers & Daughters - An Anthology of Exploration by Ato Quayson (Editor)

Fathers & Daughters - An Anthology of Exploration  (Ayebia Clarke, 2008; 200) is a collection of essays, poems and short stories about the relationships between daughters and fathers told from the point of view of either the father or the daughter. There is that belief, true or otherwise, that a daughter's first love is the father. Yet, it is all too clear that in Africa, this father-daughter relationship has poorly been explored. Ato Quayson's book is the first book I have come across that donates its pages to such an important exploration. It is said that until the lion learns to speak, tales of the hunt will always favour the hunter. Thus, until fathers learn to tell their side of the stories, men's representation in African novels will always go against them.

The role of men in books like Nervous Conditions, So Long a Letter, Joys of Motherhood, Purple Violet of Oshaantu, Purple Hibiscus, Opening Spaces: African Women Writing and many others are nothing to write about. They are always abusive, neglectful, intolerant (sometimes caused by being polygamous), aggressive, and anything nefarious that one could think about. In fact, such was the representation of men that it has become a marketing tool - the more wicked the man in the novel, the faster the tears will flow and the quicker the books will fly off the shelf. This is not to say that there are no men with such traits. But men are not mono-dimensional as they are always portrait - usually by women - in novels to be. Is it therefore strange that Chimamanda Adichie - upon the publication of her first novel Purple Hibiscus - was pitied by an American reader who said he never knew men in Africa were that abusive? Yes, this is the extent to which such portrayals of men could lead to.  

However, what no one is writing about are the numerous men who struggle(d) to take their daughters to school, sometimes including the authors who adopt such writing template. Sometimes, you wonder if man is not a synonym for Devil. The ones who would pull heaven and earth to save their families are only talked about in non-print conversations. It becomes more glaring when one interviews some of these feminist activists who have made the lampooning of men their occupation. When asked whether their husbands support them, they almost always say yes and that 'they're different'. This 'different men' also need to be talked about; they need to be praised and celebrated to serve as models for others. On the other hand, the changing perception on the part of men on family and women has been left unexplored. Today, there are men who are not toeing the hardline of their fathers. Even most of these supposed hardline fathers, were 'hard' for the common good of the family. Most of them made the family's financial stability their objective to the detriment of being therefore the family and so are 'nefariously' written about.

Abena Busia's epistolary story about her father and her poem, together with Ayebia's story about her itinerant magistrate father, are examples of daughters who understood their fathers - the early generation dads. Whether this appreciation came later in life or not, it shows that the earlier generation of fathers was not entirely heartless as they are often portrayed. Leila Aboulela's Amulets & Fathers, which opens the collection, tells the story of a daughter who sets on a journey to avenge her father's death. It has an interesting twist to since and involves more than just the father.

This is the reason why I read Fathers & Daughters. Even then, there are some stories in this collection that put the survival of the father-daughter relationship on the shoulders of the daughter so that even in this collection, fathers are painted grey. In one of such stories Letter to a Lost Daughter by Harry Garuba, the daughter whose father had used all his resources to educate her to the highest level, so that she could become a doctor, against the grumblings and open protestations from other family members, closed all communication channels with her father because he do pester her to marry. Now, visiting her father's home to make preparation for his funeral, she discovers a letter from the father addressed to her, of which she was the author. In Zina Saro-Wiwa's His Eyes were Shining like a Child, a father who somewhat tormented and berated her daughter is transformed (or reincarnated) into a baby and suddenly appears at this old and unmarried daughter's front door. 

It's somewhat fascinating, this uneasiness between fathers and daughters. It perhaps stems from the fact that men, on the continent, are usually not supposed to show emotions and so this non-emotiveness is interpreted as 'wickedness' or 'hardiness', leading to hatred towards fathers, even by would-be fathers.

The contributions I enjoyed the most were by those men who expressed their feelings and, for once, talked for themselves in particular and men in genera; Simon Gikandi's A Voyage Round my Daughter is one of them. Gikandi's essay explored the role of women in Kikuyu culture and how a long-held matrilineal system became patrilineal. This was triggered when he took his children to visit his family, after numerous insistence and failures. According to Gikandi, he thought that it was the boys whom the family was eager to see but when this turned out to be wrong and that her daughter was the most sought after and on whom everybody totes, he was forced to analysed the situation. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza talks about bringing up her daughter and the happiness he got living with her in Memories of Birth and other Anectodes.

In all, this anthology is worth the read. It gives an African perspective on the father-daughter relationship; showing that it is not always true that fathers are insensitive and uncaring. it fills an important gap in African literature. It is recommended.

__________________

About author: Ato Quayson is professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational studies at the University. He studied at the Universities of Ghana, and Cambridge where he earned his PhD in 1995. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. His publications include Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing (Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press), and Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Practice? (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). 

In 2008, he edited Fathers and Daughters (Aeybia Clarke Publishing), a collection of essays from fathers on their daughters and vice versa. (Source)

229. Definition of a Miracle by Farida N. Bedwei

The rapid mushrooming of fiery faith-based organisations with  promises of heaven and paradise (and their continuous banishment of Satan) who see into the preternatural and are able to spiritually diagnose every problem, from Malaria to Cardiovascular diseases, have ensured that in today's Africa, no occurrence is happenstance. This mentality takes on a new importance if the problem being tackled defies comprehension and the only thing that science can do is to name it. 

In this all-knowing world where nothing occurs by chance and everything has a spiritual root, a child suffering from cerebral palsy is likely to be moved from one prayer-camp to the other. Even when the cause of the problem is known, even when the parents are educated, this itinerant search for a miraculous cure will still be embarked upon and taken seriously. It is within this setting that Farida N. Bedwei's Definition of a Miracle (iUniverse, 2010; 389) is placed.

