INTELLECTUM

... And the mother hen with wings widespread lay over to hatch the eggs. It was going to take a very long time but she was ready to wait. The sun mocked her; the rain discouraged her, hunger tempted her and the long hands of cold threatened to devour her but undeterred, the mother hen lay over the eggs. Her eyes twinkled with pain and sadness but her beak glittered with joy and hope. She knew everything and she buried them in her heart. Ontop of the golden eggs she lay, waiting, searching and praying... On that fateful morning admist weariness and fatigue, the mother hen heard a crack. She looked, she smiled, she laughed and she began to cry. First she saw the beak, silver in colour. Next she saw the head and the watery feathers...cracking the egg...one she counted, her eyes shimmering with fulfilment. She was about to run off when she noticed the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, oh! Each chattering and calling her name...they have come to life; they will live and make money... she refused to cry, she refused to make a sound, with joy she watched the chicks break the shells and jump into life with health and vitality. In their chirping voices she knew the story will be told... MAKA CHI, THE STORY WILL BE TOLD. ©PETEROSITA.

CULTURAL WAR: NIGERIAN (AFRICAN) CULTURE VERSUS COLONIALISM.

By

OSITA PETER ABUCHI.

Before the Nigerian–Biafran civil war, there was the cultural war between colonialism and her legacies, especially the ones that tend to erode the culture of the natives, on one hand, and the African culture on the other. The central focus in the Nigerian Nationalist songs of Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Anthony Enaharo, Obafemi Awolowo, among others, was “see us to have something to show”. Part of this was the deliberate unpopular use of their colonial names by some of the Nationalists, for example, Benjamin to Azikiwe and Jeremiah to Awolowo. At the peak of this cultural/ nationalist fever in the late 1950s, the literary icon, Chinua Achebe, came out with his epic Things Fall Apart in 1958 and followed it four years later in 1962 with Arrow of God. These are novels of cultural re-affirmation. In these novels Achebe captures the rhythms of the way of life of his Igbo people (their politics, economy, socio-cultural and religious stands). In the words of Emelia Oko (2005), these novels (Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God) concretise “ the essence of a way that was still vital , even if discredited by the foreigner” (p.13). She adds that, the heroes in these novels, Okonkwo and Ezeulu, “immortalise that old Igbo traditional independence and pride that could assert unequivocally that men were not born for servitude” (p.57). Achebe’s assertion in his famous article “The Novelist as Teacher” (1975), is a summation of the literary artistic response to this cultural war. Achebe had said: I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my people that their past with all its imperfections―was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them (p.45). Other Nigerian novelists, especially who wrote before the war and published by Heinemann under African Writers Series, were inspired to tread the cultural path, to use literature to explore, examine and conceptualise their Nigerian (African) culture. Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966), John Munonye’s The Only Son (1966), Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) are illustrative. Amadi’s The Concubine tells the story of Ihuoma, a beautiful and virtuous woman but whose husbands must die because of her entanglement with a spirit spouse. What is of note here is that the myths are part of the spiritual essence of the African people. The same spiritual dynamics are also employed in Efuru. Though feminist scholars have almost monopolised the novel now critically (Conde, 1972; Ezeigbo, 1996), Efuru demonstrates the interplay of the physical and the spiritual in the life of an African woman. Before these novels, Amos Tutuola’s novels especially 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' (1954) has been a story of an African way of life. Spirits, demons, ghosts, trees, forests, play their roles in human existence. Each element must be respected and its ‘territorial integrity’ recognised. My Life ... shows “the people’s belief about the spiritual world and what happens to a mortal who wanders into the ‘bad bush’ and the world of ghosts” (Zell, Bundy & Coulon, p.174). In the drama medium, Wole Soyinka and J. P. Clark became household names. Soyinka’s 'A Dance of the Forest' (1963), 'Death and the King’s Horseman' (1975) and 'The Strong Breed' (1971) are notable. These plays, especially the last two, were based on the Yoruba cosmological view of life after death; of the continuity of existence beyond the physical; of a life circle of the living, the dead and the unborn; of the dependency of one on the other(s). In 'Death and the King’s Horseman', there is a reenactment of the cultural war that took place in ancient Oyo in 1946, between Western culture represented by the District Officer on one hand, and traditional elements on the other. Once the king dies, his horseman, Elesin Oba, is to commit ritual su***de in order to continue his service to the king in the other world. In this particular instance, the District Officer intervenes and arrests Elesin Oba in order to stop the su***de. However, Elesin Oba’s son, Olunde, himself a product of Western education, takes his life in his father’s stead. Ola Rotimi’s uses Sophocle’s Odipus Rex to create a Yoruba myth in 'The Gods are Not to Blame' (1971). Here, again, the fate of man is attached to the decree of the gods and that is why every attempt by man to thwart the decree of the gods fails. Clark’s 'Ozidi' (1966) and 'The Masquerade' (1964) articulate the Ijaw system of existence and communality. Gabriel Okara’s poem “Piano and Drum” represents the poetic masterpiece in the cultural war between the indigenous and the foreign: piano for western cultures and drum for African traditional lifestyles.
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SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

