{"id":476,"date":"2015-03-18T15:52:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrmushava.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/18\/african-writers-have-a-pro-poor-mandate\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T07:47:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:47:31","slug":"african-writers-have-a-pro-poor-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476","title":{"rendered":"African Writers Have a Pro-Poor Mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wole Soyinka<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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The mainstay of African literature is nationalist sentiment.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
From the outset, the continent\u2019s creative canon has assumed an overtly patriotic tenor, varying between durable writing and political ear candy.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
While this undercurrent hasbeenlong directed against colonial injustice, there is need to locate new frontiers, chiefly inequality within Africa, which is by farthe biggest problem of our day.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Writers must foreground on their taskbars the reconfiguration of Africa into a more habitable space for the poor who saddle the brunt of uneven development, misappropriation of resources and municipal dysfunction. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The poetics of justice must conjure up seared consciences in a continent where the rich fare sumptuously like Arab oil barons while the poor are haunted by the fear of tomorrow.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
History has long remained a soft target for African writers, with most writers heapingtheir patriotic indignation on colonialism.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Imperialist tentacles being an enduring influence in the African society, it is impossible to detach history from contemporary affairs.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
However, there is need to progress beyond hindsight andburrow into capitalist indulgences and the tribulations of the poor on the continent as witnessed in our day.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The problems poverty, inequality and economic injustice no longer merely contrast Africa and the global north but have become precipitate between the continent\u2019s super-rich corporates and politicians and the poor.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
There is need to stop specialising with the historical angle of inequality as problem of race against race and confront the looming menace of precipitate class differences in resource-rich African countries.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
African writers must antagonise unsparingly a domestic class which will not spare the interests of ordinary citizens in the quest for self-aggrandisement. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
One of Africa\u2019s foremost poets Niyi Osundare asks pertinent questions in a speech titled \u201cWhy We No Longer Blush in Lagos.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cHow did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop to a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanisation are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cHow did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness?\u201d Osundare queries.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
While Osundare addresses Nigeria in particular, for whom, he says, corruption is the fastest growing industry, a flurry of local equivalents can be observed in our country and much of Africa.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
In fact, the \u201cAfrica rising\u201d buzzword is losing its mojo because improved macro-economic indices are not translating to a better life for everyone.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Inequality, corruption and neo-colonialism are holes in the basket of African development. Writers must plug the basket lest the poor be always and forever condemned to crumbs.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Chinua Achebe attributes the proliferation of corruption on an out-of-order corrective system. His compatriots, Achebe observes, are corrupt because \u201cthe system they live under today makes corruption easy and profitable. They will cease to be corrupt when corruption is made difficult and unattractive.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Most African countries reel under the same problem whereby anthropophagous corporate, public service, municipal and political cabals skin the poor alive for dinner.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Their excesses must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive\u201d as Achebe suggests, yet they are the ones with the power and will seldom lift a finger to call each other to order.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
That junction where the vested interests of the elites cross is the cemetery of the ordinary citizens\u2019 plea for a minimum semblance of decent life: for clean water, sewer-free streets, affordable access to health-care and gainful employment.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Soyinka recently deplored the obtaining situation whereby the powerful are caught up in a web of social anomie; a situation whereby one \u201cset of power brokers is seeking support from another and there is a tendency to paper over, to pretend that the virus that is being grown is really of a very negligible kind.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