Zaara suffers from cerebral palsy; the disease attacked her when she was two-weeks old. Now her visiting maternal grandmother from Ghana claimed her prayer group had identified the root cause of the disease; it's none other than Zaara's auntie. With this knowledge coupled with the fact that the family had moved to Ghana from Britain meant that the search for Zaara's cure, or more specifically the destruction of the workings of this auntie, will be fervently undertaken. And in a country of countless prayer camps and countless believers, where invitations to such miracle services come in droves, the search could be long and tedious. 

However, what makes Farida's book - based largely or loosely, I cannot tell but the obvious similarities are there, on the author's life - is her apt depiction of the psychology of the supposed 'patient' for whom the miraculous cure is being sought. Thus, regardless of the 'well-meaning' intention of the parents - here, her mother - the experience of moving from one prayer camp or service to the other, and so from one failure to the other, on the person involved is usually not examined or considered in the larger scheme of things. To the parents, the 'patient's' need to be healed and be 'normal' like 'any other person', surpasses all other considerations. So focused are they on this that they lose sight of what they have; in this story, what Zaara's mother, in her quest for healing, lost sight of was that she had a precocious child whose mental faculties were sharper than most children her age. But precocious as Zaara was, she couldn't avoid the 'it-might-be-me' syndrome which usually affect people who are usually 'different' and seeking help. For moving from one miracle service to the other and not receiving the healing the people there claimed to have received, Zaara began to think that perhaps it was her fault, that there was something inherently wrong with her that deflects this healing from reaching her. Again, the psychological trauma is disregarded. Society's attitude towards such people, referring to them as 'sicklers' (people who are sick) and therefore treating them as if their mental faculties have, in addition, been affected was another source of worry to Zaara who was frequently treated as such but was quick to show such folks, openly or subtly, her displeasure. Another source of worry is the lack of disability-friendly public spaces and structures. 

On the family front, this relentless quest for a miraculous cure by a British-trained lawyer in secluded churches leading to the compulsory drinking and sprinkling of holy-water had a toll on Zaara's family. Coming from a two-religion family - with a Muslim father and a Christian mother, this previously amicable and harmonious existence was put under threat when Zaara's mother became zealously religious to the extent of accusing her sister of being a witch and quarreling with her husband at every turn. Every question became a source of argument between her pesky parents.

However at school, Zaara fitted in well just as she did at home with her siblings. At the local school she attended, she outperformed everybody and was made all sorts of friends. Her classmates, who initially looked up to her weirdly, suddenly warmed up to her; the cultural shock she suffered rippled out of existence. Overall, these were what Zaara defined as a miracle: acting as any other child would act; having parents who helped her fit into her surroundings; and avoiding the fate that almost always befall people with disabilities - the life of a street-beggar.

My only problem with the book is a problem I have with most first-person narrative novels. Zaara seemed to know more than she would have known and she also didn't divulge her source. It's as if she always knew. Sometimes she judged people's emotion and concludes on people's thoughts. Finally, a little more proof-reading would have helped. 

Regardless of these, this book has a lot to offer. Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, we get to understand the issues from the 'sufferer's' point of view. However, more than Haddon's, in this story the 'sufferer' is not only fictional but that the fictional character shares her disability with the author.

_____________________

About the Author: Farida Nana Efua Bedwei was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and spent her childhood in Dominica, Greenland and the UK before her family moved to Ghana in the late eighties.

She got Cerebral Palsy when she was 10 days old, and was home shooled by her mother until she was 12 years old when she entered mainstream school for the first time. To the surprise of all, she excelled and has risen to become one of the top software engineers in Ghana. (Source: back of the novel)

* Last year I interviewed Farida on this blog and she talked about changing perceptions with this book. I hope yours get affected, positively, after reading this book. 

228. Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Few authors are able to keep their theme running for such a long time as Ngugi has done. As a critic of the post-independence politics of the new wave of African leaders, Ngugi wa Thiong'o knows more about the tricks, chicanery, and shenanigans of these people than most people. He has observed and written about it both in fiction and in essays. His keen interest has always been the lack of socialisation of government efforts and the endemic corruption that has strangulated several African countries, including his home country of Kenya - which had to go through a series of Constitutional reforms after the 2008 electoral crisis - from developing. Ngugi's observations, from the the dawn of independence when the capsule of euphoria burst and evaporated all at once leaving behind a blanket of realities, are encapsulated in his works. From his first novel Weep Not Child (1964), which studied the hostile relationship between the colonialists and the colonised to Wizard of the Crow (2006) Ngugi has tried to point out that the requisite tools for development have nothing to do with colour. It has all to do with harnessing the resources within the borders of one's country and using these resources efficiently to provide the goods and services the people needs. According to Ngugi, the traits of a good leader has nothing to do with tribe or ethnic affiliation but his selflessness, objectivity and integrity - his ability to bring the resources within the country together; that blackness is not all that makes a man.

In Wizard of the Crow (Anchor Books, 2006; 768) Ngugi wa Thiong'o brings together years of studies and observation in one swoop of a pen into a compelling novel. Wizard of the Crow brings together all the issues Ngugi raises in all his novels - from that carpenter (and the Jacobos) who wanted to have it all, in Weep Not Child, to John Boy and his collusion with the second generation colonialists in Matigari to the betrayal of the freedom fighters and the people by the new elites and that MP in A Grain of Wheat.

