Fabricating Unease: Intertextuality,

The subject matter of the nation is a usual staple on the menu of postcolonial Nigerian fiction. In this sense, the repertoire of Chinua Achebe’s art echoes an incurable preoccupation with Nigeria’s postcolonial condition as a nation. Also, this paper explores the centrality of intertextuality in the production of Achebe’s fiction, primarily his political novel about crisis plaguing intellectual leadership, No Longer at Ease (1960). Intellectual leadership deals with championing the espousal of intellectual development for societal alchemy; it also deals with mental or intellectual engagement capable of raising awareness as well as educating people about societal issues for change. Intertextuality focuses on the relations among texts: no text is an island. The departure from author-centred theory of literary criticism to unhindered, fluid mode of criticism, following the pressures of poststructuralist contention, precipitated intertextuality. The significance of intertextuality to the creation of postcolonial Nigerian fiction establishes the fact that social facts that are being refracted are real societal issues. These artistic productions are ‘‘truthful chronicle’’; they are relational in textual make-up. Thus, layers of artistic works after the Boehmerian ‘‘after Achebe’’ thesis orchestrate the body of texts that sing from the same songbook as No Longer at Ease. This paper therefore attempts to demonstrate that Achebe’s No Longer at Ease is a derivative of the corpus of ‘‘verifiable’’, realistic literature on intellectual leadership crisis in Nigeria. AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 238 Introduction: Intellectuals, Leadership, and the Nation The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.’’ --Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, 1986. As history illustrates, at least since Plato, intellectuals have made manifest their place in society as oracles, critics, educators, illuminators, historians, sages and conscience of age and epoch. In making their role manifest, intellectuals have taken issues that plague humanity upon themselves as the representatives of the people (in the Saidian argot), spokesmen for the powerless, guardians of truth and conscience of the community. This has been the tradition intellectuals have ensconced since the history of organised state. In his acclaimed work, Orientalism (1978), Edward Said, the ace literary theorist and cultural critic of the left, surmised the place of intellectuals in the society: we are of the connections, not outside and beyond them. And it behooves us as intellectuals and humanists and secular critics to understand ... the world of nations and powers from within the actuality, as participants in it, not detached outside observers who, like Oliver Goldsmith, in Yeats’ perfect phrase, deliberately sip at the honey pots of our mind. (xxiii) Noam Chomsky shares similar view about intellectuals as he admitted in his 1967 fiery essay in The New York Review of Books titled ‘‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals’’. In the essay, Chomsky admonished the American intellectuals to oppose the war that America was fighting in Vietnam or be accused of ‘‘hypocritical moralism’’ (Asprey, 1994). He sees the role of intellectuals as more of engagement to upturn equitable social order as well as directing AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 239 society towards the right direction it should go rather than passivity or complicity. This is also true of Jean-Paul Sartre’s position; in his Dirty Hands (1948), he adumbrated that intellectuals’ position and duty in society should amount to counter-hegemony against the excesses of the state. This could be done by intellectuals being politically engaged with their works as public intellectuals for the humanising of society. Nevertheless, the term intellectual as a lexicon did not actually appear on the radar of public knowledge until the controversial Dreyfus Affair in France in late 1890s; before this period, different words such as the intelligentsia, scholars and other terms were essentially used to describe intellectuals. The French naturalist and writer, Emile Zola, was the person that popularised the term intellectuals in contemporary time. Zola’s criticism of the Dreyfus Affair, which basically deals with the treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus by the French authorities, who alleged that he had communicated French military secret to the German embassy in Paris, was instrumental to the rise of intellectuals in recent history. Through the acerbic criticism of the powers that be by the French intellectuals, Dreyfus, was re-instated into the army and promoted to major in French Army. In his 1993 Reith Lecture titled ‘‘Representations of the Intellectuals’’, Edward Said brought alive again the notion of intellectuals and what they represent in society. Said sees the role of intellectuals as public critics; this perception dovetails with Achebe’s: In Chinua Achebe’s view, the African writer of our time must be accountable to his society; if he fails to respond to the social and political issues of his age, to espouse the ‘right and just causes’ of his people, he is no better than the absurd man in the proverb who deserts his burning house to pursue a rat fleeing from the flame. (Rogers 1976: 1) AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 240 Strong words though, the import of the above resonates with the social functions of intellectuals (writers) in society. One of the greatest intellectuals of black race, Frantz Fanon, in his piece ‘‘Towards the African Revolution’’ averred that the major role of African intellectuals is that of revolution in order to counter the West’s