Oyekan Owomoyela

With Friends Like These … A Critique of Pervasive Anti-Africanisms in Current African Studies Epistemology and Methodology *

Unlike certain area studies disciplines (Russian Studies and Oriental Studies, for example), African Studies has largely attracted scholars whose commitment to their subject transcends mere professionalism. The sensible assumption with regard to African Africanists is, of course, that their orientation would be decidedly pro-African, but within the discipline, the notion is widespread that at least for the most part, even non-African Africanists hold a patronal attitude towards the continent, its peoples and cultures and their future, routinely combining the role of champions with that of students. This paper will argue that very often, Africanist practice, while purporting to be responsive to the best interests of Africa and Africans, in fact has the effect of perpetuating notions of an Africa that never was. It will also call attention to some significant incongruities between the methodology of African Studies and the well known relational principles that inform inter-personal commerce in African cultures. Beyond exposing these discrepancies between the expected and the actual, and the incongruities between methodology and spirit, the discussion will argue for an infusion of the practice of the discipline with the attitudes that characterize African familial discourses. I will warn at the outset that the ensuing argument adopts the position that one can make valid general statements about Africa, Africans, African cultures, African relational habits and the like, without necessarily suggesting a monolithic uniformity over the entire continent in any of the particulars. Furthermore, descriptions of, and assertions about, aspects of African life in the following pages cannot be construed as implying their eternal fixity and immutability through history.

Give Me Drama, or ...: The Argument on the Existence of Drama in Traditional Africa

Studies of drama and other performing arts in Africa suffer from what Andrew Horn (1981: 181) in a recent article terms “an unnecessary imprecision of nomenclature.” Horn has in mind the tendency among certain scholars, African and non-African, to apply the name “drama” to African traditional performances of every description. Convincing corroboration for his point comes from the entries (among which his article is one) in Yemi Ogunbiyis (1981) recent collection of scholarly discussions on drama and theater in Nigeria. The essays in the volume embrace such diverse activities as religious rituals, spirit mediumship, one-man comic shows, puppetry, various forms of masquerades, and others that more closely resemble conventional drama. What Horn describes as a “curious refusal to acknowledge generic distinctions” confronts any scholar who attempts to pursue precise dialogues on this supposedly wellestablished art form, because of the stubborn difficulty of establishing any precise delimitations for it, at least in its African manifestation. An illustration of the confusion might begin with Peter Nazareths (1978: 91) statement that “dramatic forms” existed in Africa well before the arrival of the colonialists. “We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets,” he quotes Olaudah Equiano as saying, adding: “Equiano is describing a peculiarly African phenomenon, part ballet, part drama, part opera in which the entire community is the cast and the village square the stage.” From these examples of “pre-drama,” he observes further, drama has developed in West Africa in contrast to East Africa, which suffered in this regard from a more unfortunate colonial experience than did West Africa.

Obotunde Ijimere, The Phantom of Nigerian Theater

Wọle Ṣoyinka in his recent Myth, Literature and the African World (1976) attempts to divest himself of the reputation that some of his earlier pronouncements have earned him as a denier of the existence of a distinctive Africanity, and to shake off the foreign sympathizers who have unfairly, he claims, exploited those early positions to bolster their racist denial of an “African world.” His intention in this book is to demonstrate his belief in the “African world,” to show how it is “self-apprehended” by the true African, and to “call attention to it in living works of the imagination, placing them in the context of primal systems of apprehension of the race” (ibid.: xi-xii). The first illustration he uses for this “apprehension of the race” is “The Imprisonment of Obatala,” a play by Obotunde Ijimere (1966). This choice is startling and baffling because Obotunde Ijimere is actually Ulli Beier, a German who was actively involved with Nigerian and especially Yoruba culture from 1950 until 1967. First Ṣoyinkas use of the play to illustrate the Yoruba world-view will be summarized. The myth of Obatala (the creator arch-divinity) is that while he was engaged in the creative task entrusted to him by the Supreme Deity, Olodumare, he became thirsty and drank some palm wine to slake his thirst. Unfortunately the effect of the wine put him to sleep. The Supreme Deity, observing the cessation in the creative process, sent Oduduwa (the ancestor of the Yoruba) to complete the task. Oduduwa did and, before Obatala woke up, he installed himself on the throne as the ruler of the people. Obatala did not forgive Oduduwa for supplanting him. Therefore, both he and his progency engaged Oduduwa and his progeny in a long contest aimed at regaining the ascendency (see Idowu, 1963: 71 ff; Adedeji, 1972). The annual observance of Obatalas festival at Ẹdẹ includes a mock battle recreating an aspect of Obatalas contest with Oduduwa, and in which the former is captured, incarcerated, and later released after the payment of a ransom (Beier, 1956; Rotimi, 1968).

Focus on African Films by Françoise Pfaff (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 2004)

the terms for how American society understands discrimination, exclusion, and inequality” (327). I would be remiss if I failed to mention that part of what makes the re-readings in Visions so compelling is the context that Smith provides. Many of the stories addressed here went through several different kinds of transformations (novels were turned into plays, which were turned into films, with the odd television series thrown in), and Smith has done a tremendous amount of research into the processes of both transformation and reception. She has tracked down authors’ personal correspondence, reviews from the black and white press, letters to the editor, and more. She also never fails to place the stories that she analyzes into clear historical context, while giving a sense of the ways that they were in dialogue with other stories of the era. As a result, all of the literary analyses here carry an additional kind of heft, since they are clearly linked to a far-reaching understanding of an historical era. It is the presentation of the links between cultural productions and historical trends that make Visions of Belonging a must read for anyone interested in American culture during the postwar period.