Myth, Literature and the African World WOLE SOYINKA Proteuor of Comparative Literature ‘ners of le Niger CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESSIdeology and the socal vison (1) the wishes of the majority of Umuaro, he has failed to divine the historic factors at work. ifs timing is s0 tactless that be brings disaster on himself, handing over rich social harvest from Umuaro to the proselytsing (Christians. We areleft witha hanging prediction thet Uli has set his course for the exact fate ofthe god of Aninta, figuratively at least. Ezeulu, not Ul, i cast as the summation ofthe lfe-foree of Umuaro; without him the {god is reduced to an empty shell. 4 Ideology and the social vision (2): The secular ideal ‘A certain Lothrop Stoddard prophesied as follows (the year was 1920) Certainly, all white men, whether professing christians or not, should welcome the success of missionary efforts in Africa. The degrading fetishism and demonology which sum up the native pagan cults cannot stand, and all Negroes will some {day be either christians or moslems. ‘Africa minus the Suhara North is still a very large continent, populated by myriad races and cultures. With its millions of inhabitants itmust be the largest metaphys jal vacuum ever conjured up for the purpose of racist propaganda, Mongo Betis perhaps the most assiduous ‘writer to have taken up the challenge of Mr Stoddard, dealing expertly and authentially with the claims of (Christianity as a filler of spiritual holes. His weapon is 2 deceptive generosity which disguises, unui the last moment, a destructive loge, incontestibe inits consistent exposition of cause and effect. His priests are never ‘complete villains but are revealed to be complete fools, Even where he has presented the representative of the (Christin Church as a figure of inner doubts on the way to eventual enlightenment, itis only a refinement of Mongo Bets delectable hypocrisy ~ his exactions willbe doubly cruel and thorough. ‘Thus, in King Lazarus the Rev, Father le Guen, stifnecked to the last, merely loves 1 Quoted in Gare: DeGrae otmaon, The Bing Tide of Coeur psn Whee Wort! Supremacy, Chapman ad Hal Landon, me 9Ideology and the socal vision (2) his position and is left withthe consolation of commiser ating with himself as a victim of colonial administra tive incigues. The oaly reprisal from the victims of his spiritual assault isto witness the reversion of his prize convert to the joys of polygamy. The poor Christ of Bomba is an equally stubborn prelate, He is even more manic in his encounters with “heathen” practices but by contrast, is revealed as a man tortured by increasing doubts, iis inner reflecions promise a conversion, some hhope for the salvation of the man is awakened in the breast of the reader. But Mongo Beti i+ not about to redeem his gull. The ramifications of a venereal de rnowement cover the Father Superior with the stench of failure. Beu's thesis reads: the Church is by ite very nature (doctrine and practice) a contagion: Mongo Betis expositions are masterly erosions of the Cristian myth, The virtues of Mongo Betis works tempt detaled elaborations but he is striely outside our frame of reference. His task is the demolition of pretenders to cultural and spiritual superiority, nota re-statement of the values of pastor present in integrated perspectives ofa future potential, Thslatter process need note overt for didactiy it need only translate the inherent or stated Viable falues of a socal situation into @ contemporary fr future outlook, engaging the reader's collaboration through sympathete characters and value judgements ‘operated by a contranting habit of the mind. eonoclasm by itself may embody a socal vision, andthe question is ‘certainly raised by Oulouguem’s uncompromising wor Bound to Violence? But first, 2 problem which cannot be honestly ignored. ‘The charges of plagiarism in Oulouguem's work appear 1 be wel substantiated; it would be futile to deny this, The literary question remains, however, whether or not we are confronted with an’ original contribution 10 * Vambo Oulouguem, Bound to Vien, trendned by Ralph @ {dcology and the social vision (2) literature, in spite ofthe borrowings, The drama ofthe novel is original; his, Pbelieve, has not been disputed, ‘The stylistic “griot’ propulsive energy and the creative vision are unquestionably Oulouguem’s. It has been ‘altned that the thematic structure has been borrowed Also from a previous Prix Renaudot winner: by this T mean the disposition of theme into the transmitting ‘media of events, pce and temporal relations. [have not read the other work o this questions one which Teannot resolve, There are alto moral and philosophical ques: tions, The former can be resolved quite simply: it would have been preferableit Yambo Ovlouguer had acknowl ple of ownership ofthe written word. This wat line which I rather expected Oulouguem to adopt in bis reponse tothe charges, not from any interest inthe results but in anticipation of 2 debate which, given the French penchant for speculative philosophy, would cer- tainly have resulted in obscuring the original sues and left Oulouguem'srealers to cary on regarding his work as literature, until given evidence tothe contrary. Which 's precisely what I/propase to do. ‘The charge of plagiariam was, however, noc the only reaction prodiiced by the work. Ieisnotsurprising, given the nature of the political alliances which dominate the world atpresenttofind thatthe intelligentsia of the back world are in ideological disagreement over the question ‘whether enforced cultural and politcal exocentriciy, as 2 retarding factor in the authentic history and develop- tment of Black Africa, should be recognised as appertain ing only to the European world. The existence of the school of thought which thinks noe is our present con- ‘erm, nor isi expression among African writers and Intellectuals as new as is commonly supposed. Yambo Oulouguem unquestionably triggered off the critical slarm in the opporing school, bt what he has done with his fcdonal re-creation of historyis no more nor less than, 9{Ideology andl the socal vision (2) a Cheik Anta Diop or Chancellor Williams has done for decades in their several extays on African civ: sation. The researches and Rudings of Diop, Willams, Frobenius and other bistorians and ethno-sientsts ‘made Le Devoir de Violence inevitable and salutary — ‘Oulouguem’s savage satire on Sh(Frobeniosology not withstanding. The outcry of seccions of black Armerican militancy over this aspect of the book is. simply iguided, Le Devoir de Violence (1 shall use the original in preference to the English version of the tide) marks Studied repudiation of historic blinkers. Ie re-writes the chapter of Arab-Islamic colonisation of Black Africa, but ‘moves beyond history and ition to raise questions oft very structure of racial heritage. Accepted history is held agninst an exhumed realty; the resulting dialectic can only lead to a reassessment of contemporary society and its cultural equipment for racial advance. This intllec tual dimension of the writing places it amongst the Tterature of prognostic enquiry, in spite of the negative approach. The question is implicitly asertve: if’ Negro 27 (and culture, history) found a patent of nobly inthe folklore of mercantile intllecualism’, what constituted the authentic nobility of Negro ar The tapestry of repudiation comes alive before out eyet, as if light is played upon it, activating shadow after shadow with its blood-red illumination. A neutral, tight-lipped haimour fifully relieves the oppression, varying from the mor dant and sardonic to cosmic beliy-laughe: great pastages fof history are set in motion by a public split in the trousers of the great. The Bible, the Koran, the historic tolemnity of the griot are reduced to the histrionics of ‘wanton hoys masquerading. as humans. Oulouguem leaps frenetcally from the ciché “café a lait joke to the sadistic guffaw with the lofty indifference of aringmaster ‘manipulating his whirl of freaks atthe touch of foot pedal, halting long enough to reat his audience toalicle ‘éeology and the social vision (2) perversion act, then moving on to the next exhibit. Is Diere a ouch of slf-hate in Gulouguem'’ dispassionate" recial? The intensity of contempt for the victims is ‘leary intended ta reflect the alienation of the vorturers from the concept ofthe victims as human, o reflect their religious-impetial justification for acts of barbarism, yet beneath his device lurks, one suspects, the discomfort of the author himself. The epithets are spat through irited teeth; the antidote for vctim-idenulication ap- Dents tobeadeflectivemasochism - Oulouguem hasbeen ecused of an alienation technique) the opposite seems truer —such a level of inventive degradation suggests ‘that Oulouguem is practising some form of literary magic for the purpose of self inoculation. ‘Oulouguem har aleo carried the devaluation technique (through proximity and non-dfferentiation) to its com ceivable Hits. The method is invariably iconodastic; nothing survives in i, not even love oF (to keep our demands modest in a work of this nature) mutual phys feal attraction, Kassoumi’s love for Tambira (both trl) js not permitted to remain long in che natural order of things! Custom dictates that he resort co the burning of patings three eyelashes, seven head hairs sever pubic bairs etc, etc to sprinkle on the bride's nuptial Niands; while for himself crushed lion-penises, cocks testicles and goat sperin provide the fare. The obscenity fof the seigoeur's Fight of the first night prolongs the reductive cynicism of the event (the novel’ first human ‘event by its oven ceremonial burnings of ‘incense, subli- ‘mate of camphor, aloes, Indian musk and amber" in & mockery of defloration. Slave and master are made ‘© tandergo these humilstions with complete equanimity; the law of the absurd and dhe obscene, narratively Impoied until