The Sunday News
Micheal Mhlanga
There is nothing new about Parliament insurgencies in Zimbabwe nor anything inherently wrong with them.
Just the opposite, in fact, insurgencies have brought fresh ideas and renewed participation to the political system. So it is tempting to say, democracy is messy. The problem is not, however, that disruptions happen. The problem is that chaos syndrome wreaks havoc on the system’s ability to absorb and channel disruptions.
As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters.
The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. I draw lessons of the infamous and immature “walk out” by the Alliance MPs in the character of Okonkwo, who for example, resists the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not “manly” and that he himself will not be “manly” if he consents to join or even tolerate them.
To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status — the famous desperation to “belong” to democratic cabals that are not.
Okwonkwo’s sense of self-worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.
The villagers (Alliance voters) in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the missionaries bring.
This European influence, however, threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable.
Throughout the novel, the doyen of literature, Chinua Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions. NoViolet Bulawayo, like Achebe, terms it the “need” for “new names”, referring to spheres of a need for change, which some fear and violently reject.
They are nurturing violence
Met with mixed emotions, the “walk out” during the State of the Nation Address invited a conclusion that the act is violent and was “violence” in its other form.
Achebe, illustrates to us through the resilient and violent character. What I have learnt over time is that cultural and social norms are highly influential in shaping individual behaviour, including the use of violence. In the African philosophy class, I learnt that norms can protect against violence, but they can also support and encourage the use of it.
For instance, cultural acceptance of violence, either as a normal method of resolving conflict or as a usual part of rearing a child, is a risk factor for all types of interpersonal violence. It may also help explain why countries experiencing high levels of one type of violence also experience increased levels of other types.
Back to Achebe, Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much of his violent and ambitious demeanour. He wants to rise above his father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behaviour, which he views as weak and therefore effeminate.
This association is inherent in the clan’s language; the narrator mentions that the word for a man who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating titles is agbala, which also means “woman”. But, for the most part, Okonkwo’s idea of “manliness” is not the clan’s.
He associates masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beats his wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time. We are told that he does not think about things, and we see him act rashly and impetuously.
Yet others who are in no way effeminate do not behave in this way. An interesting character, Obierika (some mayors) unlike Okonkwo, “was a man who thought about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses to accompany the men on the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only volunteers to join the party that will execute his surrogate son but also violently stabs him with his machete simply because he is afraid of appearing weak.
Usofaya in exile: The Spokesperson who left England
Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces his notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he lives among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period in its entirety.
The exile is his opportunity to get in touch with his feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors, but he keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not as warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia to be.
He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance, and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s understanding, his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and therefore somewhat effeminate) mode. One spokesman, presumed to be civil as we expect of Britain with smart politics, is proving us wrong. He fits well into the shoes of exiled Okwonkwo. He perceives violence as the only answer to nursing his bruised ego.
You hear them with the taste of their tongue
Language is an important theme in Things Fall Apart on several levels. In demonstrating the imaginative, often formal language of the Igbo, Achebe emphasises that Africa is not the silent or incomprehensible continent that books such as Heart of Darkness made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the novel with Igbo words, Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct translation into English.
Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist values. Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages: the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr Brown’s translator because his language is slightly different from their own.
On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that Achebe chose to write Things Fall Apart in English. For the linguistics students, the language debate of Achebe and Ngugi is an immediate fret that pops in your mind right now.
In Things fall Apart, Achebe clearly intended it to be read by the West at least as much, if not more, than by his fellow Nigerians. His goal was to critique and amend the portrait of Africa that was painted by so many writers of the colonial period. Doing so required the use of English, the language of those colonial writers.
Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales, and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty of the Igbo language.
From the text’s submission, you are left with not a blurry image of an Okwonkwo in those who decided to sell out the public vote by walking out.
They either are oblivious or intellectually misgiven to the fact that violence is any action that leaves someone physically, emotionally or spiritually injured. In their case, an MP who has no respect of the Office of the President, who strategically fails to register dissent and residually subscribes to such primitive protests with non-accruable results is a rigid Okwonkwo, misguided by lost masculinity.
Like villagers in Umuofia, their supporters are bundled in either excitement or misguided support of the action, but what they miss is that Umuofia is not remaining the same, with or without the violent Okwonkwo, Umuofia’s fate is not decided by Okwonkwo, and however, his co-operation helps particularly those who are misguided by him.
Should Okwonkwo be rigid to change, Umuofia is left with no option, but to exile him. How it does so, is justified in any measure for the interest of the broader village.
