THE AFRICAN SCENE AND
M. Rajeshwar
-An intellectual is....in essence a social
critic a person whose concern is to identify, to analyse, and in this way to
help overcome the obstacles barring the way to the attainment of a better, more
humane, and rational social order. As such he becomes the conscience of society
and the spokesman of such progressive forces as it contains in any given period
of history.
–Paul Baran.
With the award of the Nobel prize for
literature to Wole Soyinka in 1986 the seal of international recognition can be
said to have been laid on African literature in general and on Soyinka’s
writing in particular. The general impression one has on reading Soyinka’s
works - poetical, fictional and dramatic - is that he has made it almost his
mission to examine the traditional structures of his culture, religion and
society with the implicit intention of gleaning whatever is relevant and useful
from the African past for suggesting a future course of action for his rather
aimlessly advancing society.
It is in this context that an understanding of
African past becomes inevitable for an appreciation of Soyinka’s works. Before
Africa’s interaction with Europe its numerous races and ethnic groups lived a
simple life - in close affinity with nature. Every small community had its own
world-view which was characterized by intellectual and moral independence. In
Soyinka’s words these living communities “regulated their own lives ... evolved
a working relationship with nature ... ministered to their own wants and
secured their future with their own genius”1. In their narratives
the European explorers registered great admiration for the age-old African
institutions and the continent’s self-sufficient societies.
This was followed by a phase of colonial rule
during which the independent African societies were strategically dismantled
and the values these societies cherished since time immemorial were openly and
flagrantly denigrated. Soon their cultural and religious institutions either
totally collapsed or were distorted beyond recognition. The younger generation
of Africans, fed on the distorted and disfigured version of their past, came to
despise everything African and began to look upto the Europeans for
intellectual guidance. But an exceptionally few of these Western educated
African intellectuals not only mustered up courage to question the legitimacy
of European domination but even sowed the first seeds of dissatisfaction with
the colonial rule among their people and it is largely due to their efforts
that the African nations are at least politically independent today.
Even though the edifice of colonialism
collapsed in the early sixties its evil legacy continues to characterize the
social and religious institutions and modes of life in Africa, only more so in
Nigeria to which Soyinka belongs. Corruption has become the order of the day.
Chinua Achebe’s observation is quite relevant in this respect.
Within six years of independence Nigeria was a
cesspool of corruption. Public servants helped themselves freely to the
nation’s wealth ... Elections were blatantly rigged ...
The national census was outrageously stage-managed;
judges and magistrates were manipulated by politicians in power. The
politicians themselves were manipulated and corrupted by foreign business
interests.2
The democratic rule itself was a short-lived
political phenomenon in a majority of African states. Within a few years of
independence from the colonial yoke military coups swept across the continent.
Soyinka, while calling the present day Africa a monstrous child born to the
intellectual dishonesty of the colonialists, says that it “draws material,
nourishment, breath and human recognition from the strengths and devices of
that world, with an umbilical cord which stretches across oceans.”3
He emphasises the urgent need to “sever that cord” and urges to “leave this
monster of a birth to atrophy and die or to rebuild itself on long-denied
humane foundations.” 4
Fictional treatment of the present African
reality has been prompt and sustained. Achebe’s novel A Man of the People and
Ayi kwei Armah’s The Beautiful One Are Not Yet Born are scathing
indictments of the corrupt post-colonial African society. Soyinka’s two novels,
The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973), belong to
this genre of African fiction. In these novels he pits a group of ideologically
motivated young intellectuals against the massive structure of society and
presents through their struggle an incisive analysis of the Nigerian society
and suggests the ways to overcome the evils plaguing it. His portrayal of
intellectual protagonists in these novels not only strikes a positive note but
also has a visionary quality about it. He reserves all his bitterness for the
degenerate intellectuals of Africa that people some of his plays. While in his
plays he is constrained by various limitations the novel form allows him all
the freedom he wants to give a thorough treatment to his vision. It could well
be that he wrote novels only to fictionally embody his vision of ideal African
society; otherwise his genius is most naturally wedded to the dramatic form.
An examination of his novels reveals that
their multiple protagonists correspond to Frantz Fanon's perspective on the
African intellectuals to a surprising degree, although it cannot be said for
sure that Soyinka had allowed himself to be consciously influenced by Fanon’s
ideas. The observations which Fanon made in the context of colonial Africa are
still relevant as the colonial situation has not substantially altered in
Africa even today. The role of the intellectuals in the African society as
defined by Fanon holds good as long as political suppression and corruption
continue. His book The Wretched of the Earth has studied the participation
of the native intellectuals, specially the writers, in social and cultural
change in three phases.
