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Of Africa. By Wole SoyinkaRobert B. LloydPublished online: 14 Apr 2013.

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Book Review

Of Africa. By Wole Soyinka. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.199 pp. $24.00 Cloth

Western perceptions of the continent of Africa, a Ugandan pastor trained inthe United States once said, tend to be influenced by three different mediasources. The first is CNN Africa, which focuses on the human-derived calami-ties afflicting the continent, with the television screen showing scenes of fam-ine and violent conflict. The second is Hollywood Africa, which offers twoviews of the continent. The first subtype continues the meme of violent con-flict. The Last King of Scotland, for example, addresses the erratic and bloodyrule of Uganda’s Idi Amin from 1971 to 1979. Another movie, Amistad, tellsthe tragic story of the slave trade between Africa and the United States. Thesecond Hollywood subtype—aimed toward a family audience—is decidedlymore upbeat. In these movies, Africa is depicted through the adventures oftalking animals, as seen in films such as The Lion King and Madagascar.The final media source that affects our perceptions is National GeographicAfrica. This genre focuses on Africa’s animal and human populations fromthe biological and anthropological perspectives. Not surprisingly, given theselargely negative sources of information, Western perceptions of Africa areoften not as positive as perceptions of other regions of the world.

Perceptions of Africa are further influenced by a general lack ofunderstanding of this vast continent. Africa constitutes one-fifth of the Earth’slandmass; comprises a varied landscape of deserts, tropical rainforests, andsavannas; and is home to one billion humans, 2,000 languages, and over fiftycountries of varying size. The citizens of these countries, with the exception ofLiberia and Ethiopia, share a heritage of colonial rule by such Europeanpowers as Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, Belgium, Libya, and Germany.The European partition of Africa in 1884–1885 during the Berlin Conferenceforever changed the trajectory of Africa and Africans. The colonial powerscarved up vast tracts of land based on imperial desires, both dividing and unit-ing Africans living in these newly created colonial territories. Independencefor Africans, when it arrived in the 1960s following the end of World WarII, produced high expectations for future growth.

ROBERT B. LLOYD is the Blanche E. Seaver Professor of International Studies and Languages,an associate professor of international relations, and head of the International Studies Programat Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He is a member of the editorial board of theJournal of the Middle East and Africa.

Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 4:109–113, 2013Taylor & Francis Group, LLC # 2013ISSN: 2152-0844 print=2152-0852 onlineDOI: 10.1080/21520844.2013.773414

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These hopes were soon dashed. Between 1970 and 2000, per capita GDPin Africa fell 0.2 percent per year while doubling in South Asia. Ghana, one ofthe wealthiest sub-Saharan African states, was slightly poorer at the time ofindependence than South Korea, but the economic trajectories of the twocountries have been starkly different. Nearly fifty years after independence,Ghana’s per capita GDP was roughly the same as it was at independence,but South Korea’s had grown by a factor of fifteen.1 The story of economicstagnation and even outright decline presided over by politically repressiveleaders has not been limited to Ghana, but has instead became a depressinglycommon feature of countries spread throughout the African continent. Thepessimism about Africa that peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s was in starkcontrast to the optimism of the early phases of independence, subsequentlyprovoking much finger-pointing. Although the politics of blame did not aidin the diagnosis of the continent’s political and economic ailments, it did pointout the deep frustration felt at the lagging indicators and the very real impactthis stagnation was having on people’s lives and livelihoods. Policy prescrip-tions for Africa naturally varied, depending on which factor was identified asthe primary cause of distress.

The geographer Harm de Blij has identified eight formative factors thathave adversely affected Africa’s development.2 These include climate change(creating the isolating effect of the Sahara that separates sub-Saharan Africanfrom the trade routes of the Mediterranean basin), ecological factors (animalsthat resist domestication and a climate conducive to disease), the divisivepresence of Islam, the effects of a depopulating slave trade, oppressive colo-nialism, the Cold War, the struggles of competing in a globalized market, andthe repetitive failure of a corrupt leadership. These factors, which lie bothwithin and outside the continent, and indeed human agency, demonstratethe complexity of the problems that Africa faces.

It is in this context that the writer, playwright, and political activist WoleSoyinka presents a wide-ranging analysis of Africa and its capacity to enrichthe world in his book Of Africa. Soyinka is well placed for this undertaking.He is Nigerian, the son of a country that is in many ways a microcosm ofsub-Saharan Africa and is arguably the leading state on the continent. Hehails from Abeokuta, Ogun State, located in the heartland of Yorubaland.At seventy-eight, Soyinka has lived through the colonial era, the heady daysof independence, and the times of political strongmen and economic declinethat followed. His political activism against corruption and misrule byauthoritarian African leaders led at various times to his imprisonment andexile from Nigeria. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize inliterature, the first African to receive this award.

1See Todd J. Moss, African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors, 2nd ed.(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011), 95, 96.

2See Harm de Blij, Why Geography Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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His task in this book is to take on these external perceptions and presentan unvarnished and honest examination of Africa’s past and present with theaim of proposing what Africans can uniquely and positively contribute to theworld. He believes that Africa’s humanity, and particularly its spiritual assets,represent Africa’s unique contribution to the world. The first part of the bookdiagnoses the ills that have affected Africa. Soyinka focuses primarily onde Blij’s categories of the slave trade, colonialism, the Cold War, divisivereligion, and the failure of African leadership as major factors causing thecontinent distress.

