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INTRODUCTION
Most works of African literature in all genres have the thematic perspective of revealing mostly, the negative import of colonialism in Africa and on African people. Most elite Africans have come to realize that colonialism affected almost every aspect of African culture and sociology. There are reasons to believe that the educated Africans who embraced European values and attitudes have started retracting their colonial mentality and thereby exposing the evils associated with colonialism. African writers have been at the fore-front of this retraction. They have often exposed the evils of colonialism and have strongly proved that the anomalies in African politics and sociology stem from European indoctrination. Some African writers like Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Sembene Ousmane, Ayi Kwei Armah amongst others have often focused on anti-colonial themes in their novels. They have often attacked African politicians, leaders, intellectuals and African who practise European ideals against their rich African values. We shall examine Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and Ngugiwa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood in treating this theme.
General Overview
The contemporary African novel is a vast phenomenon. However, that magnitude is perhaps the least of the difficulties facing the critic in attempting to capture a fair view of this ever-growing field. A more formidable problem arises from the fact that African writers are writing two different kinds of fiction. First, there is the social-realistic narrative convention that has been familiar to readers and still exists. Second, there is the other kind in which a new language prevails; this is relatively unfamiliar to many – perhaps even most – readers. This is premised on the awareness that there is always a close relationship between African literature and its historical context(s). The multiple paths that are followed include a thorough examination of the ideologies and context(s) within which the work was produced, the consideration of the expression of life of disenchantment and pain in the novel. All lead to the unmasking of the novel as a socially symbolic act, that is, a reflection of the problems of the author’s immediate society, in particular, and the African continent in general.
Many African novelists have been termed anti-colonial because of the manner in which the African colonial experiences are attacked. It also exposes the traumatic effects of colonial power on Africa’s development. Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o have often been described as anti-colonial writers because they have often chronicled the experiences of Africans during colonial days. They write to draw sympathizers from non-Africans and to direct Africans properly in avoiding the repetition of such experience. Some other writers like Ayi Kwei Armah, Okot P’ Bitek, Taban Lo Liyong, Cyprian Ekwensi are also among those who wrote anti-colonial novels.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
It is the duty of the writer to direct his society properly. Explain how anti-colonial novels achieved this.
Anti-Colonial Disillusionment in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood
Petals of Blood is widely regarded as an important work in Ngugi's career, in which he moves to reveal the anti-colonialist base in his early works. It is the first of Ngugi's novels which is fairly and squarely about independent Africa. Petals of Blood was received as a "political bombshell" in Kenya and elsewhere. The story is set in the small remote village of Ilmorog, which serves for Ngugi as a metaphor for developments throughout Kenya in the postcolonial era. Four characters, each originally from the larger nearby city of Limuru, make their way to the village. Each character comes to Ilmorog motivated largely by a desire to escape the pervasive malaise afflicting Kenya after Uhuru (independence); and each of the four characters serves to illustrate a different strategy for coping in the oppressive conditions of the new black-run country.
Godfrey Munira is a declassé bourgeoisie, the "black sheep" of an otherwise successful Christian family. His father Ezekiel Waweru is a wealthy and pious landowner who had been attacked by the Mau Mau rebels as a collaborator with the British colonizers. The change in regime has hardly affected his fortune; in fact, it has offered additional opportunities. Munira started on his path to "failure" when he is expelled for his relatively minor role in a student strike at the elite Sariana High School. After several years as an itinerant educator, during which time he marries a Kenyan "pagan" who converts to Christianity to ingratiate herself to her powerful in laws, Munira finds refuge as the headmaster of the poorly attended Ilmorog Elementary School. His strategy for coping with the new Kenya, until interrupted by events, is to keep his head down, or "quietism." Munira is preceded in arriving at Ilmorog by Abdulla, who shares to a lesser extent the schoolteacher's demoralization and has come to the remote village to run a small store. "I wanted to go deep into the country where I would have no reminder of so bitter a betrayal" (255). However, Abdulla has the psychological advantage over Munira of having participated as an active fighter in the liberation struggle, losing part of a leg in the process. Abdulla had also once worked in a shoe factory that experienced frequent labour disputes, which had caused him to become class conscious and to question the realities of the national economy:
He had asked himself several times: how was it that a boss who never once lifted a load, who never once dirtied his hands in the smelly water and air in the tannery or in any other part of the complex, could still live in a big house and own a car and employ a driver and more than four people only to cut grass in the compound? (136)
Abdulla copes by reinventing himself as circumstances demand, shifting his principles within a narrow range.