now, becomes fully sublimated inthe fist tbuman realist portraiture, This isthe frst moment that the semblance of an individuated character (and contact) thas emerged from the tapestry, but its function is merely{Ideology and the social vision (2) ‘confirm and reinforce the pattern of che exablished mm; from here on, further human delineation will immerse each product of Nakem's history in the gory degradation of ite past, and most deeply, our would-be central character, fruit ofthe obscene rizes of the union of serfs~ Raymond Spartacus Kassoumi In preparation for the summative European age of the young Kassoum, art, religion and cultural ‘concepts are bronght together in contemporary time for 4 final iconoclastic collision, elaborating Oulouguem's {Cynical observation noted earlier inthe midstof mayer the blessed union of knowledge and morality is fragile’ Kassoumi's quest for knovledge (and liberation) is fore- doomed: he will nether escape his Nakem past nor its present transposition tothe: Shrobenivsology’ of distant Europe. The avenues of posible salvation through reli- sion are firmly dored, even to the extent of asailing their modern defenders with that most lethal weapon, parody, For instance, the metempeychotic delirium of the wile-murderer Sankolo reads suspiciously lke a ‘sex-orgiatc parody of Hamidou Kane's wranscendenta- list apologia for Islamie spirituality. Recourse to an indigenous metaphysics, a cosmological religiosity’ or ‘nner landscape’ has become impossible, because it is deprived of identity by the intellectual conmanship of Europe's anthropologists. The pathway in that direction is clotted up with the superfidal debris of intellectual excavations, The Shrobenious invasion of Nakem is Stretched to represent the tradition of faifiation, coup- led with a levelling down of the Aryan myth, the symbolic blonde beast brought to rut in the degenerate carth of black Nakem, naturally enough in the context Of the highest quest conceivable to German cvlisation ~ the quest for Kultur! But even as the concepts of Aryan self-reversal are mouthed, ostensibly to compensate for the long heresy of Eurocentric belitdement of black ‘Attica, they sre brought ltly doven withinsordid mociva: Ideology and the social vison (2) tions entrepreneurial greed and opportunism even in the servi of Kulter! The Kea thatthe revolutionary potendal of Nakem’s serfdom will approach this source {or intellectual sustenance compounds the sham. Stidy for young Kassour hae become a fanatical cult the “instrument of hit Herston" But the qualty of possible Knowledge is falsied in advance; wore, the Toundation of his eevaion, his aodher’s sordid sacrifice, hangs over any eventual achievement like + mim Oulougucm excels himself: not only does dhe mother prosttte herself tothe sorcerer for her sons success, fhe is subsequently raped by Saifs two gorlas then murdered (or commits ici) in the slaves ltrne, up {o the neck in excrement. Kasioumis father lovingly ‘sicks the worms from her noes ow ironic thatthe novel's only episode of consciously rendered affecionate relationship shouldbe fom sexual and yet how appropriate to Oulouguem's mis fnthropie vision! Te ases- questions, cerainly. The tender narrative of Raymond Spartacus affair with the Scrasbourgos, Lambert, is such a. drastic departure from the Feat ofthe narrative, containing 30 ie ofthe carer brutality or nical undermining, that fe reads Tikes heightened Jaones Baldwin, [tis ot only tender, ies sympathetic and sincere despite the occasions when the author, recalled to himsel, appears to feel obliged to iken Kassourns love to that of 3 whipped dog, oF stcnowledges in Lambercan ‘obscure desine to get eve to avenge himel, to wound his nigger’. Such insertions Ste both rare and even self-conscious, betraying auaph ‘Gous desire to complieat, to keep some level of cialectic tension going tall costs by explotng the racal context ‘The mercenary calculation of Raymond Spartacus start made ambivalent even in the very fre ight of ‘opuladon. Nothing wrong with that, but what we enc cuner isnot lst in keeping with Nakems history of peederauy, sodomy, sexual sadam, et, but tendernes. v6Ideology and the social vision (2) Yet nothing tll now has suggested Kasioumi’s homo sexual leanings. The morning request for paymentfor his ‘ervices sounds pathetic rather than commercial, and of courve he soon graduates vo the status of akepe mistress in what is clearly no longer a commercial arrangement but one of love. Long after Spartacus has ceased to need Lambert financially, the afar is continued by both. The significance of this episode is certainly elusive, since its {weatment removes itfrom the pale of siggestive critics of subjective contempt either of European decadence or fof the individuals. Such solemn cadences, extolling the fnal salvation of the lonely in the inhuman and in different society of Europe belong to the feional prose ‘of Baldwin and Gendt, and cannot be integrated into the mould of iconoclastic literature. Neither, inciden- tally, can the Victorian melodrama of brother-beds: sixterin-brothel fable. “This reads at frst ike an attempted parody, but it then becomes the instrument of crual relevations of homeland for Spartacus (and 2 further confirmation of his whipped character). The ‘extension of the melodrama into the neurotic reality of the milieu ~ che razor blade in the bidet soap which ends adidas life a bare week later ~ only mildly restores the ceatlier consistency, being a predictable extension of the violent destiny of the Nakemians, But then, a short while Tater, the incongruously tender homosexual interlude! If there is any doubs that Le Devoir de Violence owes ‘conception to a desire to counter the Islamic ‘apologia of Hamidou Kane, the duplication of the hero's pilgrimage to Europe dispels much of ie and the final ‘duet of the Bishop and the Saif, a confrontation in the idiom of grim political exegesis which corresponds to Hamidou Kane’ mystic exegesis of death, removes the last of it. But the reaches of Le Devoir de Violence are far wider; the work does not specifically address itself to the Islamic myth, Itis a fiercely partisan book on behalf fof an immense historie vacuum, the vacuum this time 104 éeology and the social vision (2) being Oulouguem’s creation, not Stoddard’s. And the charge of (utlocated) racism is departicularised by the futhor’s uniform manipulation of the rhetorical style of the legendary heroes and their asocitive civilisations sdieval, “Arab-lslamic, Christian-European, juxtaposition of incongruous prayers and piet istic lore with events af cunning, duplicity and barbarism ‘ay seem an obvious literary device but, since the charac- ters themselves appear perfecly at home in this tradi- tion of florid diplomacy (French, Arabic, and #0 on) the author’ organising hand is hardly feleStatesmanship and strategies are snared and rendered indistinguish- able from the mere thodomontade of the discourse of uplicy, a medieval variant of Newspeak. A culture ‘which has claimed indigenous antiguiy in such part of Africa as have submitted to its undeniable attractions is ‘confidently proven to be imperialist; wore, itis demon: strated to be extentally hostile and negative tothe indi- fRenous culture. As a purely sociological event, such work was bound to create violent passions. Re- interpretations of history or contemporary reality forthe irpote of racial self-retrieval do generate extremes of Emotion, most of all among claimants to intellectual ‘objectivity. Oulouguem's verdict is a painful one = a sanguinary account ofthe principal rival to the Christian mission in Afriea cannot be anything but provocative ‘Oulouguem pronounces the Moslem incursion into black Arica to be corrups, vicious, decadent, elitist and insen- Sitve: At the least such a work functions asa ide swab inthe deck-clearing operation forthe commencement of radial retrieval, The thoroughness of ts approach ~ total and uncompromising rejection ~can only lead to the ‘question already posed: what was the authentic genius Of the African world before the destructive alien intra sion? And the question can today be confidenty asked, Backed as it et by findings from the labour of ethno- Scientists. Stoddard's thesis is predictably exposed as 105dcology and the socal vision (2) fallacious; the alternative candidate for stuffing up the cultural black hole ofthe continents yet another rubble- ‘maker of cultural edifices, Tis true that Oulouguem takes nointerestin present. ing tothe reader the values destroyed in this process. The positive does not engage his re-creative attention, and ‘what glimpse we obtain of the indigenous reality is presented within the undifferentiated context of the Oppressed and the oppressor, the feudal overlord and slave ~ undifferentiated, that is, from the later political relations of Araband European colonialism. Oulouguer speaks indeed of a "black colonialism’ The premise for this expression is suspect, and it has affected Oulou- ‘guem’s concepts of the pre-colonial reality of African society. A socal condition in which Semites (hough black And pre-Islamic) are overlords and negro-Africans the Slaves still leaves the basic curiosity about black historic realty unsatisfied, Not until Ayi Kwei Armab's Two ‘Thousand Seasons (East African Publishing House, 1673) fs this aspect attempted; but even there its validity is not predicated on objective cruthe so much as on the Full ment of one of the socal functions of Inerature: the visionary reconstruction of the part forthe purposes of 4 social direction. In Armah’s work, there is no ambiva- lence of intent, nor of histoie reconstruction. ‘The Eurocentric burden of black Afvica attains com. plete identification, in Armah's work, with Arab-Islamic Colonialism. Arab slavers are referred to as white men, the narrative, but more importantly as the characteristic definition by those Africans whose subju- sation and liberation-struggle