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Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them”, the philosopher Alfred Alder once said; and Karl Marx pointed out that “religion is an opium of the people”.
The concept of escapism will be explored here through the philosophies of the two men cited above.
One may ask, “So what are principles?”
Principles may be defined as a set of regulations that shape the individual’s destiny as they determine how he/she interacts with others in a cosmopolitan context. Principles, therefore, mould the family unit, community and nation. Without adherence to principles, society disintegrates.
However, characters in literary works, as in life, are weighed down by hardships and frustration to the extent that they abandon their responsibilities.
Because the physical sites of both the national and familial platforms oftentimes offer no solace, individuals resort to the psychological site as a vent for escape.
Most women usually escape through the religious vent, and men and some women find the elixir in alcoholic beverages.
Contrary to popular belief, most religions accommodate alcohol.
The Christian Bible, for instance, is not contemptuous of consumption of alcohol as there is no clear verse one can cite to condemn it.
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ’s first miracle was at a wedding in Cana, where he was revered for turning water into the best of wines. Imbibing of alcoholic beverages envelops one in merriment, so Jesus Christ kindled the exuberance at the nuptials in Cana by providing wine when all seemed to be lost.
In Genesis, the “tree” of knowledge whose forbidden fruit Adam was cajoled into eating, was a grapevine. The scriptures teach that men of worth were blessed with rich vineyards.
Yes, the Bible is not scornful of alcohol, no wonder why Roman Catholics and Anglicans have no qualms with it. The Vatican City is believed to be the world’s highest consumer of wine.
So is alcohol virtuous then?
Scientists posit that if used in moderation, alcohol is not destructive as it has some medicinal properties — motivational and inspiring.
One only has to know when and where to draw the line. But who really draws that line for one to prevent drinking oneself to a stupor?
Although the Word of God seems to condone alcohol use, it is uncompromisingly derisive to drunkenness and revelling.
Concerning drunkenness, Apostle Paul implores in Galatians 5v21 and Romans 13v13: “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envings”.
Noah, God’s chosen one, was disgraced because of excessive drinking. Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, entered the Tabernacle under the influence of alcohol and were consumed by a fire issuing from heaven. David also drank himself to an ennobling and exuberant dance to his Lord much to the chagrin of his wife.
Judaism incorporates alcohol as well, for it eases inhibitions and weakens the body’s natural defence systems, which make the body and soul work in tandem to create an inspirational atmosphere.
Rabbi Avon Moss clarifies: “Wine represents what Judaism is all about: the fusing of the holy and the mundane, the spiritual and physical, the body and soul.” A life of asceticism and abstinence, therefore, is rather unrealistic, because it defeats the communion that should prevail between the body and the soul.
In Judges 9v13, alcohol imbibing is described as “bringing joy to God and man”, because every sacrifice offered in the Holy Temple was accompanied by a wine libation.
However, escapism through alcohol is considered dangerous and unacceptable as it robs the individual of responsibility by creating a surreal world.
Whatever reasons maybe proffered for the consumption of alcohol as espoused in most religions, have an element of escapism. Little wonder why the Torah, which is the revealed will of God, extols the virtue, courage and holiness of the Nazirite, who vows to abstain from wine.
In the African milieu, alcohol has been used for centuries not only for pleasure, but for divinity and communion. It is used at traditional rain-making ceremonies, weddings, harvesting and other social gatherings.
Muslims, on the other hand, consider the consumption of alcohol as despicable and unholy. According to an Indonesian Chief, Habid Muhammad bin Toha Assegaff, “alcoholic beverages are linked to sexual violence and episodes of adultery.”
Islam frowns at alcohol use, and punishment for non-compliance is usually meted out unsparingly.
Egyptians are allowed only two purchases of three litres (3,2 quarts) each per year and foreigners are allowed four purchases annually.
Considering such drastic regulations to contain its use in the Muslim world, is alcohol really that bad?
Perchance the answer is in literary works.
George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (1945) easily comes to mind. Realising the folly of alcohol through its abuse by their master, Mr Jones, which becomes his nemesis, the animals resolve to ban its use in their kingdom by coining the maxim, “No animal shall drink alcohol”.
However, this noble idea is soon jeopardised by the pigs’ propensity for opulence and the bizarre and the maxim is changed to, “No animal shall drink alcohol in excess”. Thereafter, the pigs who constitute the leadership, are no better than Man; their enemy.
Because of frustration and life’s burdens, alcohol has become a substance used not only for pleasure, but for drowning sorrows.
Peter Abrahams depicts the use of alcohol in this vein in “Mine Boy” (1946). In “Kachasu-a killer” (2005), Julius Chingono explores how poverty and frustration drive people to seek comfort in alcohol. The affable Henchard, the protagonist in Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (1886), is haunted by an incident in which he sells his wife to a sailor in drunken stupor and madness.
The culture of consumption reduces individuals to alcoholics, hence, it is a bad precedent in the shaping of an authentic vision for the nation.
Shimmer Chinodya examines the folly of alcoholism in “Queues” (2003), “Tavonga” (2005) and “Chairman of Fools” (2005).
In “Queues” the narrator in the collective voice boasts: “We knocked lager after lager and gorged ourselves on sadza and cows’ hooves”. In “Tavonga” the narrator is known as “Bhiya” “alias Beer” and he lives up to the name. Like the narrator in “Queues” and Farai in “Chairman of Fools”, he imbibes like a sponge and does not seem to do anything for his children as a father ought to do, neither does he seem to do anything else. Using symbolic elements Chinodya highlights the death of morality at the centre of the family unit and the nation as individuals try to escape from the reality of their conditions through alcohol. Because beer is symbolic of pleasure and abandonment of obligation, in “Chairman of Fools” the protagonist, Farai, is unable to release himself from the labyrinth in which he entangles himself. His perpetual state of drunkenness is responsible for his loss of grasp of reality. His clinging to hallucinations and recurrent dreams of death may be a result of extreme reliance on alcohol and as a result discord plays havoc with the music of his soul.
Charles Mungoshi also lambasts such tendencies in “Walking Still” (1997). In “The Empty House”, Gwizo escapes from the reality of his situation through the alcoholic vent, much to the detriment of his marriage. By escaping from responsibility and accountability as an artist and a husband, he exposes his vulnerable and lonely white wife, to the prying eyes of his father who later on impregnates her, thus complicating the situation that he thought good to escape from.
As Karl Marx reasons, religion is an intoxicating drug, which makes people escape into reverie as they grapple with their daily tribulations. Religion makes people not to forget their problems, but to tolerate them as they hallucinate over them. Religion, like alcohol, therefore, only offers a temporary reprieve, instead of providing solutions.
By using nihilistic aspects of modernism, Chinodya holds up religion as having a negative impact on the national psyche. He does this by using an atheistic narrator in “Queues” whose ideal woman is one who “does not take herself seriously and doesn’t do too much of the church staff”, and Farai who has “lost faith in churches”.
Like alcohol, religion intoxicates and makes people negate their values, duties and responsibilities. The narrator’s family in “Tavonga” has broken down because of a combination of excessive belief in alcohol and religion. This is also true of Farai’s family in “Chairman of Fools”.
As a result of lack of proper parental guidance and nothing to emulate from their ever quarrelling parents, the children in Chinodya’s world have become rebellious.
Although religion and alcohol help people “to bolster their waning sanity in a vicious world” (“Queues”), the phenomena are destructive to the family unit and impinge on the national consciousness. They are “evils” at the centre of the social neurosis, malaise and paralysis that jeopardise familial, communal and national ties as principles are traded for pleasure.
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