FORESTA DI FIORI

Il libro

Foresta di Fiori è una raccolta di diciannove racconti nei quali il grande scrittore nigeriano ci regala un delicato ma sorprendentemente ironico affresco della Nigeria, delle sue contraddizioni a volte insanabili, delle sue tradizioni millenarie, delle grandi tragedie che l'affliggono. Nel villaggio di Dukana, una Macondo africana, come nelle nuove metropoli del progresso, si combattono battaglie personali e collettive verso il nuovo che avanza, vestito di soldi e corruzione. Le ambizioni spesso modeste dei protagonisti si scontrano con la malignità di invidiosi vicini, o contro tradizioni feroci e inumane dure a morire, piccoli ricatti e grandi interessi. Ispettori corrotti, giovani divisi tra modernità e tradizione, casalinghe frustrate, vecchi saggi, truffatori, soldati, preti e santoni prendono vita da una prosa semplice e diretta, capace di sorprendere. L’amore per la pura narrazione e la creatività tutta africana di questo scrittore non offuscano, anzi denunciano più incisivamente le piaghe di questo martoriato continente, la prevaricazione e la violenza, l’invasione degli interessi internazionali nella vita quotidiana e nel territorio.

Incipit

Casa dolce casa. “Progres” scoppiettava pigramente giù per la lunga strada sporca, che si estendeva davanti a noi come la lingua impastata di un uomo malato. Trasportava un prezioso e variegato carico di riso, sale e fagioli, scatole di sapone e di zucchero, ignami e tapioca; una cesta di polli legati per le zampe che protestavano rumorosamente per la loro temporanea prigionia; alcune capre troppo stordite per belare; e uomini e donne accalcati sulle panche di legno al centro del camion, come pesci appesi a un filo a essiccare. Io sedevo sul sedile anteriore, accanto al giovane conducente che portava il berretto all'indietro. “Progres” era l'orgoglio di Dukana, il suo unico collegamento rapido con il mondo moderno, con la città di mattoni dove attraccavano le navi e si vendevano e compravano merci straniere. Percorreva quella strada ogni giorno e tutti lo tenevano in alta considerazione. Era una superba testimonianza dello spirito moderno, progressista e cooperativo di Dukana. Nonostante l'avviso di pessimo auspicio sulla sua sponda ribaltabile, attento a dove metti la testa , ero felice che ci si potesse viaggiare; altrimenti, arrivare fino a Dukana sarebbe stato insopportabile. Io avrei dovuto fare una parte del tragitto sul sellino posteriore di una bicicletta, per poi proseguire a piedi fino al villaggio. Non è che morissi dalla voglia di intraprendere questo faticoso viaggio fino a Dukana. Dovevo farlo una volta l'anno, quando tornavo a casa dal college per trascorrere le vacanze con mia madre. Ciò per cui valeva la pena di affrontare il percorso sporco e accidentato era il pensiero che alla fine ci sarebbe stata Mama, sorridente e felice di vedermi, che mi avrebbe abbracciata stringendomi forte a sé e mi avrebbe portata a casa tenendomi per mano. E tutte le volte non vedevo l'ora di incontrare Sira, la mia amica d'infanzia, che restava sempre la mia migliore amica nonostante le nostre strade si fossero divise. Eravamo andate a scuola insieme e ci volevamo bene come sorelle. La sua istruzione si era interrotta bruscamente, come per molte ragazze di Dukana; ora aveva quattro figli e l'ultima volta che l'avevo vista era di nuovo incinta. Sira mi deliziava sempre con i racconti delle buffonate di Duzia e Bom, i buontemponi di Dukana. E conosceva tutti gli ultimi pettegolezzi del villaggio. Anche questa volta avevo comprato dei dolci per i suoi bambini. Quel giorno avevo motivo di essere più eccitata del solito per il ritorno a casa. Finalmente avevo concluso i miei studi e stavo tornando a Dukana per insegnare nella sua unica scuola, la St. Dominic, la stessa che avevo frequentato anch'io. Mi piaceva l'idea di restituire qualcosa alla mia terra ed ero contenta di tornare a vivere a Dukana e di far parte della comunità. Perché Dukana è la nostra casa e, come chiunque da queste parti direbbe con orgoglio, “la casa è la casa”. Un'espressione un po' vaga, che significa che è un posto di gran lunga migliore di tutti gli altri visitati o di cui si è letto qualcosa; che l'immondizia in cui sguazza piacevolmente è preferibile alle strade lastricate delle migliori città del mondo; e che le sue case di fango sono più grandi e più belle dei palazzi dei re e delle regine di altri Paesi. E come si potrebbe non essere d'accordo? Dissentire significherebbe non essere fedele alla saggezza della comunità; e mancare di rispetto a questa saggezza, così attentamente distillata attraverso i secoli, sarebbe un segno di arroganza. E l'arroganza è un peccato mortale a Dukana. Per questo Mama mi aveva raccomandato spesso di cercare di capire Dukana, di conoscere tutti gli uomini e le donne che vi abitavano, i ricchi e i poveri, i forti e i deboli, i preti juju e gli evangelisti cristiani, le persone cattive e quelle gentili, e i molti spiriti del villaggio, perché soltanto in questo modo avrei saputo cosa fare, cosa dire, quando dirlo e a chi, e dunque salvarmi dal peccato dell'arroganza. Il consiglio di Mama era legge e induceva all'obbedienza perché veniva dato in un modo talmente dolce, gentile, ragionevole, che era impossibile mettersi a discuterlo. http://www.edizionisocrates.com/Paesi_parole/paesi_parole_foresta_fiori.html