However, whereas his previous books centred somewhat on the coming of the colonialists and more on the nefariousness of the first wave of leaders, Wizard of the Crow strictly analyses the behaviours of African dictators and autocrats and the complicity of donor institutions and countries in that ginormous corruptions that have engulfed our countries. In some way it collaborates Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid thesis when she argued that conditionalities and the type of government - autocrat, dictatorship, monarchy, endemically and openly corrupt - matter little as to who gets the World Bank and IMF loans and that governments use huge projects to siphon resources into their personalised off-shore bank accounts.

In WOTC, in that fictional country of Aburiria, we meet the head of state - known simply as the Ruler and his cronies - Sikiokuu, Tajirika, Big Ben, Machokali, Kaniuru and other obsequious grovellers; bootlickers who would sing praises if those praise-songs and appellations will enable them to steal more. In this set up, affiliations and alliances are capricious and lasts as long as dew would in harmattan. In the Ruler's government, positions are given to those who can steal more and those who excelled are made governors and managers of central and national banks, put in places where they can siphon more and share with the leader. Those who are hounded and described as enemies of the state are the poor selfless souls whose only crime is that they won't participate in pillage; that they are pure and seek the healing of the souls; people like Nyawira (the Limping Witch) and Kamiti (The Wizard of the Crow). The corruption described gets to such a level that it becomes abnormal to be moral, to be seen doing the right thing, like the situation Achebe described in his tiny green book The Trouble with Nigeria.

Regardless of the satirical nature of the write and the mirth it can engender in the reader to the point of hiccups and uncontrollable dribbling of tears, what Ngugi described in this novel is the reality of most African countries including those that have taken on a semblance of democracy (and this was also discussed in the book). There are leaders who today refer to the country the rule's natural resources as 'my oil' and run the country like their bona fide property, an extension of their hopeless homes. In WOTC, the bootlickers have decided to honour the Ruler with a mansion bigger and taller than what the biblical Babylonians attempted, and failed. Consequently, this birthday project was christened Marching to Heaven; the vision was for it to become the largest project and to show the world that the people of Aburiria can, and are able to, challenge the developments of developed countries. Now where will the funding come from? The Global Bank had to be convinced to release the resources for this mind-boggling project. And even before the Global Bank agreed (or disagreed) contract seekers have already bribing the chairman of the committee responsible for the project. On the other hand, all the macroeconomic indicators of the country are poor: unemployment is of such levels that the entire country is queuing for nonexistent jobs; inflation is so high that it has rendered the Buris worthless and trading is virtually conducted in dollars.

But the Ruler was a friend of the United States and the West for his dedication towards their cause during the Cold War. (Exactly what Dambisa stated in her book when she proved, with data, that during the Cold War, it mattered not the type of government one practiced, so far as one showed he is in favour of capitalism or communism one got funded; so that from Mobutu of now DR Congo to Mengistu of Ethiopia to Bokassa of Central African Republic - whose coronation as an emperor is reputed to have cost US$ 22 million - all received donor monies). However, again exactly as Dambisa wrote, the tides have changed. The West, perhaps on a guilt-trip, now wants to see some changes before advancing the required resources for this ginormous Marching to Heaven project. But what type of change do they want? Is it superficial or deeper? The answer came when the leader, after several failures in accessing the required funds, declared the State of Aburiria a democracy where free and fair elections will be held; thus succumbing to the requirements of the West. But with one catch: He will be the Ruler of whichever party that won elections. Thus, regardless of the elections, he is bound to stay in power forever. This sends applause and congratulations to all quarters including donor countries and institutions. In no time the money required for the project was released and work began. Autocracy then was replaced by dictatorial democracy.

Is this therefore a political dystopia fraught with that Orwellian doublethink-doublespeak, where words are democratic and deeds autocratic? What it shows clearly is how the idea of democracy fosters timidity and inaction, allowing the same folks to be in power and do the same things. It also shows that democracy can and do accommodate the negativities inherent in autocracy and dictatorial regimes: the outward morphing of dictatorships into democracies whilst leaving their deeds intact.

Thus, the Ruler in this case symbolises two main practices across autocratic states. The first is leaders who have democratise autocracy so that they win every election and can contest as many times as they want till they drop dead. The other symbolism is that there could be changes in leadership but because they are all corrupt and corruption has become the norm rather than the exception, it matters not who wins the election, the end will be the same: more corruption, less provision of goods and services and the cycle continues unabated. Just as Dambisa said, what a young country at the nascent stages of development needs is not democracy as these leaders democratise and institutionalise corruption in a way that is difficult to challenge; rather such countries need benevolent dictators, perhaps the likes of Mahathir of Malaysia. However, in Africa there has been more of the dictator and less of the benevolence.

In the end, the excessive corruption in the Aburiria government bred jealousy and vile machinations leading to several deaths and palace coups. Though Ngugi derides autocracy in this satiric thesis, he clearly exposes the dangers of excessive capitalism and American imperialism. He showed the multiplicity of American interests and how it can change over time to suit its objectives: from slavery to colonialism to capitalism to globalisation, all to its benefit; in so doing, as clearly articulated, it can befriend the vilest autocrats - the likes of Mobutu (who stole a humongous sum of US$ 5 billion) and Idi Amin (whose atrocities in his home country of Uganda makes his name almost synonymous to Hitler) when it suits them and if these leaders can best serve these interests. Once these interests are served, they quickly withdraw, wipe their hands, and attack that country as if they never dealt with, or know them at all. They launch a vilification campaign against them - sometimes including war, like it happened to Saddam Hussein of Iraq (when they had claimed that this man is the best person to rule his people and later accused him of a crime he had already committed when this accolade was showered on him).

Finally, Ngugi shows the gradual corporating of the world, through globalisation; the gradual recolonisation of the world through the use of corporate or private capital, with Non-Governmental Organisations playing the roles of the wolfish missionaries.

