IMPOSITION OF COLONIAL RULE IN ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART

We have brought a peaceful administration to you and your people so that you may be happy. If any man ill-treats you we shall come to your rescue. But we will not allow you to ill-treat others. We have a court of law where we judge cases and administer justice just as it is done in my own country [Britain] under a great queen…that must not happen in the domination of our queen, the most powerful ruler in the world. (Achebe 137)

These lines portray how a highly dignifying Igbo community was demolished by the European imperialism in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The novel was first published in 1958 which is a manifestation of the destructive result of European imperialism in Igbo life. The Christian missionaries established an administration among the Igbo people which they are habituated in their own country Britain and thought their law and judgment are also suitable for these people as well. Moreover, they actually apply their power and dominate those people deliberately. Edward Said in his book Orientalism says, “The relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony…” (Said 5). Achebe’s purpose to write Things Fall Apart is to depict how pre-colonial Igbo people were enriched with their individual religion, customs, administration and beliefs and how all these fell apart because of colonialism and by the Christian Missionaries. The central character Okonkwo’s death is the principle grounds of this fact. We are clearly able to see that in the name of civilizing the Igbo people, exploitation, oppression, and cultural destruction was being conducted by the Christian missionaries. The purpose of this paper is to trace how the Occidents (British/ Christian missionaries) explore their power and domination in the name of civilization over the African Igbo clan (Orient) and destroy their own cultural identity gradually. This paper will try to carry out this, through selected criticism of journals and articles and focusing upon the novel Things Fall Apart itself which embodies many examples of the violent behaviors of the European imperialists towards the innocent people of the African Igbo. In the 1880s the colonization of Africa began. The entire continent was controlled by Europe by 1900. As a result, in the nineteenth century the European entered the Igbo clan which drastically changed their history. In Don C. Ohadike’s “Igbo Culture and History” he declares that, in the first phase the European’s exported Igbo people as slaves from Bight of Biafra to the New World.2 However, this policy did not fulfill their economic interest; European started sponsored many expeditions up the Niger River to establish links with diverse African clans and they carried out by missionaries and traders (39–40). 3 In addition, Ohadike states that Christian missionaries had taken the risk to go inside the African land to fulfill imperial ambitions and finally they became successful to establish British domination over the Igbo people. The first Christian missionaries who entered Igbo land were the agents of the Church Missionary Society (CMS).4 They went there to destroy the entire system of Igbo customs and beliefs and forced them to convert to Christianity. Gradually the Igbo realized that Christian missionaries were dangerous and came to eradicate Igbo identity in the name of civilization (41–44). Achebe’s Things fall Apart also depicts these aspects. Achebe was brought up in a village of Eastern Nigeria, Ogidi; was an Igbo clan. At the same time Achebe entered University College, Ibadan and went to work for the Nigeria Broadcasting Company in Lagos that helped him identify and it was implied that this civilization was brought by Europeans to Africa. Therefore, In Peter Barry’s book Beginning Theory he writes, “…identity as doubled, or hybrid, or unstable is a third characteristic of the postcolonial approach” (Barry 195). Therefore, Things Fall Apart is the one work of postcolonial literature. Achebe’s novel is set in the late 1800s to early 1900s in which chapter one to chapter fourteen expose the Igbo’s cultures, religions, seasonal festivals, social customs, and their social political structures. The term “white man” first appears in chapter fifteen when Obierika was telling the story of the Abame clan to Okonkwo. 5 “During the last planting season a white man had appeared in [Abame]” (Achebe 97). From this story of Abame, Achebe wants to give the indication that the Christian missionaries will appear soon in Igbo clan and will do the same things that they had made with the Abame clan. In the novel we see that the Christian missionaries kill the Igbos for their own interest. For example, they did not hesitate to empty the entire village of Abame only for the killing of one white man (Rhoads 64). In my opinion, this unpleasant incident clearly suggests how wisely the European missionaries brought profound changes in different clans of Africa by killing those innocent people if they did any harm to them. After this incident the novel reveals the arrival of the Christian missionaries in the village of Mbanta and Umuofia. We clearly perceive that the white Christian missionaries came to Mbanta to converts Igbos to Christianity in chapter sixteen with this line “We have been sent by [Jesus Kristi] to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false gods and turn to Him so that you may be save” (Achebe 102). Gradually, we see that they built the Christian church in the Evil forest of Mbanta; in due course, the church allowed twins and outcasts. After this the clan had faced another problem when one of the outcasts killed “the Royal Python” and the villagers muscularly decided to exclude Christians from their group.6 The outcome of their decision refused women of the church from the river and the quarry. At this point, in chapter nineteen an oldest clan member utters, “An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter’s dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan” (Achebe 118) these lines help to portray that the Europeans were able to make Igbo people conditioned like dog. Their hypocrisy allowed them to become their deity and the African people worshiped them like their god and became their slave as well. In addition, the Europeans actions toward them showed that they were actually treated them as animal which suggest that they dehumanized them in many ways. Thus, their trade and slave relationship were developed inside the Africa and these turmoil affected the African Igbo society drastically. Achebe, in Things Fall Apartsuccessfully showed how the new religion and new doctrines of the Europeans disturbed the Igbo’s religious beliefs and values they had before the arrival of Christian missionaries. The missionaries brought a new government and judiciary system to protect Christians as well as send people to prison who affronted against the white man’s law. The prisoners were beaten up in the prison if they called them “Ashy-Buttocks” and they had to clean government compound and cutting wood for the commissioner and the court messengers. Thus, the Christian missionaries brought unpleasant policies and unwilling events among the Igbo world. Igbo had nothing to do with the missionaries as everybody was convinced by the Christian missionaries and their strong bondage among the clans was sacked. For example, Obierika asserted at a point “it is already too late…Our own men and our own sons have joined the ranks of the strangers. They have joined his religion and they help to uphold his government” (Achebe 124). In the article “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall apart”, Rhoads argues, …the Europeans’ ideas of Africa are mistaken. Perhaps the most important mistake of the British is their belief that all civilization progresses, as theirs has, from the tribal stage through monarchy to parliamentary government. On first arriving in Mbanta, the missionaries expect to find a king and discovering no functionaries to work with, the British set up their own hierarchical system which delegates power from the queen of England through district commissioners to native court messengers — foreigners who do not belong to the village government at all. (63) The Igbo people preferred to get solutions of any problems among them from the spirit of the ancestors, egwugwu. 