Anti-Colonialism and Affirmation of Nationalism - Essay Example

Anti-Colonialism and Affirmation of Nationalism The novel Une vie de boy (Houseboy) by Cameroonian Ferdinand Oyono take the form of a diary, thus lending it a realistic and personal touch, ensuring that the reader feels connected to the thoughts of the main narrator Joseph Toundi, or the Boy. The novel satirizes colonial injustices and traditional patriarchy. In an attempt to reflect the postcolonial multicultural tenor and universal appeal, the author uses global inscriptions into themes, style, characterization, myths, and setting of the narrative (Robinson, 2006:26). This paper seeks to how deep Oyono goes insofar as anti-colonialism and affirmation of nationalism is concerned. Essentially, the novel is a narration of the story of a young black boy. The boy runs away from his tribal village captivated by the lifestyles of the white, and ultimately adopted by a Dangan missionary white priest, Father Gilbert. He receives education from the priest, and begins recording all his experiences, thinks and sees vis-a-vis his life as a young black servant in colonial Africa. When father Gilbert passes on due to an accident in the bush, the boy becomes the colony’s “Boy” of the commandant (Assah, 2005:452). The Boy serves the whites at their opulent city, Residence, and lives in the Black Quarters (Quartier Noir), thus has a vintage point of observing all things around him, consequently seeing the truth about white. His illusion and admiration for whites slowly fades away. Oyono uses a transparent and simple incident where Toundi sees the Commandant naked, realizing he is not circumcised. This incidents act as an illustration of how the boy starts to strip away the grandeur and nobility o the whites. Through Toundi, the reader sees how different societies co-exist forcefully and blinded by the “other” stereotypes. The novel analyzes various questions that relate to colonialism and its impact on the lives of natives, particularly those who attempted to cross over and straddled between the fences because they lost the right to go back to their native land (Salhi, 2003:126). Since the whites’ world does not welcome them either, they end up into the world of oppression, servitude, and ultimately obliteration. Une vie de boy is a recount of the tribulations of Toundi in his father’s house and later with colonialists in Dangan, an imaginary town in Cameroon. The novel exposes the violence of African fathers and the brutality of French colonialists in a realistic manner, particularly evident from the foregrounding the protagonist’s tragic trajectory. The author presents Toundi as a problematic and picaresque protagonist, prone to ‘ambiguous adventure’, dispossession, and lacking a sense rootedness as he transverses between the colonial ghettos and the colonial centre (Nnolim, 2010:13). Interestingly, he cannot appropriate in the colonial centres, and only spends precarious nights in the hovel of his brother-in-law. The population in the colonial slums has two principal division criteria: an illusionary western glamour and mythical traditional Africa. Moreover, the slums are susceptible to dispossession, exclusion, and night raid by colonial police officers. The characters struggle to retain remnants of their indigenous values while simultaneously working to sustain the colonial rule. For Toundi, his innocence paves way to shock, then disenchantment, departure and ultimately death, beyond the realms of locality. The novel, however, shows some appreciation of colonialism. This is especially with reference to the protagonist who acknowledges his indebtedness to Father Gilbert for his literacy and appropriation on the practice of keeping diaries (Assah, 2005:456). This is evident in the diary’s opening sentence. This introduces the issue of discursive and language formations, in which the postcolonial theory appropriating the discussion of the ambivalent and delicate power relations established by the author between imperial and local languages. Moreover, Oyono seem to criticize the Catholic Church. The novel depicts the institution as a cover for economic chicanery and political dominance of colonialism with the ideals of moral authority. This is evident from the banning of arki distillation in efforts to force the locals to buy imported European red wine and liquor. Moreover, father Vandermayer condemned drinking, establishing a decree that any Christian who drank was committing mortal sin. Additionally, the liberation of women from polygamy to Sixas was contradictory, as Toundi seem to suggest that their homes were better than the boarding houses (Oyono, 1990:65). Father Gilbert and Father Vandermayer do not demonstrate any concerns for the Africans in their congregations, and if they do, they definitely do not reflect any in their employment of supercilious attitudes and physical abuse. Toundi highlights this in his experience as a small boy in the hands of Father Gilbert, saying he embodied a pet animal. Toundi adds that he receives payment in form of old trousers and shirts. His mean behaviour, however, was absent when he was administering corporal punishment, regularly kicking the boy from his posterior (Robinson, 2006:29). Despite all this colonial injustices, Toundi