Towards a United Humanity: A Literary Retrospection (Part I) ~ Paul Liam
I
have always been a proud African, one who has been chiefly influenced by the
unpleasant history of colonial exploration and exploitation of the continent by
the West. My pride stemmed from the awareness that my existence was connected
to a reality I held responsible for my subjected humanity. Yes, living with the
knowing that my race was considered inferior and my skin colour equated with
negative and demeaning metaphors, fostered in me the feelings of disdain towards
Europe and the West in general. Thus, I found solace in my dislike of the West.
Being a proud African afforded me the opportunity to picture myself within an
utopia wherein, I could will myself to view my reality outside colonial
conscriptions. I could live in my moments of illusion, albeit temporarily
believing that my life has no interconnectedness with the West. I tried to
convince myself that my humanity wasn't part of the race so inhumanly debased
by foreign narratives, I convinced
myself into believing that my story has not been told and I, alone was capable
of telling my own story, and telling it as it truly is. Whether or not my
conviction of the West was justified or not, it was how I felt, and I took
great joy in distancing myself from a reality I couldn't confront, so I became
really critical of the West and of myself and others around me. I didn't
understand why things had to be the way that they were.
My
perception of the West as the "other" and as the "enemy"
was not unconnected with the colonial history between both continents wherein,
Africa, I, was the subject and the West, the master. This was a reality I
couldn't bring myself to understand and to accept, that it was all in the past
now. My frustration was fueled by the books that I had read about Africa, in
which my humanity was portrayed in the most uncivilized manner.
"Savage" was a term that stuck to my consciousness, ensuing from
critical literary classes which helped me to realize the great paradoxical
world in which I live. I doubted my own humanity because men from other races
took the liberty to represent my race as a misfortune to the world, memories of
slavery flooded my mind at the thought of this realization. How could I forgive
and unlearn such a sad history of my race that couldn't be unwritten? So, I had
a good reason to be angry at the West, this was my conviction.
As
an offspring of post colonialism, I took great pride in writings that shared my
sentiments. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, An Image of Africa, and Edward
Said's Orientalism, respectively, provided me the tool with which to console myself,
making me see myself with more confidence, in their renunciation of the
jaundiced narratives of Europeans, of the colonized people of the world.
Through their perspectives, I was able to reconcile with my reality as a child
of circumstance. And the brutal politics of representation as a tool for the
entrenchment of imperialist motives became more glaring to me. This newness
created in me a kind of confidence that had been lacking at the beginning of my
quest for deeper purpose and meaning, to how humanity could be more United!
I
soon began to realize that it was not necessarily my colonial past that
affected me or my likes, but, that it was indeed my unwillingness to recognize
the glaring truth that stared me in the face, about the new age of globalization
that was responsible for my narrowed perception of the world, and the West in
particular. I had failed after all, to see myself beyond the exigencies that
tied me to my immediate environment and sentiments without realizing that
without embracing the world and being a part of its modern narratives, I could
be doing a great disservice not only to myself but also to my race as well. I realized
that I was better among than apart. The knowing that I couldn't really affect
the world with my ideas by being apart from it shook the principles that had
held me captive for years. It happened so fast that I realized that I had not
been only denying myself a rare opportunity to interact with the world and
negotiate my place in it, but that I was denying my society the opportunity of
having a seat in the chamber of global dialogue through me. It dawned on me
that if I didn't join the global dialogue, my land would be taken away without
my knowing it again, because I have refused to be involved with the larger
system of things.
But
how did this new knowing come to me? Was it by nature's plan? Was it an
accident? It took a single encounter and a simple dialogue to change the
several years of conviction that I had lived with, about myself and place in
the world. I realized that the world owes me nothing, but that I owe the world
something, a piece of me. It took my meeting a Researcher, Michal Musialowski,
a white man on a research mission in Nigeria, researching on Nigerian poetry,
and in particular contemporary Nigerian poetry by young writers for his
master's thesis. To be honest, I hadn't any idea what to expect when I had gone
to the airport to pick him up that Tuesday morning at the nation's capital,
Abuja. It was the first time I would be getting really personal with a
"white" person, of course, I have seen and met white people, but this
was different, I wasn't only going to be meeting with him, but I was also going
to lead him to Lapai, to the Ibrahim Badamasi Bangidada University, where he
was to reside for the period of his six weeks stay. I had always imagined that I
would never like or get along with a person because of the hate I thought I had
for white people.
End of Part I.
******
Paul
Liam is a Nigerian poet, writer and literary critic. He guest-contributes to The Arts-Muse Fair
This is inspirational. Now heavily filled and squared up with the hunger of what lies ahead.
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