By Chijioke Uwasomba
The question may be asked: what has literature got to do with the whole lot of issues that have been raised so far. This question is important if we take into consideration the views of some writers and critics who insist that literature does not have any utilitarian value. The poet-soldier, Christopher Okigbo, who died fighting on the side of Biafra against Federal forces, in an interview he was of the opinion that “…the writer in Africa does not have any function. That is, personally, I have no function as a writer, I think I merely express myself, and the public use these things for anything they like.” Similarly, Ogungbesan stated that “…it is a betrayal of art for the writer to put his writing at the service of a cause, even if it is such a laudable and uncontroversial cause as the education of the people.”
These positions differ from our conception of literature. Literature is concerned with humankind and human life in its entirety. This includes everything that impinges on human life; it covers every aspect of experience and aspirations, politics inclusive. And interestingly enough, it does not deal with a closed sphere of human experience as mentioned by Amuzu: “…it admits of all human activities and experiences dealing with the whole life.” And according to Strauch’s statement “…the literary work manifests man’s understanding of the meanings of human experience…”
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the writer whose works are the subject of our discussion, has demonstrated in his creative and critical works that the writer is a product of society, and has a responsibility towards it, wherein he unequivocally says in his prison memoir, Detained, that literature is not “…something belonging to a surreal world, or a metaphysical ethereal plane, something that has nothing to do with man’s more mundane, prosaic realm of attempting to clothe, shelter and feed himself.”
In contemporary Africa, we can construct some axioms that “… writers and their works are implicated in the larger struggles which define political life in wider society”; hence the subjection of Africa to colonialist brigandage and imperialist capitalism in various guises has made it supremely important for the enlisting of literature and art in the task of liberation from imperialism and of redressing social inequalities within individual national boundaries; literature and art have a primary commitment to freedom and can only thrive in a free state, and that “… in a situation bedeviled with unfreedom, the primary responsibility of art is to enlist in the service of freedom.”
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) and Amilcar Cabral’s National Liberation and Struggle (1980) reveal the political, economic and social circumstances that formed the sensibilities of most African writers. Thus, they illuminate the various types of approaches and mentalities or ideologies that inform African revolutionary writings. In addition, these works help the reader to determine if a writer’s portrayal of African society fully reflects its social relations, political arrangements, and economic factors. These critical writings also help in the debate on the definition of African literature, because they bring forth the historical connections that make it possible for us to analyze African literature dealing with the pre-colonial, colonial and neo-colonial phases of African history.
In class societies like Africa, culture, art and literature take on class character where literature is fully implicated as evince of a consciousness that seems to conserve society on behalf of privileged interests or in contrast, exude a revolutionary consciousness congruent with the objective interests of the oppressed class engaged in class struggle to change the status quo. It is in the context of the latter interpretation that we place Ngugi’s works as not only discourses on cultural and political decolonization, but also as works that are in quest of a new socio-economic and political order.
Petals of Blood
Petals of Blood, Ngugi’s fourth novel, is seen by many critics as the most ambitious and important of his works. According to Palmer “…of all African novels…Petals of Blood probably presents the most comprehensive analysis to date of the evils perpetrated in independent African society by Black imperialists and capitalists” (1979:228). Also, Ngara (1982:81) and Anyidoho (1986:67) among others see Petals of Blood as not only breaking new grounds for the African novel in literary creation, but also as representing the height of Ngugi’s achievement. This is because Petals is seen as having subsumed the themes and concerns of all of Ngugi’s other works, including those written after it, into one volume. During the launch of the book, Ngugi hinted that
… imperialism…can never develop a country or a people. This was what I was trying to show in Petals of Blood: that imperialism can never develop us, Kenyans. In doing so, I was only trying to be faithful to what Kenyan workers and peasants have always realized as shown by their historical struggles since.
In both theme and ideological perspective, Petals begins where A Grain of Wheat stops. It deals, in the main, with neo-colonialism in all its manifestations: oppression, exploitation, social abuse and injustice, and thus
… it probes the history of the heroic struggles of the people of Kenya, from pre-colonial times to the present day, within a comprehensive cultural perspective which embraces the political, religious, economic and social life of Kenya.”
