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Achebe Another Birthday in Exile
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye A couple of weeks ago, November 16, to be
precise, Professor Chinua Achebe, Africa’s best known writer,
the father and rallying point of African literature, and author
of the famous classic, Things Fall Apart, turned 75. Were Achebe
to be in Nigeria at this time, a day like this would certainly
have inspired a big literary event that would have immensely
enriched our seriously threatened literature.
But today, Achebe lives in
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, very far away from his nation,
Nigeria, whose well-being continues to occupy an upper wrung in
the famous author’s mind. It is true that Nigeria’s image
has benefited immensely from Achebe’s esteemed name, but what
it loses in not having the "big Masquerade" standing
more frequently on its soil cannot be quantified.
Since he became confined to a wheelchair
following the automobile accident he was involved in on a
Nigerian road in 1990, Achebe has lived in the United States,
where facilities and amenities that can keep him going in his
present state are taken from granted. Although, at no time have
I heard Achebe point to this factor as the principal reason for
his continued stay in the United States, it is easy to guess,
considering that since the unfortunate accident, he has stayed
away from his country more than he had ever done.
The quality medical attention which anyone in
Achebe’s condition would require to be active and productive
is just non- existent anywhere in Obasanjo’s Nigeria. We must
be worried that Nigeria, the self-styled giant of Africa,
despite its vast resources, especially, the intimidating oil
wealth, is incapable, in this twenty-first century, of
attracting and retaining its best brains and original thinkers
like Achebe at home, and benefiting from their quality
contributions to nation-building. I sincerely believe that were
Achebe to be a South African today, he would certainly have no
problems living in his country, despite his current state.
No, doubt, Chinua Achebe is Africa’s rare
gift to the world, and Nigeria should be glad that this giant
emerged from its loins. A focused and consistent writer, the
views expressed by Achebe in the sixties and seventies, as the
nature and boundaries of what is today known as African
literature were being meticulously defined, have remained valid
and timeless. They now constitute an invaluable reference
material for anyone seeking a better and reliable understanding
of Africa, its literature and culture.
Like I observed somewhere recently, while
"Achebe argued at forum after forum that African literature
is real, and that that is where he comfortably belongs, his
contemporaries were prostrate, cap in hand, before the European
"literary Lords" pleading to be accepted as
"international" and "universal" writers,
vowing and swearing that their Africanness was a mere
coincidence, and that they were too big to be confined within
the crude fences of African literary aesthetics.
Of course many got accepted, and some were
rewarded handsomely for saying and doing the "right"
things, and for intermittently throwing impotent "bomb
shells" aimed at discouraging the growth of African
literature, but the undeniable fact is that African literature
remains their only abiding identity today, and that without the
rescuing hand and landing space of African literature, many of
them would have since been lost in the dark, bottomless pit of
Euro-universalism." (see African Renaissance:
London, Vol. 2. No. 4 July/August 2005.)
With his novels, superb lectures and rich
essays, Achebe was able to compel the world to alter their
entrenched warped views about Africa. After a particularly
brilliant and spectacular speaking engagement in Canberra,
Australia, in the summer of 1973, Professor Manning Clark, a
distinguished Australian historian wrote to Achebe and pleaded:
"I hope you come back and speak again here, because we need
to lose the blinkers of our past. So come and help the young to
grow up without the prejudices of their forefathers..." I
find this display of sincerity very touching.
But the pain there is that while those on the
other side of the big divide were showing sufficient remorse for
their twisted perceptions of Africa, and letting their
"blinkers" fall off, to enable them improve their
long-blurred vision, our "big names down here, were, most
unfortunately, falling over themselves to "prove" with
every strength in them, that like our misguided African American
brother, Booker T. Washington, in his book, Up From Slavery
(which Ngugi said should have been called, Back To Slavery),
they are scared of losing their chains.
It is significant that Achebe did not allow
their distraction to make him lose focus. He is a serious-minded
pathfinder, and not an ovation-hungry noise maker. His
persistence and unwavering dedication to the cause he had
assigned to himself won the day for African literature. Today,
African literature is engaging serious attention and study in
several universities and colleges around the world, and
providing stable platform for those "international"
and "universal" spoilsports to assert their relevance
in the market place of ideas. But none bothers to think:
assuming Achebe had abandoned the struggle because of the great
distractions they had constituted at that time? No matter.
Bard College, New York, today enjoys the
singular honour of having Achebe on its staff list. It is clear
that they just want to be able to say to, "Look, Chinua
Achebe is here with us!" I can imagine the positive impact
and advancement that would accrue to literary scholarship in
Nigeria if Achebe’s name and looming image could be doing for
any university in Nigeria today what it is currently doing for
Bard College in far-away New York.
