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The Social Responsibility of the East African Writer CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Iowa Research Online Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 7 Issue 2 Spring-Summer: Special Double Issue: Article 101 International Writing Program Anthology 1976 The oS cial Responsibility of the East African Writer Peter Nazareth Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Nazareth, Peter. "The ocS ial Responsibility of the East African Writer." The Iowa Review 7.2 (1976): 249-263. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.2090 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PETER NAZARETH / UGANDA The Social Responsibility of the East African Writer on Speaking the development of writing in East Africa at the University of en He, Nigeria, in 1968, David Rubadiri said that the colonial experience at veloped everything and almost stifled any indigenous attempt expression one a through the newly acquired language. If passed through secondary in one came was an to school East Africa, he said, the best out with ability write a or a in composition letter the best basic English and the best gram mar. Rubadiri noted that when the East African writer started to write poems, his whole literary tradition had molded him to try to emulate the come only literature he had into contact with. "So people wrote like Keats and Wordsworth?on roses and sunsets and moonshine, and this sort of sub all on a sort ject, very personal and individual of basis," he said, adding, even non-ex "They received encouragement from expatriate teachers, and was patriate teachers, because this the only kind of literary tradition with which all the people had been brought up." However, there was a tradition which contradicted this colonial cultural wa oppression. Ngugi Thiongo (James Ngugi) says that in African society, was was as art functional; it not, it is in modern Europe, severed from the physical, social and religious needs of the community. Song, dance were an a en and music integral part of community's wrestling with its vironment, part and parcel of the needs and aspirations of the ordinary man. There was never, in any African society, the cult of the artist with or its bohemian priests along the banks of Seine Thames. Today the sees as an in a artist in Europe himself outsider, living kind of individ . ual culture, and obeying only the laws of his imagination African we can Art, generally say, used to be oriented to the community. And as as nar because of its public nature, culture, in its broad well in the row sense, helped to weld society together. two Rubadiri and Ngugi have pinned down elements that help explain the form and nature of modern East African literature. Ngugi himself was one to of the earliest East African writers struggle against the cultural-mental was colonialism identified by Rubadiri. His first major work The Black & an cast for in Hermit, play produced with international student Uganda's in is an dependence celebrations 1962. Remi, the protagonist, educated Afri can a to return to from small tribe who refuses the village from the city. 249 University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org of the to The people village need him back fight their battles, especially to against domination from the bigger tribes. The village elders go the city to a fetch him back, after saying prayer to the gods. The pastor is also per to suaded fetch Remi back by his mother. Remi does not agree at first to be persuaded by either kind of tradition, religion and value system. Besides, he has an lover in He English the city. suddenly tells her that he is married; he has been married by tribal law to Thoni, his brother's widow. He used to love to so was Thoni but she seemed love his brother; his marriage not to his a liking. Eventually, he does return, with friend from another tribe, to bring the message of cooperative, non-tribalist living. In the process of mak runs ing his public speech, he insults Thoni, who away and commits sui Too cide. late, Remi realizes that Thoni had always loved him. It is easy to fault The Black Hermit. There is a touch of melodrama in the a ending: love affair that goes wrong because the lovers do not talk to each a too other, suicide, letter which explains everything late. Ngugi himself has said that he at the time of thought the first performance that the biggest new problem besetting the East African countries was tribalism, but now he realizes that is the problem really monopoly capitalism, which took the form of first now imperialism and neocolonialism. Ngugi attempts to inject his later into the version understanding published of the play by getting one of the to talk unions characters about the muzzling of trade by the new to African government and question whether the land, the banks and the oil will be nationalized. are not companies These ideas fully developed in the has merits. play. Still, the play considerable Through it, Ngugi has the onto the on which brought village stage previously only European plays to to used be performed, giving validity precisely that portion of the East African writers experience that the had been almost forced to forget. The a play presents "total" picture of modern East Africa at the point of de colonization. to in Ngugi gives validity life the city and the village by using with verse scenes. prose jazzy rhythms for the city, and for the village The verse a sense of the "rooted" in gives ritualistic, quality of life the village, contrasted with the rootlessness of the The use city. villagers earthy imag ery, such as, Remi left a young wife. a in a And she, like sapling drought-stricken land, in Will also dry up the heat of desolation. In The Black we see sense of social Hermit, Ngugi's deep responsibility as a to East Africa and Africa whole. The play asks fundamental questions: our we our What do we expect of leaders? Can ignore past and cut our when come out selves off from it? What happens leaders with large solu their own individual What when tions but forget failings? happens they ig 250 nore is to so human relationships? What the relationship of the individual ciety in modern Africa? was to in more in his Ngugi deal with these questions depth novels. The was was first of these originally entitled The Black Messiah and subsequent in as River Between. In ly published 1965 The this novel, Ngugi deals with critic what the Nigerian Omalara Leslie calls the soft paw of colonialism: the division brought about by Christianity acting sometimes unconsciously in with but usually consciously tandem colonialism. European Christianity so softened the people that the imperial powers could rule with minimal resistance. so colonized were It did by persuading the people that they cul tural and religious savages before the coming of the white colonizer and by to status as making the people feel that they had accept the quo God's will man. was for Christianity also linked up with education, for which there de a in an veloped hunger Africa. Waiyaki tries to acquire education which he can use to his help people, but the division brought by colonialism proves too him to The novel has a In great for bridge. the quality of moral fable. Not which was in ex Weep Child, published earlier, Ngugi goes further move ploring the colonial history of Kenya by dealing with the Mau Mau a movement that not a in or ment, guerrilla did have parallel Uganda Tan ganyika. Robert Ruark had characterized the Mau Mau movement in his as reverses novel Something of Value savage and atavistic. Ngugi this char acterization us and shows the historical rationality behind the movement. us man He shows that the white stole the land from the Gikuyu, who had not an a only economic but also spiritual attachment to the land going back to of time. see the beginning We all the peaceful attempts to get back the and then no land, failure, alternative but guerrilla fighting. Although us a Ngugi makes sympathetic to the Mau Mau movement, he also presents fair of the white settlers were ex picture whose interests threatened. For us an even ample, he gives insight into Mr. Howlands, when the settler tor tures owner Ngotho, the real of the land. Ngugi writes essentially from the of a The suits a viewpoint Njoroge, young boy. style the subject, having for Biblical simplicity which Ngugi has been noted. This style has the limi tation it us that cannot show the ideology of the Mau Mau movement or the ahead for but it has point way Kenya, the advantage of illustrating that one to to or to has be taught exploit accept exploitation. A as Ngugi's third novel, Grain of Wheat, has received recognition one of the best novels to from Africa. wrote it was emerge Ngugi while he in Eng he see land, while could the mother country from close quarters and acquire the to perspective crystallize his understanding of colonialism. This novel on eve moves begins the of independence and backwards and forwards in time because is with Ngugi dealing very complex questions.
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