In A Grain of Wheat, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the peasants is still in its embryonic stages and therefore is not expressed in explicit ideological terms, whereas Petals takes us to a later period in the history of Kenya and the development of Ngugi’s socialist vision.
The novel begins in the present with four main characters – Wanja, Abdulla, Munira and Karega – in jail on suspicion of being implicated in the murder of three African directors of the Theng’eta Brewery – Mzigo, Chui and Kimeria. This revelation comes to the fore through Munira in the cell while writing notes to satisfy the demands of the probing police inspector. Thus, from the present the story moves twelve years back to when Munira came to Ilmorog as a teacher in the village, and periodically it returns to the present and shows Munira in the cell, and on one or two occasions goes further into the experiences of Munira in Siriana where he was a student in the 1940s and during the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s. The scene of most of the events of the novel is the community of Ilmorog which grew from a traditional African village into a modern industrial complex. Through the historical presentation given to us by Ngugi, we are able to have glimpses of the glory of Ilmorog’s past as a truly peasant community untouched by Western values that moved gradually from “a nomadic one to an agrarian civilization.”
There was prosperity, contentment and a sense of belonging before the penetration of imperialism with its distorting influence, and the intrusion of imperialist values which
brought Ilmorog into its decline, hence the author informs the reader that
…Ilmorog…had not always been a small cluster of mud huts lived in only by old men and women and children with occasional visits from wandering herds men. It had its days of glory: thriving villages with a huge population of sturdy peasants who had tamed nature’s forests and, breaking the soil between their fingers, had brought forth every type of crop to nourish the sons and daughters of men.… In those days there were no vultures in the sky waiting for the carcasses of dead workers and no insect-flies feeding on the fat and blood of un-suspecting toilers (120).
For the first time in the novel, we discover that drought has started ravaging Ilmorog with consequential damage to the otherwise thriving community. The criminal neglect by the political authorities, in particular, Nderi the member representing Ilmorog in the Parliament, worsens matters. Nderi, like other political officials, is only interested in acquiring wealth at the expense of his constituency. Eventually, Karega, the bright, idealistic young teacher in the community puts forward the proposal that the people should march to the capital where their MP stays to confront him with their problems. Like the revolutionary-minded masses in Ousmane’s Gods Bits of Wood, they march to the city in search of their representative. This march and its accompanying achievement mark a turning point in the lives of the exploited segment of Kenyan society in general.
Arising from the visit to the city and the plane crash in Ilmorog, the attention of the government is attracted to Ilmorog, as the people’s doubts are fully justified. The capitalists and their agents-Chui, Mzigo and Nderi-move in their development projects: roads, banks, factories, distilleries and housing estates. These developments quickly destroy the fabric of traditional Ilmorog. The destruction of the mysterious spirit Mwathi by a giant bulldozer is the concrete symbol of the annihilation of a once proud society by the ravaging forces of modernization, and notwithstanding, the deceived peasants lose their lands and all their possessions to the local profiteers and their international principals.
Ilmorog is transformed into a proto-capitalist society with all the attendant problems of prostitution, social inequalities, misery, uncertainty, and inadequate housing. The new Ilmorog is now divided along class lines. There is the residential area “of the farm managers, country council officials, the managers of Barclays, and African Economic Banks, and other servants of state and money power” (p.280). This area is called Cape Town, while New Jerusalem is reserved for the downtrodden in the society. At this stage in the development of Ilmorog, Karega who had left Illmorog following his dismissal from the teaching service five-years before reappears. To his chagrin, Wanja whom he was in love with has become one of the “powerful” people in the society. He informs Wanja, Munira and Abdulla of his activities during the last five years, doing one menial job or the other. Karega’s return to Illmorog helps in arousing the consciousness of the people (especially, workers in the Theng’eta Brewery where he does his last job). The novel ends with a strong hope of a proletarian revolution, as there is the realization on the part of the Kenyan workers and peasants of the possibilities of overthrowing international capitalism and its neo-colonial agents.
In this novel, there is a clear demonstration that imperialism can never develop Kenya in particular and Africa in general. According to Ngugi: “In writing this book I was only trying to be faithful to what Kenyan workers and peasants have always realized as shown by their historical struggles since 1895.”
