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The Prophet of Zongo Street
Stories by Mohammed Naseehu Ali
This collection of short stories,
The Prophet of Zongo Street, is the most
wonderful group of short stories I have ever read. They
are of great variety, with their settings in both Kumasi,
Ghana and Brooklyn, New York. They are quite
contemporary tales even when they make use of
traditional tales like "The Story of Day and Night."
Their issues are indeed current: African-Arab-European
conflicts; critiques of religion and their devotees;
immigrants feeling out of place in America; male-female
relationships in Ghana and America;
race and its ramifications—all in an African
context even when the action takes place in New York. I
am so fascinated by these stories I am reading them
again. The book deserves awards.
The story "The Prophet of Zongo
Street," for which the book is named, concerns itself
with a kind of African spiritualism, in the person of
its lead character, Kumi. The story is told through a
child's eye. Kumi loves children and he relates to them
better than adults. We find Kumi in the midst of a
personal and an intellectual crisis. Maybe they are both
the same. His wife has left him and taken his children.
At the same time he's troubled by the ruling ideologies,
which may indeed have had an impact on his family life.
Kumi is an African intellectual—a
philosopher and a theologian, as well as a prophet.
During the daylight hours he is a clerk, which provides
no satisfaction other than a paycheck. From this false
reality he withdraws to do "a serious study of the
history of mankind." He provides one of his young
friends with a book, Manifestations, "written in
1932 by one Anthony Mtoli, a self-proclaimed 'Africanist'
and 'Spiritualist'." Here's a passage in which his young
pupil responds to the book:
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The book called for a
universal black rebellion against "white
dominance," and was full of curses and
diatribes on Europeans, Arabs, and all
white-skinned people. It was shocking and
scary. I was brought up not only to revere
Arabs and their culture, but to see each of
them as a paragon of beauty, virtue, and
spirituality. Islam was my religion, and
Islam's prophet was himself Arab. At the
madrassa, or Islamic school, I was led to
believe that all white people were geniuses
and daredevils, and that Arabs were divine
among humans. And there I was, reading that
some "Arab Invaders" had once waged wars
against black people in West Africa, and in
the process of that war, had enslaved my
ancestors and forced them to convert to
Islam. For the first time I realized that
there actually was a period in history when
the people of my tribe, Hausa, weren't
Muslims at all. Before I read
Manifestations, I never doubted that
humanity itself began with Islam, and that
God had chosen a prophet among the Arabs
because they were morally and spiritually
superior to the rest of mankind. |
I can only wonder what actually goes
on or went on in the Islamic schools in West Africa. How
much of this fictional book in this fictional story
correspond to the actualities of Islamic life in Ghana.
We know the author himself comes out of this culture.
From other stories like "Rachmaninov" we can suspect
that the author himself, though rising from an Islamic
background is not an ideologue himself and in a sense
quite post-modern, that is, hip.
Kumi becomes mad, it seems, from the
perspective of his neighbors. he is no longer neat and
trim, gives up his job, locks himself away with his
books and grows a beard:
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They saw Kumi pacing up
and down the street, holding a huge book,
from which he recited. His normally
clean-shaven face was now heavily bearded
and his hair was curled into short, thick
dreadlocks. Kumi had grown very skinny,
almost skeletal. he was barefoot and was
clad in a long white robe, with a red cotton
belt tied around his think waits.
Later that day, in the
afternoon, people flocked into our
neighborhood to listen to Kumi's sermons.
For a while he was entertaining. he danced
and chanted to praise T-gari, whom Kumi
claimed was the "supreme ruler of the
universe." Kumi made gestures, shrieked, and
stamped his feet on the ground in his
spiritual delight.
"I am only a messenger,"
he cried. "For hundreds of years you people
have been led astray. You have been made to
bow down to the images of false prophets and
abstract gods, thinking that you are bowing
down to the supreme ruler of the universe,
Ti-gari himself. Look around you here. Look
at the poverty in which you live; look at
the misery, the ignorance, the disease. And
yet you continue to worship their so-called
omnipotence and beneficent Gods . . . The
Christian slave traders told you that Jesus
is the son of God, and this Jesus, according
to them, is white. Meanwhile, the Islamic
Invaders had already arrived and told our
ancestors that it is because of the love of
only one human being by the name of Muhammad
that the world itself was created. You must
remember that this Muhammad is supposedly
white too, a white Arab."
Kumi claimed that
everything he preached was revealed to him
by the god of his new religion in nightly
visions. It drove me close to tears when I
stood among my junior secondary school mates
and watched as he raved. I tried to talk to
him at the end of his first preaching
session, but he acted as if I were a
complete stranger. That night I cried
silently before I went to sleep, careful not
to let my mother hear.
