BY MULUGETA GUDETA
By Ethiopian literature we mean the collective literatures of the peoples of Ethiopia, whether oral or written and reflect the common cultural heritages of the people who forged a common identity by living together for many centuries. Although Amharic is the working language of Ethiopia, Amharic is not the only language spoken in Ethiopia as there are more than 87 ethnic groups speaking as many or more languages. By the same token, Amharic literature is not the only Ethiopian literature because there are other languages expressed in oral or written traditions or forms. Amharic has become a language that has developed a written tradition and its literature enjoyed widespread reception simply due to historical and political circumstances that favored its development; among other things the absence of colonialism that could not impose a European language and undermined local languages.
As almost the only country that was not trampled under the European colonial boots, Ethiopia also boasts of an independent civilization that resembles neither the West nor the East but retains its own identities down to this day. While arts and cultures evolved rapidly in the rest of the world, Ethiopia is still keen to retain its glorious past which has recently come under pressure by modernist ideologies that often disguise the neocolonial thesis of modernization under the guise of globalization or any other similar fad.
However, if Ethiopian art and literature needs modernization as such, it can only do so by returning to its African roots and not by succumbing to European or American cultural and literary influences. Neocolonial culture wants to keep Africans under the old tutelage by other methods. “Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony).”
Cultural imperialism in Ethiopia and in other African countries takes many forms and manifestations often expressed in the films, music, dance literatures and the arts and crafts. To our surprise, many European writers and thinkers dealt with the problems and challenges of neocolonialism in Africa. Coined by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1956, it was first used by Kwame Nkrumah in the context of African countries undergoing de-colonization in the 1960s. Neocolonialism is also discussed in the works of Western thinkers such as Sartre (Colonialism and Neocolonialism, 1964) and Noam Chomsky (The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979).”
Ethiopia escaped colonialism because of its geographic location, i.e. isolation from the rest of the world, as some writers maintain or evokes the now-famous image of land long forgotten by the rest of the world while itself forgetting the world. In the famous words of Gibbon “The Ethiopians slept near a thousand years,” wrote historian Edward Gibbon in 1837, “forgetful of the world, by which they were forgotten.” Edward Gibbon FRS was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work is The History of the Decline and Downfall of the Roman Empire.
Even though Ethiopia “forgot the world by which she was forgotten” for much of its history, it could not do so in the 20th and 21st centuries as neocolonialism and imperialism dominated the globe and terminated physical, political and cultural isolation of African countries. Ethiopia started to embark on the path of modernity and global integration at the turn of the last century.
In the last 60 years or so since the end of colonialism and the beginning of the independence decade, Africa as a continent has been fighting to end the colonial legacy and recover its lost past and buried for hundreds of years of Western European political and cultural domination. It has been doing so both in the political and cultural fronts at the same time. The political struggle for achieving Africa’s common legacy has so far proved an unfulfilled promise while the cultural front has scored some notable victories by putting African art and literature on the global map among the most important legacies of humanity. The struggle is still in at its initial stage and needs more time and efforts to put the continent on a par with the other so-called civilized or modern political and cultural entities.
Why African literature and by derivation, Ethiopian literature needs to go back to its original African roots is pretty clear to anyone who has been following post-colonial developments in African arts and literature. Temporally and for analytical reasons, African arts and literature can be generally divided into the pre and post-colonial periods. However, there is now a kind of “third period” in the history of African arts and literature. This |third period” may not be a movement towards the future but towards the past, a return to the glorious past of authentic African arts.
This may be a return to the roots as politicians often call it when discussing the need to a movement towards African original political structures marked by village-based communal rule whereby the leaders were elected directly by the inhabitants and called back by the same people whenever the need arose for such a move. In the Ethiopian context this may be called the Gadda system, and in its more modern sense it may be called “village socialism” as the later Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere called his experiment to build a more egalitarian village-based political system otherwise known as Ujama.
“Julius Nyerere published Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism in 1962 soon after Tanganyika gained independence from Britain. Meaning ‘family’ in Swahili, the text set out the basis for the new country’s economic and social development. Ujamaa villages were a central component of this program.” The late Libyan president Muamar Ghadaffi had tried another version of socialism known as The Third International Theory which was the style of government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi in the early 1970s, on which his government, the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, was officially based. It was partly inspired by Islamic socialism, African nationalism and partly by the principles of direct democracy.”
Unfortunately, the Gadda system in Ethiopia, Nyerere’s village socialism as well as Ghadaffi’s Islamic socialism have not so far helped Africa recover its lost political soul and is still condemned to live under the shadows of the post-colonial international system defined by Western domination, exploitation and political diktat.
Culturally, African literature in the post-colonial period bear all the hallmarks of the colonial era as well as Western influences as well as new themes that dealt with the challenges of building an authentically African artistic and literary world. “Africa’s post-colonial literature has become increasingly diverse, with some writers returning to their native languages. Common themes include the clash between past and present, tradition and modernity, self and community, as well as politics and development.”
There are also common themes running through African literature in general. “Post-colonial literature has become increasingly diverse, with some writers returning to their native languages. Common themes include the clash between past and present, tradition and modernity, self and community, as well as politics and development.” According to some writers, the major themes of African literature in the post-colonial period are also varied and complex, “Among the principal themes developed in postcolonial fiction are those of exile and alienation; rebellion, struggle, and opposition against colonial powers; and mixing or confusion of identities, multiculturalism, and the establishment of cultural autonomy free from imperial forces.”
The post-colonial period of African art and literature deals with similar themes in addition to new ones such exile, identity and immigration among others. Among the writers who have infused freshness and new perspective into the neocolonial themes in African literature are among others, Ben Okri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria and Ngugi wa Tiongo from Kenya who have written bestselling novels some of which have won the most prestigious prizes in Europe such as the Booker Prize.
Ethiopian literature could not grow to the levels of other colonial languages such as English or French because the country has kept its identity free of foreign domination. However, it can no more keep its culture and literature out of the reach of globalist tendencies. It can however modernize its culture not by succumbing to neocolonialist temptations but by going back to its glorious past or to its roots. Modernity as defined by Western thinking needs to be considered critical if it can assume an African characteristic. For Westerners “Modernity refers to a particular era in human history. It is an era characterized by scientific thought (rather than metaphysical or supernatural belief), individualism, a focus on industrialization and technical development and a rejection of some traditional values.” To Africans, modernity is defined not by rejection of traditional values but by giving them genuinely African characteristics that truly define who Africans are and where they want to go. To make a long story short, modernizing culture and literature for Africans is taking the positive heritages of humanity and combining them with Africans’ positive legacies. Political modernization in Africa has so far failed to take roots because it is conceived and practiced as a continuation of the colonial legacy. Cultural modernization on African terms and conditions is possible because there is a new consciousness at work within the African psyche and identity.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2022