But there are certain distinctions that should be made regarding the actions of the Ruler. Was everything that he implemented bad? The answer is a huge no; however, the ends they were to achieve was what made them bad. For instance, he was somewhat nationalistic, which is not negative if you know your strengths; after all, some call it patriotism, others call it socialism. But nationalising to the benefit of cronies and family is not the way to go. Again, the Ruler streamlined the health system to include traditional healers, but doing it so you can arrest your enemies - Nyawira and Kamiti in this case - serves no end.

Ngugi's disaffection from his characters (even from the protagonists - Kamiti and Nyawira) brought out the humanity in them; that they are not gods (and therefore are fallible and have epistemic limitations) and alone are incapable of taking on the whole country. It might be seen as an unsolvable conundrum, an inextricable knot but what Ngugi is seeking are changes among a large section of people; changes that are major, conscious and directed at a positive end. You can make a change in your circumstances but it's impossible to make it in the world alone if not supported; besides, a lighted country will light up a room but not a city. 

Anyone who reads this book will come to understand their governments better. The reader will come to appreciate the ways of politics, governance and corporations. It should be a manual for the hoi-polloi so that they are not taken in by those apples dangling before their eyes. It is highly recommended.

225. Gathering Seaweed by Jack Mapanje (Editor)

Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (Heinemann, 2002; 328) edited by Jack Mapanje is an anthology of essays, poems, articles, songs and speeches by Africans who have at one point in time been political prisoners or have had political infractions with the law and have been jailed for it. The collection is broken into Origins; Arrest, Detention and Prison; Torture; Survival; and The Release. In this anthology one will meet the pioneers of independence fighters in Africa like Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana,  Agostinho Neto of Angola and others; also present are the fighters against apartheid in South Africa: Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Breyten Breytenbach; equally important are the post-independent right fighters such as Jack Mapanje, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and others.

Contributors come from all the various regions of Africa: north, east, west, central and south. However, what this collection shows is the similarity in human wickedness regardless of the location. Even more important is the comparison of pre-independence and post-independence. The collection clearly shows that after the euphoria of independence died down, and reality dawned on us, most of the first wave of leaders and those who came afterwards became autocrats imprisoning the opponents who they see as threats to their hardly won 'seats'. Thus, though the people in power changed from white to black, the wickedness never did. Thus, this anthology clearly shows that wickedness and the zeal to hold on to power by punishing all opposition is a human condition. It echoes what Ngugi said in his novella Weep Not Child

Blackness is not all that makes a man ... There are some people, be they black or white, who don't others to rise above them. They want to be source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to other less endowed. ... A rich man does not want others to get rich because he wants to be the only man with weal. [22]

The situations captured in this anthology has truly been expanded in Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow. Mapanje, by this anthology, has shown the light to the path we have to take. That it is difficult to suppress resistance. It also reflects Nassim Nicholas Taleb's discussion in Antifragility where he says that variation produces antifragility (something that gains from mishandling) whilst sameness makes things fragile.

This is a collection worth reading and studying. It brings out certain inherent commonality of the human condition. 

219. Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems by Abena P.A. Busia

Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems (Ayebia, 2008; 124) by Abena P.A. Busia is an anthology of poems, diary entries (sort of) and memorial lectures. The general theme is that of loss - of loved ones, of country, of innocence, of self, of privacy, of culture; but also found interspersed amongst the loss are poems celebrating anniversaries: marriages and birthdays. And even these ones have the pathos of loss built into them; for what could be as sad as celebrating a marriage anniversary in exile.

As the title suggests, this collection provides snatches of scenes in the life of the author. And because of her special position as the daughter of an astute politician, whose freedom suffered and personhood abraded on the abrasive and unsmooth playing field of politics, the poems also provide glimpses into some of the not too pleasant part of Ghana's politics: the coups, the arrests, the executions, the route to exiles, living in exile, the exilic life, the zombie-ic posturing of military juntas and more. And it is events such as these that shape a person's belief and tune his or her mind toward a particular frequency from which he or she never returns.

Abena Busia, because this is a personal collection narrated from her own point-of-view, captures the emotional outcomes that seeped from such infractions and interactions perfectly. She showed the other side of politics; that politicians are not robots devoid of feelings; that they are not taken out of trees, belonging to no human-feeling family and having none of their own so that whatever happens to them or is done unto them is done in an emotional vacuum. None, apart from the victim, is victimised. She showed that an infraction, a negative interaction, a poor judgement, affect the family of the politician as much as it would have affected any ordinary citizen; sometimes even more since they very much live their entire lives under society's microscopic scrutiny. Thus, the perpetrators and followers should and need to consider all these. Perhaps, here, it would be wise to say that she might be re-minding us of that age-old adage which no particular book or personage can claim as entirely its own: do unto others as you will have them do unto you. 

Abena shows how slippery and variegated the political landscape has been in the country and how power has been (mis)used to suppress the development of the country rather than providing the right catalyst for development; how people close to the victim, people on the periphery of the victim's coterie, and any remotely related to the victim have suffered immeasurable and irremediable losses - personal, material, physical, emotional, spiritual. And more importantly, how these people's emotional development might have been affected negatively or even been encouraged onto a maleficent path. It has often been said that in an African country of two intellectuals one is in exile and the other is the president; this simple description seemed a apt summary of Traces of a Life.