With the elites preoccupied with petty cross-aggrandisement, writers must step up the podium on behalf of the masses. African literature must be remastered to make the continent a povo-friendly space.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The misappropriation of our resources by complacent elites must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive,\u201d even impossible,to guarantee sustainable livelihoods for the poor.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Our aversion to self-abasement is worthwhile but must not degenerate into a shield against introspection.Honesty not airbrushed self-representation is what the continent needs to muster justified pride.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Ugandan writer Brian Bwesigye contends that the writer\u2019s lot is with the lowly and suffering of his people; those perpetually consigned by their elected representatives to disreputable conditions. He argues that every expression, even one that negates politics, is a political act and urges African writers to go for the real issues.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Few remarkable titles have emerged in response to the evolving realities of post-colonial Africa but there is need for a sustained assault against the menace.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Ngugi WaThiong\u2019o in \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d assumes the role of a prophet of justice and burrows into the domestic segment of capitalism.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
He anticipates a backlash from authorities who equate criticism of their excesses with patriotic sacrilege.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
This institutional shield against criticismisaffirmed by his imprisonment for the play \u201cI Will Marry When I Want.\u201d \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d germinates from this detention.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Ngugi contends that it is the artist\u2019s function to reveal theless palatable aspects of his or her society.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cCertain people in Ilmorog, our Ilmorog told me that this story was too disgraceful, too shameful, that it should be concealed in the depths of everlasting darkness,\u201d relates Ngugi\u2019s persona Gikaandi Player.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI asked them: \u2018How can we cover up pits in our courtyards with leaves or saying to ourselves that because our eyes cannot now see the holes, our children can now prance about the yard as they like?\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cHappy is the man who is able to discern the pitfalls in his path, for he can avoid them. Happy is the traveller who is able to discern the stumps in his ways, for he can pull them up or walk around them so that they do not make him stumble,\u201d he argues.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Africa needs a deluge of liberation theology, even a flurry of potent anti-capitalist polemics to plug the void occasioned by post-nationalist tendencies in contemporary literature.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Prolific Shona poet and novelist Felix Manyimbiri\u2019s latest novel \u201cTamba Iri Kurira\u201d is a remarkable indictment on the atrocities of capitalism.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Manyimbiri takes on manifold contemporary problems, including grossly unethical competition for profit, corruption and municipal authorities\u2019 dereliction of duty.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cThese trenches brim over with dirt. Water and sewer are obstructed. The houses! I don\u2019t know how the little children who swim in this filth survive disease. Others eat bread swarmed with flies like bees in a hive,\u201d Manyimbiri\u2019s protagonist, Madiya Bhakiro, observes.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cWhen I opened the window I felt a cloud of stench landing into my lungs. Is this a smell some can endure and remain alive? All these people, populous as ants, do they not care about it?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cThe difference is now blurred between the insane and the normal. It\u2019s a mindless maze. Here and there they get mad at each other. Their women and children go barefooted. In this kind of filth?\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cWhat are the poor doing in the city? Let them go back where they were bewitched, in the peripheries, where poverty stinks,\u201d says Bhakiro.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Tanzanian investigative journalist and theologian Evans Rubara points out in a Pambazuka paper titled \u201cUneven Development: The Roots of Inequality\u201d that that administration of many African countries is \u2018remote-controlled\u2019 and most African leaders are neo-colonial proxies.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cThe involvement of transnational corporations has not only externalised profits and financial gains but has by and large appropriated spaces displaced and denied primary sources of livelihoods from the local community members, created and abandoned local satellite towns (which are now ghost towns) and polluted environments leaving irreparable damage behind,\u201d Rubara observes.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
The conditions in which the continent\u2019s poor find themselves scream a clarion call for a pro-poor function in African literature.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wole Soyinka The mainstay of African literature is nationalist sentiment.\u00a0 From the outset, the continent\u2019s creative canon has assumed an overtly patriotic tenor, varying between durable writing and political ear candy. While this undercurrent hasbeenlong directed against colonial injustice, there is need to locate new frontiers, chiefly inequality within Africa, which is by farthe biggest problem of our day. Writers must foreground on their taskbars the reconfiguration of Africa into a more habitable space for the poor who saddle the brunt of uneven development, misappropriation of resources and municipal dysfunction. The poetics of justice must conjure up seared consciences in a continent where the rich fare sumptuously like Arab oil barons while the poor are haunted by the fear of tomorrow. History has long remained a soft target for African writers, with most writers heapingtheir patriotic indignation on colonialism. Imperialist tentacles being an enduring influence in the African society, it is impossible to detach history from contemporary affairs. However, there is need to progress beyond hindsight andburrow into capitalist indulgences and the tribulations of the poor on the continent as witnessed in our day. The problems poverty, inequality and economic injustice no longer merely contrast Africa and the global north but have become precipitate between the continent\u2019s super-rich corporates and politicians and the poor. There is need to stop specialising with the historical angle of inequality as problem of race against race and confront the looming menace of precipitate class differences in resource-rich African countries. African writers must antagonise unsparingly a domestic class which will not spare the interests of ordinary citizens in the quest for self-aggrandisement. One of Africa\u2019s foremost poets Niyi Osundare asks pertinent questions in a speech titled \u201cWhy We No Longer Blush in Lagos.