CHAPTER 9 Chinua Achebe and the Development of Igbo/African Studies Raphael Njoku Introduction This chapter examines the contributions of Chinua Achebe to the development of Igbo Studies in particular, and African Studies in general.1 Conceived in the colonial context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when very little was preserved in writing by the Africans on Igbo social life and customs, Achebe’s trilogy—Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964)—have particularly served scholars of all disciplines as a rare intel- lectual resource material.2 The plot of these works was primarily intended to shed light on different aspects of Igbo/African social institutions and practices as well as highlight the nature of conflicts that threatened the indigenous society as it came under alien intrusion. Excluding the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, perceived as the highest level of capitalism by Marxist scholars, has remained as one of the most controversial and horrific episodes in African history.3 It is therefore not surprising to find its overbearing influence on both the African writers of the twentieth century, as well as their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. Pan-Africanist scholar Walter Rodney depicts the colonial experience as the greatest pillage of a million years of human history.4 Also, troubled by the ominous threat of colonial rule in Africa, Robert Knox, a Saxon, had in his The Races of Men: A Fragment, published in 1850, predicted the inevitable demise of other races as a result of European selfish interests in Africa, praying that his own race “should desist from robbing and murdering dark races of the world.”5 These sample commentaries provide us with a fair idea about the pervading impact of alien subjugation and control on the Africans. In an age when the Europeans denied that Africans had a historical past, and even claimed to know G. Chuku (ed.), The Igbo Intellectual Tradition © Gloria Chuku 2013 250 • Raphael Njoku the natives better than they understood themselves, Achebe’s counternarrative depicts the anxieties generally experienced by the Africans as the indigenous cul- ture came under alien assault. By rebuffing the Western notion that art should neither rationalize itself nor be answerable to anybody, Achebe single-handedly brought about the emergence, in the 1960s, of a genius that is African literature. As Achebe stated in his Morning Yet on Creation Day, art is, and always was, at the service of man. This is the central idea at the heart of the African oral tradition. Therefore, “the African novel has to be about Africa.”6 Indeed, as much as des- tiny is decided through politics, successful novelists always root their characters in the society of a particular time. A writer is only great to the extent he provides a society in general with a true mirror of itself; of its conflicts and of its problems. Among his competitors, Achebe has successfully provided his readers with this mirror of Igbo/Nigerian society than any other novelist. He strongly contends the idea that “art is autonomous and that it happens by itself,” as “simply mad- ness.” He continues, “What we say, what we write or what we paint is as human beings who live in society and are accountable to that society.”7 Inordertoana- lyze the most crucial elements of Achebe’s works and put his intellectual ideas in a proper perspective, it is pertinent to briefly examine his family background and education. Family Background and Education A proud recipient of numerous local and international honors, awards (including professorial positions), and widely acknowledged as the king of African literature, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, the fifth child of his parents, was born in colonial Nigeria at Ikenga village in Ogidi town of eastern Nigeria on November 16, 1930. Altogether, his parents, Isaiah Okafor (an early Christian convert) and Janet Anaenechi Achebe (nee Iloegbunam), bore six children—namely: Frank (first son), John, Zinobia (first daughter), Augustine, Chinua and Grace. Four decades earlier in 1892, the British Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) led by Rev. S. R. Smith, had been welcomed on their first arrival at Ogidi by Pa Udo Osinyi, Achebe’s maternal grandfather, whom he described in his Hopes and Impediment (first published in 1988 by Heinemann), as a man of “wealth and honor” of his time.8 Ogidi society of the late 1890s and early 1900 had begun to witness the first appearance of European colonialists. As the British pacification forces marched across the thousands of independent Igbo villages appointing warrant chiefs, the Christian evangelists seized the initiative in an attempt to propagate the salvation of Jesus Christ among the Africans. In some instances, the Christian evange- lists became forceful, among other things, in their attempts to Christianize the Igbo. They