admin
Elliot Ziwira In the book store
IN the fashion of the surgeon, the artist bisects society, exposing its follies and ills with the hope of combating them before they become pandemic.The artist’s experience is his stethoscope, his pen his surgical blade, and his words the prescription.
He may elect to be a general practitioner, covering all aspects of life, like Chirikure Chirikure in “Hakurarwi”; or a specialist, like Wole Soyinka and Freedom Nyamubaya.
Chirikure in “Hakurarwi” explores the ills that weigh down societal progress. He also highlights the endemic nature of selfishness if it is not cured timely.
The poet rigorously examines how people often allow their patience to be mocked. Patience, he seems to say, should never be allowed to take the better of reason. Problems should be nipped in the bud and culprits flushed out and punished.
Chirikure also lambasts political differences as a disease that affects society in the poem “Marangwanda”.
He decries the loss of viable traditional values which call for tolerance, humility and love. He deplores the encroachment of modern, mercenary and dictatorial tendencies on the African experience.
To him, nation-building calls for unity of purpose to avert the destruction that can only lead to death as is suggested by the metaphor of dry bones.
Portraying Pan-Africanism in the context of the liberation struggle, Wole Soyinka, in “The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English” (1990), embraces the need for Africans to have pride in their own values and norms.
Africa, so he yearns, should strive to free itself from the clutches of colonialism and map its own future.
This is especially expressed in the poems “Steel Usurps the forests; Silence dethrones dialogue” and “No! He Said”.
In the poem “Steel Usurps the Forests; Silence dethrones dialogue”, inspired by Samora Machel’s declaration of war against white-ruled Rhodesia, Soyinka bemoans the futility of dialogue when dealing with imperialists for it will always fail when it matters most.
According to him, political independence is only achievable through armed confrontation.
The poet employs the Yoruba god of iron and war, Ogun, who he treats with reverence and ambivalence as expressed in the following:
“For subterfuge has spent its course/and self acclaiming, /Spurs the cause to the season of/enthronement/Acolyte to craftsmaster of them…/I celebrate.”
Ogun is symbolic of the Pan-African “cause” which is the African dream.
If dialogue can work in other instances, it will find it taxing to work in the African context, as its sons and daughters have been subjected to untold suffering and insults, such that they have become dumb and mute as illuminated here:
“Will you make a gift of gab/to swollen tongues/broken on the boot, and make their muteness/Proof of craving dialogue?”
Protests, sanctions and diplomacy are all signs of weakness in the fight against oppression.
On the contrary, although Soyinka embraces war as the only route to freedom, he does not attempt to sugar coat its dehumanising effects and destruction. War, in any context can never be glorified, as the violence it espouses leads to untold suffering on either side.
In the poem “No! He said”, Soyinka takes the reader to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela is incarcerated. Mandela epitomises black consciousness and Robben Island metaphorically stands for white supremacy and oppression.
The use of the metaphysical conceit of the voyage at sea and in space, as well as the breakers of the sea, enhances the contrast of the oppressed and the oppressor.
Soyinka uses the counterpoint “no” in his portrayal of the temptations Mandela confronts. But like a true African who stands for his beliefs, he remains solid and unwavering.
By using seemingly far-fetched images of nature, the poet implores the African to remain resolute and stand for his own, even in difficult situations.
On post-independence political oppression, exiled Malawian poet Chipasula explores the dictatorial tendencies of African leaders in general, and Kamuzu Banda in particular.
He follows the shift of power from colonial oppressors to African oppressors, with the only difference being the colour of their skins. He points out fearlessly, that oppression and tyranny are colour blind.
Unlike his compatriots, Jack Mapanje and Steve Chimombo, Chipasula does not hide his disgust in myth and images. Instead, he calls a spade a spade and lays his cards on the table.
In “Manifesto on Ars Poetica”, Chipasula explores the senility and tyrannical inclinations of former Malawian president, Kamuzu Banda.
The artist rejects the use of poetic devices like myth and symbolism to camouflage meaning, opting to use language which blatantly shouts in the face of oppression.
He says: “I will not wash the blood off the image/I will let it flow from the gullet/slit by the assassin’s dagger through/the run-on line until it rages/in the verbs of terror.”
Raw ire is evident here as the poet does not make an effort to mask his feelings, neither does he glorify dictatorship. His criticism is open, strong, sensitive and final.
This theme is also expressed strongly in “Talking of Sharp Things” as the poet does not conceal his disgust and bitterness at Banda’s monarchical pretensions, as illustrated in the following lines: “A crown full of thorns and a king/who is dying/of indulgence, and a rough tree /that holds him; /The leader, a snake in three-piece/rich rags and a mouth endowed with incisors and fangs…/and kill like the sharp tail of/the whirlwind dancing.”
In the fashion of the surgeon, he does not only expose the ills besotting his people, but he also offers solutions.
Therefore, as problems afflicting society are always in a state of flux, the competent artist, as a surgeon, should always come to his community’s rescue by not only diagnosing them, but proffering possible medication.
Online Reporter