preferred Father Gilbert to his predecessor Father Vandermayer. According to Toundi, the latter was so unfeeling that kicked the head catechist out accusing him of being drunk when he brought news of the demise of Father Gilbert. The novel depicts Father Vandermayer as a foul tempered colonialist, who at one point threatened to dock labourers’ day wage. The priest actually chased away tattered beggars from the church. Missionary attitudes determined the manner of operations in the missions. Colonialists had allocations of caned, cushioned, private seats positioned at the transept of the church. No one else would occupy the seats during service. Generally, they were not bound to any decorum or rapt attention, and were free to leave after service. The Africans, however, were bound to a certain code of conduct. They sat separately based on sex on tree trunks (Oyono, 1990:46). Moreover, they were to enter the church after the Europeans had settled and to remain for further instructions after the departure of the Europeans. Any sign of inattention was punishable by catechists. Oyono excels in depicting church agents as making a mockery of the Christian practise. Religious concepts such as equality of all men before the Lord and the love for neighbours reduce to nullities in the novel. Oyono highlights the triumph of meanness, exploitation, and hypocrisy of the clerical garb over the Christian concept of Europeans, especially goodwill of man. Nonetheless, Toundi later learns of the role of the church in colonialism, categorically rejecting it. He has different perceptions that are significantly from the profess of French that Father Gilbert was a martyr because of his demise in the African soil and Father Vandermayer a saintly man with devotion for ungrateful savages (Salhi, 2003:130). Apart from the catholic clergies who justify their presence with preaching, the others exist primarily for the advancing their careers or making money. The treatment and attitudes towards the Africans has manifestations of intolerance, indifference, and violence. After Toundi reprehension and corporal punishment in police custody, he sustained a bronchia perforation and a broken rib. Despite the fact that he was vomiting blood, the Chief of Police Varini, infamously referred to as Gullet by the blacks, believes he is malingering. Eventually, Toundi is sent to hospital, but finds the European doctor absent and the African doctor in operation. However, the conduct of the European doctor highlights the shear brutality of the colonialists. The African doctor later examines him, and realizing the nature of his injuries, desires to examine him further. Unfortunately, he does not have the keys to the x-ray room as they are with the doctor in charge (the European). The doctor in charge later arrives, and after receiving a brief summary on the patient’s condition, he suggests that the broken rib could wait until the following day (Assah, 2005:462). He cold-heartedly tells Gullet that Toundi’s temperature of “103 degrees is not serious” for the African. Actually, the European doctor perceives it as an advantage, as he would not escape custody. Oyono depicts the brutality of the colonialists through Monsieur Janopoulos, a commercial miscreant who made a fortune in the colony. Despite becoming the richest European in the region through trade with Africans, he passionately despises them. Indeed, the author highlights corporal punishment of Africans as one of his pleasures. Majority of the Europeans perceived the act of terrified victims seeking refuge in trees from brutality as a laughable sport (Fannon, 2008:24). The cruel nature of Janopoulos depicts him as a sadist. This is evident from the savage punishment of two suspected Africans thieves. The suspects suffer punishment at the hands of constable and the prison director, ripping apart their skin by a whip and pounding their kidneys and head with the riffle butts. Janopoulos merely laughs and unleashes “his dogs to bite their heels.” This is inhuman, considering that the two Africans were only suspects, not felons. Oyono highlights another instance of the negatives of colonialists through the wife of Jacques Salvain, though she does is not as cruel as Janopoulos. Nonetheless, she regards blacks with similar contempt. For instance, she considers all the other children not under his husband’s care as not worth any bother. She perceives them as liars, idlers, and thieves. Similarly, her husband had disturbing egalitarian ideas concerning the intellectual potential of young black kids, resulting to their expulsion from school without any enquiries on the causes of the situation. Consequently, the Africans refer to him as rabble-rouser. Indeed, all attempts by the authoritarian paternalist to explain the African behaviour rationally received scorn. All the Europeans had their individual way of demonstrating how the Africans were foolish or childish. Oyono’s overwhelming bitterness on colonialism rests with the members of the governmental administration. According to the author, they are the administrators of brutality upon helpless individuals from the African society, particularly through their unjustified superiority complex and Gestapo tactics. The author depicts the operation of the French colonial system as