Soon Munira and Abdulla are joined by Wanja, another refugee from the city, the granddaughter of one of Ilmorog's elder matriarchs. A once promising student, Wanja had been shaken by a disastrous affair with the unscrupulous businessman Hawkins Kimeria. However, Wanja is not one to passively take life's blows, and survives by constantly metamorphisizing into new roles. She abandons the infant child resulting from the affair, and after a brief career in the city as a "barmaid," arrives in Ilmorog to begin anew. She persuades Abdulla to hire her, transforming the sleepy store into a lively watering hole, and beginning a (largely platonic) partnership that will continue throughout the book. As the old Ilmorog is destroyed by "progress," Wanja finally succumbs to the apparent national creed of the new postcolonial Kenya:
This world ... this Kenya ... this Africa knows only one law. You eat somebody or you are eaten. You sit on somebody or somebody sits on you. [...] Kimeria, who had ruined my life [...] this same Kimeria was one of those who would benefit from the new economic progress of Ilmorog. Why? Why? I asked myself. Why? Why? Had he not sinned as much as me? That's how one night I fully realized this law. Eat or you are eaten. [...] Nothing would I ever let for free. [...] No, I will never return to the herd of victims. (291 - 294)
The final arrival in Ilmorog is Karega, another one-time student rebel expelled from Sariana, and former pupil of Munira (and erstwhile lover of the headmaster's late sister Mukami.) Like the others, he comes to Ilmorog seeking answers to his own situation amid the ubiquitous national confusion. Eventually, after a period of drunken dissipation in the city, Karega settles into Ilmorog as the assistant teacher in Munira's growing school. While sharing Wanja's and Abdullah’s capacity for personal transformation, Karega resolutely refuses to accept the new status quo, seeking an answer in collective struggle. Dismissed from his Ilmorog teaching post by Munira's jealous machinations, Karega studies and travels, and eventually becomes a union organizer in the new Ilmorog. His character provides the clearest articulation of Ngugi's politics.
Ngugi places these four characters in remote Ilmorog, once a thriving commercial center, now inhabited only by those too old, young, feeble or tired to move to a city and its greater opportunities. A few of Ilmorog's older residents, such as Wanja's grandmother Nyankinyua, offer residual memories of the village's former glory. The community is presided over by Mwathi wa Mugo, the unseen and mysterious occult priest.
When a persistent drought threatens the very survival of the village's residents, Karega suggests a delegation travel to Nairobi to appeal for assistance from their Member of Parliament. The four former city dwellers lead a motley group of peasants on a pivotal trip that will forever change the fortunes of Ilmorog. Ngugi uses the delegation's reception in Nairobi to reveal the hypocrisy of various elite-run institutions in postcolonial Kenya. A church leader, Jerrod Brown, offers the ailing Ilmorog group mere "spiritual" sustenance, refusing to provide the weary travelers any food, water or shelter. The educational leader Chui is entertaining a select crowd and can't be bothered assisting poor villagers. Wealthy businessman Kimeria holds some members of the delegation hostage while raping Wanja. And Ilmorog's MP, Nderi wa Riera offers a reluctant welcome before unleashing the police on his ragged constituents for disturbing the (his) peace.
The most propitious event of the villagers' urban sojourn is their connection with "the lawyer," a liberal or social-democratic Kenyan who attempts to uphold the grand vision of Uhuru, using his education to assist Kenya's poor. The lawyer becomes the Ilmorog contingent's most important benefactor in Nairobi, offering them shelter, but more importantly becoming their advocate and spokesperson. The lawyer also benefits from the publicity surrounding the Ilmorog delegation's visit and rebuke by their MP, eventually gaining election himself to parliament.
The lawyer is also significant for helping to direct Karega into class- conscious political activism, through conversation, correspondence and shared reading materials. As he grows and develops his politics, Karega suggests something of author Ngugi's own dissatisfaction with African literature:
Imaginative literature was not much different: the authors described the conditions correctly: they seemed able to reflect accurately the contemporary situation of fear, oppression and deprivation: but thereafter they lead him down the paths of pessimism, obscurity and mysticism: was there no way out except cynicism? Were people helpless victims? (200).
When the lawyer is assassinated--with little doubt as a consequence of his reformist efforts in parliament--he provides another lesson to Karega: that relief from neo-colonial oppression won't come from elite institutions such as Parliament. The lawyer, though a relatively minimal presence in Petals of Blood, has crucial importance for relating Ngugi's political views. While hosting the Ilmorog delegation, the lawyer gives the most explicit account of how Kenyan liberation was sacrificed to the capitalist "monster-god." The lawyer also begins to transcend race and nationality, indicating the international class dimensions of the post- colonial dilemma. He relates his experiences in the United States, where he gained direct experience with racist violence and oppression directed against blacks:
Is this not what has been happening in Kenya since 1896? So I said to myself: a black man is not safe at home; a black man is not safe abroad. What then is the meaning of it all? Then I saw in the cities of America white people also begging ... saw white women selling their bodies for a few dollars. In America vice is a selling commodity. I worked alongside white and black workers in a Detroit factory. We worked overtime to make a meagre living. I saw a lot of unemployment in Chicago and other cities. I was confused. So I said: let me return to my home, now that the black man has come to power. And suddenly as in a flash of lightning I saw that we were serving the same monster-god as they were in America ... I saw the same signs, the same symptoms, and even the same sickness. (166).
