Colonization... a dehumanizing idea.

Chinua Achebe's writings were a little different than those of Felix Mnthali. Achebe was more concerned with all of Africa at large, the problem of colonization, and what it was doing to, not only the African people, but also the rest of the world. Achebe is angered by the ideas/mentality of colonialism, which says that “Our way of doing things is best and right. Your way is either very inferior or completely wrong, so we are going to help you fix your problems with our ways.”

In the short stories “An Image of Africa,” “Girls at War,” and “The Madman.” Achebe paints a picture, so-to-say, of what colonialism is and what it does to everyone involved. The first story is written in a very different style than the other two. Colonization, although decades ago, has successfully tainted the view most the world has on Africans. Very little truth is known about them and we imagine wild savages running around half-naked with spears, speaking in some unintelligible language. Their rich culture and traditions are seen as backwards and stupid. The word ‘tribe’ is seen as something of the olden days. At the beginning of “An Image of Africa,” Achebe talks about three situations with an older gentleman, high-school students, and their teacher that displayed their ignorance and a book that he calls a “bloody racist.” The style chosen to write “An Image for Africa” was, sadly, very necessary to prove that Africans are not simply backward, savages, who are illiterate and know nothing of history or literature.

Two problems Achebe addresses that come out of colonialism are ignorance and racism. Achebe was angry about the problems that colonialism was having on the world and the great ignorance; however, he was also concerned about how it was affecting the Africans themselves. In the story “Girls at War,” Achebe sets the scene for a corrupt and totally self-absorbed government official. Nwankwo refused to help anyone, unless it would benefit him in some way. He went to find food and stocked up, while there were people starving and begging for food. He stopped to pick up a young girl and ignored an old woman. He gave the girl a ride, simply because he found her attractive and for his own pleasure. He was not really concerned with helping her. Achebe was mocking colonialism saying that the Europeans were only out for their best interest, while trying to mask it saying they were helping the Africans. The Europeans, through colonialism were using the Africans to get what they wanted and then they left them in a terrible state.

In “The Madman,” we have a perfectly sane man, who is proclaimed to be insane. He is continually told that he is crazy and eventually begins to believe it himself. Africans had been told that they didn't have a history. They hadn't written their stories down for all to read, and telling the stories wasn't good enough. The stories were considered as accurate as a fiction novel is. The idea that if a person is told that they are something long enough; they will eventually start to believe it themselves and come to identify with it. This is very common in victims of abuse; they cannot break out or away from their abuser and often continue the cycle, because they have come to identify with their abuser’s definition of them. The same thing was happening to Achebe’s people. He could see it and it angered him. They were being told that they were nobodies without a history. The Europeans were educating those they saw fit, the white and only the wealthy could afford the education their children needed. The people began to see themselves as the Europeans had portrayed them and were submitting to their control.

Something that we have talked about several times in class and I find very interesting... In the stories we’ve read this quarter and in the past two quarters there are characters that have no name. We’ve talked about what that means both in a good way and in a bad way. One thing we talked about is how that once a person receives a name they become an individual, not just someone in the crowd. Africans were not differentiated by tribes, or specific people groups, nor were they called by a real name, they were ‘the natives.’ In my opinion this is one of the most vague and non-descriptive way to refer to a people group. The grouping of colored, blacks, white, or Indian at least gave them some type of identifying term, but ‘native.’ The word sounds so... so savage, wild, and almost vicious.