Kenya's Animal Farm

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-121186/kenyas-animal-farm

Tribute to Chinua Achebe

BEATING THE WHITE MAN AT HIS OWN GAME: THE GENIUS OF ACHEBE.

If Chinua Achebe had been living in Dickens’ time, he might have succeeded in selling “Things Fall Apart” as a serial the way the great English novelist had done, keeping a growing audience hanging on each last word, savouring it until the next episode appeared. Because the story-telling in every chapter is so highly skilled that it is complete in itself.

The world mourns the passing of a great writer though he had lived more than his biblical four-score and ten and his best work was well behind him. Africa was his life, his being, the subject of his writing, the object of his fascination. Not just Nigeria but Africa because he came of age at a time when there were men with Pan-African visions like Nyerere, Nkrumah, Senghor, Kaunda and Mandela. They knew that the boundaries drawn on the map did not represent their reality. Without denying their own place and time, they had a sense of what linked them historically and geographically. Like Ngugi wa Thiongo Achebe was forced to live outside his beloved home country but anyway, the writer needs distance. He can see things up close all right but it is those things that are further away in space and time that exile gives him in abundance along with melancholy, nostalgia and long-term memory.

Some have criticised Achebe for romanticising pre-colonial times but this is a misunderstanding. If there is nostalgia it is for a time when the society he knew proceeded according to agreed sets of rules rather than the free-for-all we know now. Personal preferences didn’t count. The book’s hero Okonkwo is specially fond of his daughter Ezinma who “looked very much like her mother who was once the village beauty. But his fondness showed on very rare occasions.”

Can she bring him a chair to watch the wrestling? “No, that is a boy’s job.” There is no bending of the rules. Everyone knows that.

Writers of all races have been forced or have chosen to live elsewhere. Samuel Beckett not only chose Paris but decided to write in French in order to deliberately “impoverish” himself – not a negative concept but a way of stripping language to its barest bones. But Africans were not best known for their novels. The world knew them as oral storytellers. If there were Shakespeares buried in Timbuktu’s sands we didn’t know about them. What Achebe did was to lift that art into a written form and beat the white man at his own game. Soon there would come a time when the best writing in English no longer came from “that sceptred isle”  and Achebe was one of the first in that class.

We still have so much to learn from him, most of all, in my view, from Things Fall Apart. Ngugi may have berated him long ago for writing in the language of the oppressor but by now there are so many “Englishes” that the criticism no longer holds water.  Achebe turned the oppressor’s language into his own; he moulded it in such a way that it could speak with Igbo proverbial overtones and at the same time mock the colonialist.  Take the last chapter: Okonkwo has on the spur of the moment killed an enemy  messenger. Achebe doesn’t judge him; the man was filled with rage and had been provoked beyond endurance. It’s what he had to do at that moment. He has, like Oedipus and Agamemnon before him, shown hubris and the author knows his Greek tragedies. Fate has its own punishment. The next chapter begins with a visit from the District Commissioner who is looking for Okwonkwo. The men of the village are uncharacteristically  helpful.

“We can take you where he is and perhaps your men will help us.”

The DC is puzzled.

“One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words, he thought.”

Of course this is deeply ironic; Achebe knows that the art of the novel lies in multiple ironies: from the individual sentence to the chapter to the entire edifice. It is the colonialist whose words are superfluous. As he approaches the small crowd of weary men looking for Okonkwo it is he who utters needless threats. “Unless they produced Okonkwo forthwith he would lock them all up.” Had he been able to read the scene and the mood he would have kept quiet.

Led by the hand we arrive with the band at Okonkwo’s body hanging from a tree. (Remember that we don’t see Oedipus gouging out his eyes at the discovery that the oracle was right.) This is why the men have been so obliging: their custom doesn’t allow them to bury a man who has taken his own life.

“It is an offence against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers.”

Strangers to each other and themselves. The poor DC can’t cope: nothing in his education has prepared him for such a moment. His way out is to reassure himself that this is a mere “undignified detail” and his mind  escapes to the book he will write about these wretched people. Unlike Okonkwo’s lifelong friend Obierika who is filled with rage, he feels nothing. He can only come up with abstract thoughts. This episode in the life of a micro- civilisation “would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph at any rate.” It is a magnificent irony given that the entire trilogy let alone this book centres on Okonkwo! One can almost hear the author chuckling quietly to himself. “One must be firm in cutting out details.” A man who cannot feel can never produce a work of art.  “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” – the DC’s pompous title -  form the last words of the book. There is no need to say who is primitive.