However, certain contradictions lay in the book. And it is expected for human beings are themselves contradictions, because wrong and right is all a matter of perspectives. Whereas the poems vehemently castigated the AFRC and PNDC coups and showed how negatively coups affect the development of a country, the author refused to use the same measure of her moral rod to judge Afrifa and the NLC's coup that overthrew Nkrumah's government. Regardless of the justification that the author might have had, this is a moral argument which cannot stand any scrutiny. In fact, Afrifa was praised and labelled 'Okatakyie', which loosely translates as 'war hero', in several of Abena Busia's poems. It is as if she is practicing the 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' ideology; for it was Nkrumah who got her father, K. A. Busia - the then opposition leader, exiled leading to the production of this anthology. Besides, Busia - the father - became the Prime Minister when Afrifa was the Head of State.

Thus, wrong and right become angular whose definitions are subject to our peculiar linear perspectives. The moral (or weak philosophical) question that arises is: does a wrong becomes right if it rectifies a previous wrong? They say two wrongs do not make a right, but what if, in creating its own wrong it corrects a past wrong? So it is not strange that Afrifa, whose coup against the first president set the precedence of many coups to come including those castigated by the author, was not denounced by the author as if some coups are justified.

Irrespective of these contradictions, which I will disregard if one should read this book not as a political history of Ghana - not in the slightest - but as a personal journey during Ghana's political past (with a capital 'P' on the 'Personal') the book is worth the read. The lines are infused with local metaphors, in the places they exist. They move smoothly, the lines, and are not as abstract as some poems from the continent are wont to be. The reader can relate to them even if he or she isn't a Ghanaian, for we all have experienced some form of loss in our lives before. With these I recommend the reading of Abena P.A. Busia's Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems. 

210. Diaries of a Dead African by Chuma Nwokolo, Jr.

Chuma Nwokolo's Diaries of a Dead African (Villager House, 2003; 193) is a story of two generations - a father and his two sons - spanning over just a month and recorded in one three-authored diary. The story is about their lack and their nothingness and their uselessness in the midst of plenty. It is also about human, and in general societal, behaviour towards the less privileged in society.

Meme is the patriarch. A patriarch who has nothing. Except a cheating wife and two sons, of whom he might not even be their sire and who hate him for his poverty. He also has two tubers of yams, what was left after his wife took all his yams in a certain mathematical equation of ten yams to every son born to him (including the three who passed away), and Meme must survive on these for the remaining weeks before the yam festival is celebrated and the ban on yam-harvesting is officially lifted. Now Meme faces several obstacles: the wickedness of the people working in connivance with the fate. As the tubers finished serving their purpose of putting hunger at bay, even though he ate sparingly, Meme began to set traps in the bushes. But people made it their duty to steal the animals his contraption trapped. When nothing will work, when he won't get anything from the sale of his meagre properties and he won't get any food item on credit, he set out to take vengeance for himself.

Meme could be described as a fatalist. One could say that there were other options aside what he chose. Besides, he could have remained deaf to the villagers' names and songs composed for him and lived his life. But when fate deals you a hand, it leaves you with no option and Meme knew this. At harvest time, when all that people harvested that year was rotten yam, Meme knew that his end has finally come. There's nothing he could do. But then he wouldn't go down alone. He must take with him some of the people who had a hand in his situation; people who had cheated him at different points in time and who contributed to his condition.

Meme is a symbolic representation of frustration without cure, of dead-ends. He was like bitumen boiling in a vent-less barrel. His life was a cul de sac; when he got to the end he knew there was no way out. He knew it, the end. And he accepted it, its finality. Was he justified to go down that route? Was there no other option? These are questions for the moralist to pore over, not for the man who was living that life and was fed-up with the jokers life kept dealing him.

The most interesting thing about this story is not its credibility. It is the nature of the prose and the humour packed within its pages. It is also about the human condition. Besides, those who haven't seen poverty before might have a different opinion but for those who have and have lived it, this book tells their story. For nothing seems to work for the poor. When Calamatus, a name coincidentally given, came home to bury his father, all that he inherited was his father's diary, gun, and an incendiary end. In this diary was his father's intimate confessions. Calamatus came to understand his father; even loved him. For he set out to give his father a befitting burial, one deserved of a man of importance. Calamatus is rich; he is 419-rich. He would later face a series of tragedies and would go down the same route as his father.

Calama was not like his father, Meme. He was rich, regardless of the source. He earned respect and worship because of that. He did great things: purchased cars and began putting up a big house on his father's compound. Thus, it is mind-boggling to see him end the way his father did. These characters - Calama and Meme - represent two sides of the same coin. Whereas Meme was shamed by his financial impotency and the emptiness of his life's quiver, Calama was shamed by what people said, would say, thought, would think when they got to know he was physiologically impotent. Consequently, they both decided on the same end, the son's decision likely to have been influenced by the father's. Broadly, their behaviour shows how different people put different emphasis on things that affect them. Calama also provides another level of poverty. It's not just financial.

Abel is Calamatus' elder brother. He is nothing like Calamatus. He is calm, but he has his past, and even a present. He is an ex-convict working to be a writer (though he's published nothing of note). However, whereas Calama was bold and forthright, Abel was a living lie. In the present he was getting embroiled in deadly local politics. He is also the beneficiary of Calamatus' ill-acquired wealth. And, of course, its concomitant problems. Now, hunted down by politicians in Calamatus' clique he must escape his home or be killed and must also outwit the scammers (419ers) if he is not to sign his death warrant. Abel will be on the run, but will come back home to Calama's and Meme's diary and the former's stalled development. And to a man with vengeance in his heart.

Abel's life was one of repudiation. He repudiated Calama's wealth and Meme's poverty. He was carting a path but that path led nowhere, for fate is not a thing to be outwitted easily. It is like a maze puzzle, wherever you cut you end up in the same puzzle. In the end he must come home to call the tune or pay the piper. However, though he was also fatalistic, when death stared at him in the face, the effect of Calama's business, he took fate by its horn and chose life and another adventure.