Now I am not denying that there are big
literary names in Nigeria, but we must hasten to ask ourselves
why those big conferences that made Nigeria the rallying point
of African literary discourse in those days, a position it has
since gracefully relinquished to its even less-endowed
neighbours, suddenly fizzled out after Achebe’s accident and
consequent residency in the US? After the famous Eagle on Iroko
Symposium in 1990 put together in Nsukka to mark Chinua
Achebe’s sixtieth birthday, has Nigeria ever witnessed any
other literary harvest of such magnitude?
Achebe saw the need early to form the
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) to provide Nigerian
writers stable platform for enriching interactions. I can
imagine what ANA would have been like if Achebe were to be
living in Nigeria today. ANA is Achebe’s baby, and nothing
would have been able to sap his interest in the organisation.
Were it not for the current incapacitation that has put a long
distance between him and ANA, definitely, Nigeria would still
have been playing host to big and enriching conferences, which
when organized around Achebe, would have been able to attract
distinguished writers from several parts of the world.
Yet from his base in New York, Achebe, the
patriot and statesman, is very much concerned about the crushing
burden under which his country labours. His rejection of a
National Honour last year was meant to compel the government to
rise to the challenge of responsible leadership and begin to fix
Nigeria. Indeed, that country is doomed where a government,
instead of seeking answers to its nation's multifarious problems
turns around to constitute its excruciating headache. Achebe had
placed his love for his country over and above the vulgar
reveling he was being invited to partake in Abuja. He had to
speak out, because, Nigeria, under Obasanjo’s watch has become
"too dangerous for silence."
To further underline his desire to seek
realistic solutions to Nigeria’s crushing problems, the Chinua
Achebe Foundation has assigned to itself the very timely and
patriotic task of engaging some prominent Nigerians in a vibrant
interaction aimed at motivating a better appreciation of the
countries present afflictions and finding valid answers to them.
The interviews which have been widely published in Nigerian
newspapers and several internet sites have been immensely
popular, and have provided very rewarding illuminations that are
rare and peculiar.
By this project, the Foundation is taking us
to the realm of ideas, from where great countries have emerged,
and it is hoped that Nigeria, with its solid reputation for
repudiating people and programmes that seek its good would
derive immense benefit from the Chinua Achebe Interview Project.
It is possible that our rulers in Abuja may
think that it is serves their interest better to have the likes
of Achebe in foreign lands. What a pity. Indeed, doomed is the
nation that leaves its best resources to nourish other nations,
while it continues to dry up and wither by the day.
Happy birthday, Prof Achebe. scruples2006@yahoo.com* * * *
*
Achebe
Links
Women
in Achebe’s World William
Butler Yeats: "The Second Coming" (1921) Achebe
Bio* * *
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Chinua Achebe wins $300,000 Gish prize—By
Philip Nwosu—Monday, September 27, 2010—The
author of the epic novel,
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe,
has emerged winner of the United States
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. The Gish
prize, which was established in 1994 by the
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust and
administered by JPMorgan Chase Bank as
trustee, is given annually to “a man or
woman who has made an outstanding
contribution to the beauty of the world and
to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of
life.” The prize is worth $300,000. . . .
Achebe’s writings examine African politics
and chronicle the ways in which African
culture and civilization have survived in
the post-colonial world. Some of his
acclaimed works include
A Man of the People (1966) and
Anthills of the Savannah (1988).
[The 80-year-old author has founded a number
of magazines for African art, fiction and
poetry.] Achebe, who is paralyzed from the
waist down due to a 1990 car accident, is
currently Professor of Africana Studies at
Brown University in Providence, Rhode
Island.—SunNewsOnline |
Again, Chinua Achebe
Rejects Nigerian Award—“The reasons for rejecting the offer
when it was first made have not been addressed let alone solved.
It is inappropriate to offer it again to me. I must therefore
regretfully decline the offer again,” Achebe said in the letter
which he reportedly sent to Nigeria Ambassador to the United
States. Achebe had in 2004 rejected offer of national award from
the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in
protest of the political situation in Nigeria and his native
Anambra State then.
The US based writer had in
the rejection letter he wrote to the then President noted that:
“I write this letter with a very heavy heart. For some time now
I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay. I have
watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where
a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in
high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a
bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness
of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the
Presidency.
“Forty three years ago, at
the first anniversary of Nigeria’s independence I was given the
first Nigerian National Trophy for Literature. In 1979, I
received two further honours—the Nigerian National Order of
Merit and the Order of the Federal Republic—and in 1999 the
first National Creativity Award.
“I accepted all these
honours fully aware that Nigeria was not perfect; but I had a
strong belief that we would outgrow our shortcomings under
leaders committed to uniting our diverse peoples. Nigeria’s
condition today under your watch is, however, too dangerous for
silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by
declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004
Honours List.”—PMNewsNigeria
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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posted 20 December 2005
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