Nigeria Content Online

The writer V.S.
Naipaul is at it again. He has just visited Africa and written about
his contempt for that continent in his new book The Masque of Africa.
He travels to places like Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast,
Gabon and South Africa – to discover the “nature of African belief”
according to a recent review of the book by Sameer Rahim in the UK
Telegraph. Rahim gives the clear impression that this book does not
improve upon the silence. It is the same tired, stereotypical garbage
about Africa and civilisations of colour. You wonder if at 80 years of
age, he is finally losing it. In Gabon, his legs give way and someone
attempts to transport him in a broken wheelbarrow. Give me a break! Why
the drama?

The sad truth is
that ever since Naipaul was born, as he would put it, among the
wretched of the earth, he has struggled obsessively to escape his skin.
He fills great books with reams of self-loathing. His interviewers
never fail to notice this little man of colour in the English
countryside dressed in a Tweed jacket. Almost every interview of him
mentions with breathless wonder that this man from India via Trinidad
is dressed – in a Tweed jacket. It is the ultimate rejection of his
claim to another civilisation, and humanity. Just like us. Naipaul is
us.

The African
intellectual from the beginning has been frustrated by the constant
label of “the other” that is implied in how Westerners view Africa and
her inhabitants. It just seems like there is nothing we can do or say
that lets even our most liberal Western friends view us as part of a
bland, no-drama humanity. It understandably upsets us, and when
Naipaul, one of us, joins in the heckling, we froth in the mouth. There
is plenty of blame to go around, but African intellectuals are refusing
to accept credit for any of the blame. We have abandoned the peasants
who spent so much to get us an education and get them out of hell. We
are in pursuit of our own needs, screw the community. Wine glass in
hand, we mouth white words to white-out what we view as our frailties.
Let us be honest: why would anyone look at the charade that is Nigeria
today and be respectful of her? It is taboo to talk about these things;
it is self loathing and racist. With the awesome power of the white
man’s own words, we bully the West away from the table of dialogue. In
secret, we admire these strange, racist, prejudiced people that see
tomorrow, and go into it fighting. They are next to their God, the
racist Narcissus who sends mean armies after us in gleeful hunt.

We obsess about
what people think of us. I say, get over it; they probably believe we
are pretend humans. A pox on their houses. We are not savages. The real
savages are the racists in our midst. Possessing only primitive
instincts, bereft of thinking skills, they shudder at the other. Racism
is savagery; it diminishes the perpetrator and assigns humanity to the
garbage heap of Early Man. Only savages would spend three trillion
dollars on an unnecessary war against those who cannot tell nuclear
from noodles. Ask the Iraqis.

There is no
defending Naipaul. Achebe already deconstructed Naipaul’s demons and I
couldn’t agree with him more. But I must say, it is time to move from
yelling at racists, real or imagined, to reflecting also on our role in
this mess. Naipaul’s ‘A Bend in the River’ was written over four
decades ago. Today, black Africa may have regressed from that point in
time. Why are things the way they are? We get defensive and yell:
“Can’t you see, we are human like you, we wear suits, and we eat ice
cream with cutlery!” “We are like you!” is our best defence against
charges of our human ineptitude. Yet, our leaders can barely sustain
what passes for modern society, even when they are given all the
resources. They steal it and invest in pretend processes. Kenya has
just spent sinful resources on producing a ‘constitution’ when the bulk
of her people will not know one if it is pressed against their noses.
Face it: what is racist about pointing out that much of black Africa is
a farce today, many thanks to us her intellectuals and leaders?

Raheem observes this about Naipaul: “Perhaps, like his father, he is
worried about what he sees when he looks in the mirror. Is he the Nobel
Prize-winning sage who has written 30 acclaimed books over 50 years? Or
is he a fraud, pretending to be a country gentleman in Wiltshire when
his true home is among the wretched of the earth?” The question should
be directed not only at Naipaul, but at all of us, fighting gamely to
flee the condition we were born into. We may be blue-suited frauds
pretending to be country gentlemen even as we ignore the travails of
our fellow wretched of the earth.