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Elliot Ziwira, At the Bookstore
In the timeless novel, “Mission to Kala”, set in colonial Cameroon, Mongo Beti compellingly explores the tragedy of a continent whose hopes are intertwined with individual aspirations, where western forms of education are accorded undue prominence.
Through the protagonist, Jean-Marie Medza, Beti exposes the redundancy of western-educated elites in African communities.
Riding on overrated bookish learning, they masquerade as paragons of knowledge. But when bombarded with critical questions calling them to put action where their mouths are, they recoil into their shells.
Such learned ignoramuses abound on social media platforms and other landscapes where pride in western systems of education nourish egos.
The need arises to question whether one’s current status is a culmination of one’s level of education, ingenuity or lack thereof.
In situations where wisdom overrides bookish learning, the persistent question is: what is knowledge?
Trust Beti to adequately answer that question in a hilarious, yet thought-provoking way in “Mission to Kala”.
Medza, a conceited and arrogant young man, returns home after failing his baccalaureate exams.
Nursing a bruised self-image, the protagonist admits to his kinsmen in Vimili, “I was ploughed.” Nonetheless, his being at college gives him the bragging rights to “evil genius”, calling himself “The Conqueror”.
On the strength of that fashionable opportunity, his community sees him as a visionary. As he walks home, however, it dawns on him that the whole village has picked it from the wind that “he had been failed”. He is also aware of his father’s ire and the ugly confrontation awaiting him.
Meanwhile, the community’s collective spirit is dampened by a matter involving Medza’s cousin, Niam, and his wife. She has gone back to her people in Kala, a “backward” village 50 kilometres away. Urgently, someone has to go and fetch her.
The community, at the bidding of the patriarch, old Bikokolo, settles on Jean-Marie Medza owing to his presumed knowledge of the white man’s ways.
Using the first person singular narrative voice, Beti creates humour as Medza is given a chance to expose himself. When he is apprised of his cousin’s predicament and the community’s worry, he challenges them:
“Have any of you the least idea what preparing for an examination and sitting it entails? Gentlemen, try and imagine something worse, far worse, than working in a plantation with a machete from dawn till dusk?”
As all this is happening, Medza’s father is away on a visit. Despite having his uncle and Amou, his aunt, in his corner, the 19-year-old protagonist finds himself at the elders’ mercy.
Using legend, myth and confusing facts, Bikokolo cajoles “the boy”, who is only “a congenital simpleton”, to redeem their lost pride.
The old patriarch coaxes: “When the story is recited after my death, you will be its hero. You are that formidable man; you speak with the voice of the thunder.
“Shall I tell you what your thunder is?” He plugs it home, “Your certificates, your learning, your knowledge of white men’s secrets”.
As he embarks on the mission to retrieve his cousin’s wife from the “backward” village of Kala, Medza’s ego is deflated. He soon realises that “the Bushmen”, in their traditional way, are more sophisticated than he imagined.
Interestingly, the hero’s introduction to the youth of Kala by his cousin, Zambo, puts him in high esteem in the eyes of the villagers.
“You could search the whole district round for two, three, four, five, hundred miles, and I wager you wouldn’t find a man, white or black, as learned and knowledgeable as he is,” Zambo boasts.
Reading into the deliberate exaggeration, one of the youths, Duckfoot Johnny, extols him in drunken stupor: “You’re God Almighty”.
Beti confronts the tragedy that befalls communities when supposed visionaries are swallowed into the colonial system of capitalism. Since they are esteemed owing to their “eating of book”, educated elites use societal prejudice to hoodwink others, while offering no meaningful contribution to their communities.
Hence, education becomes not only a tool of subjugation but an extension of imperialism.
In his arrogance, Medza embodies this kind of redundancy in African communities. On his daily excursions around Kala, he is escorted “like an American diplomat under the protection of his private eyes.”
Everyone jostles for his attention, and parties are thrown in his honour. Presents, in the form of livestock, are strewn at his feet—honouring his perceived knowledge.
Sadly, this knowledge falls short in bettering the livelihoods of community members.
Through Beti’s ingenious use of humour and satire, Medza’s ignorance and lack of relevance to his community are laid bare. His inability to convincingly explain what he learned in school or how it would benefit his people blows his bubble.
The villagers’ intelligent questioning and skepticism highlight the fallacy of Western education.
Medza’s first encounter with the reality of his lacks, comes when he is asked whether whites were “cleverer than (him) in class?” or “learn quicker”.
When he flinches, to his surprise, one young man comes to his defence.
He says: “It’s perfectly reasonable to suppose that white children learn faster than blacks. What are they being taught? Their ancestral wisdom, not ours, isn’t that so?
“Now if it was our ancestral wisdom that was taught in this school, it would be normal to expect coloured children to learn faster than whites, wouldn’t it?”
As the protagonist takes this village wisdom in, it is put to him that “it’s by no means certain that it was the whites who invented cars and aeroplanes, and all that”.
Much to his audience’s disappointment, he fails to define Geography in the vernacular. He compounds the situation by drawing examples from New York, a far-flung place in the villagers’ imagination.
He soon learns that “knowledge” should be put to test “by genuine circumstance not under the artificial conditions of an examination room”.
Ironically, he “had already discovered vast gaps in the frontiers of (his) tiny kingdom”.
This exposes the delusion of any educational system premised on inflexible set syllabuses divorced from the realities of communities it aims to serve.
When he changes tact, and uses the Russian experience with communism, his audience is elated: “These people are very much like us at the bottom. They’ve got a sense of solidarity.”
Through Endongolo, Beti adeptly critiques the hypocritical inclinations of the educated elite and the cultural dynamics at play. The young man drills Medza on what nature of job he would partake in after leaving college.
Employing the stream of consciousness technique, the author examines the inadequacy of foreign education systems.
The hero asks himself: “Yes, indeed: what would I do when I (finish) my studies? And where (do) those studies lead”.
He, however, dreams of becoming a teacher, doctor, lawyer or the like.
Seeing through this thin veil, one woman challenges him: “When you get the kind of job you’ve mentioned, will you make plenty of money? You will, won’t you? That means you’ll live like white men? Where do we come in to all this?”
Medza is saved from further assault when someone offers him American whisky. In a moment of inebriated magic, he gives “explanatory remarks loaded with all manner of convincing details.” In this vein, Beti suggests that western education, like alcohol, is merely a temporary illusion.
Cultural dynamics also find prominence as the artist exposes the Kala culture, which, though untainted by western influences, seems to be morally bankrupt. Though western education may be irrelevant in some aspects, it appears to be necessary in moulding the individual as is evidenced by Medza’s shift of character.
He leaves Vimili a teetotaller and loses it all in Kala. Therefore, Medza’s transformation to a more enlightened young man suggests the need for integration of cultures through interacting African and Western education systems.
Medza emerges from Kala with Niam’s wife in tow, and tells his oppressive father: “I am not going to college anymore—I am through with all this nonsense”.
His rebellious nature suggests resistance to colonial rule through creation of interfaces between western and African values. When he eventually goes back to college, he passes his oral exam without even studying. In the right context, education comes naturally, Beti underscores.
Ultimately, “Mission to Kala” poses critical questions about the value of Western education in African contexts.
As Medza concludes, “I discovered many truths” in Kala, the tragedy of Africa’s dependency on external systems is highlighted.
Indeed, the novel is a stimulating read for those interested in post-colonial literature, African studies, education, and the essence of knowledge.
Online Reporter