Postcolonial History, Memory and the Poetic Imagination: Interrogating the “Civan” Metaphor in Joe Ushie’s Eclipse in Rwanda.

Abstract

Introduction For some time now, the negotiation and interrogation of the plethora of problems plaguing postcolonial Africa have remained the burden of African poetry and, indeed, literature and history. Indelibly inscribed within the schema of this interrogation is the overwhelming perennial concern and engagement with history and memory which, understandably, stem from the repercussions the chequered complex of problems has had--and is still having--on the continent. Africa's postcolonial contradiction finds manifestation in political perfidy and subterfuge by a decadent political elite, economic paralysis and strangulation by a petit bourgeoisie in active collaboration with their counterparts in the metropolitan centers and a crippling social morass and moral atrophy. Much of these problems can be located in the historical contingencies of the colonial and imperial enterprise as well as the betrayals and ineptitude of the postcolonial leadership. But as Makouta-Mboukou observes, "the enemies of man are not only found outside one's own house but also within it." (1) Thus, in an increasingly postmodernist world of tremendous development in science and technology, digital and satellite communication, much of Africa continues to tell a tale whose leitmotifs are recrudescent fratricidal conflicts, genocidal wars, corruption, poverty, hunger, disease, injustice, greed, gratuitous ethnic nationalism, etc. Paradoxically, the continent is richly blessed with human, mineral and economic resources. This paradox is what Femi Ojo-Ade calls a "corpus of contradictions." (2) Jideofor Adibe articulates this paradox which defines Africa and is complicit in the generation of crises and conflicts with external propelling exigencies thus: No continent is pulled in as many directions and often conflictual directions as Africa. It is the continent where different countries, and even nationalities within countries, are sharply divided, and sometimes defined by emotive external allegiances. Hence, we have Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, Lusophone Africa, Arab Africa, Bantu Africa, Christian Africa, Islamic Africa, Diaspora Africa etc. (3) It is this warped state of affairs that has provided the impetus for many African writers- and in this case poets-who feel sufficiently concerned to appropriate public space to valorize a continent's ignoble condition and unebbing tide of adversities. Joe Ushie and the "Civan" Metaphor The "Civan" metaphor is a veritable trope which idealizes the overweening gravitation or proclivity to war and conflict in Africa. As such, it celebrates and promotes martial confrontation among communities, ethnic nationalities and nation-states. It espouses to the condition of, and imperative for, communal conflicts, social unrests, political instability, and economic despoliation. It is an obsession which turns war and conflict into a pastime or vortex. The metaphor, therefore, represents the propensity to war and communal conflict--quite often for their sake--which much of Africa has been embroiled in and has become synonymous with. The trope is derivable from Civan, a man from Utange clan in southern Tiv country in Nigeria's Middle Belt Region who was a mercenary extraordinaire, and around whom there exists a historically verifiable narrative concerning his martial prowess and lust for blood. Civan mistakenly killed himself when he drew his mythical, rusty sword from its sheath with characteristic anger. The sword was too close to his throat and the sword severed it. This has entered Tiv loric tradition and people now say: "You have killed yourself like Civan." However, to be charitable to Civan, he never turned his sword against his community as many African politicians do. It is within this belligerent trope and agonistic schema that we situate the discursive interrogation of war and conflict in the African poetic imagination through the motions of history and memory archives using the poetry of the Nigerian, Joe Ushie. …