make up the story ‘Armah's images reinforce this general perspectivean the ‘Arab presence: the employment of the white desert as symbol of an insatiable ‘only bones and emptiness, married withthe other predatory whiteness: white mage > Loerie pub in JONALA gio 105 Ideology and the social vision (2) {ots swarming from over the seas, che European savers, ‘The theologies of both groups of intruders are inter preted through paralle lfedenying metaphors, both Cultures are equated with systems to which human dep- "avityisnotonlynaturalbucessential, Theanti-humanism fof the mass enslavement of other beings is not even left tospeak for itself; Arma is anxious that the theological collaboration in this orgy of bestalisation is not miss Asif in stang response to Lothrop Stoddard, Armah Aecares: We have not found that lying trick to our east, the trick of making up sure knowledge of things possible to think of, things possible to wonder about but imporsible wo know im any such ulate way. We are not stunted in sprit, we are not Europeans, wwe are not christians that we should invent fables a Child would laugh at and harden our eyes to preac them daylight and night as ruth. We are not 50 warped in soul, we are not Arabs, we are not muslims to fabricate a desert god chanting madness in the wilderness, and call our creature creator ‘That is not our way. (Two Thousand Seasons, p. 4) Once again we must attempt to place thie anusaal velemence against its full background. The quest for and the consequent asertion of the black cultural psyche began as a result of the deliberate propagation of tun truths by others, both for racist motives and to drguise their incapacity to penetrate the complex vriies of black ‘existence. Cheikh Ants Diop and Chancellor Williams go 10 far a to accuse their European counterparts not ony ofa deliberate falsification of history asinterpreted), but ‘of the suppression and falsification of historic evidence Diop’s reinterpretation of the evidence for the history of civilisation goes 20 far as to question the origin of European and: Northern culture and replace it in the South, in the Negro cradle. (Diop simplifies the division er{Hdeology and the socal vison (2) fof the races into twothe Southern, black; and the Northern, white, Arab or European.) The sentient ing vidual for his own part must be constantly recollected as ‘one who has experienced histories which he is aware are ‘not his own, and whose sense of identity is unstable, Consisting in effect of the process of coming toterms vith the history of others in conflict with his own repressed cultural and ethnic being. Iti an active sense of identi. fand where the ethno-cientist stops is where the Te- Creative energy takes over: both activites are sxpects of and complement each other. The reverse, ie must be remembered, is also true. The Eurocentric ethnologist hhar been complemented for centuries by European erature from Elizabethan imagination (0 the Rider Haggards and the Kiplings, not to mention the image ‘manufacturers of Euro-American ciema, It has not all been 2 crude and obvious misrepresentation; not only thas some of ie been wel-intended but some has actually originated from among black scholars and. writers Thus, Bolaji Idowu in his otherwise excellent work Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief (Longman, 1962) makes a point of proving that the Yoruba do believe in 2 Supreme Deity, with this dominating inference ~ that this constitutes proof of the high stage of development| ‘of the Yoruba people, Such a eriterion of development Js, need one add, entirely Eurocentric The proliferation of Such myths, and their implicit acceptance even today on the African continent must be seen and understood as the background to the works Under discussion. Failure to see the process of racial retrieval in one comprehensive whole, to see the process (of anti-colonialiam as one which ends with far greater ramifieations for society in depth than the rejection of fone sef-assertive set of values, agent a lack of a for ahalf-hearted attempt to re-discover and re-examine the matrix of society that preceded the violent distor tions. A rejection of the Eurocentric incubus which has 108 Ideology and the social vision (2) preoccupied Aftican creative writing almost exclusively for half 2 century cannot fal, in an intelligent people, ta answer more questions than it began by poting. Political revolutions of race-retrieving nature such as the overthrow of the Sultanate autocracy in Zanzibar by fn indigenous African nationalist movement have con Sequences far beyond those of similar violent changes in political authority in other areas. That the Afro-Shirazi Party under Sheik Karume later became as suspiciously repressive asthe alien imperialism itoverthrew isanothet ‘matter entirely, an unfortunate fact of politcal change ‘which i not confined to Africa. What really concerns us here is that political events such us those which took place in Zanzibar or the Sudan are components of the same ‘mould of thought and expression asthe literature ofthe ‘now restive modern product of centuries of alien historic Impostions. The long ignominious silence of African leaders over the nov resolved Anyanya insurrection in the Sudan i, alas, the misleading yardstick by which the majority judge the truth of such expressions of the authentic wll to identity. Missing always is that temper of comprehension which recognises in the various adap- tive modes of expression aspects of the same cruct struggle for a re-satement of self and society. Cheikh Anta Diop, Sheikh Karume, Oulouguem, Ayi Kwel Armah, Anyanya A puzzled headshake signifying ~ No Connection. But how ean theinellectualbe blamed when national leaders havetriviaised the essential itheatchall diversionary slogans such as ‘authenticié'l Ayi Akwei ‘Armah does not neglect to portray the opportunistic existence of such “kings” in his contribution tothe search for a social dizecion itis Armas attention to such critical details as the false prophets of retrieval that rescues the work from its less defensible excesses. For when all the excuses have been made and the historic ineviabilcy ofthis genre of ‘writing fully accepted, there sil remains a feeling of 109‘Ideology and the social vision (2) discomfort over the actual language of confrontation and. the dramatic devices in which the victims of the author's ire are trapped. In contrast to Oulouguem, however, ‘Armah’s work is intensely committed tothe substation ‘of another view of active history, with re-creating humanistic perspectives ae inspirational alternatives to existing society. His vision consciously conforms to n0 inherited or imposed religious doctrine and attendant ‘ethics, frees isell of borrowed philosophies in its search foraunifying, harmonising ideal fora distinetiv ity. Because itis not possible to suspend the awareness of these integrated goals in the narrative, the recesion ‘of the idiom of humanisia beenmes particularly oppres ‘ve on occation. Theresa glefulnesatecklessascond- ancy of the vengeance motif in passages such as these Came a Rhamadan, the predators’ season of hypocritical self-denial. Followed the time they call the Idd, time of the new moon of their new year After a month of public piety and abstention the predators again Uirew themselves into the Aceustomed orgies of food, of drugs and of sex. Of these orgies we remember the greatest, and for those particular predators the lst..(To Thousand Seasons, p. 31) Hussein, twin brother of Hassan the Syphiltc. Hussein had long since given up the attempt to ind a way for his phallus into any woman's genitals. His Tongue was always his truest pathfinder. So after ting with the others in the forgetfuines of a jomentary genital enthusiasm he had returned to eating buttered dates into his bursting pauneh, bhuttered dates mined from three women's holes in turn, By the third round the circuit was making Hussein dizry. The third woman therefore held Hussein's head io a tender cares. The second in a gesture ful of love stuck a smooth, solid Ideology and the social! vision (2) wellhoned knife into Hussein's neck, in a soft space between the cowries of his spine, The first wor stoked the disjointed head with affection, pre ie firmly down so the first hoarse ery from the throat came out a muffled sound of happy lechery. ‘Then the Fist woman raised the head gently, to give the warm blood way in its quiet Bowing from the predator’ open mouth...