KEN SARO-WIWA

KEN SARO-WIWA scrittore e martire per l'Africa

Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995), nato a Bori in Nigeria, laureato in inglese a Ibadam, ha insegnato nelle università di Nsukka e Lagos. Scrittore molto prolifico, ha pubblicato oltre ventisei libri di vario genere letterario (romanzi, racconti, poesie, libri per l’infanzia) tra cui Sozaboy, il suo romanzo di maggior successo, basato sulle memorie di un ragazzo-soldato sullo sfondo della guerra civile nigeriana. Collaboratore di programmi radiofonici e televisivi era molto popolare nel suo paese. Ambientalista e attivista per la difesa dei diritti umani, nel 1993 è diventato presidente del MOSOP (Movimento per la salvaguardia degli Ogoni), che si batte per questa martoriata etnia e contro i disastri ecologici causati dalle compagnie petrolifere. Accusato d’omicidio insieme ad altri otto compagni e condannato a morte da un tribunale speciale, è stato impiccato, nonostante le pressioni internazionali, il 10 novembre del 1995. Nel 1997 è stato candidato al premio Nobel per la pace.

"...tutti noi siamo di fronte alla Storia. Io sono un uomo di pace, di idee. Provo sgomento per la vergognosa povertà del mio popolo che vive su una terra molto generosa di risorse; provo rabbia per la devastazione di questa terra; provo fretta di ottenere che il mio popolo riconquisti il suo diritto alla vita e a una vita decente. Così ho dedicato tutte le mie risorse materiali ed intellettuali a una causa nella quale credo totalmente, sulla quale non posso essere zittito. Non ho dubbi sul fatto che, alla fine, la mia causa vincerà e non importa quanti processi, quante tribolazioni io e coloro che credono con me in questa causa potremo incontrare nel corso del nostro cammino. Né la prigione né la morte potranno impedire la nostra vittoria finale..." Ken Saro-Wiwa