After the pivotal Ilmorog delegation’s visit to the national capitol, Petals of Blood concludes by relating the destruction brought to the old village by "progress." For a brief period the rains and optimism return to Ilmorog, allowing Karega and Wanja time to fall in love, realizing a brief shared moment of personal satisfaction. However, the village is soon visited by increasing intrusion from the city: a church, a police station, the African Economic Bank and eventually the Trans-Africa highway, which symbolically crushes the abode of the town's elder spirit Mwathi wa Mugo. The New Ilmorog becomes a boom town, complete with all the urban vices, led by the most despicable of selfish exploiters: Kimeria, Mzigo and Chui. Just as this demonic trio are about to plot their response to Karega's successful union agitation, they are consumed in a fire at Wanja's brothel started by Munira, a recent convert to fanatical Christian evangelism.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Explain how European influence affects African politics and government as presented in Petals of Blood.
Anti-Colonial Themes in Arrow of God
Arrow of God centres on Ezeulu, the Chief priest Ulu, the god that protects the whole villages of Umuaro. Ezeulu has been very careful in the management of the affairs of the village since his position as the Chief Priest bestowed on him powers akin to that of a political head in the village. Ulu the god is seen as the great protector of the village, revered and feared, so its priest is respected beyond the usual spiritual control to a political height. He determines the day for the new yam feast as he meticulously eats each of the select 12 yams at the appearance of every new moon. The eating of the last yam predetermines the date for the new feast.
Umuaro village is in peace until the arrival of the colonial masters into the hinterlands of Nigeria. They came with religion and their gun in order to force the natives to work within their whims and caprices. Ezeulu saw the whites as people with high wisdom. He sees their religion as something a little powerful. He decides secretly to send his son Oduche to the church in order to acquire their power. He was challenged by his arch-rival, Nwaka, of Umunneora village. Nwaka, the Chief Priest of Idemili, senses that Ezeulu’s decision might affect the efficacy of Ulu. He openly challenges Ezeulu on the matter. The rivalry becomes severe when Oduche imprisoned a python in a box. He was attempting to kill the highly revered snake which is the symbol of worship of Idemili. More so, Ezeulu’s insistence that the land, which was in dispute between Umuaro and Okperi, belonged to Okperi sparked more trouble for him. Although this sincerity on the land issue drew him closer to the colonial administrator in charge of the area, Captain Winterbottom, little did he know that it would cause much harm to the village of Umuaro. Captain Winterbottom had no option but to appoint him a Warrant Chief because of his sincerity and integrity. He refused the offer and was held in Winterbottom’s custody for three months within which period he could not eat three sacred yams. He expected that his people would come and rescue him from the Whiteman’s grip but they never budged. He was really provoked and vowed to make life miserable for them. He was expected to eat the three sacred yams he missed as a result of his arrest but he refused insisting that he would begin his count from the day he was released. Ezeulu’s stubbornness led to famine and starvation in Umuaro Village because he refused to name the day for the new yam festival. In all the confusion, he lost his most beloved son, Obika and even went mad in the process. The confused villagers had no option but to go to the Christian god for solace and protection.
The novel is anti-colonial because it exposed the inconsiderate attitude of the colonialists who believe that the Africans have no mind of their own. Imagine the detention of Ezeulu for refusing to accept an appointment from Winterbottom. He was treated with disrespect and unnecessarily detained which led to the famine in the land. Laws are imposed on the Africans as if they have no human rights. More so, the use of arms in settling local conflicts was intimidating. Africans were meant to believe that they were inferior to the whites.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Ezeulu and Captain Winterbottom represent two different cultures. Explain how Achebe presented them with regards to their sense of politics and religion.
CONCLUSION
It is clear from the two novels under study that Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Chinua Achebe have revealed to a large extent, the negative influences of colonialism on Africans. They have explained how Africans were made slaves in their own countries and how African customs and tradition were manipulated to suit the interest of the colonial masters. Africans were given the orientation that they were inferior to the whites. They were told that African religion was fetish while the European religion was the only key to meeting God Almighty. They were taught that African culture and systems of government were impracticable and should be discarded. All these issues and more were attacked in the two novels under study and these are anti-colonial elements.
SUMMARY
Anti-colonial novels are reactions by African novelists to the evils of colonialism. Chinua Achebe stated in his authorial creed that he would be quite satisfied if his novels especially the ones he set in the past could do no more than make his readers realize that their past with all its imperfections was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans, acting on God’s behalf, delivered them. He explained that Africans did not hear of culture for the first time from the Europeans. His novel Things Fall Apart was a direct reaction to Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson which was a novel filled with ugly pictures about Africa and the African people. Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and most African writers have been writing anti-colonial novels as a reaction to the ugly of presentation Africa by European writers. Most of Africa’s problems emanate from colonial times and there are evidences of European manipulation of African governments in order to have positive gains while imposing negative vices like war and injustice on the Africans.
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