A Chinese military, around 400 BC,
once said, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” I bet you have
heard it somewhere before, but do we really understand what he wanted to tell
us? Perhaps, if Africans had listened to this man, they would’ve stood a chance
against colonization. Perhaps, if Umuofia had followed this proverb, it
wouldn’t have fallen as it did, and above all, maybe, someone’s life would have
been spared. But now, think about this, if you don’t even know what war means,
how could you ever think of it as a possibility? I believe, this is exactly
what happened to once powerful and fearful Umuofia, the Igbo do not have a
fighting culture and when we try changing people’s believes, it may end up even
worse than war. If you wonder what kind of changes, I’ll remind you about some:
a church has recently arrived in Umuofia as well as a trading store and a
government, which include a court, a prison, a District Commissioner and court
messengers.
There was some time, with Mr. Brown,
when both cultures respected each other and lived peacefully. They avoided
fights and even learnt from each other. Igbos trusted his medicine as well as
his advice of learning to read and write, but sadly, he becomes sick and leaves
his flock. A new reverend arrives, James Smith, along with new conflicts. He
didn’t follow Mr Brown’s policies, he simply saw things white or black. His savage
attitude drove serious conflicts such as the unmasking an egwuwu. All Umuofians feel confused and miserable, however, they
remain calm (following Ajofi’s opinion) and instead speak to Mr Smith. They also
decide to burn the church down, receiving pleasure from it, but probably
regretting it once they are summoned by the District Commissioner, who
imprisons all six leaders (including Okonkwo) and oppressed them for three
days, until a ridiculous fine was paid by the entire town.
For the first time, during a
meeting, we listen to a village hungry for fight, but things turn out wrong
when court messengers arrive with orders to stop the meeting. This strong anger
that we have seen in Okonkwo growing bigger day by day makes it easy to predict
his next moves. He rushes through the crowd, faces the messenger and slaughters
him with a machete. The Commissioner eventually came looking for Okonkwo, but
Obierika led him to a tree, were Okonkwo’s body hung. Such sin could not be
handled by Umuofian’s townspeople, asking for the Comissioner’s help to take
the body down. The Comissioner’s decision to not help because “it’d make others
think he’s less powerful” and instead recording this incident on his book, “The
pacification of primitive tribes of the lower Niger”, are the biggest revelations
on his true intentions: studying, analysing and gathering information on just
another unusual insect he found on his way home.
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| Image obtained from:http:///favim.com/image/334009/ |
Okonkwo’s tragic ending, more than
wanting to show courage by killing himself meant there was no way out. By
listening to his people wonder why he’d kill the messenger he reached his
highest level of sensitivity, he could bear no longer such lack of action, he
felt everything was hopeless. Having wanted the most to show his power,
resistance and manliness, ironically, takes him to end exactly as his father, just
another body left to rot on the Evil Forest. Above all these reasons, Okonkwo
ended his life as trying to save his sanity, his pride. It’s as if he was
saying: “you may change other people’s believes, but I’d rather kill myself
before you put a finger on me.” So as I said before, perhaps, this tragic
ending wouldn’t’ have finished this way if Umuofian’s had learnt to stick
together, perhaps not as the Chinese proverb said, but they surely didn’t listen
to what their friend Obierika once told them: “They have put a knife into the
things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
Achebe,
Ch. (1994), Things Fall Apart, 1st edition, Anchor Books, New York.
