A chuckle in the dark

So he describes his education,in a mission school,as a British-Protected childand has practically nothing to say about the circumstances in which that protection was withdrawn. Of course,the specifics of that withdrawal,in Nigeria as in India,had a lot to do with the ensuing tragedies. But Achebe is a good-humoured,forgiving sort of man an Igbo,as he makes clear,who believes in resolving conflicts,in compromise and peace-making.  

And yet,for all his pacific intention,the very presence of Africa in his work functions like an accusation. Achebes dismantling of Conrads Heart of Darkness is the stuff of legend. To take something from the canon of high modernism,indeed,to take up something that is read as the cri de coeur of an anguished liberal confronting the unparalleled brutalities of Leopold of the Belgians in the Congo,and then to demonstrate beyond disproof the insidious and explicit workings therein of the foundational myths of white racism this is a spectacle for the gods. Characteristically,Achebe is kind,and wonders if the lies of colonialism were,in some sense,sincere,genuinely believed or,whether it was some kind of make-believe,the kind of desperate alibi we might expect a man of conscience arranged for a serious crime to put together.  

Such historical extenuation,however,is not available for the contemporary myth of Africa. There is an Africa of the contemporary imagination,a doubly unfathomable ocean of pointless misery misery that is endless and inexplicable,except by resort to the lie of racism. For if it is not due to the genetic defect of the black man,then the causes of his current misery must have something to do with history,with the violence perpetrated over the centuries under cover of that famous darkness remember the Dark Continent? by Leopold,and Cecil Rhodes,and the host of civilising benefactors of,say,the Atlantic slave trade. Of course,that was then. History. But Africa is also now. Present mirth,of course,hath present laughter the misery of the present,the living tragedy of Africa and the African diaspora,this has roots that reach deep into the histories of violence. And that is why Achebe does well to identify,in Conrad and elsewhere in contemporary discourses,the curiously persistent and peculiar and very popular conceit: that Europes devastation of Africa left no mark on the victim.  

Of course,it is hardly sufficient to carry on about the wrongs of colonialism and Nigerians too must take a fair share of responsibility. Achebe insists,with customary clarity,on the post side of the charge-sheet as he does on the colonial. He isnt,in any obvious sense,political. Neither does he attempt to aestheticize Nigerias violent flirtation with democracy in the manner of Naipaul seeing from his sad,godly perspective,the complex violence of colonialism as it resonates through centuries,implicating the rulers and the ruled,the radicals and their obtuse tormentors. Implicating even,though this insight is denied to Naipauls god,the precious mother country too. What he proposes ,instead,is a witty and profound transposition of the parental metaphor customarily employed for the nation motherland,fatherland. Hear Achebe: But it has occurred to me that Nigeria is neither my mother nor my father. Nigeria is a child. Gifted,enormously talented,prodigiously endowed,and incredibly wayward. Right on! 

(The writer is a professor of English at Delhi University)