‘The conquest of the earth,
which mostly mean taking it away from THOSE
who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than OURSELVES is not a pretty thing when
you look into it too much.’ Joseph Conrad, ‘Heart of Darkness.’ There actually
is a message in the words foregrounded above. To an insightful postcolonial
reader, they both suggest the fact that a typical White may not totally be able
to do away with the notion of marginalisation which the social structure and
culture has implanted in them, even when they do not necessarily want to
practise such. Truly, some Whites regret the fact that their forefathers and
fathers made the ‘Others’ to experience colonialism and empathise with them
(the Others), the apparition of colonialism still roam the faculty of our
socio-cultural, political, religious and economic experiences and literatures;
and writers have been aggressive in expressing the displeasure of the
colonised, either overtly or covertly. One among the works that subtly
aggressively show this is Chigozie Obioma’s ‘Fishermen.’
‘Fishermen’
is literally a story told by a young boy, Ben. The story shawls around the Agwu
family, of which the narrator is a member. The family is initially settled in
Akure, before the father who is the breadwinner is being transferred to Yola by
the Central Bank of Nigeria, causing a sort of ‘fault line’ that hosts Abulu
and all other conflicting event that comes with him, to the family. However,
this essay does not set to do such a denotative but a connotative analysis that
brings the silences in the text to loudness, using the postcolonial theory as
an effective mechanism.
As
we have mock epic in Alexander Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock’ in which the
characters fight with fragile weapons, like, hair pin and chocolate, most
African nations only have mock sovereignty since the real (past) sovereignty
that protected and guided them had gone. It had been taken away since colonisation
and replaced now by mere false and facade. The real sovereignty is like the
father figure in Obioma’s Fishermen.
He is the super ego to the child, as Freud puts. Therefore, his departure is
the beginning of turmoil and emergence of id in Agwu’s family, as in Africa.
The mother, now Africa, suffers and wishes that the father comes back home to
come and put the children who merely enjoy mock sovereignty, to order. This
correlates with the conviction of the postcolonial critics and political essayists
like, Homi Bhabha, Satoshi Mizutani, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and Walter
Rodney who all emphasise on the need to ‘reclaim the past.’
The
perfection and order that used to be in the family when Mr Agwu was around is
same as that of how the blacks used to be before colonialism. The gracefulness
and prestige in the pre- colonial black Africa which the Whites refer to as
being ‘exotic,’ ‘mythic’ and ‘barbaric’ is the previous condition of Omi Ala
which used to be worshipped, before Christianity, a religion of the whites came
to cause abandonment and everlasting stigma to the water. Like Omi Ala, Africa
becomes a bank of corruption of all sorts. It becomes where the Abulu of
imperialism seats waiting to destroy Africans through the bait of capitalism which
the fishing stands for.
The
prophecy of Abulu which causes a sudden craziness in the mental faculty of
Ikenna is an indication of the intellectual, political and economic forces and
mechanisms which the whites use to cause disorder in African continent. They
cause this and still come to the church of nations gathering to come and mock,
tearing off the scab on the healing wounds of the colonised.
Despite
all education and enlightenment which the siblings and the mother give to
Ikenna, he clings to the belief of power in Abulu’s prophecy and its certainty to come to pass.
Because of this belief, he makes feeble efforts to free himself and becomes
drowned in his own blood eventually. Similarly, the whites have made themselves
a sort of sacrosanct image in the minds of Blacks, and the blacks suffer what
is known as inferiority complex. As a result of this, whatever Blacks produce
is not good to them (Blacks). Whatever the Blacks propound is not proper, never
intellectual enough. The reflection of themselves seen in the mirror of their
self-perception
is that of the orangutan.
The
above strengthens the power of this topic more, ‘The Appariton of Colonialism…’
True, colonialism seems to have died long ago such that, some do not even want
it to be discussed anymore, several of our quotidian experiences show that,
day-to-day, colonialism still controls the continent as apparition, only
visible by some magnitudinal minds.
Explicitly
stating, the apparition of colonialism still hums its sadistic song around in
religion practices across Africa. After the embrace of Christianity, no one
wants to associate with the Traditional African Religion, just like the people
in Omi Ala vicinity avoid it.
It
is inferred from Homi Bhabha’s ‘Hybridity and History’ that in racial miscegenation
between the White and the ‘Others.’ The ‘Other’ tends to suffer some economic
kwashiorkor because the Whites derive some sadist pleasure in watching those
people bleeding from the sore of economy. While the Agwu family suffers
financial backwardness, while the family is in sorrow, heaving melancholic
sighs as fainting stones, Abulu walks majestically on the streets. And every
now and then they see him, the apparition of their backwardness, tears drop
freely.
In
fact, the book and many other readings have made me incept the notion that, in
racial intercourse between White and Black, the Black is always the recessive
gene while the white is always the dominant gene in whatever society becomes
the product of such intercourse. The European and American culture have
swallowed ours, like a chameleon swallows a moth. The culture of the Agwu’s
home changes as soon as Abulu and his prophecy infiltrate. Watching the TV
together becomes a taboo, smile becomes water in Sahara, and the siblings
become surprised the way Ikenna freely talks back to his mother. In short the
metamorphosis from order to disorder, from sanity to insanity, from richness to
lack, is what the home falls into.
