الفهرس 
Decolonization: StandpointsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
This study traces the process of decolonization in the poetry of two West African poets; Kofi Awoonor from Ghana and christopher Okigbo from Nigeria. Both poets represent two distinct models in their search of decolonization. Awoonor and Okigbo seek to underscore the importance of Africans’ returning to their roots as a means of reshaping their identities which the colonizers were determined to obliterate. They undertake, as their responsibility, to resist the literary manifestations of imperialism and direct their peoples towards forming an indigenous cultural identity. They succeed to incorporate the imagery of West African myth and folklore to revive the past and connect it with the present hoping to reconstruct a bright future for their people.
The present study aims at answering the following questions: how far can decolonization be achieved in Africa on the cultural level? How have those poets illuminated the way for their peoples to rediscover their true African identity? What approaches do those poets identify to fulfill their dream of independence? How does each poet represent a distinctive voice? And what do both poets have in common? These questions are answered through analyzing and representing various definitions of decolonization, the critical views of prominent critics who have tackled decolonization in their critical writings such as Frantz Fanon, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Edward Said and Bill Ashcroft, and through analyzing selected works of both poets.
Decolonization came into being after the First World War, but its influential presence could easily be touched with the agitated feelings of the colonized countries to gain their independence after the Second World War (WW II) in 1945. It became popular after the (WW II) as it denoted ’cleansing changes’(Betts, 1), describing the continuing problems of political and social exploitation in the contemporary world and the struggle on the part of the exploited to terminate this situation. Frantz Fanon and Nugugi Wa Thiongo’s stress the urgent need of Africans to restore their identity through coming in contact with their history, indigenous languages and traditions. Fanon and Nugugi are two voices expressing the African continent and they are aware of the suffering of its peoples. Hence, Fanon and Nugugi’s critical views center on decolonization through resistance and nationalism. This implies rejecting the stereotypical images of Africans imposed by the colonialists and reconstructing true and authentic ones.
By and large, political independence in the 1950-60s has been the outcome of sincere efforts exerted by national liberation movements all over the colonized countries. For example, Kwame Nkrumah followed a nonviolent movement to liberate Ghana from the British rule. Like Mahatma Ghandi of India, Nkrumah organized strikes and boycotts that ended successfully with the independence of Ghana (Awoonor, 1972, 42). In contrast to Ghana, Kenya had to use power against their European rulers to gain their independence. Mau Mau was a secret society that was made up of native Kenyan farmers forced out of the highlands by the British. The basic aim of this movement was to regain their land. Mau Mau used guerrilla war tactics to push white farmers from the highlands. Kenya was granted its independence in 1963(Awoonor, 1972, 43).
Accordingly, the 1960s witnessed the surge of decolonization as a central and dramatic factor that affected the political change in the whole of Africa. Therefore, literature produced in these postcolonial communities is always related to powerful trials of decolonization. Ania Loomba emphasizes placing postcolonial studies within two contexts. The first is the history of decolonization itself where intellectuals “challenged and revised dominant definitions of race, culture, language and class in the process of making their voices heard” (20). The second context is the revaluation within ’western’ intellectual traditions in thinking about some of the same issues. It is evident that decolonization gained its depth and force in the former African colonized nations where struggle reached its extreme limits. And it is obvious in West African countries like Ghana and Nigeria which fell under the siege of colonization.
The question of cultural resistance is of great relevance in the process of decolonization. For many intellectuals and especially Frantz Fanon it is only through opposing the European stereotypes of the African image and forming their own ’national culture’ which is fundamentally attached to the inherited past and its cultural legacy that the Africans would be able to decolonize themselves and their society. According to Fanon, ”Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s head of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today” (Fanon, 1963, 210).
The resurrection of the past is in itself a pressing need in African nationalism because it was the ancestors who had made history. It was their heroic past and glory which provided legitimacy for the other generations. Thus, the endeavor of those nationalists is to invoke the glorious pre-colonial past and traditions embodied in their culture and which the colonizers tried to annihilate.