supremacist ideology and leadership. Fanon takes a swipe at African intellectuals who do nothing to change the status quo; he urged them to help galvanise support for the transformation of Africa – liberating the continent from colonial domination and imperial pillage – in order for African nations and their people to be independent as well as economically self-sufficient. Similarly, in Chidi Maduka’s view, African intellectuals should be contributors to the debate to change the continent for better leadership and continental bliss (1986: 11). In Achebe’s own words, the duties of intellectuals are assayed here: ‘‘the writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of re-education and regeneration that must be done. In fact he should march right in front’’ (1976: 45). Although Achebe is talking of writers, he is also referring to the body of intellectuals called the intelligentsia, who should be the conscience of their age and society. The type of intellectuals, who possess what Hegel (1977: 243) called ‘‘unhappy consciousness’’, that is being disgruntled because of inept social order are at the opposite pole from the powers that be; they speak truth to power. Gramsci in his Selections from the Prison Notes (1971) called this group ‘‘traditional intellectuals’’; he differentiated them from another group he called the ‘‘organic intellectuals’’, who rather assist the elite political groups in furthering inept leadership as well as perpetuation of injustice in society through their exalted position and knowledge. Michel Foucault’s terms for these types of intellectuals are ‘‘universal intellectuals’’ and ‘‘specific intellectuals’’ respectively. The traditional intellectuals, which Foucault considers as specific intellectuals, have cultural, political and AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 241 social roles to play in society as purveyors of what Chongyi (2005: 3) identified as ‘‘cultural capital’’ that has the potency to change societal values and mores for the betterment of humanity. This conception of intellectuals is in sync with Alvin Gouldner’s take on intellectuals: the purveyors of ‘‘culture of critical discourse’’, which has the quality (in Julien Brenda’s verbiage) of ‘‘romanticism of harshness and contempt’’. However, the inability of intellectuals to use their intellectual prowess to leverage modes of power relations between the state and the people as a consequence of inhibitions posed by the ruling elite as well as pressures of mainstream power blocs restrict their role as change agents. This is the situation Achebe’s Obi Okonkwo in No Longer at Ease finds himself. Said’s indication that intellectuals are ‘‘morally endowed philosopher-kings’’ (1993: 5) does not apply to Obi Okonkwo, as he allows himself to be consumed by the quicksand of societal pressures. In Obi Okonkwo’s discussion with his friend, Joseph, concerning his engagement plans with Clara that he thinks is a moral thing to do: to marry someone he truly loves and cares for, Joseph vehemently opposed it. Obi Okonwko’s response calibrates clash of civilization as well as his listless disposition as he cannot change the way people think in society as an educated person, who has imbibed Western values as well as ‘‘a pioneer’’ (68) – an intellectual – that ought to show people the way to do things right and morally. Joseph’s abrasive remark here is worth noting: Remember you are the one and only Umuofia son to be educated Overseas. We do not want to be the unfortunate child who grows his first tooth and grows a decayed one. What sort of encouragement will your action give to the poor men and women ...? (68) AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 242 Obi’s disposition following Joseph’s statement shows he is an embattled man, whose mission to change the social landscape is running aground: ‘‘Obi was getting a little angry’’ (68). The above altercation between Obi Okonkwo and his bosom friend, Joseph, shows that Obi is in leadership catastrophe; his position to lead as an intellectual, who has better insights into how society should function is rather in doubt, as seen from the exchange above. Joseph’s statement and abject disapproval of Obi’s intended engagement to his fiancée, Clara, shows that the new way that Obi is championing, which should replace the old order, is elusive. In extending the contours of the above, before Obi Okonkwo eventually made up his mind to marry Clara, whom he knows full well his parents would not approve of because she is an ‘‘osu’’, an outcast, who is being treated as a pariah as custom and folklore allows, he poured out his mind about this state of things: It was scandalous that in the middle of the twentieth century a man could be barred from marrying a girl simply because her great-great-great-great-grandfather had been dedicated to serve a god, thereby setting himself apart and tuning his descendants into a forbidden caste to the end of Time. Quite unbelievable. And here was an educated man telling Obi he did not understand. ‘Not even my mother can stop me’. (65) Obi’s bewilderment that Joseph, his friend, who is also educated and lives in the city, Lagos, which is a metropolis, could think so retrogressively, made him think the society might not be changed. AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 243 Thus, not even the corporeality of what Tejumola Olaniyan (2011: 46) called ‘‘the vexed origins of a new kind of elite and its ‘strange’ tongue, the emergence of a new spatial hierarchy in the rural-urban divide’’ could bring the ideals of intellectual leadership to fruition, as Obi contends. Eustace Palmer’s statement below supports the idea that Obi is really in leadership dilemma: First, the hero is weak and insufficiently realized... for a