\u201d \u201cHow did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop to a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanisation are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses? \u201cHow did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness?\u201d Osundare queries. While Osundare addresses Nigeria in particular, for whom, he says, corruption is the fastest growing industry, a flurry of local equivalents can be observed in our country and much of Africa. In fact, the \u201cAfrica rising\u201d buzzword is losing its mojo because improved macro-economic indices are not translating to a better life for everyone. Inequality, corruption and neo-colonialism are holes in the basket of African development. Writers must plug the basket lest the poor be always and forever condemned to crumbs. Chinua Achebe attributes the proliferation of corruption on an out-of-order corrective system. His compatriots, Achebe observes, are corrupt because \u201cthe system they live under today makes corruption easy and profitable. They will cease to be corrupt when corruption is made difficult and unattractive.\u201d Most African countries reel under the same problem whereby anthropophagous corporate, public service, municipal and political cabals skin the poor alive for dinner. Their excesses must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive\u201d as Achebe suggests, yet they are the ones with the power and will seldom lift a finger to call each other to order. That junction where the vested interests of the elites cross is the cemetery of the ordinary citizens\u2019 plea for a minimum semblance of decent life: for clean water, sewer-free streets, affordable access to health-care and gainful employment. Soyinka recently deplored the obtaining situation whereby the powerful are caught up in a web of social anomie; a situation whereby one \u201cset of power brokers is seeking support from another and there is a tendency to paper over, to pretend that the virus that is being grown is really of a very negligible kind.\u201d With the elites preoccupied with petty cross-aggrandisement, writers must step up the podium on behalf of the masses. African literature must be remastered to make the continent a povo-friendly space. The misappropriation of our resources by complacent elites must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive,\u201d even impossible,to guarantee sustainable livelihoods for the poor. Our aversion to self-abasement is worthwhile but must not degenerate into a shield against introspection.Honesty not airbrushed self-representation is what the continent needs to muster justified pride. Ugandan writer Brian Bwesigye contends that the writer\u2019s lot is with the lowly and suffering of his people; those perpetually consigned by their elected representatives to disreputable conditions. He argues that every expression, even one that negates politics, is a political act and urges African writers to go for the real issues. Few remarkable titles have emerged in response to the evolving realities of post-colonial Africa but there is need for a sustained assault against the menace. Ngugi WaThiong\u2019o in \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d assumes the role of a prophet of justice and burrows into the domestic segment of capitalism. He anticipates a backlash from authorities who equate criticism of their excesses with patriotic sacrilege. This institutional shield against criticismisaffirmed by his imprisonment for the play \u201cI Will Marry When I Want.\u201d \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d germinates from this detention. Ngugi contends that it is the artist\u2019s function to reveal theless palatable aspects of his or her society. \u201cCertain people in Ilmorog, our Ilmorog told me that this story was too disgraceful, too shameful, that it should be concealed in the depths of everlasting darkness,\u201d relates Ngugi\u2019s persona Gikaandi Player. \u201cI asked them: \u2018How can we cover up pits in our courtyards with leaves or saying to ourselves that because our eyes cannot now see the holes, our children can now prance about the yard as they like?\u2019 \u201cHappy is the man who is able to discern the pitfalls in his path, for he can avoid them. Happy is the traveller who is able to discern the stumps in his ways, for he can pull them up or walk around them so that they do not make him stumble,\u201d he argues. Africa needs a deluge of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nAfrican Writers Have a Pro-Poor Mandate | Blockspace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"African Writers Have a Pro-Poor Mandate | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wole Soyinka The mainstay of African literature is nationalist sentiment.\u00a0 From the outset, the continent\u2019s creative canon has assumed an overtly patriotic tenor, varying between durable writing and political ear candy. While this undercurrent hasbeenlong directed against colonial injustice, there is need to locate new frontiers, chiefly inequality within Africa, which is by farthe biggest problem of our day. Writers must foreground on their taskbars the reconfiguration of Africa into a more habitable space for the poor who saddle the brunt of uneven development, misappropriation of resources and municipal dysfunction. The poetics of justice must conjure up seared consciences in a continent where the rich fare sumptuously like Arab oil barons while the poor are haunted by the fear of tomorrow. History has long remained a soft target for African writers, with most writers heapingtheir patriotic indignation on colonialism. Imperialist tentacles being an enduring influence in the African society, it is impossible to detach history from contemporary affairs. However, there is need to progress beyond hindsight andburrow into capitalist indulgences and the tribulations of the poor on the continent as witnessed in our day. The problems poverty, inequality and economic injustice no longer merely contrast Africa and the global north but have become precipitate between the continent\u2019s super-rich corporates and politicians and the poor. There is need to stop specialising with the historical angle of inequality as problem of race against race and confront the looming menace of precipitate class differences in resource-rich African countries. African writers must antagonise unsparingly a domestic class which will not spare the interests of ordinary citizens in the quest for self-aggrandisement. One of Africa\u2019s foremost poets Niyi Osundare asks pertinent questions in a speech titled \u201cWhy We No Longer Blush in Lagos.