Paper No. - 14
African Literature
Name :- Dharti makwana
Batch :- 2019-2021
Semester :- M.A. Sem-4
Roll No. :- 5
Enrollment No. :- 2069108420200024
Submitted :- Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, MKBU.
Email :- dharteemakwana789@gmail.com
Paper :- African Literature
Topic :- Decolonization in the grain of wheat
Decolonization in the Grain of wheat
INTRODUCTION
Most of the African elites believe that Western Colonization was built on the assumptions of the West that it represents the core center of progress especially in Africa. Colonizers saw the colonized as mere “binary opposites” as referred to by Franz Fanon. The colonists, who were perceived to be white, beautiful, educated, civilized Christians, were opposed to the native colonized labeled as black, ugly, uneducated, savages and pagans. For those colonizers, the only way of progress was European civilization and Christian religion, the notions which the colonized considered otherwise especially in the wake of liberation and decolonization movements which were led by the native elites during the 60s and the 70s. In the case of Kenya, Poppy Cullen (2017, p. 5) claims that: “Kenya, particularly because of Mau Mau, has featured prominently as ‘one of the classic cases’ in histories of British decolonization”.
It is believed that the power of literature to liberate minds, and to break the shackles of others’ preconceptions, has driven the rise of Africans telling their own stories and representing their own “Self”. Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature has openly stressed the urgency of liberating and decolonizing African cultures and languages. Talking about Africa, he is conscious of “the great struggle between the two mutually opposed forces in Africa today: an imperialist tradition on one hand and a resistance tradition on the other”.
WHAT IS DECOLONIZATION?
The word “decolonisation” was first coined by the German economist Moritz Julius Bonn in the 1930s to describe former colonies that achieved self-governance. “DECOLONIZATION” is a technical and rather undramatic term for one of the most dramatic processes in modern history: the disappearance of empire as a political form, and the end of racial hierarchy as a widely accepted political ideology and structuring principle of world order. One can pin down this historical process by using a dual definition that, instead of keeping the process chronologically vague, anchors it unequivocally in the history of the twentieth century. Accordingly, decolonization is
the simultaneous dissolution of several intercontinental empires and the creation of nation-states throughout the global South within a short time span of roughly three postwar de- cades (1945–75), linked with
the historically unique and, in all likelihood, irreversible delegitimization of any kind of political rule that is experienced as a relationship of subjugation to a power elite considered by a broad majority of the population as alien occupant.
Decolonization designates a specific world-historical moment, yet it also stands for a many-faceted process that played out in each region and country shaking off colonial rule. This includes dismantling the hidden aspects of those institutional and cultural forces that had maintained the colonialist power and that remain even after political independence is achieved. Initially, in many places in the colonized world, the process of resistance was conducted in terms or institutions appropriated from the colonizing culture itself.
DECOLONIZATION IN THE GRAIN OF WHEAT
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s novel A Grain of Wheat, published in 1967, exposes the ways in which British institutions and practices continue to plague post-colonial Kenya. This novel addresses the condition of post-colonial Kenya as native Kenyans struggle to form a new national identity and government. This novel exposes the corruption of the Christian Church and the cultural imperialism perpetuated by missionaries as they impose European practices and abolish Kenyan cultural values. Ngugi’s work reflects the influence of Marxist thought and the impact of writers such as Frantz Fanon whose neo-colonialist theory explains many of the phenomena present in post-colonial Kenya. In particular, Fanon notes that post-colonial nations retain the institutions of the former colonizing nation and therefore are still subject to colonial structures even after gaining independence.
The result is that classism endures and the separation between the bourgeoisie and the lower classes continues. While Ngugi presents a critique of Christianity in this text, he does so through the character of Kihika, a man who kills missionaries he considers oppressors yet who considers himself to be a Christian. Kihika uses biblical stories and rhetoric to encourage people to rebel and resist imperialism. In this way, Ngugi explores the use of Christian rhetoric and principles by missionaries to further cultural imperialism and the co-opting of that same rhetoric by Mau Mau rebels to motivate resistance to British colonial power. In light of Fanon’s observations about enduring colonial institutions, one could interpret the Christian religion as a remnant of British colonial power which continues to control and oppress the Kenyan people after decolonization. However, by emphasizing Kihika’s religious background and use of scripture to justify the Mau Mau rebellion, Ngugi maintains a distinction between colonial, capitalistic Christianity and Kihika’s communal, compassionate Christianity.