UNA POESIA DI KEN SARO-WIWA

La vera prigione

Non è il tetto che perde
Non sono nemmeno le zanzare che ronzano
Nella umida, misera cella.
Non è il rumore metallico della chiave
Mentre il secondino ti chiude dentro.
Non sono le meschine razioni
Insufficienti per uomo o bestia
Neanche il nulla del giorno
Che sprofonda nel vuoto della notte
Non è
Non è
Non è.
Sono le bugie che ti hanno martellato
Le orecchie per un'intera generazione
E' il poliziotto che corre all'impazzata in un raptus omicida
Mentre esegue a sangue freddo ordini sanguinari
In cambio di un misero pasto al giorno.
Il magistrato che scrive sul suo libro
La punizione, lei lo sa, è ingiusta
La decrepitezza morale
L'inettitudine mentale
Che concede alla dittatura una falsa legittimazione
La vigliaccheria travestita da obbedienza
In agguato nelle nostre anime denigrate
È la paura di calzoni inumiditi
Non osiamo eliminare la nostra urina
E' questo
E' questo
E' questo
Amico mio, è questo che trasforma il nostro mondo libero
In una cupa prigione.

Attualmente in Italia si può trovare un suo libro "Foresta di Fiori", è una raccolta di diciannove racconti nei quali il grande scrittore nigeriano ci regala un delicato e ironico affresco della Nigeria, delle sue contraddizioni, delle sue tradizioni millenarie, delle grandi tragedie che l'affliggono ; ed ora anche il suo capolavoro " Sozaboy " , tradotto da Roberto Piangatelli ed edito da Baldini Castoldi Dalai , la cui edizione originale è del 1985, e che si ispira alla guerra civile del Biafra che ha devastato la Nigeria dal 1967 al 1970.

http://www.artcurel.it/ARTCUREL/ARTE/LETTERATURA/KenSaroWiwa.htm

IGBO WOMEN'S WAR .............

IGBO WOMEN'S WAR (Western Colonialism)

The 1929 Igbo Women’s War, referred to as Ogu Umunwanyi in Igbo or the Aba Women’s Riot by the British colonial authority in Nigeria, was one of the most significant protest movements in the former British Empire. The protest was organized and led by rural women, and once the war started, it spread like wildfire in southeastern Nigeria among the Igbo and Ibibio of Owerri and Calabar provinces, covering a total area of over 15,550 square kilometers (about 6,000 square miles) and involving a population of two million people.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

By the mid-nineteenth century, formal British policy in what later became Nigeria was designed to protect British interests in the expanding trade activity in the Nigerian hinterland. By 1861, British administration was formally established in the colony of Lagos and the Niger Delta region. Through a series of treaties and military expeditions designed to end internal slavery and facilitate trade in such commodities as palm oil and kernel (palm produce), present-day Nigeria came under effective British control by the beginning of the twentieth century.

The women’s protest arose in the palm-oil belt of Southern Nigeria. The Igbo and Ibibio lived largely in mini-states where men and women exercised varying degrees of political power. Meetings of the village council involved adult males and were held in the common cultural center and the abode of the community’s earth-goddess. Important laws of the village council were ritualized with the earth-goddess and given a sacerdotal sanction. Their violation was seen as an act of sacrilege that needed ritual purification to restore the moral equilibrium of the society and save humans from infertility, famine, and other calamities.

Women had their own sociopolitical organization. They held weekly meetings on the market day of their community, and made and enforced laws that were of common interest to them. But British colonialism brought fundamental changes that eliminated women’s political roles in precolonial Igbo and Ibibio societies. Women, however, saw themselves as the moral guardians and defenders of the taboos of the earth-goddess, believing that they naturally embodied its productive forces. The cosmology of the women, and the moral outrage they expressed over the intense economic and social changes that occurred during colonialism, are helpful in understanding not only the roots of the Igbo Women’s War, but the unusual solidarity and frenzy the women displayed during the crisis.

The initial protest was sparked off in Oloko in Bende Division of Owerri province, where in 1926 the colonial government had counted the number of men without indicating that the figures would be used in taxing them in 1928. Thus, when on November 18, 1929, the British-appointed Warrant Chief Okugo asked a teacher to count his people in keeping with the directive of the British district officer, women who feared that they would be taxed began to protest against the census.