(p. $4) This i how Hassan died: atthe height of his oblivious joy a seventh woman unknown to him but Jknown to the other six brought a hora holed at its small end as well asthe large, and inserted the small fend into the Arab’s rectum. Hassan was overjoyed. ‘Atorrent of thanks and praises wae pouring out of his mouth, directed toward the slaveowner benefactor god who had s0 thoughtfully provided such exquisite means to the completion of his pleasure when he fele something extra reach the Tining of his rectum, It was honey, mixed with lamp oil, the mixture heated past boiling. Hassan's unforeseen benefactress poured an overflowing measure of the sweet liquid into his arse. (p. 38) In the depravties of the Arab invaders of Africa, in the horrendous means of eliminating which the author devises for them, evolving these from their favourite perversions in a'kind of sexual justice, the humane Sensibility tends to recoialitle. Theirbrothers, the white ‘maggots from over the seas, fare no better. The one Armah calls the predators, the other, destroyers; both Dredatory birds are decked. in the same” feathers. Through the eyes of the indigenes, the atkaris, the hharem guards, the middlemen, the fugitive, we en= counter all aliens as inhuman exploiters only; there is ‘no redeeming grace, no event is permitted to establish the exception. Tn spite of this, Two Thousand Seasons is nota racist,{Ideology and the social vision (2) tract; the central theme is far too positive and dedicated its ferocious onslaught on alien contamination soon into place aa preparatory exercise forthe liberation of the mind. A clean receptive mind isa prerequisite for its ideological message, and there is no question that this ‘work is designed for the particular audience of Armas town race. What he offers them now isthe way’, ‘our ‘way’. True, beyond the method of contrasts, beyond the Utilisation of ferelity and regeneration in contrast with the barren insatiablty of the desert, beyond its summa tion in the oftrecurring word ‘reciprocty" and its ati butive ‘connectedness’, the Way is not very distinct specified, But we learn that ici the way of life wi ‘thers are the way of death, Nor is the goal of the Way attainable by mere passive understandings itis mandated ‘upon the destruction for all ime of the agencies of ‘opposition. Ths is the primary mission. The bare cleared earth, 2 restored, receptive virginity, is in conform! with Armah’s own progressive device, Indeed, Armal appears to have undertaken this preliminary literary estruction of the identified opposition as a parallel activity 10 the novels schematism, But except for the ‘occasional urterancesofitsseers~ the elderly Iranusiand ‘Adewa the virgin mystic the Way remains a hazy and undefined ideology; itis the action that defines i, and the guiding prinaples debated by the proeagoniss, Progressively the blotted-outazeas of ethical harmony, long obliterated by the impositions of alien structures are filed out. Ayi Rwei Armah assert a past whose social Philosophy wat a natural egalitarianism, uaravelling ‘events which produced later accretions of the materialist cthicinorder toreinforcethe nnaturalness,theabnorz ality of the later. The actions of his protagonists are aimed at the retrieval of that past, but again Armah Insists that this past not a nostalgic ar sentimental one Its presented at a state embodying a rational idea ‘Armah goes even farther; actions and motivations are Ideology and the social vision (2) deliberately contrived to place such longings (for nos talgic pas) in a context of Betrayal of the larger aim: at self-delusion, self-destruction and general mindlessness. Im the same way as the materialist retrogrestion of the modern African polity san implied target of the author's shvage attack, 30 alto is the romanticism of Negritude teailed in associative portrayals. The members of an initiation group betrayed to a white (European) slaver by their own king have freed themselves from the boat while itis il in coustal waters, ‘They escape, take to the forest and engage in guerilla warfare against the ‘destroyers. In the process they also free other groups who are then offered the choice of returning (© their homes or joining with their rescuers in the liberation struggle. Armah’s warning is that their real enemy, the eternal middlemen among their own Kind, are merely waiting totellthem off aguin. Thoxe who fail to recognive this reality encounter their fate, as predicted. The physical action becomes a parable for the ‘rippling nostalgia which drags society back into an ‘unreal pat Iis one ofthe strongest themes of the book And stich hankerings are contrarted with a concerted purposed preparation for a return to Anca, the original home of the fugitive band: the physical road to Anoa ie thor rendered separate from the ideological road, Monarehy is quieytindermined by its historical recon struction: the past of kings isnot the real past the kings stand revealed 2s part of the historical rupture, stooges Drought into existence through the agency of the incoming marauders who needed puppet figures of arbitrary authority to bargain with for slaves and trade ‘monopolies, mercensries who could be armed and sup. Ported and set upon neighbouring peoples and their ‘own subjects alike, The universally applicable eal is constandy verified by recourse to such known historic Inetances, The frame of absurdity is used to shatter Antisocial notions, such as the sanctity of property Hs{deology and the socal vision (2) For the firs time among ws one man tried to warn the land into something cut apart and owned. It as asked what next the greedy would think to own — the air? (p. 100) For the modémn African who has watched the principle of communal land-ovnership crumble before the rapac: fous march of development monopoly, the process seeme afterall reversible. But Armah is nothing if not realise: ‘An anknovn avenger sent him hurrying to face the ‘wrath of his ancestors, but that was not the end of the greed of kings. (pp. 100-1) ‘There are of course serious weaknesses in the book The long seersrun overture occasionally creaks, and Armah's prose style appears unequal to the task of ‘eapturingaction and rendering ttotally convincing. This weakness often tends to make the book read like an adventure story. But his protagonists remain convincing Visionaries of society, monly because Armah makes no. Concessions in this unusual book, not even tothe rhetoric fof revolution to which lesser writers so readily succumb. Its vision is secular and humane, despising alike the flatulence of religious piety ad its proselyising aggres sivenes, insisting on a strict selectivity from the past in the designing of the future. There is evident impatience ‘with the state of racial enervation which is Armah's terpretation of the unquestioning submission to ia posed history, religion and culture and the consequent (xteiorised self-definition, Most remarkable ofall in book which is hardly squeamish in its depiction of violence, is Armah's insistence on a revohitionary ine sty, a refusal to be trapped into promoting the in- Greaingly fashionable theworic of violence for its ows sake, The foundation of this physical caution is aid in the matrix of a philosophy that he elicits from a now a4 Ideology and the social vision 2) familiarised past and makes « condition for a tenable future, This humanistic recourse to proportion and the principle of totaliam in the book’ssummation rationalses the nature of struggle. Violence, death, destruction and sacrifice are acceptable, but the part, the motion or the act cannot be elevated above the whole: We do not utter praise of arms. The praise of arms is the praise of things, and what shall we call the soul crawling 20 low, sul x0 hollow it finds fulfilment in the praising of mere things? Its not things we praite fm our utterance, not arma we praise but the living relationship iteelf of those United in the use ofall things against the white sway of death, for creation’ life... Whatever thing. ‘whatever relationship, whatever consciousness takes Us along paths closer to our way, whatever goes againse the white destroyers’ empire, that ing is beautiful, that relationship only ts eruthful, that consciousness alone ha satisfaction for the stil Tiving mind. (p. 320) “The secular vision in African creative writing is part- ‘ularly aggressive wherever t combines the re-creation fof a pre-colonial African world-view with clicking its transporable ‘elements into a modern potential. ‘The process may be explicit as in Armah's Two Thousand Seasons, or, a4 in Sembene, may rely on the reader ‘capacity for projection. The shared knowledge of what now exists and the prior assumption of a readership subjectively attuned to the significations of posed com: partons i part of the armoury of the novel wh Gepending on the morales ofthe conflicts and events, does away with the need Tor utopian presentations. Assuming’ an unsympathetic readership, it remains threat, a potent one, because its justifying paradigm has wthentic heritage ofthat society the more dangerous it appears 15leology and the social vision (2) to be: when, at in Sembene, the subject is a recent historic actuality, the author can expect classification a8 security risk. Sometimes, because of the stave ap. pearance of the novel's xocial moralities, itis dismissed as harmless ~ Armas eatler Work The Beautyful Ones dare Not Yer Born (Heinemann, 1969) may be placed in this category. Despite its eridcism of sodal values and their pursuit at a particularly delicate period of his ‘country's post-colonial history, iy excoriation of internal Social corruption, because expanded into neatly meta- physical dimensions may, beyond banal protests at such Watering portraits of a young sation, awaken no anxiety in the establishment such as might arse from a ‘irecly contradicting socal vision, The vision is there nevertheless, and is perhaps more subtly subversive than in his later explict work, Two Thousand Seasons. The Vision of The Beautyful Ones is perhaps no more than an aspiration, a pious hope symbolised in that final image ‘of the novel -"acringle Nower, solitary, unexplainable, ‘ery beautiful in the centre ofthe inscription onthe back ‘of a mamnmy-waggon which reads: TH BRAUTYPUL- ONES ‘ARE vor ver noms. This pessimistic siggestion bears the possibilty of ite own hopeful contradiction, an accurate ummation of society only too wellunderstood by Armah {and expressed in the main action of the book through the solitary, beleaguered representative of moral possi Hides, the central character (and his friend, the Tea ‘cher). There is aso the hopeful portent inherent in the physical and moral collape ofthe “unbeautyful’ ones as bistory revengesitself on them. Without miring ourselves in Armah's appropriately satological metaphor, there is 44 readiness of association which transfers the image of the flower to an excremental genesis, personalising itt symbolism in the character of the unnamed hero. ‘After that work Ayi Kerei Armah had toatternpt to give birch to the ‘beausyful'in he creative progression of Tro Thousand Seasons. Ousmane Sembene performs asi 16 Ideology and the social vision (2) lar midwife role in his God's Bits of Wood (Heinemann, 1970) a powerful reconstruction of a strike by African railway workers in roq7- It ie a work which reaches beyond mere narrative in its meticulous delineation