The worst and inglorious aspect of this was that these very leaders spread false stories about the Mau Mau and slighted their valorous part in the struggle. Ngugi’s quarrel is not only with the British writers and historians but also with those Kenyans who, because of their ‘mental colonization precipitated by both colonial and neocolonial education’ (Mazrui and Mphande 165), wrote highly unreliable accounts of the Mau Mau and their contribution. So the novel looks at the struggle for independence with peasants as active participants, along with the Mau Mau, who were from among their ranks. One has also to bear in mind that for Ngugi the true process of history at that time was not merely to fight the colonial masters but also to set into motion the processes of decolonisation, which was much more than wrestling political control, and which the so-called leaders had neglected.
In the march of events in the village, Ngugi portrays a set of individuals who represent different ideas and dispositions to clarify how their participation in the anti-colonial struggle acquires a meaningful purpose, but some, like Mugo, provide an insight through their own contrasting positions If the Mau Mau exemplify Ngugi’s confirmed belief in what Fanon calls ‘absolute violence’ as the one and only method for getting liberation, then it also follows that colonial subjects should be willing to cast themselves into a new mould in order to be the torch bearers of the process of decolonisation, which Fanon calls ‘replacing of a certain “species” of men by another “species” of men’ (27).
Elaborating on this, Fanon states that ‘it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them’ (28). In fact, this is the only way in which they are transformed from ‘things’ into men and women. The overall frame of the novel testifies that Ngugi sees the struggle for liberation in the wider context of people’s struggle to become worthy of being called a liberated people.
In A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi interacts with Fanon’s theory about the struggles of decolonization, including the educated elite’s mimicry of the former colonial power and the continued oppression of the lower classes in an independent nation. Ngugi exposes the condition of the peasant who experiences oppression at the hands of Christian Church and missionary endeavors as well as at the hand of the newly elected government officials. Through the contrast between various characters, Ngugi addresses the issues of collaboration and the allure of colonial power. Amidst this criticism of Christianity and colonialism, Ngugi offers hope for redemption through the figure of Kihika who separates Christian principles from their incongruous connection to colonialism. Kihika’s synthesis of Christian teaching with traditional customs and his support for the existence of communal land allows him to navigate the boundaries between these two worldviews and support the fight against colonial Britain.
While Kihika’s work is short-lived and he dies a martyr before the success of independence his legacy lives on and endures. Unlike Fanon, who fully rejects the cultural practices imposed by colonial governments, Ngugi recognizes the value of Christian teaching and uses Kihika to represent the appropriate role of Christianity as an agent of social justice and resistance in oppressive systems.
CONCLUSION
An African decolonization was accompanied by unreasonable euphoria and idealistic triumphalism, since people, then, were aspirant for a rapid improvement in their life.The unfolding of events had, nonetheless, contradicted the hopes of the people. The African rulers who were installed in power at the departure of colonial ruler not only perpetuated people suffering under colonization, but also aggravated it. Africanwriters, who though shared the happiness of the people, had their misgivings on the future of the local rule. One of such writers was the Kenyan ,Ngugi wa Thiong'o Whose novel A Grain of Wheat testifies to such prescience. Though celebratory mood, the novel contains enough details that would undermine that avowed celebration. Concentrating on this novel the present paper aspires to zoom in the author's apprehensions about the prospective economic and social change at the very Day of Independence.
The multiplied hatred towards the whites was mainly because they considered the blacks as sub-humans or animals, always behaving wildly and never succumbing to the whites’ civilized dictums.Moreover, they also had the realization that whites’ usurpation of their material resources is wholly unjustified. In fact Ngugi believed that if colonialism involves colonizing the mind, then resistance to it requires decolonization of the mind, and therefore, in this process of decolonization the iconoclastic images of the whites were to be removed, broken and made to crumble down from the minds of the colonized. Thus, he like Achebe endeavors to establish the identity of the colonized and label the whites with all the stereotypes that they would profusely use for the natives.
REFERENCES
Dhar, Tej N., Ngugi’s retrospective gaze: The shape of history in" A grain of wheat", Kunapipi, 29(1), 2007.
Gikandi, Simon. "Representing Decolonization: A Grain of Wheat." Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 98-127. Print. Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature.
Ismail, Khaleel & Mahfouz, Yasir. A Tussle for Decolonization of the Mind: Representation of the Whiteman in “A Grain of Wheat”. Journal of Education and Culture Studies. 2, 2018, pp. 105-116.
Miller, Rebecca, "Capitalistic Christians and Educated Elites: Fanonian Theory and Neo-Colonialism in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain
of Wheat" (2014).
Rajbhandari, Kritish. “Beyond the Ethics of Nationalism and Betrayal: Silence, Secrecy, and the Subaltern in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 50, no. 2, 2019, pp. 158–176.
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