The women dispatched palm fronds to other women in Bende Division, summoning them to Oloko. The meaning of the palm fronds vary according to circumstances, but in this case palm fronds signified a call to an emergency meeting, and people were forbidden to harm those who bore the fronds. Within a short period, thousands of them had assembled in the compound of Okugo, ”sitting on him” (Warrant Chief Okugo), a traditional practice involving chanting war songs and dancing around a man, making life miserable for him until the women’s demands were met, and demanding his resignation and imprisonment for allegedly assaulting some of them.

Fearing that the situation might get out of hand, especially as the protests spread to Umuahia, where factories and government offices were located, the British district officer acceded to the women’s demands, and jailed Okugo for two years. Generally, the protest in Bende Division ended peacefully, and the district officer effectively used the leaders of the women to contain the protests.

The Women’s War, however, took on a more violent form in Aba Division of Owerri province, and it was from there that the protests spread to parts of Owerri, Ikot Ekpene, and Abak divisions. The protest began in Owerrinta after the enumerator (census taker) of Warrant Chief Njoku Alaribe knocked down a pregnant woman during a scuffle, leading to the eventual termination of her pregnancy. The news of her assault shocked local women, who on December 9, 1929, protested against what they regarded as an ”act of abomination.” The women massed in Njoku’s compound, and during an encounter with armed police, two women were killed and many others were wounded. Their leader was whisked off to the city of Aba, where she was detained in prison.

Owerrinta women then summoned a general assembly of all Ngwa women at Eke Akpara on December 11, 1929, to recount their sad experiences. The meeting attracted about ten thousand women, including those from neighboring Igbo areas. They resolved to carry their protests to Aba.

As the women arrived on Factory Road in Aba, a British medical officer driving the same accidentally injured two of the women, who eventually died. The other women, in anger, raided the nearby Barclays Bank and the prison to release their leader. They also destroyed the native court building, European factories, and other establishments. No one knows how many women died in Aba, but according to T. Obinkaram Echewa’s compilation of oral accounts of women participating in the war, about one hundred women were killed by soldiers and policemen.

The Women’s War then spread to Ikot Ekpene and Abak divisions in Calabar province, taking a violent and deadly turn at Utu-Etim-Ekpo, where government buildings were burned on December 14 and a factory was looted, leaving some eighteen women dead and nineteen wounded. More casualties were recorded at Ikot Abasi near Opobo, also in Calabar province, where on December 16 thirty-one women and one man were reportedly killed, and thirty-one others wounded.

CAUSES

Diverse views have been offered to explain the causes of the Women’s War. Some colonial apologists described the war as ”riots” carried out by African women who failed to appreciate the ”blessings” of British rule. Colonial apologists also forwarded spurious theories of female biopsychology to justify their views, arguing that the ”riots” were rooted in ”irrational mass hysteria” resulting from ”a sudden flow of premenstrual or postpartum hormones”(Echewa 1993, p. 39).

Another school of thought that emerged during the decolonization period of Nigerian history offered a conflicting analysis and blamed the Women’s War on the warrant chief system the British imposed on the peoples of southeastern Nigeria. Although the warrant chief system contributed to the Women’s War, a more holistic analysis of the war’s underlying causes is necessary, and a more fundamental issue must be considered: an economic one.

The imposition of direct taxation and the economic upheaval of the global depression of the 1920s saw a drastic fall in the price of palm produce and a high cost of basic food stuff and imported items. Thus the women’s protest was precipitated, in part, by the global depression. The protests occurred when the income women derived from palm produce dropped, while the costs of the imported goods sold in their local markets rose sharply. For example, from December 28, 1928, to December 29, 1929, the prices of palm oil and kernel in Aba fell by 17 percent and 21 percent, respectively, while duties on imported goods like tobacco, cigarettes, and gray baft, a form of cloth used to make dresses, increased 33 percent, 33 percent, and 100 percent, respectively. The deteriorating terms of trade led to the impoverishment of women, and once the rumor spread that they would be taxed, the Women’s War started.

