WHY CONVERSATION ON IMPERIALISM MUST CONTINUE
April 9, 2021
Prof Harry Iyorwuese Hagher is an author and ex-Ambassador and High Commissioner of Nigeria to Mexico and Canada. In this interview, he explains why the conversation around imperialism must continue. Excerpts:
Sir, your debut novel “The Conquest of Azenga”, gives one a “Things Fall Apart” vibe, as both addressed similar themes; western versus traditional African culture and religion, colonialism and imperialism. Why do we need another fictional work on these issues?
You are wrong on both counts. Achebe said he was not comparing his Igbo culture with the European, instead he was teaching ‘his readers that their past, with all their imperfections, was not one long night of savagery from which the first European, acting on God’s behalf delivered them’. This was his theme! In the Conquest of Azenga, I have gone beyond Achebe’s setting in Things fall Apart, my setting is Pan- African.
My theme is Lugard’s Africa, and the horror of imperialism from where we inherited corruption and tribalism, which are the major issues that affect contemporary Africa today. Like Achebe, my aim is to decolonise imagination, as I address my constituency, the politicians and the elite, who are merely a continuation of the Lugardian agenda in Africa.
They treat themselves as imperialists and the citizens as savages. Embedded in the colonial policy of indirect rule was a racist brainwashing machine, which is as effective today as it was then. Achebe merely gave Lord Lugard a footnote in his Anthills of the Savannah, when he referred to the elite school, the brainwashing school: King’s College Lagos, briefly. I directly dwelt on the Lugardian Darwinian racism and hubris, by reaffirming the humanity of the African.
The fidelity of my research on Lord Lugard and his wife Flora Shaw, who referred to the African in very many expletives as “savages”, will amaze you, as I deconstructed the historical materials using my artistic license.
How does setting your novel in the past possibly address the problems of Nigeria or Africa in the present?
There is no single novel that is not introspective. The problems of contemporary Africa are deeply etched in the contemporary issues of the clash of civilisations, white supremacy, corruption and tribalism. Even the creative artists have pitched sides with their tribes as tribal cultural warriors. If your younger generation is oblivious of these and are looking inside themselves to merely scratch at the symptoms of our challenges, then, I must say they are escapists. But I believe you are wrong.
I have read books written by Chimamanda Adichie and Hebron Habila, the younger generation. They are carrying on with the conversation from where they met it. Adichie, from the Biafran war, and Habila re-living the years of military dictatorship. These are the issues that permeate their world view.
My novel addresses the core of my existential problem. Who really am I? Why was I born in this country as a British-protected child and not either as a citizen of Nigeria or a British citizen? What are the root problems of Africa’s underdevelopment? Where on earth did we create the African politician? You are anxious that we should forget about colonialism and move on? I ask you, move on to where exactly? Teju Cole set his novel in New York, but through Nigerian eyes.
Buchi Emecheta weaved in her novels, her marital experience and patriarchy challenges. This is her passion. Yet, we have not addressed colonialism or imperialism enough. If we did, we would have learnt to know when we have been re-colonised by our people who have clearly become emperors.
Recently in Nigeria, we have started hearing of establishing indigenous colonies. We are oblivious. We clap and dance because many have no idea what colonialism means. On the eve of their departure, the British destroyed massive records of their inhumane policies that have ravaged Africa and continue to do so under systemic racism and tribal jingoists. I was born under colonialism and have absorbed the rising temperature of this place for over seven decades. I craved a space for my perspective and found my niche.
Should we keep blaming colonialism for our woes when we are not ready to make the necessary changes 60 years after independence?
In three hundred years from now, Africa will still be floundering in the dark, unless we retrace ourselves to where the foundation for inequality, tribalism and corruption were laid. We must keep blaming and subverting Western, Chinese or African imperialism wherever it rears its ugly head, until we do something different. People who say let’s move on; have no idea of the extent to which the Lord Lugard’s system went. We have inherited a deep-seated inferiority complex, where we admire and want to be like the imperialists.
Even the images on our streets, films and fashion exemplify this attitude. Let us become white by bleaching our skins and wearing wigs like the white people, in order to be accepted and respected. Our youth are aping American ghetto life, and our elites are mercilessly enmeshed in western consumerism, acquiring luxuries they do not need and should not afford. Culturecide has taken place under the Lugardian system. But I leave that to the critic to explore these dimensions.
It appears that our problems centre on neocolonialism instead of colonialism. How would you react to this?
How can you comprehend neocolonialism without a thorough understanding of colonialism? Have you any idea what it takes to de-colonise?
And who really are your new-colonisers? Are the businessmen of today any different from yesterday? How different are our military including the retired generals from Lord Lugard. This idea of ethnic superiority in Nigeria was created and reinforced by Lugard’s indirect rule policy. You are taking us back in circles.
Come with me to British Sofalia in the Conquest Of Azenga, where predation meant a felonious state that criminally preyed on its people, where legality meant little as the officers of State: the police and Army became the edifice for killing and extortion. This Sofalian nightmare is our Nigerian grim reality today.
What is the most important message you want readers to take away from The Conquest of Azenga?
As a literary artist, my main purpose and message in The Conquest of Azenga is to shatter the myth of racial and tribal bigotry. I have taken those things that informed my roots and dominated my thinking like: imperialism, racism, tribalism, corruption and religious bigotry, and subverted them by looking at them in an objective and critical manner. They become no more threatening but putative. And if putative, then my responsibility is not to submit but subvert these.
What do you love most about being a writer?
Everything! I especially love the paradoxical relationship that exists between me and my readers which is extremely intimate and yet totally remote. I draw the same kind of energy thinking of my readers as actors do on stage. I am able to say things that make people uncomfortable without being in range for aggression, so they can dialogue within themselves and be influenced.
Any new projects in the offing?
I am off to Dayton, with the draft of my second novel, which I hope will be a sequel to The Conquest of Azenga. I will hibernate with the materials under the watchful eyes of my wife Nancy, and allow God to use me to bring out another message in a novel form.
Culled from: https://leadership.ng/why-conversation-on-imperialism-must-continue-prof-iyorwuese/