In the first phase, which is a period of
“unqualified assimilation”, the intellectual assimilates the culture of the
ruling power and gets estranged from his traditional society. He cuts his last
moorings and breaks adrift from his people. But this phase is not to last long.
The intellectual is quick to grasp that the alien culture has made him a
stranger in his own land. The degradation his people suffer at the hands of the
oppressive forces awakens him to a new reality. He begins to have a split
personality. He can neither totally embrace the foreign culture nor return to
his people because, by this time, he has already lost his roots. It is here that
the second phase starts. In this stage the intellectual is thoroughly
disturbed. In a desperate attempt to identify himself with his people he
immerses himself in his cultural past. Going down his memory lane he
reinterprets old legends in the light of a ‘borrowed aestheticism’. The third
phase, which follows close on the heels of the second, is characterized by
fighting. By this time the writer-intellectual “instead of according the
people’s lethargy an honoured place in his esteem...turns himself into an
awakener of the people...”5
Fanon expects the intellectuals
to rise up in arms against oppression if the situation so demands and become
full-fledged revolutionaries.
Many critics have treated Soyinka’s fictional
heroes as separate entities while in fact there is a thematic progression from
one to the other. In the light of Fanon’s formulation it is possible to see
them as different aspects of one complex intellectual hero who is genuinely
concerned with the transformation of his society. In his first novel The
Interpreters Soyinka presents the corrupt and degenerate Nigerian society,
which has drastically undermined all the traditional values, in order to
suggest that the situation is ripe for dismantling the rotten system. At the
centre of the novel’s consciousness are give intellectuals, all been-to’s and
close friends. They have returned home with very high hopes and colourful
dreams of participating in the nation building work but almost immediately they
find themselves face to face with the worst from of corruption and hypocrisy in
all walks of life. Their experiences make them thoroughly disillusioned with
the prevailing situation in Nigeria. On being blatantly victimized by the
corrupt forces they undergo various degrees of intellectual and psychological
change in Fanon-like fashion, and finally take to ‘interpret’ the modern
African reality. Their long stay abroad has given objectivity to their
observations and authenticity to their ‘interpretation’.
Egbo, a foreign service official, comes first in
the line because he qualifies as a colonial intellectual who finds himself
culturally alienated. Upon his return from the West he is faced with the choice
between assuming power as the traditional chief of Osa, his grandfather’s
kingdom, and spending an apparently listless but secure life as a foreign
service official. He is aware that as the ruler of Osa he can be instrumental
in social transformation. But he has been so successfully weaned away from
traditional life that it is unthinkable for him to return to the bush-man’s
life now. He therefore decides to go “with the tide,6. Egbo seeks
consolation and a modicum of security in religious mysticism and in the embrace
of the notorious prostitute Simi. This security is however false. According to
Fanon’s precept the intellectual should not be prepared to remain in the hold
of the foreign culture. He is jostled into a recognition of reality when he
himself becomes a victim of the evil forces of society. The suffering phase
falls to Sekoni, the stammering engineer. For all his qualifications and
enthusiasm he is given a routine desk position. On his persistent request he is
allowed to build an experimental power-station which is however never put into
operation. Finding the humiliation too much to bear Sekoni batters the plant
and goes mad to be eventually killed in an accident.
The degradation Sekoni suffers justifiable
earns the wrath in the intellectual that Sagoe is. Being a journalist he tries
to avenge the death of Sekoni by preparing a report on the condemned power
plant. His newspaper refuses to publish it. Sagoe seems to realise at this
point the inadequacy of mere protest and the inevitability of a mass movement
backed by a comprehensive ideology for the deliverance of his society from its
present state of filth and squalor. For this purpose people have to be awakened
to the reality of the situation which Kola, the artistic self of our complex
intellectual hero, does through the revival of forgotten cultural norms. He
delves deep into his people’s cultural history and comes up with several
aspects of his culture that are relevant to his mission. Accordingly his
preoccupation throughout the novel is with his painting of the yoruba Pantheon
dominated by Soyinka’s favourite god Ogun. It is a symbolic attempt on the part
of Kola to restore cultural identity and security to his people. It can be
further interpreted as a powerful assertion of the contemporary relevance and
significance of African cultural practices which suffered extinction with the
advent of the colonial domination. The unsatisfactory results of the efforts of
the interpreters so far clearly point now to the necessity of ‘muscular action’
and they soon realise that they have to align themselves with the struggle of
the people. The task of getting equipped with a sound ideology and gaining
confidence in the thoroughness of understanding society is shouldered by
Bandele, a university teacher who has been viewed by Eldred Jones as the
embodiment of Soyinka’s positive values. He anthentically interprets the
present with his “very passivity and ..... quiet insistence upon connecting
people” 7 It cannot be said as yet
that he has emerged as a revolutionary. This phase of the intellectual’s
struggle is depicted in Season of Anomy which comes as a sequel to The
Interpreters in more than one respects.
