The Wretched of the earth

"Letter from South Africa" is Omoseye Bolaji's regular weekly column published in the Nigerian newspaper, True National News. The column comes out every Monday. True National News is circulated all over Nigeria on a weekly basis.

December 28 2009 edition

Letter from South Africa

With Omoseye Bolaji

THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH

What is our real legacy as modern (educated) black Africans? Should we metaphorically pull the wool over our eyes and blind ourselves to the unedifying past? Should we, like the cliched ostriches, bury our heads in the sand? I have in mind here terrible legacies like the trans Atlantic slave trade that affected and devastated west Africa in particular centuries ago.

The horrific plight of slaves in the past, especially the mind-boggling journey across the Atlantic ocean in those dark days is something modern Africans can hardly imagine. The African-Americans in the USA, just like Africans, are heirs to such a terrible legacy.

A lot of literature has sprung from the unravelling of the slave trade, especially from the American (“nigger”) angle. Probably the most famous was the book, Roots, penned by Alex Haley which spawned a fantastic TV series and movies popular all over the world for decades.

Creative writers, academics and bards continue to churn out works that reflect this extraordinary suffering of the black slaves of that time, starting from their arduous journey from the heart of Africa, to the castles, ports and then the trans-Atlantic journey. The horror of the whole thing is portrayed in the process.

One of the most trenchant, latest additions to this literature is Zong (2007) a fantastic imaginative, yet very haunting poem that focuses on the horrors of such slaves whilst crossing the ocean. The author of this incisive poem is the female Canadian, NourbeSe Philip, who is now making waves with the publication.

Actually her work, Zong (2007) is based on real life experience, the bare facts which can be seen from an actual court case in 1783 which captures the horror of those days, the way slaves at the time were not regarded as human beings at all; with 300 slaves more or less killed in this episode. The owners (of the ship) were not even charged for murder, but only an insurance case for lost goods followed! The whole episode was unconscionable, callous, and cruel, with the unfortunate slaves just cannon fodder for commercial interests.

Philip’s poem goes further in dwelling on the inhumane manner female slaves were treated, worse than sex objects with no sanitary conditions to cater for them and sexual abuses. It is a heart rending, evocative creative work yet based on reality. The work has been making waves around the world, including in South Africa.

We can not forget of course, the compliance of our forefathers, our then African leaders in fomenting and institutionalizing the horrific slave trade. African leaders then were (like now?) manipulated by the meretricious wares and inducements of Eurocentric trade dealers. The great African writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o details this brilliantly in his monumental work, The beautyful ones are not yet born, but we need not go into details in a column like this.

Back to this work of Philip’s which has shown that modern writers can recreate the grisly past with brilliant empathy. The realism is augmented with the poet using African languages to highlight the plight of the slaves, including the women treated in such callous fashion. The work is put simply a triumph.

This type of re-creations of the past echo what many people are saying that the horrific African, exploitative past should not just be swept under the carpet. For example there have been increasing calls by esteemed leaders and academics (in Africa in particular) for an African renaissance which would also incorporate some sort of reparations to the mother continent. Personalities like the erstwhile South African President, Thabo Mbeki and Ngugi wa Thiong’o have added their voices to such calls.

But for Nigerians, such calls for African renaissance or even reparations are nothing strange. Oluadah Equaino decades ago adumbrated on this in his writings; the late Chief MKO Abiola will always be remembered for similar calls too and he contributed prodigiously to African sports as a sort of fillip; even Olusegun Obasanjo somewhat conscientised the world in this wise too in his own way.

The Canadian, Philip’s work provides glimpses into an unedifying past, a tragic episode that went on for too long a time, with the victims literally crying out with pathos…