The spokespersons for Ngugi’s socialist solution are Karega, the lawyer, Abdulla and Munira. Ngugi through Karega shows concretely that socialism was a natural way of life in traditional African society and calls on the African society to go back to its former way of life. Ngugi is deeply conscious that imperialist capital is the real enemy in Africa today. To change the status quo, Karega becomes a trade union agitator who mobilizes the workers and the peasants to rid the society of exploitation. Karega’s union activities have politicized the workers and they are ready to haul defiance at their greedy employers as can be seen in the last part of the novel, “the last duty” indicating that the struggle continues – La Luta Continua. Ngugi hopes that out of Petals of Blood, Kenyans (Africans) might gather “petals of revolutionary love” (94).
In Petals, Ngugi uses his art to challenge the status quo. The Chuis, the Kimerias and the Nzigos who are agents of imperialism control the important spheres of life in Ilmorog. This can be seen in their directorship of Theng’eta Breweries and Enterprises Ltd. It is important to remember that this enterprise belonged to Wanja and Abdulla but the government through its agents handed it over to a multinational corporation. The economic deprivation and ruthless dispossession of the peasants finds its most effective symbol in the degradation of Wanja, the barmaid, who rises from prostitution to economic independence and womanhood but is forced back to the humiliating status of a prostitute who sells her body because nothing is obtained free, and the slogan becomes “eat or be eaten”. Ngugi’s combative spirit against neo-colonial agents and their masters continues in Devil on the Cross, a novel he wrote in detention in Kimathi Maximum Security prison in Kenya. Like Petals of Blood, the story takes place mainly in Ilmorog and partly in Nairobi. It is no wonder, then, that the major trope in Devil on the Cross could be neocolonial dependency, with the Devil on the Cross as the structuring symbol. This is best illustrated in Wariinga’s nightmare in which the white colonialist Devil is crucified by the masses (apparently, a reference to political independence) only to be resuscitated by the local comprador.
Devil on the Cross shows the class struggle between the poor and the rich, the exploited and the exploiters. The novel begins with the story of Wariinga, a lady who had suffered a series of misfortunes, maltreatment and deprivation at the hands of some irresponsible men in the society. She was used, abused and abandoned by the rich old man of Ngorika whose child she was carrying. She had attempted suicide on the railway track but was saved by the timely intervention of Munti. After having her baby, she was able to complete her secretarial studies and found herself a job in Champion Construction Company. She later lost this job because she did not welcome boss Kihara’s attentions. Her undergraduate friend, John Kinwana, jilted her after accusing her of being Kihara‘s mistress; and she was thrown out of her one-room apartment for her inability to pay the rent which the landlord had increased, and the landlord secured the services of three thugs who threw her things out.
On the matatu bus, we see Muturi, Wariinga and Wa Mukiraai with the invitation cards for the feast to choose the seven cleverest thieves and robbers in Ilmorog. Mukiraai is in favour of the competition, and he is of the opinion that the feast is not organized by Satan but by the organization of modern theft and robbery in Ilmorog to commemorate a visit by foreign guests from an association of the thieves and robbers of the Western world, particularly from America, England, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and Japan. The creation of a Devil’s feast where national robbers and thieves with their foreign allies gather in order to reveal their tactics, strategies and motives provides Ngugi with the space for enacting or deconstructing, through the grotesque and the obscene, the banality of power, in a neo-colonial African society.
During the feast we are confronted with the boastful thieves and robbers in the cave as the co-operation of the Kenyan bourgeoisie is seen as fruitful by the international representatives; the leader of the foreign delegation from the international organization of thieves and robbers headquartered in New York thanks the local thieves and robbers for the good work they have done performing, yet thieves who steal out of hunger are not allowed to compete. An example is Ndaaya Wa Kahuria in order to stop these noisy competitors who are watchdogs of imperialism that Wangari decides to invite the police, while Muturi who believes in the ability of the workers to arrest the thieves goes ahead to mobilize them. But the police who ought to arrest the thieves turn round to arrest Wangari, who should have been treated as an informant.
The ability of the workers, students and other members of the exploited class to mobilize themselves is very encouraging. The clarion call and song of the masses in their revolutionary movement to overthrow capitalism and the rule of its agents are resonating:
Come one and all, And behold the wonderful sight of us chasing away Devil And all his disciples:
Come one and all (Devil on the Cross, 201).
