TEBlog

This satirical portrayal of the fictional West African 'Mimboland’ begins with the anguished reflections of a rather stereotypical Emmanuel, experiencing an emotional breakdown of sorts after failing university exams. Acutely aware of the unrealistic expectations of his family and the rural villagers who pin all their hopes on his return, Emmanuel simultaneously navigates his way through a shaky relationship and the dirty, dangerous yet glamorous streets of the fast city.

Ironically it is the mysterious demise of Emmanuel’s home village, Abehema, which releases him from the burden of breaking the news of his academic failures to his father and the rest of the village. An attempt by one of the elders or notables (Emmanuel’s father) to restore a sense of justice and order to the prevailing political system corrupted by the chief, guilty of embezzlement and possibly murder, spearheads the tragedy. Conflicting explanations raise the issues of scientific explanations (gas from a volcanic eruption) versus the prevailing belief in a system of magic and witchcraft (the chief harnessed supernatural forces to punish the village elders).

Souls Forgotten is an excellent and compelling satirical portrayal of the underlying tensions between the modern and the traditional faced on the continent today. These dichotomies are a central thread and exist within the central characters themselves. Language is a key thread in the book, with the linguistic competencies of the characters in pidgin, French, or the local languages, often impacting centrally on their relations with others in the society, particularly in the city. Moreover, the chauvinistic central character is unemployed and expects his working girlfriend to arrive home in time to cook his favourite meal, yet later they seemingly find happiness in ‘true love’,marriage and children. The elders’ coup attempt to impose political and social justice is ultimately lost to the stronger power of magic and witchcraft. The forgotten souls, the victims of the supernatural disaster of Abehema, turn to the Western hospital in their desperation. The traditional ties of friendship, kinship and loyalty are temporarily abandoned as one man faces financial ruin with the death of his cattle.

The tensions are constantand there is seemingly no absolution, though ultimately Emmanuel seems to find the balance between tradition and modernity through love and family; and more importantly in his new identity as political actor via the creation of an NGO which, it appears, will give his people agency and the hope of real change in a context fraught with nepotism and corruption, and the uncertainty of the power of the supernatural. Unfortunately though, it is only the Africa of Nyamnjoh’s novel, which has such a happy ending. Increasingly modernisation results in the growth of individualistic versus collectivist cultures, and Africans the continent over have yet to find ways to shift the centres of power.

This is an engaging read from a well-established scholar who surprises with his competencies as both researcher/ academic and novelist. Nyamnjoh’s writing is intoxicating and entices the writer into the deep, dark and complex world of ‘Mimboland’ that the central characters in this, his 6th work of fiction, occupy.

*Prof Nyamnjoh recently joined the Faculty of Humanities, Dept of Social Anthropology, UCT. This book is available in the Main Library at 828.9655NYAM.

 

 

 

I went jogging around 6.30am last Tuesday morning before work, when I casually greeted another jogger in an equal state of huffiness. On my way back I nearly tripped over the police tape of a section of road cordoned off, with a body being sombrely being covered by the cops. Flashing lights lit up that section of the still dark road, and my dog growled briefly at the kind officer who lifted the tape and shone his flashlight so we could pass. This incident left me pondering the frailty of life, particularly after I later heard on radio news that the body was that of a jogger who was attacked, stabbed twice for his cellphone, and who died on the side of the road, discovered by a roving patrol van. A few hours later I heard a description of the dead man on the radio, and was startled to learn that this was the same jogger I had greeted so casually on my run. Not only was he a fellow jogger, but a fellow hiker, a member of the small group of people who practice the sport I love so much.

I usually jog alone, but on Tuesday morning I had my staffie along (mostly in the hope that she would help me increase my running speed). This really got me thinking about several things. Had I been on time (I was 'running' late that morning) and had I not had the dog, I may have stepped right into the attack or worse yet, been the victim. And why do we have so much violent crime in South Africa? Perhaps it’s naive to imagine that one might politely request a potential victim to hand over their valuables; but somehow the idea that someone might deem it necessary to take another’s life – over a few material possessions (in this case a measly cellphone) – seems unpalatable.  Other African countries have similar levels of crime – pickpocketing and other petty thefts – but these are rarely accompanied by stabbings or shootings. Perhaps this incident was nothing more than a jolt to my privileged life in the Southern Suburbs, since such crimes are commonplace on the Cape Flats and elsewhere. Johnny Steinberg (in The Number) explains that crime has always been present for the vast majority of South Africans, and that it was only when it started spilling out into middle class suburbs that we noticed; and that moreover, crime is a form of low-intensity civil war. Sure – with our history of severe inequality (which continues today) it almost even kinda makes sense.  But I think it (together with many other things) is symptomatic of a sick society. We need to start thinking about getting at the root causes of crime. There’s something wrong with our society when people can kill other human beings for their possessions. Equally indicative of our sick society is those drivers who don’t step at pedestrian crossings, people who litter, parents who don’t teach their kids to say please and thank-you and adults who don’t respond to cellphone messages.

Of course this also got me thinking about how we choose to live our lives. I often run and walk alone – but never when I feel that my personal safety might be threatened. I am adventurous, not stupid (or so I like to think). Do all joggers now have to run in packs, fearful of muggers? Do I turn the poor staffie into a regular jogging mate? Do we have to get an alarm system and electric fencing? (we must be among the few who don't already)

I think the solution is to live life and not to become victims of fear. Exercise a degree of measured caution but not expect the worst. In defence of/ reaction to my own fear, I piled the poor staffie into the car and went hiking to Noordhoek Peak from Silvermine the day after. I was relieved when upon meeting an affluent looking cyclist, said faithful staffie growled fiercely as he approached up the hill, lycra clad and wearily pushing his Diamond Back, in desperate need of the good news that the rest of his route was downhill.