lacking the slightest degree of human decency, understanding, and compassion, occurring as a continuous horror nightmare for the African subjects. Part from Oyono, few other authors are able to capture the brutality and misery of Africans under the system in personal terms. The author is able to highlight the level of negative impacts of colonialism in the novel, as all major characters in levels of the colonial administration employ dehumanizing violence and brutality. All figures described by Oyono, including prison director Robert Moreau, Commandant Decazy, and Gullet, seem to resort for the use of excessive force on their victims, and they seem to enjoy these inhuman activities that they fit the description of sadists. Actually, the prison director symbolizes a total villain, with no redeeming features. Similarly, the police and the commandant enjoy their jobs, carrying out their “tasks” with savage vengeance. Their victims are subject to starvation, torture, and bad treatment such that the reader sometimes forgets that they were actually human. During his capture, the police and the prison director knock and manhandle Toundi senselessly (Linnemann, 2000:72). Majority of the colonialists are hypocrites and rarely observe ethical and moral principles. For instance, the wife to commandant Decazy is a nymphomaniac who engages in an adulterous relation with Moreau. Interestingly, this is after futile advances from Janopoulos. Another hypocritical character is Fouconi, married to a black woman. He hides her every time he has European visitors, and sending her to her village at one point. During the era of writing the novel and prior to independence, nationalism had a different meaning altogether. Affiliation with a particular nation did not necessary qualify an individual as a nationalist. Nationalism was primarily the resistance to colonialism and any violation of human rights. All the people and groups opposing European authority regardless of its form were nationalists (Miller, 2002:65). However, post-independence brought about new definition of nationalism, with the addition of the particularity of one’s allegiance to a specific state. The author highlights why individuals need to conform strongly to their nationality of origin. Using Toundi, he highlights the plight of individuals who forsake their nationalism and encroach on the nationalism of others. The novel depicts the narrator as experiencing rootedness after his rejection from the whites’ city and his native community. In his entire life, he struggles to balance between serving the whites in their Residence and spending the nights at the colonial ghettos of the Africans (Robinson, 2006:31). Eventually, his decision to forsake his nationalism and adopt that of the Europeans dictates his life, with servitude, oppression, obliteration as the only available options. Another character that “forsakes” nationalism is Fouconi, who marries an African woman. Fearing despises and rejection from the European community, he hides his wife when he has European visitors, and warns her African wife to ignore him when he is in the company of European women and colleagues. By this, Oyono attempts to highlight the problems associated with nationalism and the lack of it. In conclusion, Oyono trudges as deep as possible to express his anti-colonialist and affirmation of nationalism. He uses his main characters to depict the evils of colonialism, especially important figures in the colonial government system such as prison director Robert Moreau, Commandant Decazy, Gullet, and the police and their brutal and inhuman corporal punishments (Linnemann, 2000:74). He also emphasizes on the importance of nationalism with Toundi and Fouconi, leaving the reader to infer that their miseries result from forsaking nationalism. The novel Une vie de boy essentially recounts the tribulation of an African boy from the time he resides in his father’s house to his years as a servant for Europeans in Dangan. Bibliography Assah, A. (2005). Beyond the Borders of the Locality: Postcolonial and Universal Dimensions to Ferdinand Oyono’s Houseboy. Annales Aequatoria 26(2005)451-465. Retrieved on March 15, 2012, from http://www.ajol.info/index.php/aq/article/viewFile/5623/36937 Fannon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press. Linnemann, R. (2000). The Anticolonialism of Ferdinand Oyono. Yale French Studies, Number 53:64-77. Retrieved on March 15, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929651 Miller, C. (2002). Nationalism as Resistance and Resistance to Nationalism in the Literature of Francophone Africa. Yale French Studies, Number 82:62-100. Retrieved on March 15, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930212 Nnolim, C. (2010). Approaches to the African Novel: Essays in Analysis. Lagos: Malthouse Press Limited. Oyono, F. (1990). Houseboy. Johannesburg: Heinemann Publishers. Robinson, M. (2006). In Two Minds: Colonial Alienation and the Place of the Individual in Ferdinand Oyono's Une Vie De Boy. Oxford Journals: French Studies Bulletin. Volume 27(99)26-33. Retrieved on March 15, 2012, from http://fsb.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/99/26.2.extract Salhi, K. (2003). Francophone Postcolonial Cultures: Critical Essays. Oxford: Lexington Books. Read More