of Ihuman strengths and weaknesses, heroism and com: smunal solidarity, and ic atains epic levels. As with al good epics, humanity is re-created, ‘The social com- munity acquires archetypal dimensions. and heroes become deities. Even Penda the prostitute i apotheo- shed ‘The remote, enigmatic Ihakayako is a Promethean creation, a replacement for outworn deities who have the misfortune to lore their relevance in a colonial world ‘Amoral in die mundane sense of the word, Bakayako appears to be sculpted out of pure intellect and oma science. Not merely because the established Islamic Voice inthe community is shown to be treacherous and reac: ‘onary but because Bakayakois portrayed aeunderstand- ing and controlling the future (or at least the path towards it he supersedes allexisting moralauthority and. Forges, through his inflexible wil, he unique community of the Railway Line into a force that robs the other deity, the Colonial Super-reaity, of ts power. Of course the portraiture of Bakayoko is somewhat romantiied hecestarily so. He is a man of mystery, irresistible wo ‘women and dominating to all. To the precocious child Ad’jbidt he is perfection, manifestly superior to all humanity around him. And he represents a gifted world that she only vaguely feels. He tends to the poetic, and his perception of the world takes from his own innate {grandeurt ‘She looks ike the bronze masks of a goddess ff Ife" he remarks ofthe girl whose heart he is about to break. Thus, the world and his people are constantly transformed with his own reflective glow. But Bayayoko js not a cloud-treading deity: his strength lies in a realistic location among the fesh and blood of an em- battled humanity. The touches of traditional mores and 5 “7 ro{Ideology and the socal vision (2) relationships are subte but telling; they are never per- ‘mitted to harbour a suspicion of the exotic but emerge naturally from the actwalities that surround him. ‘Tha, at the erucal rally in Dakar, just before he mounts the platform, an old woman comes up to him and asks if he fill har ® mother, Bakayoko says he has none, “From today on, then’ she says simply, “I will be your mother If you stay in Dakar, my son, come to live with me. ‘There will always be a place for you.” ‘We are made conscious ofa new society in the process of coming to birth. Sembene's ideology is implicit, he ‘doer not allow its rhetorical intrusion, but makes it ‘organic to the process of birth. The strategy of serugale ‘determines che one ideological resolution, translate it hhow one wil. An egalitarian discipline has been enforced ‘upon the community by the goals and the ordeals ofthe surike, by the knowledge of colonial indignity with its Imposition of an inferior status on the indigene, its wage-discrimination and inadequate socal facies. In spite of th talk of books, the widening of foreign know. ‘edge and the usual paraphernalia which accompany the process of external indoctrination, de emphasis of social egeneration is carefully laid on the inteinsc ethical Droperties of existing society cheir adaptation and uni- ‘ermal relations. Rey events are brought into being by this adaptive process, making both of revolution and the merging soclal structures a growth process which can be described as culy indigenous So the tal of Diara the strike-breaker develops, both in its origination and its esolution, into a process of education for the entire ‘community The agonising of Tiemoko, secretary of the strike ‘committee in Bamako is symbolic of the whole proces. His meticulous. preparation, coupled with his doubes cover the tral of the elderly Diara is pathetic and even ‘comic, but itis mich like the anguish of birth. The ‘earlier measures against strike-reakers have proved. ne Ideology and the social vision (2) inadequate; commando squads for administering beat ings to the recalcitrant seem temporary and ardifcal Tiemoko instinctively gropes towards the seminal. He finds it in the missing practices of his people, guided towards this appreciation by an adherence to traditional codes of conduct in which he finds no contradiction to Bakayoko's telectve lessons from external wisdoms. ‘It fs not necessary 10 be right to argue, he intones like a any, butto win itis necessary both tbe rightand never to falter The phrase is from his foreign catalogue, but slmltaneously he refused to depart from norms which represent for him a aditional foundation of communal cohesion: Look, Sadio, your father is my father’s brother; you are miy cousin. Your honour i alo mine; your family’s shame is my family’s, and the same of our ‘whole country, the dishonour ofall our families together. That is why we eannot beat your father. (God's Bite of Wood, p. 120) This refusal, however, is Inter revealed not to be & nepotist compromise; it derives from the appropria: teneas of the nature of punishment tothe notion of the ‘human being as inseparable from his socal context, not aasacipher inarevolutionary formula. Diara'sson indeed Considers the alternative punishment far more severe ‘han the beating. Tid rather die’ he declares. For his part ‘Tiemoko, who has set the entire process in motion and brings i ta conclusion, declares to Bakayoko's father (Gand we believe him) IF icwas my own father, I would do it Fa Keita; T swear iton the tomb of my ancestors! And if were you, Ibrahim Bakayoko would do the same thing (129) When at last he has convinced his colleagues on the ‘committee of the appropriateness of this methods, he ng 5Heology and the socal vision (2) bursts aloud into an ancient Bambara hyma to the founder of the empire of Mali, the Soundiata, We are Deing inducted into the founding of an ideological state, drawing upon the humane structures and ethies of the ‘past The mutual complementarity constant; Sembene, rawing educative attention tothe positive values of & “way of thinking’ among the coubabs (he white foreign: 13) founds his new soctetyon the positive n traditional consciousness. The famous tribunal which is convened from Tiemoko's recollection of similar practices from "a book writen in the white man's language’ leaves the pronouncement of a verdict to traditional wisdom, Impressively and effectively. Fa Keita, wha proposes t verdict, i only incidentally a deeply religious man, a Moslem, and the antithesis of the facliving collaborator EIHadki Mabigue. The proceedings are kept secular. Fa Keit's utterance at that tial borrows nothing from jous wisdom but from 2 shrewd human psychology and a belie in the vanishing values of a traditional framework, an order that was our own’, the existence fof which wat ‘of great importance in our lives” He strikes the right chord and the community silendy adopts his verdict, ‘As with most writing that concerns itself with the process of an organie revolution, the colonial agents, though they form an important component of the con fc, are paid only grudging attention. Their appearance is reduced in scale to enlarge the positive emergence of the indigenous. Though their presence and actions lay the ground for the conflic, they are reduced to the proportional relations of catalysts; thei fate is of no Interest to the author except in 0 far as it may by contrast illuminate the virtes of the neve vision of society. Sembene isa contrast here to Ayi Kwei Armah whose weeding operation forthe foundations ofthe new City gives venomous prominence to the existence of the alien obstacle, Not even the sadism of the racial mongrel Ideology and the social vision (2) Iernadini survives the overwhelming reality of Sem Tbene's community of the Savanah. The stoicem of his tos isthe lating image, ae was their weakness and Internal treachery ithe confrontation with colonial te- pression. Sembene's tle concesion to the justice of Fetribution appears tobe couched - again in contrast 9 ‘Armah in the objective illetration provided by the denouement of the march om the Vatican’, the Euro. n quarters, namely, that the colonial” oppressor Exries with hima the seeds of his own destracton, In Succeeding so well in making the white presence irel Cranttothe deeper processes ota people's historyandthe reformulation of their interrupted identity, Sembene $ppears to bear out the words ofthe Legend of Gouba, ihe song with which, siglicanly, he ends the novel: From one sum to another ‘The combat lasted, ‘And fighting together, blood-covered They transfixed their enemies Bur happy is the man who does bacte without hatred. (p. 333), We will use Camara Laye to sum up this process of artistic retrieval, though a number of African critics have ‘succeeded in making his work controversial To recapi tulate briefly, the secular imagination recreates existing rythology (or demonology according to Stoddard) Since even the most eroterie world of symbols, ethics, and values must originate somewhere, the authentic images of African reality give such writers a decisive imaginative liberation. ‘They are familiar and closest to hand; they are not governed by rigid orthodoxies such as obtain in Islamic-and Christan-orientated matrices of symbols & natural syncretism and the continuing process of this Activity i the reality of African metaphysical ystems; the protean nature of the symbols of African metaphysics,{deology and the socal vision (2) whether expressed in the idiom of deities, nature events, Iatter or artifact, are an obvious boom to the fll low of the imagination, ‘These are suficient reasons why the ‘African writer has begun to gentiflect less and less towards the Ialamie or Christian literary aleare in spite fof their undeniable attractions, The grounding of the writers societal explorations and their expositions, his histori bearings and visionary exploration cannot for Tong ignore this private harvest, indeed, the process has already begun. Camara Laye’s infusion of the mystic properties of the very instruments of eraft, the mani ested relationship between fle, word, activity and the ‘objective world creates