assaulted Igbo indigenous institutions and customs, while they tried to recruit new converts, mostly among the youth, for their newly established mission schools.9 At this initial stage, Igbo response to the ongoing forces pry- ing into their society could be described as an ambiguous mix of hostility and friendship; indifference and curiosity.10 This ambivalence is best illustrated with Chinua Achebe and Igbo/African Studies • 251 Pa Udo Osinyi’s decision to expel the missionaries from his compound as soon as they had begun attacking Ogidi traditions such as ancestral worship, polygamy and masquerade dances. The indigenous worldview, polygamous family systems, and masquerade insti- tutions were central to understanding the precolonial Igbo life, their social relations, modes of production and political organization. The ancestors occu- pied a central position in the indigenous cosmology as intermediaries between the living and the Almighty powers. Polygamy was a means of raising a pool of agrarian labor force and therefore served as a measure of individual achievement and success. Through acts of ritual and time-honored values, the elders made the appearance of masks and masquerades to be accepted as the visitation of the gods and ancestors in physical forms.11 This belief system and practices were crucial for social control and harmony. Thus, the attempt by the missionaries to super- impose their alien ideology on the indigenous order was simply a direct attack on the social fabric that held the Igbo society together.12 Yet, despite the initial resistance and suspicions, the Christian religion quickly gained its first converts among the orphans, outcasts and other marginalized members of the old Igbo society.13 This outcome of events reminds us that in any society (whether traditional or modern) where individuals or groups are marginal- ized, the tendency is high for enemies from outside to recruit local collaborators among the aggrieved within. Among this group of locals who embraced the new religion was an orphan named Okafor (later, Achebe’s father), who was under the foster care of his uncle Pa Osinyi. Through his early contact with the Europeans, Okafor, baptized and became known as Isaiah Achebe in 1904. He later became one of the most influential educated elite and African evangelists in his home- town of Ogidi. Achebe then got married to Miss Janet Iloegbunam and the wedding was personally officiated at the St. Ebenezer Church, Ogidi in 1908 by the legendary Reverend (Dr.) George Thomas Basden of the CMS, a distin- guished scholar of Igbo life and customs. Isaiah and Janet ran their family life in the typically strict Christian style.14 According to Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Achebe’s biog- rapher, while Pastor Isaiah, a teacher and CMS missionary, worked assiduously to win African souls for the new religion, Janet Achebe cultivated the habit of quoting Psalm 34, verse 11 to her acquaintances at every occasion that called for her words of exhortation: “Come my sons, I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.”15 This was the home to which Achebe was born in 1930. Despite his strict Christian family upbringing, Achebe, as the themes of his novels reveal, observed and knew enough about the Igbo traditional religion and ritual observances, all of which he also internalized as a young man. From a dis- tance, Achebe observed the family values and practices of his uncle who refused to convert to the new religion. At school, the young Achebe interacted with his peers from other families that substantially retained the old ways. So at home, in the village society and at school, Achebe watched, with curiosity and fascina- tion, the old beliefs and practices. As he acknowledges, “I think I am basically an ancestor worshipper, if you like, but not in the same sense as my grandfather would probably do it, pouring palm wine on the floor for the ancestors.”16 252 • Raphael Njoku In view of the social transformations that were witnessed over the early colo- nial period and more that came from the period of his birth and childhood, it is important to briefly underline some of the dominant ideas and influences that may have contributed to Achebe’s upbringing. The first is the influence of his family and kinship on Achebe’s upbringing and career. Having been born in a family that had embraced Christianity and Western education as the most influ- ential forces that would shape the future of the new generations, Chinua, like his siblings, pursued his mission education with devotion. Achebe said, “My parents knew that education was important. To my father, it was almost a religion. He wanted us to have as much education as possible, as much as he can afford.”17 This view is supported by the Achebe siblings’ academic successes. Chinua began his primary education at the St. Philip’s Central School, Akpakaogwe, in 1936 and completed it in 1943.