Achebe was equally adept at essay writing, adopting an easy conversational style which took the reader into his confidence. His breadth of reading is formidable but he never loses a sense of humility. In “Thoughts on the African Novel” (Hopes and Impediments - Selected Essays 1965-87) he writes:

“What I am saying really boils down to a simple plea for the African novel. Don’t fence me in.”

Rejecting the idea that the African novel is an impossibility because the genre was born in England he continues:

“I have no doubt at all about the existence of the African novel. This form of fiction has seized the imagination of many African writers and they will use it according to their different abilities, sensibilities and visions without seeking anyone’s permission. I believe it will grow and prosper. I believe it has a great future.”

His own work is the proof of that.

Kampala's famous Kavalagala All Night Dancing

http://the-star.co.ke/news/article-107278/nightlife-kampalas-sin-cityhttp://the-star.co.ke/news/article-107278/nightlife-kampalas-sin-city

Archived Nation articles

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The Turkish Mother

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. ( Anthony and Cleopatra 2.2.244)

An-ne, the Mother, is a veritable institution in Turkey. Turks are glued to their mobile phones not least because at some moment in the day An-ne will call and the obedient son or daughter (mostly the latter) must be standing to attention. If it is already late in the afternoon, the message will be, “But why haven’t you called me? Is something wrong? Didn’t you remember I went to the doctor today?” Anywhere – in a shopping mall, a bookstore, a cafe, comes the inevitable whine of the needy child. “An-ne! Where are you?” The whole world dotes on these angels who can do no wrong. Their every whim must be indulged. Christmas isn’t anything to Muslims of course but the city is full of brightly lit trees, effigies of the silly old man in red hat and presents. Whole floors of istanbul’s magnificent shopping malls are devoted solely to delighting the little people. The shops are stuffed with goodies and people pack into them as if there were no tomorrow. It’s only the social outcasts who go in for online shopping here: everyone else regards it as a jolly family ritual.

You might get the impression that Turkey with its background of military coups, nationalism and repression was a patriarchal society. Wrong. Men just look as if they have power: in reality they exist only to serve their women. Even modern young working people for the most part wait patiently until they have found their marriage partners before leaving home. Naturally, double standards exist here as men have freer rein and must sew their oats. But they do it discreetly with god-knows-whom. Meanwhile they live at home where they are waited upon hand and foot – food is cooked, washing and ironing done for them and every comfort seen to. Duygu, a healthy woman in her thirties complains that her mother won’t even let her carry anything. Ilgin has just turned 40 and works 7 days a week to make enough money for holidays. She wouldn’t dream of going without her mother. They live together as do so many Turkish families, mother and daughter, bound like Prometheus. You don’t even ask about father. When Ilgin is feeling frisky she goes with her mother to one of the many clubs in downtown Beyoglu, the centre of Istanbul’s nightlife. There they listen together to live music and Ilgin takes pictures of them both on her mobile phone. Can it be satisfying? Ilgin is no fool. “I make all the decisions,” she says, gleefully. I can see who wears the pants. Why leave this comfort for some unknown territory where you may have to be the maid, cook and bottle-washer for some uncertain reward?

Age cannot wither An-ne because whole armies of hairdressers, beauticians, manicurists and cosmetologists exist merely to preserve her long-lost youth. Only near death will a woman let the world see her grey hair: the rest choose any colour of the rainbow though garish pinks and greens are still only for the outlandish or those who have just discovered punk . Mostly it is blonde, and on special occasions like New Years Eve, the hair will be pulled and teased into girlish sausage curls of a corn-bright yellow. The effect is that elderly men always have young-looking things of indeterminate age in tow. (Is that his daughter, mother or wife? You can’t tell.) And what was once a Mediterranean land of dark-haired, olive-skinned women has now become a kind of Disneyland of Barbie dolls.

Daddy provides. Sinem lives in a fine apartment paid for by her father and works when she isn’t having the vapours. She is travelling the next day and An-ne keeps phoning. “Why don’t you take the smaller suitcase darling? You might be overweight if you take the big one?” Such tender loving care. But Sinem doesn’t think so. “My sisters and I have been trying to get them to divorce for years!” she says, sighing. “They do nothing but argue and can’t stand each other.” But of course there are the beloved children. How could they inflict such pain on them? Sinem is beautiful, intelligent cultivated and at 38, alas, still not married. Her lover is a dashing colonel in the army, married with children. “When he comes it is paradise! He brings flowers, chocolates and treats me like a princess.” The stress of it all stops her from working. But she has the kind of job that can deal with this on-and-off commitment because there is a hard-working male who does all the donkey work. Life has fashioned things in such a way that she must remain a princess in a tower waiting for the frog prince to release her.  So custom doesn’t stale her infinite variety; she is free to go to any one of Istanbul’s delectable coffee houses, galleries or museums. She has the leisure to read and reflect. And time still before motherhood looms or the signs of old age must submit to the wiles of the magician.