a total cosmogoniec harmony throughout his elegiae work The Dark Child (Collins, gis) Iti a deft exposition of the African world-view and differs radially rom the other world-views towhich ‘we have already referred. If it were at all posible we vould use this expression, ‘world-view’ in preference to "Veligion’ wherever the aesthetic revelations of this i ‘erature come under consideration, for the former ex- pression is more evocative of fundamental cosmogenic acceptances, especially forthe African reality, Incontrast, to what would be called strictly religious processes in other societies, the harmonisation of human functions, ‘external phenomena and supernatural sippostions ‘within individual consciousness emerges as normal self-adjusting process in the African temper of mind Where, or instance, the mediation of ritual is required, it s performed a5 a human (communal) acivity, not 35 fa space-directed act of worship. This is what leads to a preference for a ‘world-view’, a cosmic toaliam, rather than ‘religion’. And the lterature that is based on this ‘conception differs from others by betrayingan exaltation fof constandy revolving relationships between man and his environment above a rigid pattern of existence man. dated by exteriorised deities, ‘Less obviously than in hisear sr work The Dark Child, Ideology and the socal vision (2) "The Radiance of the King marks the summative expos tion of this view-* Casting an outsider, Clarence, in the ‘central role, Camara Lave proceeds to draw outa quin- tesence of values from a far larger and certainly more ‘aried world-view of traditional Africa than was possible in his semi-autobiographical novel. ‘The procest carries an implicit revaluation, a revolutonary undertaking I the context of existing iteratureon Africa atitstime. The device itself is a reversal of the expected; the explorer nto the African unknown i an antihero, a counter- Shrobenius figure who is not permitted to interpret the continent to its inhabitants, The territory remains an located, anthropological specifctiesareignored: Camara Laye’s private mythology fills up the terrain, wtlsing credible norms of socal relationshipe, The central event is realy a process of education: Clarence’s Western form of rationality cannot be applied to the systems he en: ‘counters; hs values are useless, his skills ivelevant. Yet the system works for the members of the community. it demonstrably harmonises, it offers fulfilment for the individwal within the society and binds man and his environment into a complementary existence. Clarence finds that his self-evaluation bears no correspondence to the needs and judgement of thi strange environment, His selfeescent i gradually eroded, his price falls rapidly, anti at last he i prepared to accept any task however menial ~ ‘even a drummer-boy’. His edu §s, however, atl incomplete. Drumming, he lear highly complex at, involving careful selection, caining. and hierarchies, including its functional integration into the comprehensive understanding of society. Above all, itdelves into the essence of things from which alone the hh, a white (alien) sensibility, hope ever to elicit from the ‘drum that inner world of meaning. Unlocalised though 4 camara Laye, The Radince of the ing, ratdlated by James Kip, Cain London, tg 3Ideology and the socal vision (2) the terrain of action is, Camara Laye employs such texpositional devices of art and functionality to flesh out hie mysterious African world. The ceremonial of king- ship serve this end, among others, So is the creative ‘redo of Diallo the blacksmith, litle yelf-consciously perhaps, but nevertheless part ofthe attempt to evoke the ‘esential” dimension of creative manifestations such as for example, underlies the Figuration of a deity in African sculpeue, ‘Purged finaly of most of his cultural accretions, lar ‘ence discovers that what he bias been led to believe was 4 period of impatient but comfortable expectation of the king was indeed the period ofhis productivity. Unknown to him, he has already fulfilled his destiny in his new society, that ofa stud in the harem ofthe naba, to whom 4 wily beggar bad sold him as a slave. A tempting interpretation of this episode is that Clarence has merely fulfilled the historic destiny of the white coloniser, the spreading of blotches of miscegenated culture on the continent. Or perhaps Camara Laye has set out to give 4 twist to the sermons of cultural symbiont sich a Senghor's, so that the leaven is now white (and stil rmetallic?) and the dough black ‘The realities of this African world are by no means Acodorised, though the language of mundane tivia often acquires hints of mystical import. Camara Laye's central objective i the re-establishment of a cobesive eultura realty, with its implicit validation and imper: Viousness to explication through external world-view ‘The logic that holds discourse together is an admixeure ‘of Zen and the gnomic utterances of African divination “iia perhaps? Penetration of Laye's African world is possible only from a passive immersion in ts ealty; each Seemingly disparate manifestation of tha realty is indis- pensable to is Tullnes of separation from the occidental tworld, and frou the traditional one-dimensional concep- tion of African reality, a largely anthropological crea 4 cology and the socal vision 2) tion. This later attribute of Laye's reconstruction is as Important, dearly, o the author asits confrontation with a Western sense of realty. The point has been missed by several of Camara Laye's crite: or perhaps not. The implicit challenge even to the indigene of the African world is perhaps unacceptable, namely that he delve eeper into the essence of what he so readily takes for granted. It threatens his own imaginative security, his ‘Confident sense of identification and belonging. William Conton's world in The African is, for such erties, truer world, les demanding, verifiable from statistics in tourist Brochures, ‘Some ofthe strictures aguinst Laye's workare of course only too true, Parts of the novel are too derivative, ‘especialy from Kafka. A crticat x conference table once Tet out an anguished cry which I recognised as coming from the heart: "But how can an African write like Kafka?” The answer is, why not? But that does not make it necessary to be so derivative that one can, asin The Radiance of the King, actaly point to character trans: potions, But that critics preseription for the and. Katkacsque was, like that of Camara Laye's most persis tent critce in Presence Africaine, the presenjation of African society where every piece of thatch is clearly delineated and every royal praite-song available in UNESCO recordings. The Radiance of the King tans cends the merely apparent, the pecks at anthropology to construct a quast mythological existence with the es tence of realty. In presenting a lost or hidden model Je poses a paradigm of the deeper Afvican realiy, al mysterious and complex paradigm in opposition to the simplisic and the naturalistic, the immediately accesible, In one of his rare replies to his critics (Africa Report 17 May 1972) Camara Laye asserts that he has concerned himself with eliciting certain valves from traditional African society. By highlighting besein alirmation of black civilisation, he was, he felt, initating 5Ideology and the social vision (2) 1 process of revaluation which was itself revolutionary in the anti-colonial situation. This was sad in selerence to LEnfant Noir. What concerns me most isthe timeless {quality of the specific values of our culture’, The elicica- ton of that “timeless quality” isthe methodology of the latter work. Despite the mystical effusion at the end, the aesthetics of the novel are secular, based on the har- monies of social relationships and htiman functions. The Radiance of the King remains our earliest imaginative effort cowards a modern literary aesthetic thats unques onably African, and sectlar The question must now be confronted: How comes it then that despite the extolled sel apprehending virtues (of these and other works, it is pombe to entertain a hostile asitude towards the programmatic summation in the secular vision of Negritude? There is none of these ‘works whose ideals may not be interpreted asthe realsa- tion of the principles of race-retieval which are em: bodied in the concept of Negritude, yet Negrtude continues to arouse more than a mere semantic im patience among the later generation of African writers And intellectuals, in addition to ~ le this be remembered “Serious qualifications of, or tactical withdraveal from the full conception of Negritude by a number of writers ‘who assisted at its origin, The vision of Negritude should never be underesti- ‘mated or belitded. What went wrong with itis contained in whae 1 earlier expressed a8 the contrivance of creative ideology and its falsified basis of identification ‘with the social vision. Tie vision in itself was that of restiution and re-engineering of a racial peyche, the establishment of a distinet-human entity and. the glorification of its long-suppressed acributes. (On an even longer-term basis, a¢ universal alliance with the ‘world’s dispossessed.) In attempting to. achieve chs laudable goal however, Negritude proceeded along the 16 deology and the social vision (2) route of over simplification. Itsre-entrenchmentof black vahies was not preceded by any profornd effort to enter into this African system of values, Te extolle parent. Its reference points took far too much from European ideas even while its. Mest ‘nounced themselves fanatically African, In attempting 0 refute the evaluation to which black reality had been subjected, Negritude adopted the Manichean tradition, ‘of European thought and inflicted iton a culture which 's most radically anti-Manichean. Itnotonly accepted the, dialectical structure of European ideological contronta- tions but borrowed from the very components itsracist syllog By way of