Another important cause of the protest was rooted in the political transformation resulting from the British indirect-rule policy. According to some historians, the Women’s War stems from the military occupation of the Igbo area by the British in the early 1900s and the ”warrant chiefs” they appointed to administer the various communities. The society’s traditional authority holders, who feared that they would be punished for resisting the invaders, did not come forward to receive the “certificates” or “warrants” the British issued to appointed chiefs. As a result, the majority of warrant chiefs were young men who were not the legitimate authority-holders in the indigenous political system. The appointment of warrant chiefs as representatives of the local people was contrary to the political ideology and republican ethos of the Igbo people.

The appointment of warrant chiefs intensified conflicts in the society, as evidenced by the Native Courts Proclamation of 1901, which conferred exclusive judicial functions on the new chiefs in their communities. The village councils were denied their traditional functions, and worse still, cases involving abominations were punished without the ritual propitiations and sacrifices necessary for ”cleansing the earth” and restoring moral equilibrium. Women were particularly upset by the desacralization of laws, and during the protests they called for the restoration of the old order.

The British-appointed warrant chiefs also abused their offices to enrich themselves, in part because they were paid meager allowances that could not sustain their newly acquired prestige and lifestyle. Virtually all of them established private courts in their compounds, where they settled disputes. They also used their headman to collect fines and levies, thus alienating members of their community.

Similarly, the executive functions the warrant chiefs performed for the British government, including the recruitment of men for forced labor to build railways, roads, and government guest houses, heightened their unpopularity. During the protests, women complained about forced labor, claiming that it increased their workload by depriving them of the services they received from their husbands in farming and the production of palm produce. Women were also concerned about the emerging urban centers, which had become hubs for those engaged in prostitution and other vices that the women believed polluted the land.

CONSEQUENCES

The British government authorized civil and military officers to suppress the disturbances, and district officers were granted the right to impose fines in the disaffected areas as compensation for damages to property and as a deterrent against future riots. On January 2, 1930, the government also appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the roots of the disturbances in Calabar province.

The commission submitted a short report on January 27, 1930, but due to the report’s limited scope, the government appointed a second commission on February 7, 1930, to cover Owerri and Calabar provinces. The commission began its work at Aba on March 10, 1930, and submitted its report on July 21. The report convinced the government to carry out many administrative reforms, including the abolition of the warrant chief system, a reorganization of the native courts to include women members, and the creation of village-group councils whose decisions were enforced by group courts.

The achievements of the Women’s War are remarkable, and an analysis of the roots of the protests indicate that the women were concerned about the abuses of the warrant chief system, the rapid pace of social change, and the fear that they would be taxed. Their solidarity was reinforced by their common religious ideas and values and the moral revulsion they expressed over acts of sacrilege.

Although the government suppressed the protests ruthlessly to avoid future disturbances, Igbo women mounted similar protests during the 1930s and 1940s against the introduction of oil mills and the mechanization of palm production, which undermined their economic interests. A discussion of the Igbo Women’s War provides a broad picture of British colonialism in Africa, the difficulties involved in imposing a foreign administration on indigenous peoples, and the crucial role women played in a primary resistance movement before the emergence of modern Nigerian

http://what-when-how.com/western-colonialism/igbo-womens-war-western-colonialism/

Ojukwu Burial Rites - governors appeal for peaceful existence

Tribute To My Husband By Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, Widow of Late Dim Chukwuemka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

Tribute To My Husband By Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, Widow of Late Dim Chukwuemka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

How do I sum up 23 years in one page? I don't know. How do I describe you? I cannot. Not in any depth. Not for anybody else - you were my husband, my brother, my friend, my child. I was your queen, and it was an honour to have served you.

You were the lion of my history books, the leader of my nation when we faced extinction, the larger-than-life history come to my life - living, breathing legend. But unlike the history books, you defied all preconceptions. You made me cry from laughter with your jokes, many irreverent. You awed me with your wisdom. You melted my heart with your kindness. Your impeccable manners made Prince Charming a living reality. Your fearlessness made you the man I dreamt of all my life and your total lack of seeking public approval before speaking your mind separated you from mere mortals.

