Zimbabwe through Achebe’s Eyes

via Zimbabwe through Achebe’s Eyes | newzimbabweconstitution 20 November by Alex T. Magaisa

The political drama in Zimbabwe evokes memories of some of the greatest works of literature. One is reminded of Shakespearean tragedies – Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet and many more. In First Lady, Grace Mugabe for example, one finds some interesting parallels with the character of Lady Macbeth, the ambitious woman who encourages her husband, whose nature she thinks is “too full of the milk of human kindness” to assassinate the king in order to take the throne. And Julius Caeser, with the words of Caesar, “Et tu Brut?”, (Newewo futi, Brutus?), signifying the gravity of the betrayal. Contestation over leadership and the grim acts that accompany such contests are as old as history itself.

But it is the story captured by one of Africa’s great authors, Chinua Achebe, which is closer to home, closer in time, space and poignancy. When people hear of Achebe, their immediate thoughts go to Okonkwo, the flawed hero of Things Fall Apart, itself one of the greatest novels. But it is to Ezeulu, another of Achebe’s tragic heroes, in his novel, Arrow of God, that we turn today. It is the story of how an old, stubborn and head-strong man led his community to ruin, all because of pride, power and refusal to adapt. There is a part that, for our purposes, demands summarisation.

Ezeulu was the chief priest of his clan in a community called Umuaro, at a momentous period in its history when the Europeans were just beginning to settle in their territory. Chief among his responsibilities was the announcement of a traditional ceremony, called the Feast of the New Yam, which announced the beginning of the harvest. They made their offerings at that festival and thanked the gods for the harvest, while asking for favours in the new season.

Ezeulu had power. It was upon his word that the community relied to settle on a date for this important festival. It was he who counted the months by the appearance of the moon. He kept 13 yams and each time a new moon appeared he consumed a yam. With one yam remaining, he would announce the day of the festival. It was taboo to start harvesting before the festival. So Ezeulu had immense power, because he controlled time and the harvest and therefore, the health and well-being of the community.

But then on one occasion, he tried to use this power against his people, as punishment for their omissions. Ezeulu was not amused when he was detained by the European officials. He thought his people had let him down. He thought as their chief priest, they should have defended him. When he was released he vowed to punish them.

Since he been detained for two months, he had not been able to consume two yams that he would otherwise have eaten had been a free man when the new moons appeared. When he returned, he simply continued from where he had left before his detention. It was as if time had frozen during the period that he was in detention. And by so doing, his actions had the effect of not only extending the year by two months but it also affected the timing of the festival and the harvest, since it was taboo to perform the harvest before the festival.

The community panicked when he did not announce the festival, as they had expected he would do. They feared the crop would begin to rot in the ground. There was a fear of hunger and famine. All this because Ezeulu, the man with power to declare the date of the festival after which the harvest could commence, was refusing to do the right thing. Naturally, the people became exasperated and desperate because of the mounting crisis.

Delegations of elders went to plead with Ezeulu, asking him to eat the two yams and declare the day of the important festival. But Ezeulu was adamant and stubbornly refused to oblige, saying that he was sticking to tradition. “You are asking me to eat death”, he said in response to the pleas.

But they continued to plead for reason to prevail. “A man must dance the dance prevailing in his time”, they said, exhorting him to be flexible and that they would take responsibility for his actions if he did as requested. “You will be free because we have set you to do it, and the person who sets a child to catch a shrew should also find him water to wash the odour from his hand”, they said, promising to take responsibility if he broke the rules in order to save the community from ruin. Still Ezeulu refused.

The community suffered and began to hate Ezeulu. But the community’s hostility spread to his family – his wives and his children, too. They became the targets of attacks. Others said Ezeulu did not care because he did not suffer the consequences of his actions since as chief priest, he would receive a yam from every family when they made their offerings. But they also thought that he was such a stubborn character who was prepared to let pride ruin a whole community. “… My friend,” said one man, “when a man as proud as this wants to fight he does not care if his own head rolls as well in the conflict”. So Ezeulu’s obstinacy led the community to ruin.

Yet this also presented an opportunity to a new religion which, at the time, was only very slowly finding its way into the community. John Jaja Goodcountry, was the man who was leading the charge and when he saw that the people of Umuaro were desperate because of their chief priest’s stubbornness, he took full advantage of it.

Word spread that if the traditional god, Ulu, was not ready to receive the yam offering, the new god of the Christians was more than ready to receive them and deliver them from the suffering caused by Ulu’s stubbornness. Therefore, instead of waiting for Ulu, and having their crop wasted, they could make their offering to God in the Church and start their harvest. They did not have to fear the wrath of Ulu, as the god of the Christians had the power to protect them. For a people who were desperate, this became an avenue out of the crisis they were facing. Rather than face famine occasioned by Ezeulu’s stubbornness, they chose the new path. Thus in his stubbornness, Ezeulu had expedited the rise of the new rival religion and turned supporters into converts of the new religion.

And worse was to come as Ezeulu himself eventually lost his mind in the aftermath of the tragic death of his son, Obika. As Achebe puts it, after this sad event that broke him, it also allowed him “to live in the haughty splendour of a demented high priest and spared him knowledge of the final outcome”. In other words, in the end, the stubborn Ezeulu had lost his mind and control.

This was interpreted by the elders of Umuaro as a victory against an obstinate chief priest who had refused to listen to the people and thought he was bigger than them. In their minds, “their god had taken sides with them against his headstrong and ambitious priest and thus upheld the wisdom of their ancestors – that no man however great was greater than his people; that no one ever won judgment against his clan”.

Achebe’s Umuaro is a world away from today’s Zimbabwe but one cannot help but notice some striking thematic similarities. Like Achebe’s Umuaro, it seems Zimbabwe has its own Ezeulu. Ezeulu was stubborn and head-strong. He believed he was right and that everyone else was wrong. He refused to adapt, even when doing so was disastrous to the community. In any event, Ezeulu would never go hungry, as every citizen would still be required to offer a single yam to Ulu, the god that he represented.

And even though people pleaded with him, that it was necessary to make changes for the good of the whole community, Ezeulu refused to listen. Instead, he turned his wrath upon those who opposed him. He thought he was misunderstood and undervalued. His family suffered hostility, too, on account of his conduct. But, in the end, not only did his behaviour cause ruin for everyone, it also opened the way for the rival religion represented by John Goodcountry who took full advantage of the disgruntlement that Ezeulu’s conduct had caused among the people. And rather cruelly, Ezeulu lived his last days without control of his faculties.

wamagaisa@yahoo.co.uk