The
same element of disorder realised in Obioma’s ‘Fishermen’ also surfaces in Ben
Okri’s ‘Famished Road.’ The political system introduced by the White, to Africa
is something ultimately strange to us. It is like an old man wearing wears
meant for a ten year old, or otherwise. This will only make a caricature of the
individual. Thus, the political system the Africans inherited from the
Europeans is ‘mimicked’ awkwardly. Since leadership and politics is something
cogent to human existence, every inadequacy could affect not only the societal
development but also the peace of the society. This is the reason there are
repetitive tumultuous scenarios in the text.
Language
is a very lethal arsenal for subjugation of other people. In William
Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ for instance, Prospero, who stands for the White
imperialist and colonialist that steals all the wealth of the island, divests
Caliban of his culture by the mechanism of ‘education.’ Prospero teaches
Caliban language which he uses only to insult.
The
Whites believe that their advent marked the beginning of African culture and
learning and this is expressed by Shakespeare in the aforementioned text.
However, the text has left a fault line which serves as a microscope with which
one can ‘read the text against itself,’ as Terry Eagleton and other
deconstructionists agreed. It is deciphered that Sycorax, the witch has told
Caliban that the island belongs to him (Caliban). Because he knows his right,
but unable to fight for it, he curses. And curses are a means of protest.
Similarly, it has been claimed by the likes of Oyin Ogunba, Isidore Okpewho,
Ruth Finnegan and many prominent writers in the field of Oral Literature, that,
through narratives and superstitions, education was passed across before the
advent of Europeans and the introduction of their learning system.
As
found in ‘Fishermen’ and in the present African state, the apparition of
colonialism still skulks in our voices. The major language that the
postcolonial Africans use is the colonial language. In the same way, the Agwu
family mostly uses the English language. However, the Igbo language is the
language of aggrieved moment. It is that which the id only pushes out
occasionally, just as Yoruba, Hausa, Gikuyu, Ashanti etc, to African educated
elite.
Every
African cannot be the same. There are those who want to slay the apparition of
colonialism totally. They want themselves to be freed from the golden shackles
of oppression of any sort. In them is the revolutionary spirit of Obembe who
wants the happiness of his mother (land) again. He wants to make a radical
break; he wants to strike a deadly blow against every bit of Abulu’s memory
that tethers the joy, peaceful co-existence and progress of the family. This
subtly subscribes to the notion of making a ‘radical’ ‘ideological’ break away
from all the European ways, including their form of education, politics and
economy which African nations always adopt, even when these ideologies were
drafted without considering anything African.
However,
there are some, who in the dread for the ‘superiority’ of the Whites, continue
to attack and arrest the patriotic Blackss. The soldiers, who in all effort,
attempt to arrest the children are stereotypic representations of such set of
people. They are like Amusa in Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death And The King’s Horsemen’
who is neither accepted by the White nor is he a patriotic fellow to his
brothers. Only good planners can conquer the rancorously dangerous set of
people.
The
drawing the children do before they take the prospect march, preaches some
morals to an insightful reader. It is a silent but salient inference that,
until Africans start to observe, discuss, plan and make scientific conclusions,
and do things in their own way, success will continue to be elusive and hostile
with Africa. Second, it shows that intellectuality is something irrepressibly
germane for a country to achieve her goal. The intellectuals who are exposed to
several cultures and readings from innumerable entities should be rulers in
Africa, not illiterate individuals who may not even know the ordeal a student
is passing through in school.
If
Obembe and Ben continue to shiver before Abulu and his prophecy, which is an
efficacious means of imperialism, like the people surrounding them, their sores
will remain that of a diabetic patient. They will never heal. However they
summon the courage to break the jinx. In the same way, Africa, in fear
continues to subjugate herself to the exploitation of the Whites, under what I
will call ‘We can’t do without them’ syndrome. By this, they feast on the
continent and her people. They develop their body with our milk, but we starve.
We are plunged in hopeless economic recession and they come to do mocking
charity like Abulu’s condolence. If the kind of Obembe and Ben’s plans are not
made; if the kind of their steps are not taken, Africa will continue to leak
the boot of Europe.
In
conclusion, this essay, using Chigozie Obioma’s ‘Fishermen’ and other
intertextual references, has shown how the Whites, through every possible means
including literature, subjugate the ‘Others.’ The need to reclaim the past and
make a radical break from the ways of the Whites without any consideration of
the seemingly grave consequences is emphasised.
Also,
the essay suggests another solution to African problem and posits the need for
the intellectuals who will be religiously committed and altruistically
effective in the affairs of Nigeria and Africa at large, to seize the hem of
affairs in Africa. In a nutshell, the essay digs into the past, presents the
present and prescribes panacea for the future. It is indeed a manifesto for the
elimination of the apparition of colonialism and the resurrection of our
self-image. Like Chigozie Obioma’s ‘Fishermen,’ it is indeed an essay of
times.
OLADIMEJI
DAMILOLA JOSEPH
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