tinued to control the economy in all kinds of ways. In addition to this, the powerful nations did not leave us alone. If you remember what happened in the Congo, for instance, in 1960, you know the country was not really handed over to the Africans. There were people masterminding what was going on there and determining that some things would never happen and other things would. We saw the same situation with the Biafran experience. Even though Biafra was a self-governing, independent, sovereign nation, Britain was able to say things like, “We will not tolerate the dismemberment of this great market.” They always talked in terms of markets, as if people were created for markets. So this is part of the problem—that we were not really left alone. In addition, there were other things—real calamities, like drought. Moyers: One theme recurring throughout your novels is of traditional African culture overwhelmed by the forces of a Western civilization that is itself beginning to disintegrate—as if a man had been shanghaied onto a ship that gets out to sea and starts to sink. So Africa’s had a double blow. Its own traditional values have been torn asunder by missionaries, colonial administrators, and wealth seekers, and then the civilization which tried to adopt it— Achebe: —was no longer viable —yes. Moyers: So you have the sense in Africa of spiritual and political anarchy? Achebe: Yes, I think there is a bit of that, definitely. But I don’t allow that to take the upper hand. Artists should not be the ones to offer despair to society. I don’t think that is a function of art. There are enough people around doing that. Moyers: We journalists will take care of that. Achebe: Yes, there are so many people who can take care of that. Moyers: Someone said, “My sense of Achebe is that he is neither yielding to optimism nor falling into pessimism but is carrying on a running campaign against despair.” Achebe: That’s a good summary. ,l would agree with that. I’m not an optimist in the sense of saying, “Oh, everything will work out well.” We have to work, we have to think, we have to manage a situation to the best of our ability. Success is not guaranteed. We have to work with some hope that there is a new generation, a group of survivors who have learned something from the disaster. It is very important to carry the message of the disaster to the new dispensation. With luck, they will succeed. Moyers: But friends of mine come back from Africa these days saying that life there has taken such a desperate turn that people are talking not about economic recovery but about mere survival. Is it too late for Africa? Achebe: No, it can’t be too late. I think we’ve been through similar periods in the past. The three hundred years of the slave trade must have left that kind of feeling. Africa has been walking around a very, very long time in the world. It has been the home of mankind from the very beginning. So the events of the last four hundred years, which is what the contemporary mind fastens upon, or maybe the last one thousand years or two thousand years, are really nothing compared with the history that has gone before. And there’s no reason for us to imagine that in our time Africa will come to the end of the road. Moyers: You talk about external contributions to the chaos of Africa. What about Africans’ responsibility? You’re pretty tough when you write, “We have given ourselves over so completely to selfishness that we hurt not only those around us, but ourselves even more deeply,” and that in doing so, “one must assume a blunting of the imagination and a sense of danger of truly psychiatric proportions.” That’s a harsh judgment. Achebe: You mentioned Idi Amin; you mentioned Bokassa. There are minor examples of the same kind of mindlessness at all levels. You have scores and scores of examples, of people who cart away the wealth of their nations to Swiss banks. You The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have—otherwise their surviving» would have no meaning, / have examples of officials who take money so that toxic waste can be dumped in their territory. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s impossible to contemplate that kind of situation without being very, very bitter. Moyers: There’s a moment in your new novel, Anthills, where you seem to say that the ordinary people share responsibility with the politicians for the corruption of Nigeria, that their indifference and cynicism breed cynicism on the part of the leaders. There’s a scene where four men are brought before a vast crowd with the television cameras running, and as they're shot, the crowd cheers. You seem to say the people share in this. Achebe: Yes, of course they do. Of course they do. These things would not go on if the people said no. The people are the owners of the land. But they’ve still got a long way to go because part of the problem is lack of awareness. The weakness of the people, the owners of the land, is that they are uninformed. They do not know. They are not organized. When these things change, when the people become well educated and well organized, then they will be able to say no to this kind of