Throughout the story, it was Stella, Meme's wife and Abel's and Calama's (unlikely) mother, who ended on the right side of everything. Her repudiation of Meme for her long-time boyfriend - a rich vulcaniser - worked well for her, regardless of how the moralists or purists interpret her actions. Life is basically about survival and choices. Again, all through the story, one thing was clear: the love of money transcends all else. From the 'mugu' (or investor) in the US who wants to benefit from several millions of dollars by just providing a bank accounts, to the village chief who will sell his loyalty to the highest bidder. This being the crux of the story: our loss in our attempt to gain.

Recommended.

____________________

About the author: Chuma Nwokolo is a writer, advocate and publisher of African Writing. His books include Diaries of a Dead African, Memories of Stone (Poetry Collection) and Ghosts of Sani Abacha (a collection of short stories). He also has two titles in the Pacesetters series. His short story, Quarterback and Co, was anthologised in the maiden edition of African Roar anthology. 

Read about the author here.

205. IPods in Accra by Sophia Acheampong

IPods in Accra (Piccadilly, 2009; 185) by Sophia Acheampong continues the story of young Makeeda as she searches for her root. In this story, Makeeda is a bit older, is studying to write her GCSE exams and (un)working on her relationship with Nelson. It has all the ingredients of a good chicklit and a YA. The love is not steamy but juvenile, like we all do.

The questions that Makeeda has to find answers to are everyone's problem. Her relationship with Nelson isn't work; meanwhile she has found that there is something between her and her Maths home-tutor, Nick. Now, she must go through all the burdens of breaking up safely with Nelson and work her way into Nick's heart. As if this isn't complicated enough, Nick, himself, is now 'going-out' with an eye-popping belle. The situation is now tensed and her friends, with whom she would have shared her problems, are now also dealing with similar matters, some of them becoming distant as a result.

If combining love and studies was manageable, then her boat was further to be rocked when she reflexively assented to participate in a puberty rites that will take place during her holidays. With no knowledge of what the rite entails and with more derogatory images fed to her by Tanisha and Delphy, Makeeda was beginning to imagine if she should step out or go ahead. However, her curiosity was further piqued by these images, strengthened by her eagerness to learn about her culture. How will Makeeda work her way around this triadic problems?

This story has all the positives from the first one - Growing Yams in London: language, funny, relatable, unforced. One need not to have read the first story to appreciate this. Sophia does well to make this an independent story; however, knowing the first part of the story will make the reader appreciate some of the patching up and break-ups that were going on. My only problem is that the suspense wasn't enough - almost absent. Regardless, Sophia's writing style is lovely and light and suits her chosen audience. Note that those SMS and e-mail mnemonics were not left out. She also strikes a delicate balance in solving that all-important question of 'what is home?' or 'Where is home?' In achieving this, she used tension and the resolution of the tension became the solution.

I really enjoyed this novel. It is recommended.

____________

About the author

198. Journey by G. A. Agambila

Journey (Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2006; 304) by G.A. Agambila is a novel about life and the uncertainties and mystery surrounding it. It is also about swimming against the cold currents of penury and traditions whilst showing the developmental gap between the Northern and Southern part of the country, Ghana. This developmental gap is no fiction and the story of the North-South migration is a common one for most folks. The motif of the story could easily have been autobiographical as most students who completed their secondary education had to either come down south (to the University of Ghana located at Accra or University of Cape Coast located at Cape Coast) or stop over at Kumasi (at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), in the middle part of the country, if they wanted to further their education to the university level. It still is the case even though the northern sector now has a university. There is also, in this story, of teenage trysts and frivolity.

Amoah has completed his A'Level exams and is contemplating on what to do. He is about leaving his close friends at his school before he journeys home to visit his sick grandfather and then come down south to live with his uncle who was living in a self-imposed exile away from the demands of a tradition he no longer believes or shares in. But Amoah embarks on some dangerous and teenage escapades before visiting Tinga and then on to Accra. The story is set between Amoah's last two days of his stay in school and before the GCE A'Level results were released. It is indeed a journey as decisions of the future have to be taken. 

The story promises much by its title but delivered less. The author spends too much time and space narrating the events that took place in the last two days after the main character wrote his last examination. This took more than half of the novel and makes the reading tasking with the reader expecting something monumental to happen, which never did. Another issue is that the author chose to use the first person narrative style combined with the present tense for a story set in the past. For a full-length novel, these three combinations made reading extremely difficult. Had it been a short-story, the reader would not feel the drudgery and the effort that would have been required would definitely have been less. They didn't work, for me, that is; meaning that I needed a very extraordinary effort to go through complete the read. Finally, there were places where the author became philosophical. Though these were the best moments of the read, they also sounded a bit like a text-book advice; again, to me.

Regardless, one cannot discount the other qualities of Agambila's work; that it is a work that could easily be taken for an autobiography, the realities of many a Ghanaian. Again, many a teenager will identify themselves with Amoah, especially his tricks with and wishes for the ladies. It is a good read and I recommend it to those who will not be put off by the issues I have already raised. 

_______________

About the author: Read about the author here.

197. Growing Yams in London by Sophia Acheampong

The proportion of Ghanaian writers, both at home and in the diaspora, are incomparable to countries like Nigeria, whose authors have become household names, names we throw about in every literary discussion, names like Achebe, Soyinka, Okri, Chimamanda, Elechi Amadi, Buchi Emecheta and others. If there are few Ghanaians involved in the art of weaving words into novels, there are fewer - in fact, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand - whose writings are directed towards the youth or who dabble in the type of books commonly referred to as Young Adults. And I can count only one name: Nana Brew-Hammond whose Powder Necklace was reviewed here. Today, another check-box has been ticked and a new name added.