7 The Igbo people obeyed any ordered given by egwugwu. However, after the arrival of the Christian missionaries and their establishment of new law had created huge distance with their ancestors and they have to adopt new way of judgment which lead them a new wonder and ruined them as a desperate clan. Finally, the lines above suggested that the judicial system of Christian missionaries broke down the Igbo’s democratic system of government. The protagonist of the novel, Okonkwo also suffered a lot because of the new way of living. His arrival in Umuofia was not as pleasant as he thought. He was grieved, “[Okonkwo] mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart…” (Acheee 129). At the same time another massacre happened in Umuofia; Enoch8 unmasked an egwugwu which was the greatest crime in Igbo religion. Sofia Samarata in her article “Charting the Constellation: Past and Present in Things fall Apart” acknowledged that “The spirit has been unmasked, not by a stranger, but by one of Umuofia’s own. This is the moment of disintegration, of which Okonkwo’s suicide is merely an effect…” (63). Therefore, the next day all the egwugwu went to Mr Smith and declaired, “We cannot leave the matter in his hands because he does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his. We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know his…” (Achebe 134–135). From their utterances we understand how the two cultures have different thoughts and different way of dealing with situations. The egwuggu burnt the church of Umuofia as a result of unmasking the egwugwu. Mr. Brown and Mr Smith, the two District Commissioners arrested six leaders of the Umuofia and declared a fine of two hundred bags of cowries as they burn down the church of the Christian Missionaries. However, we see that all six leaders were tortured in jail by the court messengers. The following lines clearly suggested this fact: “The six men ate nothing throughout that day and the next. They were not even given any water to drink, and they could not go out to urinate or go into the bush when they were pressed. At night the messengers came in to taunt them and to knock their shaven heads together” (Achebe 138). On the other hand, when we read these lines “[The court messengers] decide to collect without delay tow hundred and fifty bags of cowries to appease the white man. They did not know that fifty bags would go to the court messengers, who had increased the fine for that purpose” (Achebe 139) we get to know that , the court messengers declared that the villagers had to pay a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries which the District Commissioner did not ask for. In addition we can observe what Rhoads also asserts, “…the [Christian missionaries] have superimposed a system which leads to bribery and corruption rather than to progress” (63). Thus, the following lines suggest how Christian missionaries were unaware of their messengers and how they did bribery with the innocent Igbo people. Achebe revealed his principal purpose of writing this novel in chapter twenty four to chapter twenty five. When all the Igbos of Umuofia came to participate their meeting, the white man’s messengers interfered in their meeting and ordered to stop it. Immediately, the protagonist, Okonkwo had killed the court messenger and fled. At the end of the story we came to know that he had committed suicide by hanging himself. These following lines conveys that moment “Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messenger escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult” (Achebe 144–145). This was the moment of the Umuofia’s downfall with Okonkwo. Thus, Okonkwo’s suicide signifies the Igbo’s values, customs, religions and traditions all were broken apart. Achebe shows how a respected and influential leader of the Umuofia had chosen to kill him going against their custom as he realized that Umuofia did not go for the war. In addition, Obierika argues the District commissioner, “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You [Christian missionaries] drove him to kill himself…” (Achebe 147). Another reality reveals in these following lines “Achebe’s novel present the colonial experience from an African perspective…thus, one of the most enduring aspects…is…ambiguous representation of the Igbo…at the same time, compromised by Okonkwo’s blind commitment this culture and his obliviousness to alternative values and interpretations” (Gikandi 12). All the above statements showed how European Christian missionaries established their own root inside the African clan and how they were dominated them and impose their rules to weep away the identity of Igbo culture. We can easily recognize this reality after reading this novel. “Things Fall Apart…exclusively concerned with the imposition of colonial rule and the traumatic encounter between Africa and Europe, it also a work that seeks to address the crisis of culture generated by the collapse of colonial rule” (Gikandi 11) from this statement we can understand that the novel successfully portrays how the colonizer thought about the colonized people during the era of colonialism. In the end of the novel we see the District Commissioner was planned to write a book on Okonkwo’s tragic death which reveals in these lines “The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (Achebe 147- 148). From these lines Achebe wants to disclose the essence of how the District Commissioner felt interested of Okonkwo’s downfall and at the same time he considered Okonkwo as “Niger”. For example, Edward said says, “The Orient…features in the Western mind as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (qtd. in Barry 192). Said also added that “Their emotions and reactions are always determined by racial considerations (they are like this because they are asiatics or blacks or orientals) rather than by aspects of individual status or circumstances…” (qtd. in Barry 193). These statements successfully relate with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. We can recognize the fact that the Christian Missionaries considered them as black and they had racist view on them. They could not give any importance to the Igbo’s sentiments or their feelings. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe successfully paints a realistic picture of the imposition of colonial rule in hi narration by his own personal experiences. The novel is an evident from which any reader can get to know the real aspect of colonialism. It serves the pre-colonial Igbo values, religion, beliefs, traditions and their social structures. At the same time it focuses the brutality of imperialism by the European Christian missionaries.