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Richard Runyararo Mahomva
Ghana’s independence in 1957 under the gallant grandfather of pan-Africanism, Dr Kwame Nkrumah gave the world a compelling emblem of black aptitude to wield power equitably, peacefully, and effectively in modern political, economic, and social systems.
Throughout the entire pan-Africanist movement Ghana is a philosophical embodiment of the fruition of decolonisation aspirations.
The example of modernity advanced by Ghana catalysed the justification of the fight against imperialism, it further validated the need for the acceleration of the granting of full black civil rights both in Africa and diaspora.
Indisputably, transcontinental identifications became and is still associated with Ghana — the first African country to gain independence. Over the progression of the black civil rights movement helped to influence American foreign policy in Africa towards attainment of a political economy equilibrium between European interests and African aspirations.
In religious terms, Ghana is Africa’s Jerusalem and a Meccah. In Ghana a prophet was born.
This prophet and teacher is Ayi Kwei Armah, one of Africa’s literary icons. Armah was born on 28 October, 1939. As we enter into the first week of the Black History Month I thought it would be prudent to celebrate and reflect on the significance of February to the Black Civil Rights Movement and the continuing struggle of post-colonialism through the lens of Ayi Kwei Armah’s work.
Armah’s first novel, which threw him into limelight, was published in 1968. Not after many series of publishing short stories and poems in the Ghanaian and Harper’s magazine, Atlantic monthly and New African magazine since 1960, did he emerge with The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born — a depiction and structural representation of the Ghanaian life with a nameless character struggling to realise the deeds of post-independence.
This work was so much recognised nationally and internationally that it was controversially criticised by literary critics.
His other works including Fragments (1970) and Why Are We So Blessed (1972) pursue the theme of personal disillusionment in the context of early post-independence in African countries.
However Armah’s last three novels dealt with the history of Ghana and these novels are: The Healers (1978), Two Thousands Seasons (1973) and Osiris Rising (1995) which is a novel of Africa past, present and future so these later three novels evokes African societies in the pre-colonial and early colonial period.
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born is a definitive depiction of post-independence African experiences and value systems. These standards characterise ample contrast with the colonial values on the one hand and the aspirations among Africans of their post-independence governance and systems.
The novel is rich with illustrations of corruption, failing economic and social systems in Ghanaian politics also incredulity about the socialist ideology, deteriorating public trust and morality among others.
This has to be put within the context of the broader political economic reality of cold war politics and how these affected African countries and indeed other countries in the developing world.
The plot of the novel take place between Passion Week in 1965 and February 25, 1966, the day after the fall of Kwame Nkrumah who was Ghana’s first president. The novel describes the political challenges of his government, reproducing whites monopoly and downgrading of the masses. It is meant that the new black leaders, according to Ayi Kwei Armah, used their positions of power for personal gain.
Nkrumah is vilified in Armah’s work. Nkrumah is portrayed as an African dictator and his Government a corrupt one in Armah’s view.
So he was overthrown in a military coup d’état. Nkrumah led the British colony of the Gold Coast to independence in 1957 which is the first African country to gain autonomy from the British control.
Armah’s hometown Ghana represents one of the African countries where corruption existed extensively and fraud in these countries could not be estimated easily.
The novel is Armah’s means to illustrate the variety of issues that existed in African countries mainly the wide spread of illegal practices by both their leaders and by low class people themselves, that is, it is due to their conformism without even asking about their rights which led their rulers to profit as much as possible from their country’s properties friends.
Armah’s work is a gallery tour of Ghana’s important post-colonial history, the final stages of Nkrumah’s reign as “Osagyefo” and its atmosphere of political disillusion and despair.
This novel has an unassuming and forthright plot that tells the story of the “man” unnamed rail clerk and his relations with his wife and family his fellow workers and his few.
The novel’s protagonist is revealed through his actions and his inner thoughts and encounters with various people that he is in search for understanding and wants to determine a place in a corrupt society under its simple surface, the novel is carefully plotted describing and dramatising complicated issues.
The novel is divided into three parts. The first part describes a day in the life of the man and his happenstances with various people such as a bus driver, his fellow railway workers, a timber merchant who attempts to bribe him and his wife Oyo, these various encounters are described at length and in great detail.
Everywhere he goes the man encounters moral, physical and spiritual corruption for instance the bus driver steals from the company.
The novel traces the history of the man’s progress within a corrupt society, Ghana’s post-colonial history is revealed as well as the birth, growth and death of Nkrumah’s regime which is shown in the novel by the concentrated life span of the “man child” who goes through a full cycle of birth, death and growth in nine years, the period of Nkrumah’s regime and finally the last part of the novel describes events leading up the military coup that overthrows the government and the reactions of the public to this event.
A lengthy part of this section of the novel describes the escape of the corrupt minister Koomson. Armah had written a novel that places characters in a historical context in order to display the conditions in which people live; conditions in which few prosper handsomely at the expense of those who create the wealth.
Post-independent Africa is depicted as a lost cause in the book. People seem to have cast aside their nationalistic feelings as people pursue the ends to their means.
A clear disillusionment can be seen in the people. There is also the clear indication of how certain society members have resorted to drug abuse in a sense to ward off these sorry realities.
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