Sophia Acheampong's Growing Yams in London (Piccadilly Press, 2006; 220) is a Young Adult fiction about first and second generation Ghanaians in England working tirelessly to find a compromise between between the culture of their homeland and that of their adoptive country. The émigré parents having been born in their native countries have been instilled with a set of cultural systems that define what is right and what is wrong, the borders of conversation between children and adults, and the codes of conduct (or rules of behaviour). Pitched against the parents are the children who face different, and usually diametrically opposite, set of codes of conducts in a very liberal society that, comparatively, usually grants them more freedom. 

But the immigrants story - first generation, second generation, or even third generation - has been written from several perspectives: their inability to or difficulty to adapt or fit in (language, desires, likes, dislikes), the name-calling and taunts (here one can mention the race issue), the finding of what and where home is after one has live almost her entire life in a country different from her parents'. So what makes Sophia's story different from the others? What makes it worth the read? In Growing Yams in London (the title itself is attraction enough), the characters are not necessarily working to fit-in, they've already fitted in; they are not facing that dilemma of settling on where home is, they know and understand their dual status; and they are not being haunted by race, names or fighting or indulging in drugs. The children in this novel are your normal English children and faces the same or similar problems as all English children. To Makeeda and her friends, getting a boyfriend is the major challenge. And this is where the challenge is also for Makeeda's first generation emigres whose idea of boyfriend is different from their hers. To them it is and should be a no-go area but the latest crop of communication technology and gadgets means that new techniques of supervision is required and, if possible, a relenting of rules and redefining parenting.

But ... there is an issue of roots. However, Makeeda's plight is different; whereas her  parents won't impose this on her, she finds it within herself to learn more about herself. Hence, when a history assignment required them to write about a history person that inspires them she set out to use it to learn more about her roots. 

This story is funny, light and relatable and the issues raised are accurately youngish, the things an early teen girl in this era of technological age will worry about - jealous friends, boyfriends (or love), fashion, impressions, hurts, and fear of being referred to as a nerd - with the usual and adequate dose of trysts. All the elements of a good story were perfectly balanced in this story. Sophia rendered the story in a perfect language suitable for that age group she was working with. The dialogue is believable and the reader finds not the author in the read; all the reader finds are people living their lives off the pages of the story as he turns over the pages.

Sophia has a niche and she will do well to capitalise on this. This book is recommended. 

___________________

About the author: Sophia Acheampong is a British-born Ghanaian. She lives and works in North London and studied at Brunel University. Like Makeeda, she too is still learning about her culture.

When asked in an interview about the use of technology in her work Sophia says "When I was a teenager mobile phones and email were in their early stages. Everyone used landlines to communicate, wrote letters to friends abroad, and had a stack of phone cards for calling friends from a phone box. Now technology punctuates our existence, especially that of teenagers. I felt compelled to incorporate text messages and IM in Growing Yams in London as it was an essential part of Makeeda’s teenage experience." (Source)

190. Unjumping by Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Unjumping (erbacce-press, 2010; 36) is a collection of poems by Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva. The poems in this collection are diverse in themes but are all short and pithy. Beverley succeeds in putting a lot with few words. Themes range from love, sexual harassment, politics, motherhood and more. The first poem which is the title poem talks about regret and that proverbial impossibility of unwinding of time. It is a wish to get a clean slate and to begin life anew. Undo Me is a plea by a woman, perhaps to her loved one, for reconciliation and fulfilment of their love. This love piece of just six lines and twenty-eight words show is an example of how much Beverley could put into a poem with a few words.

Please Boss is a piece that recounts some of the sexual harassment that goes on at workplaces. Beverley found a way of putting humour in a rather humourless and tensed situation. She writes

Please if  we must

Then not on the desk

You're the boss

You deserve the plush Persian carpet.

The desk has too much of me

Cluttered clips,

Torn trash

Memorised minutes

If we must

Then not on the desk

Using alliterations she captured the tensed moments... 'the cluttered clips' and 'torn trash'. Here, is the boss a trash, or a hymen is to be torn and located within the 'torn' is that onomatopoeic sound of something tearing. The humour is in the fact that the boss was willing to do it on the desk and ironically the subordinate is asking him that they do it on the floor, which is lower than the desk - a floor which indicates a fall from a position of authority.

The longest piece is titled Suicide Bomber with a love twist to it. It was perhaps written for a loved one who happened to be a victim of the the July 7 2005 London bombings. Beverley questions good and bad, right and wrong as it relates to children and adults in Sunday School. She questions why certain things are barred to children and or women but then adults and or men could afford indulge in them. 

Using a fables, Beverley tells a story of the politics of nepotism common on the continent. In this poem, Mamba Crocodile Farm in Mombasa, Beverley describes the octogenarian leader - president or head of state - as a 'Big Daddy' and the people he rules with as crocodiles (or crocs) circling around him. The misuse of resources and that endemic corruption common to such rulers was also mentioned.

The Virgin Mary is about a man who is running away from the responsibility of a girl he has impregnated by accusing the woman of cheating. The first lines alone reeks of sadness and an absolute expression of innocence:

I can be The Virgin Mary

As long as the child is yours.

Post-colonial literature is dominated by the English language and there are only a few authors - I can only mention Ngugi wa Thiong'o - who write in both English and their local languages; however, in Eh! Eh! Beverley showed that she could also write in her local language. Though I couldn't read and understand, I still appreciated her for that.

