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Dr Azaveli Feza Lwaitama
THINKING CRITICALLY
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As Tanzanians celebrate the 48th anniversary of the Zanzibar Revolution it may be opportune to read Ngugi wa Thiong’o seminal novel based on the revolution inducing times in which most modern down-trodden Africans on the continent live. Explaining how human beings are like is often well portrayed, in humorous terms, through interpretation of how characters in a works of art such as a novel or a painting behave. Popular fictional characters such Abunuasi, Chakubanga, and Bi Mkora, all are constructed and interpreted on the basis of some popular perception of the psychology and philosophy of certain types of individuals in a given society. While enjoying viewing or reading novels one gets an opportunity to understand from where the next revolutionary tidings may hail and who may be its targets.
In a novel titled Wizard of the Crow written by the great Kenyan author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and published in 2006, one is presented with an imaginary country called the Free Republic of Abruria, which is portrayed as being autocratically governed by one man, known only as the Ruler. The novel present, in meticulous detail, the psychological and philosophical state of mind of this fictional character, called the Ruler.
Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow pieces together the philosophical and psychological state of mind of all the characters in that novel, including that of the Ruler, who is portrayed as a political leader who likes accumulating wealth, engaging in war, and enjoying excessive leisure. Ngugi wa Thiong’o then uses his knowledge of the psychology and philosophy of some of post-colonial Africa’s most unpatriotic and greedy political leaders drawn from his familiarity with the Kenyan political scene to create more fictional characters at the level of government ministers.
In this regard, he skillfully constructs characters that look real but are of course fictional such as the three fawning ministers who he portrays as having undergone plastic surgery to enlarge parts of their bodies that are important in serving the wishes of the Ruler, that is the eyes, ears and the tongue. These he assigns Kiswahili names that are transparent in meaning to any Kiswahili speaker: Mr. Machokali, Mr Sikiokuu, and Mr Ulimikuu, which makes reference to, respectively, their enlarged eyes, elongated ears and protruding tongue. These names are meant to mock the sycophancy of these ministers whose primary job it is to see, hear and denounce dissent.
In the novel Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiogo draws on knowledge gained from reading a large variety of humanities and social science disciplines, including philosophy and psychology, to portray typical African leadership challenges in an humorous manner. Reading this novel one can understand why the Zanzibar Revolution occurred at the time it did and why a similar revolution can occur in any other country such the fictional one portrayed in Ngugi wa Thiog’o’s Wizard of the Crow. Human beings have a given kind of mental wiring that distinguishes them from other animals.
This mental wiring, according to the tenets of Karl Marx’s concept of historical materialism, disposes human being at given historical junctions to seek to be in solidarity with other fellow human beings based on belonging to the same nation-state, like being a Zanzibari. However, at other times humans of the same nationality may prioritise social identity based on narrower ethnic categories, like viewing themselves as being Africans as opposed to being Arabs, or class, such as viewing themselves as manual labourers at seaports otherwise called coolies, or gender, such as viewing oneself as a sexually exploited or humiliated woman.
In the case of the Zanzibar Revolution, it is noticed that among those who participated were people like John Okelo, who saw themselves as black Africans but who after the Revolution, were deported to Uganda as a non-Zanzibari. On the other hand, there were those who participated in the Zanzibar Revolution on the basis of solidarity with the working class irrespective of where ones parents originally hailed from. Those with such consciousness were drawn from even the very social classes and ethnic backgrounds associated with privilege.
As Tanzanians celebrate the Zanzibar Revolution it may be well to reflect on how human societies have at various stages of human history developed elaborate ethical schemes that assist humans in the given society to self- regulate themselves without any need for external threats of punishment or offer of reward. It is is these systems of solidarity which are drawn upon in revolutionary times such as those depicted in the Wizard of the Crow.
Dr Lwaitama is a senior lecturer, Philosophy Programme at the University of Dar es Salaam
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