Gurnah's Paradise

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

" We're in the country of the savages. They're not made of the same cowardly mud as you. They'll steal anything, including your manhood if you don't keep your cloths well tied around you. Haya, haya! They're waiting for us.' When all was ready, they marched off in procession, carrying whatever had been assigned to them. At the head of the caravan marched their haughty captain, swinging his cane and glaring at the astonished people whom they passed. It was a small, empty-looking town, but the huge mountain under which it cowered gave it an air of mystery and gloom, as if it were the scene of tragedies. 

Two beaded warriors strode past them, their bodies ochrcd and sleek. Leather sandals slapped the road in time with their swinging spears, their bodies leaning forward, str-aining and urgent. They glanced neither right nor left, and in their eyes was a look of assurance and purpose, almost of a kind of dedication. Their hair was groomed into tight plaits and dyed red like the earth, as were the soft-leather shukas which covered them diagonally from shoulder to hip and down to their knees. Mohammed Abdalla turned round to look at his procession with contempt, then pointed his cane at the striding warriors. 'Savages,' he said. 'Worth ten of any of you.' 'Imagine that God should create creatures like that! 

They look like something made out of sin,' one of the porters said, a young man who was always first to speak. 'Don't they look vicious?' 'How do they get themselves to look so red?' another porter asked. 'It must be the blood they drink. It's true, isn't it? That they drink blood.' 'Look at the blades of their spears!' 'And they know how to use them,' a guard said in a lowered voice, mindful of his captain's glowering looks. 'They 59 may look like clumsy knives on sticks, but they can do a lot of damage. Especially with all the practice they get. I t's what they do all the time, attacking other people and hunting. In order to become full warriors they have to hunt a lion and kill it, and then eat its penis. Each time they eat a penis they can marry another wife, and the more penises they eat, the greater they become among their own people.' 'Yallah! You're teasing us!' his listeners cried, mocking him, refusing to believe such tall stories. 'It's true,' the guard protested. 'I've seen them myself. Ask anyone who's travelled these parts. Wallahi, I'm telling the truth. And every time they kill a man they cut off a part of him and keep it in a special bag. ' 'What for?' the talkative young porter asked. 'Do you ask a savage what for?' Mohammed Abdalla said sharply, turning round to glance at the young man. 'Because he's a savage, that's what for. He is what he is. You don't ask a shark or a snake why it attacks. It's the same with the savage. That's what he is. And you had better learn to walk faster with that load and talk a little less. You're nothing but a bunch of whimpering women.' 'It's to do with their religion,' the guard said after a while. 'It's not honourable, this way of life,' the young porter said, earning a long, frightening look from Mohammed Abdalla. 'A civilized man can always defeat a savage, even if the savage eats a thousand lion penises,' another guard said, a man from Comoro. 'He can outwit him with knowledge and guile. ' Paradise p.

All of this was said by a normal protagonist in the text. His bigotry was not questioned. This

was neither irony, sarcasm or any of the literary styles that can cover the author. 

This runs through the text. In fact .the word "savage " comes up numerous times in the text

and I need not tell you who it refers to.  Ali Mazrui  was more sophisticated  than this. You cannot

place them in the same category.

 If it walks like a duck and talks like one, well........

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University                

New York African Studies Association

 

[Harrow, Kenneth]

who was the protagonist? his role was what?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 11:59 AM
To: usa <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Gurnah's Paradise

 

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[Toyin Falola]

It is a gross misreading of the text…it is a voice that the writer is criticizing.

But let us move on….

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 5:26 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Gurnah's Paradise

who was the protagonist? his role was what?

ken

 

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 11:59 AM
To: usa <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Gurnah's Paradise

 

" We're in the country of the savages. They're not made of the same cowardly mud as you. They'll steal anything, including your manhood if you don't keep your cloths well tied around you. Haya, haya! They're waiting for us.' When all was ready, they marched off in procession, carrying whatever had been assigned to them. At the head of the caravan marched their haughty captain, swinging his cane and glaring at the astonished people whom they passed. It was a small, empty-looking town, but the huge mountain under which it cowered gave it an air of mystery and gloom, as if it were the scene of tragedies. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB51918195338B26FD9DF7E54CDAB89%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

[Harrow, Kenneth]

i will want to read it, too, as gloria has whetted my curiosiity.

the case of conrad, for any who care, is interestingly similar, since heart of darkness is a work that is very critical of colonialism, of the colonial enterprise, of colonial discourse. he evokes it to mock it and destroy it. i never understood the criticisms of conrad, when understanding heart of darkness in that light.'

the debate between edward said and chinua achebe in that regard is quite telling. achebe was astute enough to recognize the anti-colonialism of Heart, but he could not tolerate the racism. how to read racism when the characters articulating racism were taken down as ignorant brutes or worse is hard to say; but there was another short story conrad wrote, along the lines of Heart, that made his racism more apparent. (maybe he was a kantian? why not)

the africans in Heart have no voice; they are always seen through the eyes of the colonialists, so in the eyes of the colonialists, they are ignorant and uncivilized, like the cannibal who stokes the boiler. but they speak too little to appear as human, especially that great woman queen figure who appears on the sure. (she had no voice, just a cry--and abena busia wrote a brilliant piece on her, seeing the world throughher perspective)

the one who is most brutal, most destroyed, most hateful, is kurtz, the one who puts skulls around his compound. he epitomized the failure of the "civilizing mission," and there was no mistaking that objective to the novelette.

anyway, this Paradise section reminded me of conrad, and made me more curious to read it. i get gloria's reading, and if i were to agree, it would seem to cast gurnah is a crude racist. but i can't know a thing without reading it, and gloria has read it and describes the narrtor more or less as the voice of the author.  i respect her opinion, so i can't pass any judgment about gurnah that might differ until i actually read it myself.

i have no such qualms about naipaul. anyone who can read Bend in the river without becoming furious is beyond me. from his earliest writings he was a racist, a brahman caste rracist about black people on his native island, and in the mideast, etc.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 6:28 PM

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR06MB72477C685BACFF7BA8C5F322F8B89%40SN7PR06MB7247.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.