I’m not planning on emigrating anywhere, anytime soon. And I haven’t yet figured out the solution to the ‘problem’ of crime. So in the meantime, if you encounter a sweaty and huffy jogger with a staffie, don’t be offended if they both growl at you.

I might easily have been forgiven for assuming that all the cab drivers in Ghana support Barack Obama when trying to flag down a ride on the streets of Accra last week. I guess they took one look at my hair (braids) and outfit (let’s call it backpacker chic), and reckoned that yelling “Go ’Bama” would ensure that I’d pay more than the 2 or 3 cedis it should cost to get from Oxford Street to Labada Beach.

But this blog post is about my first visit to West Africa, rather than “what Obama can do for Africa” and why I believe this to be bit of a sophism. And while I’d like to join the fray, this post doesn’t reflect much on the issues of racial identity politics that surface when you’re mistaken for ‘other’, though it occurred to me, while reading Fisher’s Race (2007) this week, that it’s true: race matters.

Ghana is often cited as one of the friendliest African cities. A friend jokingly told me how Ghanaians are so polite that they’d even prefix an insult with (an obsequious) “please sir”. At the time I laughed, but later I realised that perhaps I could explain this using the theoretical prism Fanon (1961) provides: and better understood his argument that white colonialism imposed an existentially false and degrading existence upon its black victims, to the extent that it forced their conformity to its distorted values. Ghana was the first African country to receive independence in 1957 (from the British), which begs the question, why was my first impression of Accra that of one big sprawling slum? I experienced mild ‘culture shock’ at the fact that nothing seemed to work as it should: water came out of the tap, but only if you were lucky. People were always late, restaurant service was bad and the food, even worse; and I’ve never seen so much trash in public spaces.

Walter Rodney wrote about how Europe under-developed Africa, and at first I was inclined to agree that colonialism and neo-colonialism, together with foreign aid and foreign ownership of the means of production, had resulted in what appears to be a lack of basic services and the development of a dual economy. The famous bustling markets are over-crowded with everything on sale from trotters to suitcases, but at Koala supermarket you can buy oreos and liquifruit, at a price of course.

Ghana is the 2nd largest producer of gold on the continent (in fact the word Ghana means King of Gold), but perhaps it is the series of coups after Nkrumah’s rule that led to the population not having a strong sense of ownership in their country after independence. Like in South Africa, India and other colonial nations, civil disobedience started out as a form of political protest, but then later became normalised e.g. public urination or excessive littering etc. Or perhaps, it is a combination of both things. After all, thousands of acres of productive farmlands have been ceded to transnational mining interests, with modern ‘open-pit’ gold mining stripping away productive agricultural land and contaminating rivers, severely affecting fishing communities.

But economics aside, I tried to stay away from the touristy Oxford Street and walked as much as I could. I read the local newspapers and was intrigued to find a thriving culture of A1 colour posters, a version of the tabloid press aimed at illiterate members of society, but providing news as well as social commentary and satire via pictures only. I sat on the beach in the rain and watched fierce Atlantic waves form the backdrop to local soccer games (August is the coldest month, with minimum temps around 27 degrees); I bought jollof rice and fried plaintains from roadside vendors and quenched my thirst with coconut water; and I drank palm wine in rural eastern Ghana, where I also learned about the role that local community radio station, Radio Ada, plays in the promotion of local culture and commerce. The business reporter goes to the market and broadcasts prices of available goods on the radio. “Now the men believe us”, said one woman. “They hear the prices on the radio and they hear what’s available, and they know we’re not lying when sometimes we get low prices or come back home with the fish”.

I swayed to highlife music at Chez Afrique near East Legon, and the next morning I waited for two hours while Kwame (not his real name) began the laborious process of burning CDs of highlife and hiplife music from the computer in his video rental store. This seemed to be the only way of buying local music, though hundreds of DVDs of the latest American movies and sitcoms were freely available on the street, high quality pirates imported from Nigeria.

Ghana was crazy, sad and beautiful. And somehow, all I can remember is sitting on a plastic chair in the market, watching the world go by and sipping a tepid coke, and thinking to myself, “you’re home”.

Book review:

Hunter-Gault, Charlayne. (2006). New news out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance. (New York: Oxford University Press), ISBN-13: 978-0-19-517747-3

Veteran award winning reporter Hunter-Gault blends personal memoir with reportage and analysis, to challenge stereotypical reporting of Africa by, primarily, the Western media. It is no secret that media representations of the continent are most often stereotypical or sensationalised, focusing on conflict and disease; and the author sets out to systematically paint a different portrait: one of Africa which shows good, or so-called ‘new’ news. Hunter-Gault intends to give “examples from [her] experiences and observations to create a status report of a continent in a hopeful transition, albeit one that is slow and sometimes maddeningly regressive” (p.x). And here, she argues, the role of the African journalist is that of guardians of their new world. (More)

Welcome to my blog, created as part of a blogging workshop conducted by the Centre for Educational Technology here at UCT. This space will be used to share some of my writing, to talk about my ongoing research into community radio, to reflect on my teaching and pedagogical philosophies, and to introduce you to my family (probably the most important category of all!). At some point, bandwidth permitting, I plan to share with you my range of documentaries and world music programmes via a podcast. But for now, enjoy, and comment freely!