Prof Chinua Achebe wrote his world famous novel, Things Fall Apart, when he was only a 22-year-old youth. He sent his only copy of the handwritten manuscript to a London based typist, who misplaced it for some time. Eventually, in the late 1950s, the original script found its way to William Heinemann, then famed for literary publishing.
While Alan Hill, the editor, thought that this was the best manuscript he had read since the end of the Second World War in 1945, he was not so sure that he should publish it. For, who would read a story from Africa, about Africa, by an African? But courage and hope took precedence. Some 2,000 copies were published in 1958. Things Fall Apart has since been translated into close to 50 languages. The English edition alone has sold millions of copies worldwide.
In an interview with John Pepper Clark in the collection African Writers Talking, Prof Achebe said: ‘I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing.’ And in Hopes and Impediments, he says, ‘At the university, I read some appalling novels about Africa (including Joyce Cary’s much praised Mr Johnson) and decided that the story we had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else, no matter how gifted or well intentioned. Although I did not set about it consciously in that solemn way, I now know that my first book, Things Fall Apart, was an act of atonement with my past.’
For a 22-year-old African youth to hope that he could publish a novel in colonial Africa was to be truly audacious. For him to believe that he could in fact do a better job than a European writer was to go beyond the audacity of hope. Yet it was Achebe who wrote in Things Fall Apart, ‘But the Ibo people have a saying that when a man says “Yes (I can)” his chi (guardian angel, or personal God) says “Yes” also.’ Achebe dared hope. And in our times, we are witnesses to what the audacity of hope can do, with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th American President.
Tragically, that is just about how far we can go. We can only look at others as they do great things. In another book, The Trouble with Nigeria, Prof Achebe talks of Africa’s cargo cult mentality. This is our belief that one day, and without any effort on our part, a fairy ship loaded with goods will dock at our harbour of hope and that we will live happily for ever thereafter. Nothing demonstrates this cultic mentality than our untamed expectations of the Obama presidency.
Fanny Crosby, President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Chinua Achebe — ‘Yes we can’,
Everywhere on the continent, and especially in Kenya, we have gone wild. In the words of Fanny Crosby, we are ‘watching and waiting, looking above‘ for manna from America. Even African heads of State and Government give a start each time the phone rings. Their hands tremble as they lift the receiver. They hope it is a call from the White House. The day they get their first call from President Obama, they will call the Press to announce to the world that the big man has spoken to them. It is hard to believe that a people could sink so low, complete with what are called their leaders.
When the children sing lavishly about the father of some other house, you don’t join them. For, it is your own fatherhood that is in question. It ought to worry you when they claim kinship with the other gentleman. If you were father enough, you would do something to restore your reputation, lest another man should pitch his tent in the little chamber in which your fatherhood counts most. Why, pray, should those in whom a people have invested its leadership shamelessly peddle their inferiority in the chilly streets of foreign capital cities?
After the fanfare, the razzmatazz, and VIP idling in Washington dance halls, Kenya requires a reality check. Obama is the US President and we do well to wish him well. But he will not fix our problems. If President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and their train cannot fix our problems, then we must all sink with them. Meanwhile we must pity our youth. Where is the audacity of your hope? Even our best youth waste away in night clubs, drowning themselves in alcohol, wallowing in tobacco and dead meats. They watch and cheer as their age mates do wonders on TV. Where decent young men used to dance with ladies, ours swing on the floor with bottles of alcohol. They don’t read, they don’t hold quality debate, they don’t dream, they don’t hope. At election time they jump on to the tribal bandwagon.
No, President Obama, you owe us nothing. You must not worry yourself over our cargo cult mentality. Prof Achebe taught us how to say ‘Yes we can‘ even before you were born. And he was only 22. But we love free things. We therefore do nothing for ourselves. Don’t let us bother you. It is up to Africans to liberate themselves from greed and laziness and from the thieves and dictators they call leaders. It is up to them to fix their countries. Meanwhile here is wishing you well. God bless you. God bless Africa.
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About The Author: Barrack Muluka is a publishing editor and a media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers. Hidden Email Address
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