\u201d \u201cHow did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop to a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanisation are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses? \u201cHow did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness?\u201d Osundare queries. While Osundare addresses Nigeria in particular, for whom, he says, corruption is the fastest growing industry, a flurry of local equivalents can be observed in our country and much of Africa. In fact, the \u201cAfrica rising\u201d buzzword is losing its mojo because improved macro-economic indices are not translating to a better life for everyone. Inequality, corruption and neo-colonialism are holes in the basket of African development. Writers must plug the basket lest the poor be always and forever condemned to crumbs. Chinua Achebe attributes the proliferation of corruption on an out-of-order corrective system. His compatriots, Achebe observes, are corrupt because \u201cthe system they live under today makes corruption easy and profitable. They will cease to be corrupt when corruption is made difficult and unattractive.\u201d Most African countries reel under the same problem whereby anthropophagous corporate, public service, municipal and political cabals skin the poor alive for dinner. Their excesses must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive\u201d as Achebe suggests, yet they are the ones with the power and will seldom lift a finger to call each other to order. That junction where the vested interests of the elites cross is the cemetery of the ordinary citizens\u2019 plea for a minimum semblance of decent life: for clean water, sewer-free streets, affordable access to health-care and gainful employment. Soyinka recently deplored the obtaining situation whereby the powerful are caught up in a web of social anomie; a situation whereby one \u201cset of power brokers is seeking support from another and there is a tendency to paper over, to pretend that the virus that is being grown is really of a very negligible kind.\u201d With the elites preoccupied with petty cross-aggrandisement, writers must step up the podium on behalf of the masses. African literature must be remastered to make the continent a povo-friendly space. The misappropriation of our resources by complacent elites must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive,\u201d even impossible,to guarantee sustainable livelihoods for the poor. Our aversion to self-abasement is worthwhile but must not degenerate into a shield against introspection.Honesty not airbrushed self-representation is what the continent needs to muster justified pride. Ugandan writer Brian Bwesigye contends that the writer\u2019s lot is with the lowly and suffering of his people; those perpetually consigned by their elected representatives to disreputable conditions. He argues that every expression, even one that negates politics, is a political act and urges African writers to go for the real issues. Few remarkable titles have emerged in response to the evolving realities of post-colonial Africa but there is need for a sustained assault against the menace. Ngugi WaThiong\u2019o in \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d assumes the role of a prophet of justice and burrows into the domestic segment of capitalism. He anticipates a backlash from authorities who equate criticism of their excesses with patriotic sacrilege. This institutional shield against criticismisaffirmed by his imprisonment for the play \u201cI Will Marry When I Want.\u201d \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d germinates from this detention. Ngugi contends that it is the artist\u2019s function to reveal theless palatable aspects of his or her society. \u201cCertain people in Ilmorog, our Ilmorog told me that this story was too disgraceful, too shameful, that it should be concealed in the depths of everlasting darkness,\u201d relates Ngugi\u2019s persona Gikaandi Player. \u201cI asked them: \u2018How can we cover up pits in our courtyards with leaves or saying to ourselves that because our eyes cannot now see the holes, our children can now prance about the yard as they like?\u2019 \u201cHappy is the man who is able to discern the pitfalls in his path, for he can avoid them. Happy is the traveller who is able to discern the stumps in his ways, for he can pull them up or walk around them so that they do not make him stumble,\u201d he argues. Africa needs a deluge of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-18T15:52:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-26T07:47:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zQswb1oDxlw\/TaPkGfbqPtI\/AAAAAAAAABw\/Y76xLgiDeTo\/s1600\/31.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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\/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"African Writers Have a Pro-Poor Mandate | Blockspace","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"African Writers Have a Pro-Poor Mandate | Blockspace","og_description":"Wole Soyinka The mainstay of African literature is nationalist sentiment.