Analysis of the colonial experience in social science literature has been bogged down by a Manichean divide between the thesis of the “civilizing mission” versus that of the “evils of imperialism”, thereby missing the profound and differential impact of colonialism on different social structures, practices and categories. The nationalist euphoria has impacted strongly on African historiography. Historians all over the continent were concerned, quite legitimately, with reversing racist stereotypes prevalent in the literature that had denied Africans had a history and civilization. They therefore set out to research and demonstrate the rich and ancient history of the various African peoples. In the process, colonialism was often dismissed as a “small episode” in the long and illustrious march of African history.
It was not until 1983 that this vision was attacked frontally by Peter Ekeh in his Inaugural lecture as professor of political sociology at the University of Ibadan. He criticized the Ibadan School of History for downplaying the colonial impact and suggesting it had little relevance for contemporary life. Ekeh argued that colonialism had played a crucial role in integrating Africa into the modern world-system and thereby designed its present space-time boundaries: “The moral and social order which formally encased the pre-colonial indigenous institutions is burst by the social forces of colonialism and they seek new anchors in the changed milieu of colonialism.” This apt clarification is so clearly demonstrated in “Things fall Apart” and “Arrow of God”.
Related:
Learning African Politics Through Chinua Achebe (Part One), By Jibrin Ibrahim
The world that the people knew had changed in a very profound manner. New social agents had emerged in African society. They were the interpreters, teachers, messengers and above all the missionaries. Initially, they were recruited from categories the society considered worthless and marginal, but they became the new centres of wealth and power, and they eventually attracted more people to their fold. We are told in “Arrow of God” that: “The race for the white man’s money will not wait till tomorrow or till we are ready to join; if the rat could not run fast enough, it must make way for the tortoise (1974:169).”
The dynamics of the evolution of social classes and categories has changed and new criteria have come into play. Rather than wrestling skills, yam farming, wives and children, it was henceforth money that was important. And access to money was facilitated by close contact with the Whiteman and his colonial system. The great men of the “ancien regime” had begun their fast descent into irrelevance. The political community widened beyond the clan and a new level of government in which the people could not participate in was created. In the same vein, a new trans-personal and trans-community religion slowly gained grounds. The change swept aside the most conservative elements of the old society as the new forces take root. Ezeolu, the Chief Priest of “Arrow of God” and Okonkwo, the successful entrepreneur of “Things fall Apart” who had become successful against all odds become tragic heroes that were swept aside by the march of history:
“Things Fall Apart” presents the whole tragic drama of a society vividly and concretely enacted in the tragic destiny of a representative individual argues Abiola Irele. However, Okonkwo does not represent his society as a whole, he represented its archaic sector, the “fundamentalists”, that are unwilling to change with the times. As Denise Coussy argues, it is puritanism that destroys Achebe’s central characters. Okonkwo was not a typical member of his clan and he often broke the society’s most sacred taboos by for example beating his wife during the week of peace, killing the boy who considered him his father and trying to shoot his wife on flimsy grounds. The most brilliant aspect of the novel was the presentation of a wide range of sometimes contradictory socio-political viewpoints and interests. Okonkwo’s father hated much of what his society loved and did and Okonkwo’s son was attracted to the missionary message his father despised. When Okonkwo opted to fight against the changes that were destroying the society he knew, he was broken when he discovered that he was alone in that fight. The society had moved forward and left him behind.
