Pukar Dhital
The body of books, music, and art that scholars accept as the most important and influential tool in shaping Western culture is phrased as, ‘Western canons.’ The shaping of Western culture in its present form would not have been possible without colonization. Colonization is a form of invasion where foreign citizens conquer a country in order to control and capitalize on its natural resources and indigenous population. The Western colonization began in the 15th century in pursuit of new and unexplored lands. The era later coined as the ‘Age of Discovery’, was when the Portuguese and the Spanish explored the Americas, the coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India and East Asia. This was only the beginning of their hunt for the new land and resources. The era of European colonialism lasted from the 15th to 19th century and involved European powers immeasurably extending their reach around the globe by establishing colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
Colonization not only brought economic and political changes; it also helped in the spread of culture, language, information, science and technology. The fact, however, cannot be denied that it created a great barrier and discrimination in the human civilization. Western colonization was possible because of the development in science and technology, which helped the Europeans upgrade their guns and canons, and much importantly, their ships. Through colonization, the Europeans were quick to come to assumption that they were an advanced and civilized culture, while the rest, they considered, were barbaric, primitive and savage!
This holds true to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, written in a third-person omniscient perspective. Achebe explains many times that his novel was partly a rebuke to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a book that reduced “Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind,” as he argues in a famous essay, “An Image of Africa.” Frantz Fanon, a French West Indian psychiatrist and post-colonial critic had always expressed a strong disapproval of the White’s notion in colonialism. He writes: “To underline falsity of this version of events Achebe must re-establish the humanity of his Africans, must insist that Africans live in the same world and are not absolutely other.”
Achebe’s ethnographic novel is a perfect answer to Fanon’s call. Achebe with the profound use of his pen had to let the word know the richness of African culture and to falsify with ample of cultural evidence the hype of colonialism. To prove to this, it could be a matter of great interest to any critiques as to why Achebe allocates about one hundred and forty pages to provide a full record of the communal life of Igbo people before the arrival of the colonial forces.
Early in the novel, in chapter three to be precise, the reader finds how in the pre-colonial Igbo community a constructive social contract could be framed based on some conversional or dialogic norms. For instance, it opens up a conversation between Okonkwo and Nwakibie where he convinces Nwakibie to give him enough yams for sharecropping and takes kola seeds and wine with him as gifts to Nwakibie. He starts the conversation based on social norms of respect and politeness where the chapter marks a famous Igbo saying, “A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his greatness.” This episode not only highlights the mutual trust among the people in the community but also depicts the unity, cooperation, shared beliefs and values. The use of proverbs is frequent in the novel and is very important in conversations, as the Igbos believe them to be a fountain of wisdom and of respect. This is also a symbolism of Igbo’s advanced language and their insight into their own culture.
One of the most substantial signs of the development of Igbo culture is its system of laws and justice. Chapter 10 describes the judicial proceeding egwugwu. Important clansmen who dress as village ancestors representing Umuofia’s ancestral spirits and who act as judges in the community give their verdict in cases of nine villages including a wife-beating case. The villagers always adhere to the decisions unanimously out of respect for the ancestors represented by the egwugwu and out of reverence for the ritual.
The next important cultural richness that the Igbo culture showed was the society’s tolerance, and respect to the man who perseveres. An axiom that comes in the very first chapter, “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered,” stresses that any man was welcome to perspire and create his destiny as Okonkwo did. It was through the strength of his own achievements that Okonkwo gains his prominent social position. Originally gaining fame through his wrestling prowess, he proceeds to distinguish himself in a war, becomes a successful farmer, and gains some of the overt signs of social position: wives and titles. Okonkwo’s history shows that the Igbo valued strength, bravery and success.
One of the remarkable things about the novel is how cleverly the author brings to the surface the evils of the Igbo culture like the mandatory abandonment of infant twins, their irrational fear in superstitions like the evil forest and their treatment towards the untouchable Osu people. While it is easy for people especially in this age of political correctness and multiculturalism to blame the white man for the downfall of the culture like Igbo, Achebe does not ignore the bitter cultural anomalies responsible for their own cultural demise.
The villages of the Niger, before the arrival of the Britishers were happy in their way of life but unlike the Europeans, they failed to explore and pace up with the rest of the world. To abstain themselves from the lust of foreign lands and resources and to remain content with what the nature had provided them turned out to be the gravest mistake of the Igbo people. They gave importance to their culture, family, society and their polytheistic religion oblivion to the outside world and the foreign forces until the arrival of the white men.
The arrival of the white men who could read and write, had known the world better than the naïve villagers, and were smarter in the sense, were quick to introduce Christianity—a new faith. The severe effect of Christianity and the white men in the Igbo people is well explained by the axiom in chapter twenty in a dialogue between Obierika and Okonkwo, “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” Indeed, the ills in the culture of Igbo people paved a way to Christianity. By taking advantage of the lower members of the Igbo social hierarchy such as Osu who were treated like slaves and were an outcast, the Christians were able to gain a foothold in the African society. Slowly the number of converts rises starting from those who were discontent, unheard, unseen, ignored and baffled in the society. Later, Nwoye, the protagonist’s son also accepts Christianity against his father will. He felt relieved as if the new faith gave him an answer to a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul—question on twins crying in the bush who were abandoned in the forest to die and the question of Ikemefuna, his best friend, who was killed for the crime he never committed!
Christianity like in the colonial times is used as a conduitto get into the society of the Igbo people to understand the culture inside out, until finally in a strategic way; it intervenes in its affairs and annexes it under the throne of England—a premeditated move which the English and the Europeans had mastered. The novel shows a clash between the Igbo and the white men where the Igbo men found themselves falling apart, their unity broken and their age long faith and religion shard into pieces. They found out that they were too weak and helpless to defend themselves or to protect their culture. It was in a way psychological warfare where the Igbo men through the shrewd words of missionaries were brain washed to believe that the God of Christians was more powerful than their polytheistic gods were! This clashapparently changed the Igbo society. After having a firm grasp over the culture, the English continues the civilized brutality of the colonial era, by prosecuting those unwilling to change. The suicide of the protagonist character like Okonkwo is a symbolism that not everyone can bear to see the change in the inheritedages old customs and culture and some choose to perish with the nation earning the title of a tragic hero if not the martyrdom.
[A teacher of literature for the past eight years, Pukar Dhital is a student of philosophy, literature and international affairs. An avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, he writes in various genres as a freelancer and profoundly adheres to the principal of independent self, and lifelong learning. ]