Every year that I spent with you was an adventure - no two days were the same. With you, I was finally able to soar on wings wider than the ocean. With you I was blessed with the best children God in heaven had to give. With you, I learnt to face the world without fear and learnt daily the things that matter most. Your disdain for money was novel - sometimes funny, other times quite alarming. 

It mattered not a whit to you. Your total dedication to your people - Ndi-Igbo - was so absolute that really, very little else mattered. You never craved anybody's praise as long as you believed that you were doing right and even in the face of utmost danger, you never relented from speaking truth to power - to you, what after all, was power? It was not that conferred by the gun, nor that stolen from the ballot box. No. You understood that power transcended all that. Power is the freedom to be true to yourself and to God, no matter the cost.

It is freedom from fear. It is freedom from bondage. It is freedom to seek the wellbeing of your people just because you love them. It is the ability to move a whole nation without a penny as inducement nor a gun to force them. When an entire nation can rise up for one person for no other reason than that they love him and know he is their leader - sans gun, money, official title or any strange paraphernalia - that is power.

To try to contain you in words is futile. You span the breadth of human experience - full of laughter, joy, kindness and sometimes, almost childlike in your ability to find something good in almost everyone and every situation. You could flare up at any injustice and in the next instant, sing military songs to the children. You could analyse a situation with incredible swiftness and accuracy. In any generation, there can only be one like you. You were that one star. You were a child of destiny, born for no other time than the one you found yourself in. 

Destined to lead your people at the time total extinction was staring us in the face. There was no one else. You gained nothing from it. You used all the resources you had just to wage a war of survival. You fought to keep us alive when we were being slaughtered like rams for no reason. Today, we find ourselves in the same situation but you are not here. You fought that we might live. The truth is finally coming out and even those who fought you now acknowledge that you had no choice. For your faithfulness, God kept you and brought you home to your people.

You loved Nigeria. You spent so much of your waking moments devising ways through which Nigeria could progress to Tai-Two!!! You were the eternal optimist, always hoping that one day, God will touch His people and give us one Vision and the diligence to work towards the dream. It never came to pass in your lifetime. Instead, the disaster you predicted if we continued on the same path has come home to roost. You always saw so clearly. Your words are indelibly preserved for this generation to read and learn and perhaps heed and turn. You always said the dry bones will rise again. But you always hoped we would not become the dry bones by our actions. Above all, you feared for your own people, crying out against the relentless oppression that has not ceased since the end of the war and saddened by the acceptance of this position by your own people. In death, you have awakened the spirit that we thought had died. Your people are finally waking up.

At home, you were the father any child would dream of having. At no point did our children have to wonder where you were. You were ever at their disposal, playing with them, teaching them of a bygone era, teaching them of the world they live in and giving them the total security of knowing you were always present.

In mercy, God gave me a year to prepare for the inevitable. I could never have survived an instant departure. In mercy, God ensured that your final week on earth was spent only with me and that on your last day, you were back to your old self. I cannot but thank God for the joy of that final day - the jokes, the laughter, the songs. It was a lifetime packed into a few hours, filled with hope that many tomorrows would follow and that we would be home for Christmas. You deceived me. You were so emphatic that we would be going home. I did not know you meant a different home.

The swiftness of your departure remains shocking to me. You left on the day I least expected. But I cannot fight God. He owns your life and mine. I know that God called you home because every other time it seemed you were at death's door, you fought like the lion that God made you and always prevailed. In my eyes, even death was no match for you. But who can say 'no' to the Almighty God? You walked away with Him, going away with such peace that I can only bow to God's sovereignty. Your people have remembered. The warrior of our land has gone. The flags are lowered in your honour. Our hearts are laden with grief.

But I will trust that the living God who gave you to me will look after me and our children. Through my sadness, the memories will always shine bright and beautiful. 

Adieu, my love, 
My husband, 
My lion,
Ikemba, 
Amuma na Egbe Igwe, 
Odenigbo Ngwo. 
Eze-Igbo Gburugburu, 
Ibu dike. 
Chukwu gozie gi, 
Chukwu debe gi. 
Anyi ga afu na omesia.