The resistance put up by the people, their massive struggle against the forces of law, shows that the masses can determine their fate.
The realization of Wariinga’s life ambition to train as an automobile engineer goes a long way to show how the underprivileged in the society have worked hard to improve their condition, in spite of the brutal attempts by the powers that be to reduce them to nothingness. After Wariinga had worked strenuously to become an engineer, the forces of “economic strangulation” strike. Boss Kihara, in partnership with a group of foreigners from the USA, Germany and Japan , buys the garage and the surrounding piece of land for the construction of a tourist hotel. The shooting and killing of the devil’s accomplices, including the rich old man of Ngorika (whose son, Gatuiria, Wariinga has fallen in love with) show the determination of the masses to liberate themselves.
Devil on the Cross exposes the plight of the masses and the workers in the present-day political set-up in Africa in consonance with the belief of Ngugi that African writers should address themselves “to the crisis or conflict between the emergent African bourgeoisie and the African masses” (34). According to Edward Shills, ideologies arise in conditions of crisis and in sectors of society where the prevailing situation has become unacceptable. Ngugi’s commitment to Kenyan masses stems from loss of confidence in elite’s ability to build successful society as Devil deeply entrenched against people. Rich men release Devil, stifle opposition, silence dissenting voice. This situation pushes suffering people like Wariinga to seek redress. Wariinga mentally identifies with workers, gets gun from Muturi, and kills rich old man of Ngorika.
Ngugi has through this novel shown that the sophisticated structures that have sprung up in the cities of Kenya – Ilmorog, Mombasa , Nairobi , Nakuru, Kisumu – do not have their corresponding enhancement in the standard of living of the general population. Rather, what we observe is the emergence of a new class structure the nouveau riche, an infinitesimal corrupt minority, having allied itself with the ex-colonialists to form a formidable barrier to the people’s share of the national resources. The battle is therefore between these “grabbers,” who strive to consolidate their hold and the deprived, who also strives to thwart them.
The novel shows the class to which each character belongs; Muturi, Wariinga, Wangari, and Gaturiria represent the peasants and workers, while Gitutu Wa Gataaguru, Kihaahu and Muirevi represent the bourgeoisie. Hence, there is an intense struggle between the victims of exploitation and the exploiter class.
Ngugi uses Matatu and cave as symbols. Matatu represents underprivileged world with limited freedom of speech. Matatu symbolizes lower class seeking freedom. Characters like Wangari, Maturi, Gatuiria, and Wariinga embody this struggle. Cave symbolizes devil’s domain controlled by profit-seeking men and leisurely women. Ngugi’s vision in this novel, like his other works, advocates for a collectively owned and controlled socialized economy. But the realization of this dream is dependant on unity, a factor Ngugi explains as “… until democratic-minded Kenyans, workers, peasants, students, progressive intellectuals and others unite…things will get worse, no matter who sits on the throne of power.
Finally, some readers view Wariinga’s shooting of Ghitahy as savagery, but Ngugi sees it as a means to freedom. Violence is unacceptable if used to protect oppression. The action is ideologically relevant for overthrowing an unjust social order. Wangari’s failed action in inviting police still aids people in their struggle for a new society. It teaches peasants and workers that the law does not save them from capitalist exploitation, but rather sustains the status quo.
In these two novels, progress and liberation in cultural and economic spheres are discussed by Masela (1979), Chesaina (1976) and Jeyifo (1985). Ngugi criticizes African ruling elite in Petals of Blood and praises people’s struggles against oppression by local colonialists. Devil on the Cross further explores this theme, exposing societal ills and emphasizing collective survival of exploited in Africa attacking the neo-colonial class structure causing poverty and insecurity in many modern African states.
As political novels, the two works are unambiguous in their support of the views of the proletariat and in their condemnation of bourgeois philosophy and practice, as manifested in international capitalism, and therefore reject neo-colonialism as a viable way of life for Africans. The novels affirm that the coming together of the peasants and the workers in a united and collective manner against their exploiters will liberate them from the present state of bondage and life of misery and poverty.