elaboration, let us extend Sartre's grading lof Negritude asthe minor term ofa dialectical progres sion’. The “theoretical and_ practical astertion of the ‘supremacy of the white man i is thesis; the position of negritude as an antithetical value is the bottom of negativity"? ‘This was the positon in which Negritude found itself; we will now pote a pai of syllogism from the racist philorophy that provoked i into being: (a) Analytical thought ic a mark of high human derelopaent The Earopean employs analytical though Therefore se European i highly developed. (2) Analyt thought 8 mark of igh human development ‘The African i incapable of analytical thought Therefore the African snot highly developed (For ‘analytical thought” substitute scientific inventive- os (eae tee, 7{Ideology and the social vision (2) cit, jing progression inition of se oo logs need not be dwelt upon: the Buropean is high Atveloped the African nc therefore ce Savery eed ‘oni took their base justcation from such pal bly fale premises. But the wemper of the times (ost the liberal conscience of Europe and the new assr- tivenes ofthe victims of Eurocentric daeciy) required 4 rephrasing of premises and concusions~ preferably Sf course, cven far liberal Europe, the conclusions ony. [Negritude strangely lent approval this partial metho= dbology accepting in fll the premise of both sogtms and the conclusion of a), justifying Sartre'scommentary {hat the theoretical and prac sserion ofthe spre macy ofthe white man was the tacitly adopted thesis, end fang uuerly to demnlith ic The concision of (2) was never challenged, though attempts were made fo give few definitions to what constitutes high development The method there was to reconstruct (2) aogether, while Teaving (afta "This was the nial error Negr- tude did not bother to fee the black races from the burden ofits acceptance. Even the second premise of (a) "The European employs analytical thought is falsely posed. for i already implies racial separa ism which provides the main argument. Is the entre xercse nat rendered futile ine substted for this, ‘Man is ‘capable of analytical thought? ‘The Neg: todinists did not; they accepted the batdeground of Eurocentric prejudies and racial chauvinism, and moved to replace sjlogiem ) with an amended (0 Lomitive unders development. ‘The African employs intuitive understanding, ‘Therefore the African is highly developed ding is also a mark of human (For “intitive understanding’ substitute the dance, rhythm ete) oy Ideology and the socal vision (2) The dialectic progression which moved, logically ‘enough, from this amendment, potting the attractive universality of Negritude, was bated on (a) and (@). ‘esultingina symbiotic human culture -theblackleaven in the white metallic loaf. How could the mistake ever have been made that the new propositions in (o) wiped away the inherent insult of (0), which was merely 2 ‘development ofthe racist assumptions of (2)? They sid, ‘oh yes, the Gobineaus of the world are right; Africans neither think nor construc, burt doesn't matter because “Noilil-they intuit! And so they moved to construct romantic edifice, confident that its rhythmic echoes ‘would drown the repugnant condusion of proposition (@), which of course simply refused to go away. How could i, when its premises were constantly reinforced by affirmations such as this Emotive sensitivity. Emotion is completely Negro as reason is Greek Water rippled by every breeze? Unsheltered soul blown by every wind, whose fruit often drops before itis ripe? Ves, in one way, The Negro is richer in gifts than in works? This is not, judging by the literature and the tracts hich emerged from Negritude, an unfairextract. Negri tude trapped itelf in what was primarily a defensive role, even though its accents were strident, ity syntax hyperbolic and its strategy aggressive. It accepted one of the most commonplace blasphemies of racism, that the black man has nothing between his ears, and proceeded osubvert che power of poetry to glorify ths fabricated justification of European cultural domination. Suddenly, ‘we were exhorted to give a cheer for those who never invented anything, cheer for those who never explored the oceans. The truth, however, is that there isn't any such creature. Aneven more distressing deduction which tscaped the euphoricists of such negativiam is chat they, 139Ideology and the social vision (2) oct, had ened themselves into fadators of creative Euncadon. They Suggest something which i indeed ten tothe African woldiew: that thereare watroght Categories ofthe eeative pi that creativity hot ome smooth lowing wuree of human regeneration, The very idea of separating the maniestatons of the human genius i foreign to the African world-ew, Se fhgaon he acl ty which an ail treated ofcourse something ete, and is equally alien tothe African creative spirit but the Neeitsanis were hot referring wo that. Their propaganda for creative feparatim went much deeper, Ad one offi unfor: tunate by-product war 8 outing narcasnn which involved contemplation of the contrived set in the sup. Doved tragic grandeur of the cultural dilemma Th titel athe Bt veins of sich pay, ne Here we stand infants cverblown Poised between two cvientions Ending the balance irksome iching for something to happen to dp te one way o the ouner roping in the dark for helping hand Sod anding non tired, © ny God, Ym ted, tired of hanging in the mide way ~ E Some cites, through taking tht kind ofversication more seriou than could be warranted by guage o ‘omponion, try to seein it a criain phase of Uevelop- iment to which Negritude gave the deciive answer ‘Adrian Roscoe makes this suggestion in his Mother & Gold" 1 agree. This kind of poetry wat of course but where can vr Re ges, ee 30 Ideology and the socal vision (2) product of Negrisude, but not ofits practitioners, The Gicmma i telfcoracious, The question atthe tailend of the poem sounds rhetorical rif the writer hat no real inneres in the answer, Iwas part of & totally artifical angut fabricated by a handful of writers after Negritude Tevealed va them the very seductive notion that they had to commence a search for thelr Africanness. Unt then, they were never even aware that it was fusing. The Lrtunity to ereate alot of mileage out of this poten aly wagic lee wat too grt to mits unfortunatly at inthe abore example, was not alvays matched by the ete alent Porhie ‘was one of the unfortunate by-products of Negri: tude, the abyemal angst of low achievement. By coneast there were cxquiste nuggets of Iriccelebration in these ‘excavations of the vanishing racal psyche, such asthe following familar nes of Bayo Diop. They are some of the beat to have come from the Negrzudint move ment becaure the conviction they cary ir sellevident The poem isnot manifesto im verseslorm, nor does pretend tobe the summation of the comogonic view tech gave rae tok Itmay ocssonaly sound proyin Ing, at indeed most ofthe poctry ofthis movement docs, but iti the quiet enthusiaem of the initiate, the sharing instinct ofthe voive who has experienced immersion in 4 particular dimension of eaity and callout from within HME spiritual repletion, Because of te unusual (ical possession by an integral reality of the African worl, 1 Shall quote i in Ful Breath Listen more to things Than to words that are sid ‘The water's voice sings And the flame cries fad the wind that brings The wbode to sight Is the breathing of the dead, gteology and the social vision (2) ‘Those who are dead have never gone away. They are in the shadows darkening around, ‘They are in the shadows fading into day, ‘The dead are not under the ground, ‘They are in the trees that quiver, ‘They are in the woods that weep, They are inthe waters ofthe rivers, ‘They are in the waters that seep. They are in the crowds, they ae inthe homestead. ‘The dead are never dead. Listen more to things Than to words that are suid, ‘The water's voice singe [And the flame cries ‘And the wind that brings The woods 0 sighs Is the breathing of the dead. Who have ngt gone away Who are not under the ground Who are never dead, ‘Those who are dead have never gone away. They are atthe breast ofthe wife. ‘They are in the child’s ery of dismay And the firebrand bursting into life ‘The dead are not under the ground, ‘They are in the ie that burns low ‘They are in the grass with tears to shed, In the rock where whining winds blow ‘They are in the forest, they are in the homestead. The dead are never dead, Listen more to things Than to words that are sud ‘The water's voice sings And the flame cries ‘And the wind that brings 1g Ideology and the socal vision (2) ‘The woods to sighs Is the breathing of the dead ‘And repeats each day ‘The Covenant where itis said ‘That our fate is bound to the law, ‘And the Fated of the dead who are not dead ‘To the spirits of breath who are stronger than they. We are bound to Life by this harsh law ‘And by thie Covenant we are bound ‘To the deeds of the breathings that die Along the bed and the banks of the river, ‘To the deeds of the breaths that quiver In the rock chat whines and the grases that cry To the deeds of the breathings that le n the shadow that lightens and grows deep n the tre that shudders in the woods that weep. In the waters that flow and the waters that sleep, To the spirits of breath which are stronger than they ‘That have taken the breath of the deathless dead (Of the dead who have never gone away (Of the dead who are not now under the ground. Listen more to things Than to words thatare said ‘The waters vole sings [And the flame eres ‘And the wind that brings ‘The woods to sighs Is the breathing of the dead” Now such a poem conveys an important, even funda: mental aspect ofthe world-view of eadivional Africa and remains within this mandate. Diop does not suggest here that the African could not manufacture tools to help him dig a grave to the body ofthis undead dead, nor * reach Afcan Verve talc by John Raed and Clive Wake Heinemann, igh, pag 'Tbe poem Soules (rents) appear a Rio lp Lite Easus pune by Pesce Ac Pars (60. ‘38IMleology and the socal vision (2) that every medical effort is not made to keep the body alive und itis too late, Nor that the sickness and the treatment are determined by intvition rather than through long-evolved systems of medical rexearch and practice, herbal, surgical and psychiatri. Unfortunately the bulk of Negeitudinist poets were not content t9 con fine their re-definition of society inthis way Teshould not surprise us thatthe most dogmatie state ‘ments about the potential vision of Negritude were made by European intellectuals, And such satements are an ideological stab in the back. There was a kind of poetic justice in this. Negritude, having laid is cornerstone on a Furopean intellecwual tradition, however bravely it ‘ied to reverse is concepts (leaving its tenets untouch- ed), war 2 foundling deserving to be drawn into, nay, ‘even considered acase for benign adoption by European, Ideological interests. That itwas something which should ‘exist in its own ight, which deserved to be considered. 