Soyinka’s initial task is to examine the issue of African identity and how theboundary of Africa extends beyond the continent throughout the African dia-spora. He then moves on to what he believes are four common perceptions—what he terms ‘‘schools of fiction’’ on Africa—that derive from four externallyimposed sources of truth on the continent. These include stories from adven-turers, commercial interests such as the Belgian King Leopold, African leadersintent on retaining power who have appropriated colonial fictions of Africanunsuitability for popular participation in the political process in order to main-tain power, and an African diaspora that seeks reparations for the damage doneto Africa and Africans by the slave trade. He concludes the first half of the bookwith his account of captured and shackled Africans who circled the Tree ofForgetfulness prior to being shipped off to the New World in chains. He usesthis story as a metaphor for African complicity in the slave trade, pointingout their awareness of slavery’s inexcusable moral transgression and theTree’s continued use in tolerating the violent attacks on Africans in Darfur bya government bent on Arabizing a black African population.

In the second part of the book, Soyinka presents possible cures to theills affecting the continent. Again, using a metaphor, he presents Africa’sdilemma as having been forced to choose among three competing ‘‘chainsof intolerance.’’ These chains are the competing worldviews that claim torepresent African humanity. He rejects one chain as the ‘‘despotic spirit ofthe secular,’’ arguing that this worldview ‘‘engendered its own brutal civilwars and cost millions of lives and decades of development’’ in Africa as‘‘strongmen’’ such as Idi Amin of Uganda and Mobutu of Zaire actively facili-tated competing power blocs during the Cold War. He likewise rejects thetwo major religions of the continent—Christianity and Islam—as representinga religious absolutism that is even more constrictive and less receptive tonegotiations than secular absolutism. Soyinka cites religious-based violencein Somalia and his own country as evidence of these religions’ inability toproduce a version of African humanity that the continent can offer the worldas what he calls a ‘‘Global Cultural Recourse and Arbiter.’’

In the final two chapters, Soyinka lays out his vision of the spiritualresource that Africa can offer the world. Drawing from his own Yorubabackground, he argues that the traditional African religion of Orisa (spirit)offers a tolerant, harmonizing, and ethical framework that guides but does

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not prescribe a set of fixed beliefs for its followers. In short, people whoascribe to Orisa do not find themselves in chains. This recovered worldview,Soyinka argues, not only can change the perceptions and dynamics of Africabut may also constitute Africa’s unique contribution of humanism to theworld. He concludes by illustrating how Orisa precepts can approach thecontentious issue of the burqa, the robe worn by Muslim women in publicthat covers the body from head to toe. He states that the Orisa would argueagainst the imposition of an absolutist view and would encourage free will.

Given the political activism of the writer, of particular interest are WoleSoyinka’s thoughts on the political dynamics of Africa. Soyinka opensPandora’s box by asking whether the national borders inherited from thecolonial era remain viable in the current international context. He indicatessupport for the establishment of Eritrea and South Sudan as independentstates, because the prior political boundaries were imposed on people.Current norms of the African Union have set in place very high standardsfor subnational secession. If in doubt on this matter, simply examine thechallenges facing Somaliland in gaining international recognition as an inde-pendent state. Soyinka rejects the argument that loosened rules for secessionwould automatically lead to the disintegration of existing states, however,and posits that a redrawing of Africa’s boundaries might actually lead tothe amalgamation of states in the current international order. Indeed, theAfrican Union has endorsed clear attempts at greater political and economicintegration, such as the East African Federation of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda,Rwanda, and Burundi.

Thus, it would appear that a very gradual reordering of boundaries inAfrica is occurring through both separation and amalgamation. A clear andpresent danger posed by opening such a Pandora’s box can be seen in thefuture status of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This vast and conflictedcountry in Central Africa scarcely exists as a single entity but is unlikely tobe restructured into two or more separate states. The conflict in Congo hasclaimed the lives of some 3 to 4 million people and shows no sign of final res-olution. Even in Soyinka’s own Nigeria, it is not clear whether breaking up thisuneasy federation by religious identity, creating a Muslim state in the northand a Christian state in the south, is possible without bloodshed. Nigeria’sBiafran war of 1967–1970, when the Igbo sought exit from Nigeria, is a sober-ing example of the carnage that can accompany subnational secession.

Regarding Soyinka’s central thesis, it is unlikely that traditional Africanreligions are capable of playing a role that will unify African identity and pro-mote tolerance. While many religious elements have syncretized with Islamand Christianity, the influence of traditional African religion is waning relativeto these two world religions. In the case of Christianity, its center of gravity isshifting away from the West and toward Africa. Africa’s contribution to theworld may be as the future epicenter of Christianity. Crawford Young arguesthat African society will be more genuine and integrated once Islam and

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Christianity fully syncretize with precolonial traditions.3 It is less likely thatsuch integration will reduce conflict across the Sahel of Africa, where thesetwo religions come into contact along a fault line that stretches for thousandsof miles.

One strength of this book is its wide-ranging and honest appraisalof Africa’s history and current politics by an African playwright who hasexperienced the entire arc of the play that is contemporary Africa. His isnot a comprehensive inquiry, but a heartfelt, individual, and pointed analysisthat seeks to understand and cast Africa and Africans as having much to offerthe world. Unfortunately, the book suffers from a writing style that is difficultfor the reader because of its overly long and complicated sentences and anaversion to more concrete language. It also assumes that the reader has afairly extensive and deep understanding of Africa, lessening its accessibilityto the average person who desires to better understand the continent andthe writer.

Robert B. Lloyd

3See Crawford Young, ‘‘In Search of Civil Society,’’ in Civil Society and the State in Africa,ed. John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,1994), 33–50.

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