Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

Ikem called his lecture 'The Tortoise and the Leopard — a political meditation on the imperative of struggle.' This announcement was greeted with tumultuous approval. No doubt it had the right revolutionary ring to it and Ikem smiled inwardly at the impending coup d'état he would stage against this audience and its stereotype notions of struggle, as indeed of everything else.

'Mr. Chairman, sir…' he said, bowing mock-deferentially to the Professor who had just been eulogized by the Students' Union President as a popular academic admired by all and sundry for his clarity and Marxist orientation who, as the youngest professor in Kangan, had ably redirected Political Science from bourgeois tendencies under Professor Reginald Okong to new heights of scientific materialism…

'May I crave your indulgence and begin this meditation — not lecture by the way, I never can muster enough audacity to lecture — I meditate. May I begin with a little story.'

And he told, to remarkable dramatic and emotional effect, the story of the Tortoise who was about to die.

'That story was told me by an old man. As I stand before you now that old man who told me that incredible story is being held in solitary confinement at the Bassa Maximum Security Prison.'

No! Why! Opposed! Impossible! and other sounds of shock and anger flew like sparks and filled the air of the auditorium.

'Why? I hear you ask. Very well… This is why… Because storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever. That's why.'

It was a brief presentation, twenty to twenty-five minutes long, that was all; but it was so well crafted and so powerfully spoken it took on the nature and scope of an epic prose-poem. It was serious but not solemn; sometimes witty without falling into the familiarity of banter.

The audience sat or stood silently entranced. Its sudden end was like a blow and it jolted them into shouts of protest. Calls of Fire! Fire! More! More! and even Opposed! soon turned into a rhythmic chant when Ikem sat down.

The Chairman turned to him and said, 'They want some more!'

'Yes! More! More! More!'

'I thank you, my friends, for the compliment. But as someone once said: There is nothing left in the pipeline!'

'No! No! Opposed!'

'In any case you have listened to me patiently. Now I want to hear you. Dialogues are infinitely more interesting than monologues. So fire your questions and comments and let's exchange a few blows. You've been at the receiving end. But, as the Bible says, it is better to give than to receive. So let's have a few punches from your end. That's what I've come here for.'

And true enough, it was during question-time that he finally achieved the close hand-to-hand struggle he so relished. By nature he is never on the same side as his audience. Whatever his audience is, he must try not to be. If they fancy themselves radical, he fancies himself conservative; if they propound right-wing tenets he unleashes revolution! It is not that he has ever sat down to reason it out and plan it; it just seems to happen that way. But he is aware of it — after the event, so to say, and can even offer some kind of explanation if asked to do so: namely that whatever you are is never enough; you must find a way to accept something however small from the other to make you whole and save you from the mortal sin of righteousness and extremism.

A couple of months ago he had been persuaded against his normal inclination to speak at the Bassa Rotary Club weekly luncheon. On that particular occasion the club had more cause than usual to be happy with itself for it had just bought and donated a water-tanker to a dispensary in one of the poorest districts of North Bassa, an area that has never had electricity nor pipe-borne water. In the after-dinner haze of good works, cigar smoke and liqueur his hosts sat back to hear what their distinguished guest had to tell them… Well, as usual, he left what he should have told them and launched into something quite unexpected. Charity, he thundered is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from his loose change and from a safe height above the bowl of the leper outside the supermarket; to the group of good citizens like yourselves who donate water so that some Lazarus in the slums can have a syringe boiled clean as a whistle for his jab and his sores dressed more hygienically than the rest of him; to the Band Aid stars that lit up so dramatically the dark Christmas skies of Ethiopia. While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

The rotund geniality of his hosts was instantly shattered and distorted into sharp-pointed shapes of aggressiveness.

That world of yours will be in heaven, sneered one gentleman. Even in heaven, said another, there is seniority. Archangels are senior to common angels.

As early as possible Ikem was escorted out of the room by two club officials — a normal practice indeed but which on this occasion was performed with such icy civility that it took on the appearance of showing an ungracious dinner guest to the door straight from the table he has insulted.

But this was no Rotary Club and dealing with it would be easier in some ways, but in others probably more difficult.

The first questioner was apparently a young member of faculty rather than a student. His question was prefaced with a little lecture of his own on the manifest failure of bourgeois reformism to address the fundamental problems of the Third World in general and Kangan in particular. Did Mr. Osodi not consider, in view of the above, the necessity of putting the nation now under the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat?

'No, I don't. I wouldn't put myself under the democratic dictatorship even of angels and archangels. As for the proletariat I don't think I know who they are in the case of Kangan.'

'Workers and peasants,' said the Chairman, helpfully.

'Workers and peasants,' Ikem repeated into the microphone, 'I have just been told.'

'And students,' a voice from the audience called, causing much laughter.

'Fair enough,' said Ikem. 'Charity begins at home.' More laughter. 'Any other suggestions. We have peasants, workers and students… Excellent! Will peasants in this hall please stand.'

There was now hilarious laughter from all corners of the auditorium, especially when another three-piece-suited gentleman got up and offered himself.

'No, you are not a peasant my good friend. Sit down. I want a proper peasant… Well, ladies and gentlemen it does appear we have no peasants here tonight. Perhaps they don't even know we are having this meeting… I am told, by the way, by those who attend shareholders' annual general meetings that there is something called a proxy form which you send nominating somebody else to stand in for you when you cannot yourself be present. Is there anybody here carrying such a document on behalf of peasants? Mr. Chairman, was any proxy form delivered to you?'

The learned professor in spite of the heavy burden of his earnestness felt obliged now to join in some of this rather awkward fun. So he shook his head, not too vigorously but well enough to win the applause of the ticklishly humorous crowd.

'Very well. I think we should leave peasants out of the discussion. They are not here and have sent no one to speak on their behalf… That leaves us with workers and students…'

'And market women,' chipped in a high female voice from the audience, to a renewed burst of merriment.

'Market women, my dear girl, are in the same category as peasants. They are not here either… I will let you into a secret I have told nobody else. My prospective mother-in-law is a market woman.' Laughter!