42 product and a vindication of a separate earth and CGuilstion did not occur to Jean-Paul Sartre who, pro posing the toast of Negritude proceeded literally to rink it under the table, Tt was not dificuk. Negritude ‘was already intoxicated by ts own presumptions Negritude is the low ebb in a dialectical progression, ‘The theoretical and practical assertion of white supremacy isthe thers; negritude’s role as an antithetical value js the negative stage, But this negative stage will not satisfy the Negroes who are cy are well aware of this. They nove ing for human synthesis or fulfilment in a raceless society. Negritude is destined o destroy itself; icis the path and the goal, the ‘means but not the e As Fanon cried out in anguish: “And so, itis not I who make a meaning for mysel, but its the meaning that ‘was already there, pre-existing, wating for me, 4 {deology and the social vision (2) And what is this end which Sartre envisages? The transcendence over racial concepts and alignenent with the proletarian struggle. Like all eologues who ignore the existence of pretend the non-existence of factors ‘which do not fi into the framework of an ideological projection, Sartre ignores the important face that Negri- tude was 2 creation by and for 8 small élite. ‘The search fora racial identity was conducted by and for aminuscule minority of uprooted individuals, not merely in Pars but inthe metrapolisof the French colonies. Atthesame dime a this historical phenomenon was taking place, a drive through the real Africa, among the real populace ofthe African world would have revealed that these millions hhad never at any time had cause to question the existence of their ~ Negritude, This is why, even in a country like Senegal where Negritude is the official ideology of the régime, cremains a curiosity for the bulk of the popula- tion and sn increasingly shopworn and dissociated ex: pression even among the younger intellectuals and Eerateurs ‘As for the pipe-dream of Sartre that it would pass through stages of development and merge itself within the context of the proletarian fight, one would have thought that was obvious enough that Negritude was the property of a bourgeois intellectual élite, and that there was therefore far greater likelihood that i would ‘become litle more than a diversionary weapon ia the eventual emergence ofa national revolutionary struggle ‘wherever the fag-bearers of Negritude represent the power holding elite. Sartre was not being naive, how ver. He had merely, ax would any confident ideologue, ‘lassfied thie colonial movement at springing from the intellectual conditioning of the mother culture; he rightly assumed that any movement founded on an Antithesie which responded to the Cartesian “I think therefore [ am’ with "I feel, therefore [ am’ must be subject to dialectical determinigin which made all hose 39,cology and the socal vision (2) who ‘are! obedient to laws formulated on the European historical experience. How was he to know, if the pro _onents of the universal vsion of Negritude themcives ddd not thatthe African world did not and need not Share the history of civilisations trapped in. politcal Manicheisms? The principle of denition in the African world system is far more circumspect, and constantly voids the substitution of the temporal partal function or quality for the extence of an active or inert socio- politcal totality. ‘The fundamental error was one of procedure: Negriude stayed within a pre-set system of Eurocentric intellectual analysis both of man and society and tied to re-define the African and his society in those ‘externaised terms. Tn the end, even the poetry of cele- bration for this supposed self-retrieval became indis tinguishable from the mainstream of French poetry. The autumn of the Rowers of evil had, through a shared tradition of excessive self-reyarding, become confused with the spring of African rebirth, Fanon's warning went tinheeded “To us, the man who adores the Negro is as ‘sick’ as the man who abominates him." But this problem does not apply to the Negritudinists lone. African intlleetualiam in general, and therefore ‘African attitudes to race and culture, have filed to come to gript with the very foundations of Eurocentric epi- stemology. Let us take this simple but basic example of the syllogistic method of enquiry, one which is applied 2s readily to mathematical or scientific propositions ato supposed veritie ranging from the origin ofthe universe to the fluctuating prioes of oil on the market. The basis this European intellectual tradition neceseavly admits we unprovable or the outright falsity, a fact demon strated in considerable meature by Europe's analysisand wn, Bick Stin White Masts, translated by C.t fai Landon gr pe. 136 {ddeology and the social vison (2) conclusions about other cultures and civilisations. This process of intellection requires the propagandist knack ot turing the unprovable into an authorive concep, indoctinaing scety into the acepaance ofa single, Simple citench sx governing any ounber of haman act tnd habis, evaluations and even babs of under Sanding." (Preudianism is one of che most notorious wodera examples.) The critrion proliferates, creates town special language and is micto-world of hierarch fub-concepts in’ am internally cohering patern. The European intellectual temperament appears to be bis torilly conducive to the inflation of such mono- titel Lis the responsiblity of today's rican intel {ual not ony to question theve criteria, but to avoid the tondisoning of the socal being by the mono-citerion tmethodlogy of Europe Sartre, for instances axis to prove thatthe idea of race can mingle with that of cas, writes the first (race) is concrete and particular, the second fs universal and abstract the ohe stems from what Jaspers cals understanding and the other from Intellecion: the first isthe result of a psychological syncretism and the second is a methodical ‘onstruction based on experience. From this he concludes that Negritude is destined to prepare the "synthesis or realization of the human in a foctety without races’. Now let us, from an Afrocentric Dias of concepts, examine the contrasting relations posed above. Does the racial selé-conception of the African really exclude the process of intellection? More eritically, js the reality of African social stricture ~from which alone “clars* can obtain concrete definition ~not thorough fusion of individual functional relations with ai lke me ore yas ago: eto wih ro ge ha {toms bok wa readinge edn boone wc bak 137leology and the socal vision (2) society, one that cannot be distinguished from a" prycho- logiealsyncretim’ of self and community, from smode of self conceiving that iential with hat of racial Belonging? The contrary not only unprovable Dut inconecivablein the traditional Asian vew of man, snd the question then remains: whether thiseonceptal tal ism cannot be rescued from European compartaentae lst intllece or must be subsumed by the more atertive culture in the "realization of the human in a society without race The inser, fr the Negritinist, aterly Became yes wo the setond option, predicay. For Nege tude, having yielded tothe seduction of syncbetc Euro- peat intellectalom, accepted the consequences that Ext the junior relaion in all diletc progress. Possessed, they tried to constrict the protean univers ism of the Avian experience into une obverse mono thecal appendage (Sarre eal i antes, naturally) of a particulars, unprovable and even eleva European criterion Vetus respond very imply, 8 Limagine our mythical brother innocent would respond in his vieginal village, pursuing hisinnocent sports suddenly confronted byte figure of Descartes in bis pith-helmet, engaged in the mision of piercing the jungle of the black prefogial mentalsy with his intellectual canoe, As our Cartesian host introduces himsel! by scribbling on our black Irother's~ naturally = tabula rasa the famous propos tion, "T think therefore Tam’, we should not respond, 2 the Negritudinists did with I fel, therefore Tam" for tha ito accept the arrogance of a philosophical cersiude that hes no foundation in the provable, ope which reduces the cosmic logic of being to a functional partcularism of being, T cannot imagine that our authentic Black innocent” would ever have permitted Nimslf to be manipulated into che false posdon of Countering one periciovs Manicheism with another. He would sooner, suspect, reduce our white explorer to 138 Ideology and the social vision (2) syntactical proportionsby responding: “Youthink, there- fore you are a thinker. You are onewho:thinks, white ‘creature in-pith-helmet-in-African-jungle-who-thinks land, finaly, white-wan-who-bas-problems-believing in hisowneexintence” And I cannot believe that he would arrive at that observation solely by intuition. 139