Eyewitness to injustice in Nigeria

ONE of the few major literary figures who can also be called a genuine hero, the Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka has endured prison, exile and other dangers in the cause of human rights. At present, he divides his time among three places: his beloved homeland, Nigeria, where he was born in 1934; Britain, Nigeria’s former colonial overseer, where he first ventured as a scholarship student in the 1950s; and our very own Southern California.

If there is a single inescapable theme or life lesson presented above all others in his powerful and arresting memoir, “You Must Set Forth at Dawn,” it does not concern the honing of his undoubted literary talents or his impressive output as playwright, poet and novelist. Rather, it is about the immense difficulty of making the right choices. It’s easy to take refuge in Gandhian pacifism when one’s oppressors are relatively decent, reasonable beings. But Hitler? Pol Pot? Idi Amin? Or the sadistic tyrant who is the particular focus of this passionate book, Gen. Sani Abacha, who ruled and terrorized Nigeria from 1993 until his mysterious death in 1998? Here, in a nutshell, Soyinka explains the nature of a lifelong dilemma:

“I am, contrary to all legitimately cited evidence ... actually a closet glutton for tranquillity. An oft-quoted remark of mine -- ‘Justice is the first condition of humanity’ -- does, however, act constantly against the fulfillment of that craving for peace.”

There are many kinds of injustice that make Soyinka’s blood boil, and he describes them vividly in these pages: a resentful Nigerian soldier brutally whipping a civilian countryman for having the insolence to speak grammatical English; corrupt and bombastic leaders who betray their country’s trust; the political crime of electoral robbery. But Soyinka takes care to make sure that his blood never boils to the point of obscuring the dangers that come with resorting to aggressive, sometimes violent action. In 1965, outraged by a stolen election, he decides to make his way into a radio station to get them to substitute his own tape stating the real results for the prime minister’s tape claiming victory. “I tried to caution myself

Yet he also shows us, unforgettably, the toll that can come from enshrining patriotism and militarism above all other values, which he feels happened in Nigeria, both during, and even more in the aftermath, of their 1967 to 1970 war against the Biafran secessionists.

Indeed, for students of post-colonial African history, this book by a man who has not only witnessed but taken part in it is an indispensable document, with its detailed accounts and searching analysis of everything from the complexities of the Biafran war to the role he says was played by the British in influencing the ultimately baneful results of Nigeria’s first election. Then there’s the fascinating story of Soyinka’s successful effort to broker a kind of truce between one of his heroes, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, and the Kwa’ Zulu Chief Buthelezi in the run-up to the historic election that finally ended apartheid. Like the contending claims of peace and justice, African history is a complicated story. (There’s a helpful chronology at the front of the book but frustratingly no index.)

This is both a public book and an intensely personal one. Although it’s full of famous personalities (Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kofi Annan, W.H. Auden, British theatrical producer and director Joan Littlewood), the person Soyinka portrays most feelingly is relatively unknown: his closest friend, the late Olufemi (a.k.a. “Femi”) Babington Johnson, a Nigerian insurance broker, entrepreneur, benefactor of the needy and staunch advocate of freedom.

Femi is the polar opposite to the villainous Abacha, whom Soyinka rightly deems far more evil than the earlier despot who had imprisoned him from 1967 to 1969 for attempting to mediate in the Biafran crisis. (Abacha’s regime was responsible, among much else, for the judicial murder of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995.)

Soyinka evokes the excitement and hope he and others of his generation felt looking forward to independence, dreaming of -- and planning to work for -- an enlightened, free, democratic Africa. For them, as for young William Wordsworth before his disillusionment with the French Revolution, “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.”

In Soyinka’s case, disillusionment was not long in coming. In fact, he can rightly be called a prophet of his times. As the first generation of post-colonial African heads of state emerged, Soyinka felt shock and dismay at how many were vainglorious, reactionary, corrupt and unintelligent. This, while some of his fellow pan-Africanists, blinded by their animus against the departed whites, went on to make excuses for the likes of Amin. And as early as 1960, in “A Dance of the Forests,” the play he wrote to be staged as part of Nigeria’s independence celebrations, he tried to warn his countrymen of the dangers of the tribalism that would subsequently plunge Nigeria into so much turmoil. Interestingly enough, although raised as a Christian, Soyinka is a writer who draws deeply on his tribal heritage. Initiated into Yoruba rites by his grandfather, he finds imaginative sustenance in its gods and legends, and he also loves hunting for delicious local game.

When, with a touch of grim humor, Soyinka writes of what he calls “the Nigerian killer factor,” which he defines as “the stressful bane of the mere act of critical thought within a society where power and control remain the playthings of imbeciles, psychopaths, and predators,” he also speaks to a predicament that’s become all too familiar the world over in a century of unparalleled political madness. He has given us a story that should be required reading everywhere.

Merle Rubin is a critic whose reviews have appeared in the Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor.