Selected
Nationalism
If
a dog is taken to obedience school and trained by one person then taken home
and given back to the owner, he will have a hard time adjusting to obeying this
person who has fed him, raised him, and cared for him for most of his life. As
far he knows, the one who taught him and showed him how to behave is the one
who should be obeyed. Or emulated. That person is all he knows when it comes to
living life as a “good dog”. This is how I understand nationalism in my studies
so far. How can a people be jerked out of their way of life for generations
then revert back to a hybrid of colonialism and tradition? That path is riddled
with hypocrisy and confusion. Frantz Fanon takes an honest look at what he
calls the “wretched of the earth”: the new middle class in a postcolonial land.
Fanon’s theories and observations of struggling, failing middle class
nationalism can be brought to life in a literary analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s
“No Sweetness Here” and “Two Sisters”.
In
“No Sweetness Here”, Aidoo shows the many stages of colonialism and
de-colonialism through various characters and illustrations. First is Maami
Ama. She represents the old Africa struggling to find its new place in the
world. She is strong and independent, willing to give up her son for her
freedom. She is, as Fanon would say, the “underdeveloped middle class… which
refuses to follow the path of revolution” (Fanon 1579). She is not interested
in fighting for her home, is willing to pay the debts that her husband has
settling on her, and is willing to give up her son. All she wants is the chance
to live like she desires to. She is not interested in the new ways like Chicha.
The
teacher is Aidoo’s representation of new Africa and the way the young
generation has adapted—or conformed to—the colonial way of life. Fanon says
that the new middle class’ work is to “keep in the running and to be part of
the racket” (Fanon 1579). She is working a white job. She is going forward with
the colonial way that has already been set down because she does not know, or
remember, what it was before like Maami Ama does. Chicha’s nationalism has been
implanted already. As far she knows, everything is fine and Maami Ama’s ideas
are old.
Then
there is Kwesi and his father. Kwesi is the land itself. He is the future of postcolonial
Africa that Chicha, the new Africa, adores and wants to take with her into the
future. He is a product of old Africa and that’s why he appeals to Chicha so
much. Fighting to keep Kwesi (the land) is Kodjo Fi, Maami Ama’s husband, who
here represents the mother country. Fanon says “Colonialism… recovers its
balance and tries now to break that will to unity by using all the movement’s
weakness” (Fanon 1584). Kodjo yells at Mammi Ama “[Kwesi] must be of some
service to his father too” (Aidoo 68). He demands that he take Kwesi since he
is only worth being a present to Maami Ama. The mother country says that the
land must be taken since the “new underdeveloped middle class” does not know
how to work it. She is undeserving.
Maami
Ama may not make it through the rest of her life. She has lost everything she
loved and everyone who supported her. She, like the African people when the
West first imposed power, had no one to help defend her. All of her male
relatives were dead and her aunts were as likely to call her a witch as her
husband’s sisters. Chicha will do fine. Fanon says “the bourgeois caste draws
its strength after independence chiefly from agreements reached with the former
colonial power” (Fanon 1586). This is why Chicha, with her professional job,
love for the old Africa, and compliance with colonialism will no doubt live a
happy life. It also takes us into the second story.
With
this quote in mind, we see how “Two Sisters” is a story about nationalism and a
loyalty with what morally should be. It must be hard to be loyal to an Africa
that is struggling to define who it is while still coveting outside fineries.
In
“Two Sisters” nice things come from outside of Africa whether they are black
shoes, cars, or sewing machine motors. Fanon says that “a national economy is
an economy based on what may be called local products” and so in reply “they
will surround the artisan class with a chauvinistic tenderness in keeping with
the new awareness of national dignity (Fanon 1579). The subject of Aidoo’s
story is material gain. But not through nationalism. Rather through the mother
country and bowing to outside powers.
For
Mercy, she latches on to these big men because she cannot see herself any other
way. Fanon says, “they are completely ignorant of the economy of their own
country” (1579). Mercy is suffering from what many girls do: undervaluing
herself. But it’s more complicated than that as well. Mercy questions her
sister at the beginning “Is typing the only thing one can do in this world?”
(Aidoo 88). This symbol of struggling nationalism in Mercy shows Fanon’s theory
true; “the tribe is preferred to the state” (Fanon 1578). Mercy wants an Africa
she can love, does not like her colonial job, but cannot find any other way to
live but by latching on to the big man. Should she go back to the primitive
ways of ages past?
With
James and the big men, they have taken the power and unfair advantages that have
transferred to them from the colonial period and, in the case of James, hope to
use them to their advantage (Fanon 1580). The big men use them to their
advantage in that they can have whatever they want from abroad (the senator
mentions going to London) and anything local and innocent like Mercy who
struggles between the new Africa and old Africa and is in danger of being
washed away.
Aidoo
makes a great analogy of the ocean in the middle of her story. Mercy and
Mensar-Arthur are out on a date in the car and Aidoo has them park alongside
the gulf of Guinea. First, Aidoo shows you the ocean, the West, as devouring
the houses and people of the native land. Next, Aidoo uses the analogy of the
ocean washing away the houses and destroying things in its path as being
Mensar-Arthur. He is big, important, can do as he pleases and moves on after he
has wreaked his devastation. The big men no doubt live in the prosperous areas
mentioned by Fanon. He says those lucky few “come to the forefront, and
dominate the empty panorama which the rest of the nation presents” (Fanon
1583). Without him, the big man, this place is nothing. This struggle for
nationalism ends there. If the land is not counted as whole, then it will be
picked apart and the “useless” bits will be discarded. There will be no unity.
The idea of nationalism
is as far in the future as it ever has been, according to Fanon. He concludes
his essay with the gap that has not only formed within the tribes and religions
but with “white” and “black” Africa. The separation we see in Aidoo’s stories
of struggling peoples and classes are the micro versions of North and South of
the Sahara. But Fanon says that the new African middle class is not doing much
to change that. He calls it lazy and it has a will to imitate its western
counterpart (Fanon 1585). The new middle class has not had to work its way
there, it was left its place when they finally pushed the West out. But he
leaves us on a positive note: “such men fight in a certain measure for the mass
participation of the people…we must know how to use these men” (Fanon 1586).
But postcolonial lands everywhere face the same problem. There is only a
bourgeoisie class in the large cities established by the colonials, and outside
of that, there is not much hope. A middle class is only in existence where
there is economic value. And that, according to Fanon, is only in select parts
of great Africa. 