central consciousness he is too uninteresting and vaguely portrayed rather than determining the course of events, Obi allows events to overtake him, and is merely, borne along by the fore of circumstances. Since Obi Okonkwo merely succumbs to the forces against him, he falls short ... he is crushed for betraying his principles, not for championing them. (72: 68) The epochal ‘‘falling apart’’, Achebe’s overriding contention in his tour de force, Things Fall Apart (1958), finds continuation in the foregoing. Since Nigeria’s political independence in 1960, it has been beleaguered with tormented history that is being precipitated by shadow of inept leadership. The issue of leadership in the nation – be it political or intellectual has come under intense criticism as the people are discontent with what has become of the nation. Echoing similar perspective, in his foreword to Richard Dowden’s recent book on Africa tiled Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles (2008), Chinua Achebe says: Africa, as most people are aware, has endured a tortured history, and continues to persevere under the burden of political instability... Many chroniclers of the African condition often find Africa overwhelming. (Dowden, 2008: xv) AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 244 The above quote offers a new perspective to Achebe’s observation about Africa’s burden, which he foreshadowed in his chapbook, The Trouble with Nigeria (1983), rests largely on the scaffold of failed (intellectual) leadership precipitated by ‘‘a tortured history’’, a synecdoche for the negative corollaries of colonialism, slavery and postcolonial disenchantment project. The failure of Nigerian leaders to bring to fruition the hope and aspiration of the people at Nigeria’s political independence in 1960 spawned the emergence of literary creativity as well as aesthetic commitment that refracts remarkable shift from the dreams people had during the anti-colonial struggle, which culminated to political independence in 1960. The literary tradition that responds to this spirit of time is what Emmanuel Obiechina described as ‘‘literature of disillusionment’’ (197: 56). This is the type of literature that responds to the texture of leadership in society. The repertoire of Achebe’s fiction is an aesthetic response to Nigeria’s mode of governance and leadership. Apart from Achebe’s historical novels, which are his fiction primer, Things Fall Apart (1958) as well as Arrow of God (1962), all his fiction is an aesthetic response to the actualities in Nigeria on the heels of bungling political leadership. Beginning with No Longer at Ease (1960), Achebe’s preoccupation has been a commitment to unearthing the diverse twists and turns in Nigeria’s political leadership. This artistic consciousness permeates the texture of other political novels by Achebe: A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). African leaders have been blamed for the colour of leadership on the continent; this is also the case in Nigeria, where politics has been reduced to mere zero-sum game, the winner-takes-it-all kind of enterprise. Achebe’s contemplation of how to navigate out of the murky waters of Nigeria’s political leadership finds resonance in creating Obi Okonkwo to serve as a foil to the nation’s breed of brute, AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 245 uncultured leaders, whose stock in trade is to use the instrument of politics to further undemocratic, elite-salving governance. Thus, following people’s disillusionment at what politics has made of governance and leadership, Achebe created the protagonist of No Longer at Ease, Obi Okonkwo, who is seemingly a purveyor of wholesome cultural and intellectual capital, to effect change. But unfortunately, Obi Okonkwo’s ideals run into a deadlock with the mainstream views in the nation. From the account in No Longer at Ease, Obi Okonkwo, Okonkwo’s grandson (Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart, the father of Nwoye), could not bring this to fruition owing to the pressures on him by mainstream ideological ethos precipitated by warped social values and morbid traditional caste system. The production of a representational relation of coincidence between No Longer and Ease and the structure of the narrative of disempowered, dysfunctional intellectuals can be extended to the life of Chinua Achebe himself. Achebe has often caught the personality of an embattled man or writer, who is in unease – this is also true of the nation he writes about. This unease is redoubled by Achebe’s vexed commitment to confront the material and the discursive in advocating alternative order in Nigeria. The process of using literature to interrogate the zeitgeist is what Onyemaechi Udumukwu in the introduction to his edited volume, Nigerian Literature in English: Emerging Critical Perspectives sees as ability of ‘‘... the narrative of the nation to [to] engage[s] itself in a conscious interrogation of the forces of alienation’’ (2007: 16). In continuing this debate, in another book by Udumukwu, he asserted that the subject matter of the nation in Nigerian literature is a function of re/imagining a ‘‘panoply of voices and ideological interests’’ (2006: 146) at the cusp of contestation for power as well as hegemony. Similarly, Andre Brink’s writing bears much in common with other politically committed writers such as Achebe. Brink (1983) considers the role of a writer in a state of siege to be tantamount to condemning AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012 VOL. 6, NO. 1 246 leaders’ dereliction by using art as a conduit to fire his darts of criticism. J. M Coetzee’s statement in Doubling the Point (1992), urges writers to transcend social malaise as well as leadership ineptitude in