At the family level and a more legal form of romance, Beverley dedicates Dancing to her husband and in Coffee she managed to find an analogy between sex and the brewing of coffee. Anyone who has been to Uganda, especially Kampala will know attest to its many metal scanners at every shopping mall, hotel and any public building. This is aptly described in Al Qaeda, where she writes:

I am an Al Qaeda.

Metal scanners are my foes; my friends. 

According to Beverley, this anthology came about when she made the top three out of close to 2,000 entries in the 2010 erbacce-prize for poetry, where the judges described her work as 'highly original', 'innovative', and as a 'breath of fresh air'. And I must state that the judges were right in their description. This is an interesting collection that could be read in one sitting but whose content will stay with one for a longer time. Recommended, that is if you can get access to it.

_________________________

About the author: The author blogs here.

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. 

177. SHORT STORY: Love on Trial by S. O. Kenani

Love on Trial is the last of the Caine Prize Short I am reviewing. The story was published in the For Honour and other stories anthology by the author. Love on Trial extracts from a real incident that took place in Malawi. It is about the arrest and sentencing of two Malawian homosexuals to fourteen years in prison; an incident that got the whole world shouting and cutting aid to the country which led to their pardon. 

In this story, Charles is a third year law school at the university. He has been stumbled upon by the village drunk, Mr Kanchingwe, when he was having an affair with his lover in a school lavatory. Charles was seen and had to face the villagers whilst his lover bolted not to be seen or heard of in the story again. Mr Kanchigwe has become something of a cult-hero for having stumbled upon the two and so, for a tot of the local gin, Kanchigwe will give some details of what he saw. For, the details more tots have to be provided for him and his growing crowd of friends. The author explored society's reactions to what is normally described as 'evil' and 'foreign'. Charles hardly had any sympathisers as most saw his actions as ungodly, though none question the numerous corruption, bestiality - as someone was quoted to have slept with a goat - and other evils that go on in the country.

In an interview with the MBC, the nation's broadcasting corporation, Charles was outspoken and argued with the host, showing maturity in thought and in observation. It was there that he refuted the argument that he had become homosexual because he had at a point in his life come into contact with a westerner; to him, he was born with it and that was his natural orientation. Whereas the host quoted the bible to speak against him, Charles also quoted the story of David and Jonathan to support his sexual orientation. He gained some support after this interview, though his enemies were immeasurable. This argument sought of put the writer  on a higher pedestal, pointing accusing fingers at everybody, telling them they are hypocrites and that they either be with the accused or suffer, which was the direct import of the fable at the end of the story. The argument in the dialogue between Khama, the interviewer, and Charles was dogmatic and trite. It was ineffective in carrying out what it was meant to do and will do more harm than good. For instance, in presuming that everybody in the society was evil, he implicitly quoted  evil to support his quest making it seem, in the text, as if homosexuality is evil. A quick glance at the characters showed how Kenani put them below Charles: the villagers were in torn shorts, the adults were mostly drunkards, the pastors were sleeping with their flock, some of the villagers were sleeping with animals, etc.

Whereas a story like this plagues most countries on the continent and therefore unique with few authors like Tendai Huchu writing about homosexuality in his novel The Hairdresser of Harare, Kenani's prose is too journalistic and jarred at certain points. The author depended too much on the real story instead of using it as a canvass to paint his, taking away the plot and tension that could have been part of such a story. For instance, what happens if the main character isn't a Law student and therefore capable of quoting and refuting? What happens if he is an illiterate in the village? Again, we are told that Charles, the most brilliant student in his class - have been approached by several female lovers - an issue that usually comes up in such discussions; but including the daughter of the President? I think stretching and overstretching sometimes make stories difficult to take in. During Charles's interview he relied mostly upon the text-book western-natural dichotomous argument that plagues any discussion of homosexuality.

So great was the effect of what happened on the story that the author went further to describe breakdown in the economy due to aid-cut and how the country struggled and almost became bankrupt due to the sentencing of Charles. In fact, Kenani suddenly made Kanchigwe got infected with HIV so that the cut in aid (in cash and in kind) meant no provision of retro-viral drugs and hence a decline in his health and possible death. This part of the story was not necessary as part of Love on Trial. For instance, donors can threaten to cut aid on any issue not only on a breach of human rights. They could and have chosen to do so even if governments refuse to do something of great importance to their countries that is against the interest of the donors. As much as every individual's right has to be respected, so must countries be left to decide on whatever they want to do and not be coerced by aid-cuts. This threat of aid-cut has cajoled countries on the continent to act in line with donor-countries' prescriptions.

Following the death of Bingu wa Mutharika and the assumption of power by his vice Joyce Banda, the rights of gays and lesbians - in general LGBTs- has been almost granted as she has pledged to repeal the law and donor aid has started to flow. The issue is, would Banda surrender to donors on every issue when aid is threatened? And would Kenani write in support of a threat of aid-cut by a foreign government that wants to purchase a mining-company the country owns, assuming Malawi has one?

The story itself, not the theme, is plain and had it not being a short story would have been boring to read. It was predictable at several places; for instance, I predicted and was shocked though when Kanchigwe became a victim of a story he helped popularised. That should this be chosen as an exemplar writing - prose-wise - of African writing? No. It is what others have referred to as polemic and this does not necessarily make it a stellar prose. Though I wish it doesn't win to avoid other writers thinking that writing on mere polemics translates into stellar writing, Kenani has written a story on a theme that few has written about but which everything points to its eventual crowding. Kenani as a writer seems - as two (those I've read) out of many (those he has possibly written) is not enough grounds to make a sure judgement - to hover around stories of love as shown in his story Happy Ending which was included in the Caine Prize Anthology A Life in Full and other stories.
_________
About the author: Read about the author here. Read the story here. For a deeper analyses of this story visit here. The author share most of my views.