adminMasimba T. Muusha
Dear Sir
Today you shared some insights into the novel with us. We were to appreciate that the retrospective nature of the book meant that Medza, the first narrator of the story was recalling, remembering, looking back to a phase of his life in which he made important discoveries about himself, of the nature of life, and the condition of Africans subjected to a colonial experience.
Remembering is selective. Memory is both a mechanism, a facility and a process. One does not record everything but only those aspects of an event that have an impact one one’s consciousness or mind. Recollection ,in a way, is an effort to construct, to get meaning, to make sense to find something significant, to interpret an experience that one went through .A person cannot go forward without having secured an understanding of what it means. It is part of being human that we demand , we question, we examine ourselves in relation to our environment and our response to it.
Therefore when reading a text that is retrospective, we need to recognize the shifts in the narrator’s tone, perspective and introspection. Medza, the mature, disillusioned storyteller is decidedly self-deprecating when he was an adolescent sent on a mission to Kala to bring back the wife of a relative who had packed her bags and returned to her father’s village in protest at the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband-Niam. The prologue and the epilogue that open and close the book respectively provide a perspective, a position from which the reader can fully grasp the major issues, concerns, themes that the book addresses .The naïve, fumbling, bungling adolescent Medza who needs a sip of wine in order to be able to bed a girl, a Medza who if he had been white, we could say blushes when he has to undress to take a swim in the river with his age mates, is in sharp contrast to the sober, withering, somewhat cynical Medza whose vision of a colonized African is of a caricature ! Taken in this light, one could then say Medza does not contradict himself throughout the story. It is a question of which phase, which episode of his life furnished or birthed a particular understanding or conclusion.
Remember truth is contextual!
Medza laments what he refers to as ‘ My lost youth’ Throughout then story he is obsessed by what he lost. This can be related to his days at the native school which to him was an ogre that swallowed young boys- vomiting them sucked of their youthful essence-leaving them mere skeletons. The insidious, harmful effects of colonial education are exposed by the question fielded to Medza by a village woman to the effect that-what kind of job would Medza do after his studies ? Secondly she queried as to where the villagers, his kinsman came into all this .i.e. was the education not alienating and not enabling Medza to fully integrate into the society and develop social consciousness, identifying with the needs, values and interests of his people. Medza is very evasive in his response. Endengolo- the simple village woman’s concerns prove to be prophetic as later Medza shows a total lack of sense of responsibility when he humiliates his father, abandons his wife opting for a rootless, aimless wandering life characterized by womanizing and wining. His uncle adds his voice to this protest against the relevance, the value of colonial education.He wondered whether Medza realized how wrong the whites were not teaching the Africans the importance of blood relations, obligations, duty to society and communal spirit. For uncle in any consideration, family comes first. Medza, himself admits that the contents, the curriculum at the colonial school represented, celebrated a world at odds, contrary to the world that the African children knew or were familiar with.
This observation is echoed by Tambudzai- a female character in the novel, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. She is a beneficiary of a scholarship to a mission school where the African children have to recite nursery rhymes such as London bridge is falling down !- a bridge in England not Africa !
Daniel, Medza’s schoolmate shows profound insight into the tragic condition of the African’s encounter with the white man and his system. Quoted by Medza, Daniel, just like the wise Biblical Daniel who successfully interpreted king Nebuccadnezzar’s dream, said-‘ wherever there was a negro, there would always be some European colonial to kick his backside’ In a sense, he pointed to the physically, spiritual, mental, psychological violence inflicted on the black man by the white man colonial system. He captures the very essence of the system- it was brutal, deliberate, methodical, exploitative and violent. In a very striking similar way, Medza’s father becomes ‘ a westernized native, a domestic tyrant, a private dictator’ just like Eugene in the book, Purple Hibiscus, and Babamukuru / uncle in the novel Nervous conditions, the trio typify colonial products .The three were ‘ were the living example[s] of result that can occur when western hypocrisy and commercial materialism is grafted on to a first rate African intelligent.’ They are the ‘ world’s eternal dupes’ for the tragedy is that they never recognize their condition of being ‘ the quintessential caricatures of the coloniser’
Medza, himself, records the folk wisdom of his village ccousin who has not been privy to the white man’s education. Zambo cautions Medza-‘ You have not been sent here to judge…’ Zambo views life as his ancestors without illusion or ambition’ for he is rooted. Duck foot John sings a sorrowful song entitled, ‘Little orphan’s lament’ a song later taken up by Edima who says ‘we are all of us orphaned of something’ Perhaps one could say this is allegorically mourning the loss of identity, the essence of being African. Medza, on his part, is haunted by a childhood episode in which he witnessed a man trapped in a collapsing building cried out desperately for help in vain. To Medza, the man was protesting, defying his fate. In the same manner, Medza saw his own condition- trapped in a world he did not create, a world he does not belong to, but cannot escape and so like the man is doomed.
Finally, Medza, disillusioned, comes to describe himself in a self-deprecating way- ‘ An actor in a strange country country’ According to Medza life is essentially ridiculous, absurd. That is philosophy, outlook, vision of life. No doubt such an attitude, view, approach to life is defence mechanism, a way to immunize one, to numb oneself to the suffering, pain, tragedies that characterize the human life or condition. Regrettably such an attitude appears to exempt one from obligation to ones family and society, one without a social conscience one who ends up like Medza- a wandering wanderer.
Teacher, you then reiterated that all the remarks, comments, views you had expressed were your very own and were by no means conclusive, exhaustive. We were to question, challenge them and not to adopt them as the gospel truth.
Yours
Legitimate Student
The writer, Masimba T. Muusha is an accomplished English Language and English Literature teacher with over 20 years’ experience. He may be contacted on 0777498721. Teachers or students, YOU CAN SEND YOUR ARTICLES THROUGH E-MAIL, FACEBOOK, WHATSAPP or TEXT Just app Charles Mushinga on 0772936678 or send your articles, pictures, poetry, art . . . to Charles Mushinga at [email protected] or [email protected] or follow Charles Mushinga on Facebook or @charlesmushinga on Twitter. You can also post articles to The Sunday Mail Bridge, PO Box 396, Harare or call 0772936678.
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