CHILD ABUSE IS UNIVERSAL

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-98380/child-abuse-universalhttp://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-98380/child-abuse-universal

Ataturk Lives!

In Russia the Tsar was always referred to lovingly as Little Father; here in Turkey,  Ataturk’s presence is writ large. He attracts a different kind of worship. Each year on November 10^th, the  anniversary of his death in 1938 at 9.05, the moment he last drew breath, a siren sounds and the country collectively comes to halt for a minute. Cars hoot and drivers stand to attention.  In that gorgeous wedding cake of architecture, the Dolmabahce Palace, the clock in the room where he breathed his last is permanently frozen at that precise minute. It doesn’t stop there, of course; Turks love any excuse to bring out their brilliant red star- and-crescent  flag adorned with the image of the father, his head tilted upwards, his eyes gazing into the distance as if dreaming of great things to come.

Istanbul has some of the world’s biggest and finest shopping malls; on a day such as this, even they pay tribute to the great white father. In Akmerkez, a gleaming modern version of Topkapi Palace, a sacred non-commercial space has been cleared for the occasion showing portraits of the man while  a band plays his favourite tunes. Bookshops display the many biographies of him, and lit-up panels carry quotations from his writings. Shopaholics take a breath in between Versace and Vakko to pay homage to a man who has never really departed. He is everywhere. Even in private homes you will see photos of him posing like Napoleon with right hand in jacket or dancing with one of his daughters.

Thus the name Sabiha Gokhcen might not be given two seconds’ thought by visitors to Istanbul’s second international airport but it is worth more than that. The lithe young woman pictured in large black and white photographs was one of his eight adopted daughters  - possibly the favourite - and the first female combat pilot in the world. Like father like daughter. She had no fear of flying. I can’t help thinking of the Greek goddess Athene springing fully born out of the head of Zeus. Ataturk was briefly married to  Latife Uşaklıgil to whom he proposed in company with his fellow soldiers. That was the custom back then. Though it was a childless marriage, he went on to adopt several children who came his way and appealed to him. Perhaps Sabiha was his favourite because she followed in his footsteps and lived up to his name.

It was in his latter years that he fell in love with children; by then perhaps he had tired of wars an late-night political jaw-jaws.  Sabiha Gokcen was 12 when she encountered Ataturk at a public parade. She stepped forth boldly and asked him to assist her with school fees. He gladly obliged.

Later when she had become a pilot, he tested her loyalty to him. She would have to hold a loaded gun to her head and prove her love (shades of King Lear.) She did, unflinchingly. She survived because the gun wasn’t loaded.

Who was the real man as opposed to the saint? He died at the age of 57 of cirrhosis of the liver. Flouting his secular version of Islam, he once called out drunkenly from a boat on the Bosphorus, “This is raki! That’s what we drink.”

Young people are brought up to worship him. A girl in my class who has never spoken before waxes lyrical. “He was such a great man. He saved the country!” “From what?” I ask. She blushes, unsure how to answer. “And what about his alcoholism?” They  all look at me blankly. “What has that got to do with it?” They do not want their hero besmirched especially by a foreigner. This is unnecessary, this disinterment of his graven image and at such a time too.

They have been sold a story which they won’t question. Certain things are sacred even to freshmen at the “Harvard of Turkey.”  No modern leader has been able to match him. None would dare to try. The Prime Minister makes hurried excuses and misses the celebrations.

As worries of creeping Islamicisation abound, Ataturk -lovers cling to his revolutionary changes: the freedom he gave to women who were among the first to vote, the secularism, the changing of the alphabet and modernising of the language now peppered  with words borrowed from French which the great man loved. What a relief! A few words a foreigner can grasp: reservasyon, pardon, kuofer (coiffeur.) All spelled phonetically to boot. In college the increasing number of girls with headscarves worries them. They see conspiracies everywhere. There are whisperings that the great American devil is planning a new caliphate for Turkey so that the region can be secure under his control. “Haven’t you noticed? More religious students are being given places on campus.” The  changes that the great man symbolised are being eaten away.

816 words

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