\u00a0 From the outset, the continent\u2019s creative canon has assumed an overtly patriotic tenor, varying between durable writing and political ear candy. While this undercurrent hasbeenlong directed against colonial injustice, there is need to locate new frontiers, chiefly inequality within Africa, which is by farthe biggest problem of our day. Writers must foreground on their taskbars the reconfiguration of Africa into a more habitable space for the poor who saddle the brunt of uneven development, misappropriation of resources and municipal dysfunction. The poetics of justice must conjure up seared consciences in a continent where the rich fare sumptuously like Arab oil barons while the poor are haunted by the fear of tomorrow. History has long remained a soft target for African writers, with most writers heapingtheir patriotic indignation on colonialism. Imperialist tentacles being an enduring influence in the African society, it is impossible to detach history from contemporary affairs. However, there is need to progress beyond hindsight andburrow into capitalist indulgences and the tribulations of the poor on the continent as witnessed in our day. The problems poverty, inequality and economic injustice no longer merely contrast Africa and the global north but have become precipitate between the continent\u2019s super-rich corporates and politicians and the poor. There is need to stop specialising with the historical angle of inequality as problem of race against race and confront the looming menace of precipitate class differences in resource-rich African countries. African writers must antagonise unsparingly a domestic class which will not spare the interests of ordinary citizens in the quest for self-aggrandisement. One of Africa\u2019s foremost poets Niyi Osundare asks pertinent questions in a speech titled \u201cWhy We No Longer Blush in Lagos.\u201d \u201cHow did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop to a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanisation are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses? \u201cHow did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness?\u201d Osundare queries. While Osundare addresses Nigeria in particular, for whom, he says, corruption is the fastest growing industry, a flurry of local equivalents can be observed in our country and much of Africa. In fact, the \u201cAfrica rising\u201d buzzword is losing its mojo because improved macro-economic indices are not translating to a better life for everyone. Inequality, corruption and neo-colonialism are holes in the basket of African development. Writers must plug the basket lest the poor be always and forever condemned to crumbs. Chinua Achebe attributes the proliferation of corruption on an out-of-order corrective system. His compatriots, Achebe observes, are corrupt because \u201cthe system they live under today makes corruption easy and profitable. They will cease to be corrupt when corruption is made difficult and unattractive.\u201d Most African countries reel under the same problem whereby anthropophagous corporate, public service, municipal and political cabals skin the poor alive for dinner. Their excesses must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive\u201d as Achebe suggests, yet they are the ones with the power and will seldom lift a finger to call each other to order. That junction where the vested interests of the elites cross is the cemetery of the ordinary citizens\u2019 plea for a minimum semblance of decent life: for clean water, sewer-free streets, affordable access to health-care and gainful employment. Soyinka recently deplored the obtaining situation whereby the powerful are caught up in a web of social anomie; a situation whereby one \u201cset of power brokers is seeking support from another and there is a tendency to paper over, to pretend that the virus that is being grown is really of a very negligible kind.\u201d With the elites preoccupied with petty cross-aggrandisement, writers must step up the podium on behalf of the masses. African literature must be remastered to make the continent a povo-friendly space. The misappropriation of our resources by complacent elites must be made \u201cdifficult and unattractive,\u201d even impossible,to guarantee sustainable livelihoods for the poor. Our aversion to self-abasement is worthwhile but must not degenerate into a shield against introspection.Honesty not airbrushed self-representation is what the continent needs to muster justified pride. Ugandan writer Brian Bwesigye contends that the writer\u2019s lot is with the lowly and suffering of his people; those perpetually consigned by their elected representatives to disreputable conditions. He argues that every expression, even one that negates politics, is a political act and urges African writers to go for the real issues. Few remarkable titles have emerged in response to the evolving realities of post-colonial Africa but there is need for a sustained assault against the menace. Ngugi WaThiong\u2019o in \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d assumes the role of a prophet of justice and burrows into the domestic segment of capitalism. He anticipates a backlash from authorities who equate criticism of their excesses with patriotic sacrilege. This institutional shield against criticismisaffirmed by his imprisonment for the play \u201cI Will Marry When I Want.\u201d \u201cDevil on the Cross\u201d germinates from this detention. Ngugi contends that it is the artist\u2019s function to reveal theless palatable aspects of his or her society. \u201cCertain people in Ilmorog, our Ilmorog told me that this story was too disgraceful, too shameful, that it should be concealed in the depths of everlasting darkness,\u201d relates Ngugi\u2019s persona Gikaandi Player. \u201cI asked them: \u2018How can we cover up pits in our courtyards with leaves or saying to ourselves that because our eyes cannot now see the holes, our children can now prance about the yard as they like?\u2019 \u201cHappy is the man who is able to discern the pitfalls in his path, for he can avoid them. Happy is the traveller who is able to discern the stumps in his ways, for he can pull them up or walk around them so that they do not make him stumble,\u201d he argues. Africa needs a deluge of","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2015-03-18T15:52:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-26T07:47:31+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zQswb1oDxlw\/TaPkGfbqPtI\/AAAAAAAAABw\/Y76xLgiDeTo\/s1600\/31.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"hardsouth","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hardsouth","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=476"},"author":{"name":"hardsouth","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0"},"headline":"African Writers Have a Pro-Poor 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