Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination

There is nobody more qualifed to do justice to the imbrications of literature and ethical commitment in Africa than Chielozona Eze. With this well-accomplished and erudite book, Eze consolidates his position as the leading scholar of African ethics in literary contexts. Students and scholars of culture and philosophy will fnd this book an invaluable model for their own work. — Cajetan Iheka, Yale University, author of Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature Justice is often associated with an ideal state of affairs. Although this is an important way to approach the question of justice, realizing justice requires more than thinking about ideals. We must consider the aspect of what hap- pens in situations where injustice is enthroned. This means to think about the damage done to individuals and social and political institutions due to the prolonged experience of injustice. Chielozona Eze offers in this book an outstanding study of these issues. He takes the reader on a journey that cul- minates in a clear understanding of the connection between political organ- ization and the contexts of justice. Anyone interested in original ideas about justice, based on re-imagination of African conceptual resources, should read this book. — Uchenna Okeja, PhD. Professor of philosophy, Rhodes University Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination is an interdisciplinary reading of justice in literary texts and memoirs, flms, and social anthropo- logical texts in postcolonial Africa. Inspired by Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s robust achievements in human rights, this book argues that the notion of restorative justice is in- tegral to the proper functioning of participatory democracy and belongs to the moral architecture of any decent society. Focusing on the efforts by African writers, scholars, artists, and activists to build fourishing commu- nities, the author discusses various quest for justice such as environmental justice, social justice, intimate justice, and restorative justice. It discusses in particular ecological violence, human rights abuses such as witchcraft accu- sations, the plight of people affected by disability, homophobia, misogyny, and sex traffcking, and forgiveness. This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature and flms, literature and human rights, and literature and the environment. Chielozona Eze is a professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, where he is Bernard J. Brommel Distin- guished Research Professor. He is also Extraordinary Professor of English at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is the author of Race, Decolo- nization, and Global Citizenship in South Africa. Routledge Contemporary Africa Higher Education and Policy for Creative Economies in Africa Developing Creative Economies Edited by Roberta Comunian, Brian J. Hracs and Lauren England Decolonisation of Higher Education in Africa Perspectives from Hybrid Knowledge Production Edited by Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis, Irina Turner and Abraham Brahima Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe Kirk Helliker, Sandra Bhatasara and Manase Kudzai Chiweshe Media, Confict and Peacebuilding in Africa Conceptual and Empirical Considerations Edited by Jacinta Mwende Maweu and Admire Mare Gendered Violence and Human Rights in Black World Literature and Film Edited by Naomi Nkealah & Obioma Nnaemeka Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination We, Too, Are Humans Chielozona Eze The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta Edited by Tanure Ojaide and Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega Identifcation and Citizenship in Africa Biometrics, the Documentary State and Bureaucratic Writings of the Self Edited by Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and Richard Banégas For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Contemporary-Africa/book-series/RCAFR Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination We, Too, Are Humans Chielozona Eze First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Chielozona Eze The right of Chielozona Eze to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-70854-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-70857-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-14827-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xi Introduction 1 1 Narratives and the common good 15 2 Ecological violence and the quest for justice 37 3 Mythic consciousness, witchcraft, and human rights abuses 63 4 Barriers to being: albinism, disability, and recognition 89 5 Intimate justice: homophobia and human dignity 109 6 Dignity of woman: from misogyny to sex-trafficking 136 Conclusion: politics of love and the common good 155 Index 165 Acknowledgments This book beneftted from my six-month residence at Stellenbosch Insti- tute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) from July to December 2018. I have also profted from the discussions with friends and colleagues: Cajetan Iheka, Uchenna Okeja, Amatoritsero Ede, Paul Ugor, Uche Umezurike, Sister Mary Okolie, Dike Okoro, and Maik Nwosu. I am grateful to my fellow members of Northeastern Illinois University Genocide and Human Rights Research Group: Jeanine Ntihirageza, Alfred Frankowski, and Cris Tofolo. The congenial atmosphere in the English department and the friendship of my colleagues were enabling factors for the birth of this and other works. I am immensely grateful to my dear friend, Sangmin Bae, who frst intro- duced me to some of the most important literature on human rights. Northeastern Illinois University granted me a yearlong sabbatical leave to work on a different project. The frst two months of the leave were de- voted to this very work, and I am sincerely grateful to the President Gloria J. Gibson and the board of trustees. Preface What we talk about when we talk about justice To help me think through the notion of justice, I present two hypothetical situations, one of which is paraphrased from John Rawls’s “Original Position.” First Situation: On the playground are fve children—three boys and two girls—playing. A mother to one of them comes around, hands them fve oranges, and tells them the oranges are for all of them. There are many scenarios that can ensue: They will share the oranges among themselves. I imagine the children holding a small conversation in which they establish the condition for sharing the oranges: “Everyone gets one orange each,” the leader among them would say. “Yes, one person one orange,” another would support. That would be the just thing to do. It would be fair. Another sce- nario is that one of them, perhaps a boy, could seek to have two oranges, claiming that he is hungrier than the others. What if he gives three of them one orange each and the fourth one gets nothing? Will the three speak up against the situation? What language would they use? What if the boys gang up and deny the girls their oranges because they are, well, girls? The girls object and ask: Why? The boys answer: You are girls, and, according to the bible, sin came into the world through women. Therefore, you must pay for your sins. Second Situation: If, as embryos in the womb—ignorant of the conditions of our future lives, though capable of making decisions about the world—we were asked to imagine a society in which we all would be born, we would, for example, consider the situation in which we are born poor or with disability, or perhaps one in which we are born into wealth. But because we do not know the situation that awaits us, we would most likely strike a middle ground. Faced with a situation in which we are allowed to create an ideal society, we would most likely opt for a society of fair-minded people free of bias, because we might be in disadvantaged positions. One of the things I take from Rawls’s hypothetical situation is the power of the imagination in the dispensing of justice. If we are able for a while to put ourselves in the position of a person denied his or her due, and if we can xii Preface see reality from that perspective even for a while, we might be compelled to rethink our attitude. Of course, the reality is that either most people are incapable of imagining reality from other people’s perspectives or they refuse to do so, perhaps because their minds had already been conditioned by some narratives about the other. For example, racists refuse to imagine the racialized as deserving equal consideration as humans largely owing to the stories they have heard about these racialized others. The same applies to sexists. It is easy for a man to justify maltreating a woman because of the ancient tradition that drummed it into him that women are meant to occupy inferior positions in the family and in society. The second part of the title of this book, We, Too, Are Humans, seeks to capture the voice of those who feel that they have not been treated the way humans ought to be treated: fairly.

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