WHEN I CONSIDER EVERYTHING THAT GROWS

When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
©PETER OSITA

"Americanah" is a book of great impact
and importance. This is a book about Africa and the African diasporic experience in the USA and England. A backdrop for the love story between Ifemelu and Obinze- teenagers attending a Nigerian university who have to leave the country because of the university strikes in Nigeria. Ifemelu moves to the States, where she attends an American university and starts a blog dealing with race issues in America, while Obinze moves to England and ends up becoming an illegal immigrant.
The book examines the intricacies of race, especially in the USA, as well as the issue
of immigration. It talks about the difference between being black in Africa and being black in the States. Adichie is seamless as she goes from country to country, from American to Nigerian, to Francophone African and English. She is a brilliant writer who gifts us with an entertaining story and introduces us to
very real characters. This book helps to show that immigrants have it tough; psychological
changes, changes to identity, the need to reinvent themselves so that they can “fit
in” and be accepted, and so on. Their issues often go unspoken. Adichie is very aware of the subtleties between cultures and she highlights them well. There were some things that she touched on that I’d thought about but
never really put in words. For example, people’s pity when they realize you’re African, and their need to talk about their charitable donations to the continent: "Ifemelu wanted, suddenly and
desperately, to be from the country of people who gave and not those who received; to be one of those who had and could therefore bask in the grace of having given; to be among those who could afford copious pity and empathy." Adichie isn't shy about bringing up
controversial issues, those that others keep silent about. For example, she explores the politics of natural hair among kinky hair: "I have natural kinky hair. Worn in cornrows, Afros, braids. No, it's not political. No, I am not an artist or poet or singer. Not an earth mother either. I just don't want relaxers in my hair...By the way, can we ban Afro wigs at Halloween? Afro is not costume, for God's sake." One thing I also loved was the fact that Adichie talked about Africans deciding to return to Africa after having lived abroad. She has Ifemelu saying, "And yet there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, a bleakness, a borderlessness. It brought with it amorphous longings, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she had lived." Perhaps contrary to popular belief, not all Africans in the diaspora are fleeing from Africa; many have questioned what they are doing abroad in the first place and want to move back home. A lot of people do not realize that Africa is growing and developing and that people might actually be happy to live there. Seeing the online
communication links between younger people from different African countries makes me feel hopeful that my generation will do great things in the continent. I love fiction in general but fiction with a message is even more appealing to me. This is a story with such importance on social commentary. All through the book I had moments in which I said "It's about time
someone addressed that!" On a critical look, thus, Adichie puts us into know, the standard of education in Nigeria as a result of bad governance. if perhaps there was nothing like 'strikes' in Nigeria, Ifemelu and Obinze wouldn't have faced those challenges in America and England. Finally, Adichie has done well but I don't like the ending. I had expected something from Obinze and Ifemelu... I waited and hoping to see both... but couldn't see it happen. THANKS AND... HAPPY READING!