After a frustrating
experience with society ofeyi, the central character of Season of Anomy, becomes
a full-fledged political revolutionary. He has the Alyero ideal set before him
in all solidity. In ‘Aiyero Soyinka presents his vision of ideal life. The
Aiyero township was founded by the first Custodian of the Grain “to seek truth,
a better life, all the things which men run after”8. Juliet okonkwo views Aiyero as “the egalitarian,
morally incorruptible essence from the African past.”9 In Aiyero every free-born son is entitled to
landed property. The material and spiritual welfare of every member of the
Aiyero community is well looked after by the Custodian. The rituals and
observances of Aiyero show that they live a full- blooded life here. The Aiyero
men, spread far and wide on the globe, are not won over by the attractions of
the big cities. They maintain close contacts with their parent community and
finally return to it. It follows therefore that Aiyero is a quasi communalistic
and quasi communistic village state.
Of eyi’s concerted
efforts to spread the Aiyero ideal to other parts of the country are constantly
frustrated by the Cartel which represents all the reactionary and repressive
forces operative in Nigerian society. When pursuation fails the Cartel men
abduct Iriylse to whom ofeyi has been emotionally attached and thus hope to
divert his attention to something personal. Ofeyi does appear to be preoccupied
with his search for Iriyise for the rest of the novel. However, if we
understand the symbolism underlying ofeyi - Iriyise relationship rightly.
Iriyise become the Aiyero ideal and Ofeyi’s search for her comes his pursuit of
it. In face of formidable hostile forces ofeyi relentlessly carries on his
search.
Meanwhile the Cartel lets
loose violence on a large scale but is resisted by the Alyero forces under the
leadership of the Dentist, the alter-ego of Ofeyi. During the course of his
search for Iriyise Ofeyi comes into contact with many dormant progressive
forces and enlists their support for the Aiyero cause. They include the Indian
doctor Ramath too. On the last leg of his search Ofeyi finds himself a prisoner
at Temoko where he also spots Iriyise. After winning over the prison keeper Suberu
to his ideal and with the help of his friends he manages to smuggle the
comatose Iriyise out of the prison.
Thus we find the
intellectual at the end of the novel not as a lonely individual struggling to
break the fetters of the oppressive system but armed with an ideal which has
been tested and found effective and supported by a faithful army of progressive
minded people. No evil force, however powerful, can now deter him from
revolutionizing African life on the lines of the Aiyero model.
Soyinka’s fictional
version of the Nigerian reality and the faith he reposes in the infinite
possibilities of the intellectuals for social regeneration through revolution
hark back to his personal experience. Like the ‘interpreters’ he himself
underwent the different stages of intellectual development. And during the
years before he wrote the second novel he actively participated in popular
movements through his ‘Third Force’ - an experience which parallels with
Ofeyi’s - for which he had to serve two excruciating prison terms.
Notes:
1 Whole Soyinka, “This Past Must Address Its Present”, Mainstream, No.16
(Jan. 1987), p.18.
2 Chinua Achebe, “The Writer and the Biafran Cause”, in his Morning Yet On
Creation Day (London: Heinemann, 1975), p.82.
3 Wole Soyinka, Op.cit., p.19.
4 Ibid.
5 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1982), p.179.
6 Wole Soyinka, The Interpreters (London: Heinemann, 1970), p.14.
7 Gerald Moore, Wole Soyinka (London: Evens Brother Ltd., 1971), p.
80.
8 Wole Soyinka, Season of Anomy (London: Thomas Nelson, 1980), p. 9.
9 Juliet okonkwo, “The Essential Unity of Soyinka’s The Interpreters and
Season of Anomy’, African Literature Today, No.11 (1980), p. 118.