This study is divided into a preface, three chapters and a conclusion. The preface glimpses West African literature in 1950- 60s and the literary issues raised by the African writers shortly after political independence. Chapter one focuses on decolonization as a process that prevailed after the Second World War and gives a survey of many critical views concerning it. Frantz Fanon and Nugugi Wa Thiongo’s views are handled extensively. Both writers stress the urgent need of Africans to restore their identity through coming in contact with their history, indigenous languages and traditions. Fanon and Nugugi are two voices expressing the African continent and they are aware of the suffering of its peoples. Hence, Fanon and Nugugi’s critical views center on decolonization through resistance and nationalism. This implies rejecting the stereotypical images of Africans imposed by the colonialists and reconstructing true and authentic ones. Fulfillment of this task comes through stressing indigenous traditions and relating them to the present.
Fanon and Nugugi’s ideas present clear steps towards achieving decolonization on the political and literary levels. They pave the way for African writers to employ their work to their people attain their cultural freedom. Their views are set as an example followed by Kofi Awoonor and christopher Okigbo. Both poets provide rich examples of West African poetry that resists the cultural domination of Europe. Their literary work displays their strong belief in reviving the old African culture in an attempt to contest the foreign domination.
Chapter two examines and analyses the poetry of Kofi Awoonor and christopher Okigbo as real attempts towards achieving literary and cultural decolonization. Kofi Awoonor and christopher Okigbo are often handled as members of second generation of West African writers. They come into the limelight in the fifties of the last century when their countries were struggling for independence. They witnessed the euphoria of independence with great hopes and dreams that their countries will not be the same but much better. Their poetic work came as an expression of complete freedom to infuse some of the African oral traditions as a way of cultural self-discovery they strive to assert.
Their poetry shows a great interest in oral African tradition of their ancestors in an attempt to rediscover their true African identity. This chapter reveals Awoonor’s belief that the recovery of these spiritual traditions will guarantee the regeneration of an indigenous African identity. It also asserts that for Okigbo what will heal the spilt and divided cultural personality of Africans is their insistence on restoring their self-renewal and self definition through indigenous religion and old past traditions. Moreover, the chapter focuses on the poetry of the two West African poets in the light of certain critical views of Frantz Fanon and Ngugi Wa Thiongo who assure that the quest for fulfillment and cultural decolonization can only be achieved through keeping up with one’s roots and traditions which the colonizer sought to annihilate.
Chapter three is divided into two parts. The first part points out how the two poets were influenced by modern English and American poets such Ezra Pound, Gerard Manley Hopkins and W. B. Yeats at the very beginning of their career. But the study takes T. S. Eliot as an example of this influence. This influence has been examined in the light of Harold Bloom’s theory of poetic influence. However, the second part stresses their rejection to the European influence especially in the later works of Kofi Awoonor and christopher Okigbo. This rejection is epitomized in their insistence on the use of poetic diction and rhythm of their oral literature. Moreover, they draw on the original myths of their African culture. It also demonstrates how the two poets excel in connecting the past myths of their society with the present realities of their countries.
The conclusion reveals the far-reaching impact of the poetic works of Awoonor and Okigbo on the literary craft of West Africa and how both writers succeeded in violating the barriers created by the colonizer whether the barriers are cultural, ethnic or national through their model of decolonization. While Awoonor’s work was deeply rooted in the poetic and mythic traditions of the Ewe people in Ghana, Okigbo’s poetry holds invocations for spiritual renewal of the Nigerian Igbo religion and African mythology. The pattern of their poetry is that of an African in an intricate journey seeking his own Africanness – his heritage. Both poets succeeded in raising the social and political awareness of their people. By the incorporation of traditional African forms and heritage, they assert a desire to link the past with the present and build what will be needed in the future.