"Long before these
invaders came to our land, we had our own
gods, gods of our ancestor's ancestors. We
also had Ti-gari, who ruled over all the
gods and men in this universe. Unlike the
abstract god and partial gods brought to us
by these invaders, Ti-gari and the gods of
our ancestors are merciful, generous, and
sympathetic to the needs of people of all
races—ours
especially. Our ancestors used to live with
these gods, and with Ti-gari himself. They
talked face-to-face with the supreme ruler
in their shrines, and all their needs were
fulfilled. And then came the Muslims and
Christians with their gods! What did our
ancestors do? They quickly abandoned their
God, not knowing that these invaders had
come to them with scriptures in one hand and
a sword or chain hidden in the other, ready
to capture and take them away. The Christian
and Islamic intrusionists came and asked our
ancestors to look up into the sky, to look
up to Heaven, while they filled their ships
with our gold, young men and women, timber,
diamonds, cocoa—the list is endless. And
even to this very day, we continue to allow
them to strip us of our rightful and natural
possessions that have been bequeathed to us
by Ti-gari. Why can't we see the foolery?
Why can't we see the betrayal? Why do we
continue to take this insult? Why?" Kumi at
times seemed to lack answers for some of his
own profound questions. |
As you can imagine any man who ask
such profound questions with such passions is not long
for this world. The neighbors after awhile ignored him.
Kumi retired to his house and his books and they later
found him dead in his home.
"The
Prophet of Zongo Street " is the second story in this
book of tales. The stories only get better. I am also
fond of "The Manhood Test." Another story on religious
belief, "Faith" is surreal and wonderful. "Man Pass Man"
too is story about belief. In a sense all the stories
are about the belief and the challenge to beliefs once
place beside the reality of our lives.
The Prophet of Zongo Street is a must read book.—Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones:
A Journal
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Contents
The Story of Day and Night
1
The Prophet of Zongo Street
15
Live-In
33
The Manhood Test
53
The True Aryan
81
Ward G-4
97
Rachmaninov
117
Mallam Sile
149
Faith
169
Man Pass Man
183 |
Reviews
In the tradition of
rich African storytelling that mixes myth with
modernity,
The Prophet of Zongo Street is a dazzling
collection of stories that calls to mind Ben Okri and
Chinua Achebe. Mohammed Naseehu Ali, the tradition's
acclaimed new practitioner, offers up ten powerful and
beautifully rendered tales. Set primarily on the
fictitious Zongo Street -- a close-knit community of
wonderfully quirky characters who hold tight to
superstition, religion, and family -- these stories are
anchored by the uproarious, the embarrassing, the
poignant, and the rawest moments of life.
Peopling this
street are unforgettable portraits of humanity: Suraju,
Zongo Street's King Drunkard, whose extravagant scheme
to make a buck leaves him contemplating the afterlife;
and Kumi, the enigmatic Prophet of Zongo Street, who
teaches a young boy to finally ask questions of his
traditions and beliefs. Across the ocean, in the story
"Live-in," we find Shatu, a maid on Long Island, who
left Zongo Street for the promises of America, only to
find herself lonely, separated from her family, and cut
off from her community. In "Rachmaninov," the
well-meaning Felix struggles with America's love of the
exotic as he makes his way in New York City.
Desperately poor and whipped from one revolution to the
next, the men, women, and children of Zongo Street
nonetheless maintain their good humor and philosophic
outlook, even as they question the very bedrock that
underlies their modern culture. Confidently written and
highly imaginative,
The Prophet of Zongo Street heralds a new voice
in international fiction.—Publisher, HarperCollins
Direct
and rhythmic dexterous, Ali's writing has a kind of
folkloric quality I associate with African writers I
know well—Amos
Tutuola, for example. but I really love its politics and
philosophical intentions.—Rick Moody, author of
The Black Veil
Imagistic, muscular,
superb.—Barry Hannah, author of Airships and
Ray
Ali's style
is direct yet delicate, rhythmic, and uanced as it
struggles to balance the political with the
philosophical, the dark with the funny. A strong book.—Chris Abani, author of Graceland
Lively, polished . . . and
richly rewarding.—Kirkus
Review
Mohammed Naseehu
Ali, a native of Ghana, is—a writer and musician. A
graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and Bennington
College, Ali has published fiction and essays in The New
Yorker, the New York Times, Mississippi Review, Bomb,
Gathering of the Tribes, and Essence. He lives in
Brooklyn, New York.
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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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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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
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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