| Book Review: C. Victor Mbakpuo, The Horn of Africa |
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| Written by Eucharia Mbachu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 14 November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Book Review: C. Victor Mbakpuo, The Horn of Africa USA: Book Surge LLC, 1996/2004/2005 Mbakpo’s book is a tale of many different but closely connected stories about life in Africa and life in the United of America. It is a tale of two continents very much cast in the manner Charles Dickens of Britain demonstrated his command of the English language and the historical forces that impacted his life and those of his contemporaries. Born and raised in Nigeria the author of this work tells the story of a Nigerian fictional character who was caught in the web of natural disaster and social and cultural transformations of his village life. Central to this flood which consumed and devastated the order, harmony and tradition of his village was the moral and social disorder it inflicted among his people. Caught in the battle between the elders and the young with respect to the gender and sexuality and economy of his people, he determined to transcend and secure a better life for himself, the hero of this novel soon found himself battling not only against the violence and bitterness that came to characterize his society but also the cultural adjustment that new forces linked to Westerner people brought into his society. Dancing between the idols of the tribe and the newly installed Heavenly creatures imported from Europe he too faced the same crises and dilemmas that Chinua Achebe described so graphically in his Things Fall Apart. As in Achebe ’s Things fall apart, Chidi, the son of Chief Kaalu , was wooed and won by the missionaries. Responding to their moves of conversation he agreed to take the name Frederick but his father still faithful to the religion of the ancestors dissuaded him from crossing that demarcation line between personal name-change and the adoption of baptism. Though this insistent father beloved by the tales and traditions of the ancestors put pressure on his son not to baptize him, under greater pressure from his Christianizing son he too turned against the gods in favor of his son’s new religious demand. This Christianization had an Anglo-Saxonizing effect. Not only did his friends call him Fred or Frederick but they made sure that he lost his traditional African name such as Chidi, Chidiebere, or Obiajulu through their fanciful affirmation of his Christian identity through the name change. As our author reveals in the following passage, “He was now a Christian with an English name, and that meant a lot. English names were fancied. They called him Fred , not Frederick . It was simple and short. Why not? Everything about the English man was supposed to be simple, short and admired. Chidi came to love his new, delightful name-Fred. It resonated in his ears and brought him closer to Christ , but not to the Englishman, unless, of course he believed Christ was an Englishman.” (p.185)What was obvious in this culture wars raging in this Igbo community was the dying of the old traditional religion and the rising of the newly implanted colonial Christian message. As a result Chidi’s or Fred’s father found himself alienated from his friend Ibekwe who lamented this cultural setback and his father depicted it “as an antebellum of mockery and menace.” (p186) While the author described beautifully the circumstances that led to these acts of cultural change and to the abandonment of ancestral tradition in favor of the new from the missionaries, there was also an ironic paradox that suggested contradiction in the articulation of Chidi’s father. Though He lamented and resisted the changing of Chidi’s name to a Christian one, and again though he denied the claim and validity of original sin traceable back to Adam and Eve , he still nursed the belief Igbos are actually part of the loss tribes of Israel . This pro-Israeli ambivalence was projected to linger on to the rest of his days. To console himself, Chief Kaalu pegged his faith in an old Igbo proverb which says that contradiction sometimes is a better friend of doubts.” (p.187) The conversion of Chidi or Fred as he preferred to be called changed the course of history in his village. Not only did a chiefly child caught in the Christian camp, but he boxed himself into a new relationship which heretofore was deemed unacceptable between the ruling family and the missionary group. Despite this crisis in moral and social change in Egbuoma, Fred the Christian found a way out of his conflictive crisis at home and within his community by traveling to the United States of America . Coming to America meant a lot to young Chidi or Fred as he favored to be called. While studying in the U.S. , he came to see and appreciate the good and bad about life in his new land. Throughout the book the writer exposed to the commentaries about the life and culture of American society. Not only was Chidi or Fred seduced by certain creature comforts of American life, but he also resented many things that put American people and culture in bad light. At college he saw the power and might of American individual and competitiveness and his Igbo character and personality could easily see the points of convergence and divergence. During these moments of concerns and doubts about his American experiences, Chidi encountered Barbara . They met, courted and got married. Being both Catholics but with different dispositions about abortion and pregnancy, they struggled with each other in the fulfillment of their love affairs. After having studied in the U.S. he married Barbara and then had a child, Chidi set sailed for Nigeria . During their journey home they made certain arrangements about their life in Africa . For Chidi this was a return to the motherland and to the application of new American knowledge to his developing country. For Barbara this was a new beginning. As history would have it, the dreams entertained by this interracial couple were doomed to failure and to murder. The author demonstrated great skills in making his tale of two continents quite intriguing. Each of the couple identified in the narrative harbor secrets and those secrets would gradually unfold and unravel. As he constructed the drama and its characters, he allowed us to see how Fred or Chidi as preferred by his traditional people became the target of conspiracy and intrigue from his white wife from America as well as nefarious forces from his Nigerian culture. What was most interesting to me is the author’s ability to show how the clash of cultures within Nigerian society persists and though Chidi was able to deal with the challenges among his people, faith in Juju and the Babalao and Dibia persist in Nigerian society. Faced with the challenges of threatening rivals on the job but similarly eager to get certain American matters settled back in the U.S., Chidi made that return journey to the U.S. here lies the paradox and the irony of the return journey. We are told by our author that he went back to address some pressing issues but his hope of return was doomed by the scheming and conspiracy of his wife and his rivals. His wife tried to hire a killer to put an end to his life, while his Nigerian foes had earlier attempted to kill him through local juju took the ultimate task of following him in the U.S. and then did him in. In the midst of this controversy and trickery, the author brought us into a serious legal suit. Chidi was killed the detectives and the local police blamed his wife as the killer. The wife and her co-conspirators found the CIA as a potential cover up for the death of her husband. The author demonstrated skillfully his familiarity with the legal system and he employed all the means to make the story credible and international and racial exciting. Not only did he tell the story interracial and bloody, but he also drew the intelligence side of the story to galvanize the black radicals who were gravely preoccupied with the results of the case. Howard University students and others in the HBCU colleges in Black America joined the protest and the march for justice. In the end the jury returned the verdict for the second time. The crisis which led to the apprehension of two Americans by Nigerian authorities were released and the war between the two countries insinuated by those who felt that the death of Chidi was a global conspiracy involving the CIA turned out differently. Here are some points to remember in C. Victor Mbakpuo ’s book. He writes elegantly in his use of words, but also holds on to some of the Igbo prose and verbal skills that underscore his message and his hopes about the ongoing cultural relationship between Igboland and the West. His ability to capture and analyze the cultural raging within Igboland and the differential rates of cultural adjustments and resistance in Nigeria , also another point that comes to light in this review is the manner in which the author could not resist the temptation to give non-Igbo ethnic names to persons who are suspected or villains in his narrative. This is one of the realities of writing. The author becomes a god and his characters owe almost everything to this power and might simultaneously.
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Posted by Robot| 14.11.2007 16:38