situation. Moyers: Yet you talk about a kind of artless integrity at the bruised heart of the people. A kind of powerful, fundamental goodness. Achebe: The writer is aware of that. Now, you’ll find many people who’ll say, “I’m for the people, I’m a radical, I’m a revolutionary,” and so on. But you look closer and find on the whole their attitude to things is selfish, even brutal. I don’t believe anybody can work for the people and for the salvation of society without being in some ways a good person. You don’t go about making an effort or striving to achieve connection with the people. You instinctively react appropriately to people and to suffering. The artist may not be a good person, either, but if he’s an artist, he’s aware of the possibility of this essence and would not obstruct it. Moyers: In your third novel, Arrow of God, there’s a wonderful point when the chief, who’s been imposed by the colonial government on his people, goes mad. The people take it as a sign that their god is reinforcing tne ancient wisdom of the elders, which is that no man, however great, was greater than his own people, and that no man ever won judgment against his clan. A great leader can’t lift a vulgar people. But a vulgar leader can’t lift a great people. Achebe: It has to be a combination, a joint effort. I personally place a lot of responsibility on leadership, for practical reasons. If you have a bad people, a bad leader, and a bad system, what do you do? Where do you start? Where can you make the greatest impactlf you want to bring about change? In the case of Nigeria, to try to change a hundred million people is a hell of a job. Would you start by trying to create a perfect system? This is not possible, because the perfect system worked by imperfect people will be corrupted. So I think, in a practical way, it is easiest to address oneself to the leadership, because that’s the special group that has had the benefit of a good education, and the investment of all kinds of things in them. They should be enlightened. They are fewer, too. One can address this smaller group more easily than the entire population. But one should also remember that leadership without the people will not really work perfectly. Moyers: It was a great gamble that Nigeria and other new nations in Africa took when, leaving colonialism, they embraced democracy. It takes a great deal of discipline, institution building, and tradition to make a democracy. And democracy is corruptible. Achebe: I think you are right. But it goes even beyond that, because, for instance, when people say.that we failed to practice democracy in Africa, they assume that we were taught democracy during colonial rule and that we somehow betrayed our education. That is not true at all. The colonial regime itself was not a democratic system. It was a most extreme form of totalitarianism. The colonial governor was not responsible to anybody in the territory. He was responsible to a minister in Paris or in London, but he was certainly not responsible to the people on the ground. And so there was no model of democracy. We were not practicing the Westminster model in Nigeria under colonial rule. We were practicing colonial dictatorship. So the colonial people really had no experience of this so-called democracy that they were supposed to have inherited. They did not inherit anything of the sort. It is not simply a question of people not living upto expectations. They really were not prepared. They were not trained for democracy. Moyers: So candid an admission, once again, can play into the hands of the enemies of black Africa, because so many Westerners argue, “Well, that’s right. Nigeria was not ready for democracy. And because Africa can’t handle democracy, better we stick with South Africa, because its government knows how to keep order, to prevent Communists from rising to power—whereas the governments of Africa and other black countries have not proven themselves up to the—” Achebe: That is, of course, totally spurious. There's no way you can inculcate democracy through dictatorship. The colonial system in itself was the very antithesis of democracy. So, no matter how long you stayed under it, you would not learn democracy. There was democracy in many parts of Africa before colonial rule came. So to say, “Let’s keep ruling them until they learn democracy,” is really fraudulent. Moyers: But that’s what is said in South Africa. Achebe: But of course to say, “Let’s support the South Africans, since they’re the only ones who understand democracy,” comes down to not accepting that Africans are people—because if you accept that Africans are people, you cannot possibly say that a tiny minority of white people should impose their will to the extent of depriving others of even the elementary rights of self-expression. All the rights we know in the so-called democracies are denied, positively denied, in this regime. Now, for anybody to say that’s the right thing for Africa shows that that person does not grant full humanity to Africans. We know that there are such people, Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1989 11
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