Miseries of the African Communities in a Post-Independent Socio-Political State
Miseries of the African Communities in a post-independent socio-political state
The African communities, over different time and space, were not able to cope up with the Europeanised socio-political norms and laws, after gaining their independence from their ‘white’ rulers. The European colonisers had successfully converted the African ‘barbaric tribes’ into so-called ‘civilised communities’ by enforcing their ‘superior’ culture, religion, language and aesthetics with the help of the gunpowder; yet they could not erase from the minds of the several million slaves the idea of their own roots which they had left behind in the ‘black continent’ ever since the beginning of the policy of colonisation and the establishment of socio-political and economic hierarchy and supremacy by the Europeans. The African communities after gaining freedom from their ‘white’ rulers were however unable to manage the state of beings, leading to widespread misery, desperation, melancholy and desolation in their own community. They, as a matter of fact, had inherited not only a so-called ‘civilised’ religion, language, dress code or food habits from their European masters but also imitated the Europeans in their exercise of ‘political power’, ‘corruption’ and ‘oppression’, after gaining liberation from the ‘whites’.
Let us take into consideration four novels, all written in the twentieth century in European languages, which clearly throws some light on the miseries faced by the common people of the African communities and the desperation that they stand in front of. The Kingdom of This World (El reino de este mundo), a novel by the Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, published in 1949 in Spanish, is a work of historical fiction which conveys the story of Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution against the French colonisers, as witnessed by its protagonist, Ti Noel. Ahmadou Kourouma’s first novel The Suns of Independence (Les soleils des indépendances),
The African communities, over different time and space, were not able to cope up with the Europeanised socio-political norms and laws, after gaining their independence from their ‘white’ rulers. The European colonisers had successfully converted the African ‘barbaric tribes’ into so-called ‘civilised communities’ by enforcing their ‘superior’ culture, religion, language and aesthetics with the help of the gunpowder; yet they could not erase from the minds of the several million slaves the idea of their own roots which they had left behind in the ‘black continent’ ever since the beginning of the policy of colonisation and the establishment of socio-political and economic hierarchy and supremacy by the Europeans. The African communities after gaining freedom from their ‘white’ rulers were however unable to manage the state of beings, leading to widespread misery, desperation, melancholy and desolation in their own community. They, as a matter of fact, had inherited not only a so-called ‘civilised’ religion, language, dress code or food habits from their European masters but also imitated the Europeans in their exercise of ‘political power’, ‘corruption’ and ‘oppression’, after gaining liberation from the ‘whites’.
Let us take into consideration four novels, all written in the twentieth century in European languages, which clearly throws some light on the miseries faced by the common people of the African communities and the desperation that they stand in front of. The Kingdom of This World (El reino de este mundo), a novel by the Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, published in 1949 in Spanish, is a work of historical fiction which conveys the story of Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution against the French colonisers, as witnessed by its protagonist, Ti Noel. Ahmadou Kourouma’s first novel The Suns of Independence (Les soleils des indépendances),
Cited: Carpentier, Alejo. “The Kingdom of This World” (trans. Harriet de Onis). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. (Print) Kourouma, Ahmadou. “The Suns of Independence” (trans. Adrian Adams). Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1997. (Print) Morrison, Toni. “Jazz”. New York. Vintage Publications, 2004. (Print) Wright, Richard. "Native Son". New York. Harper Perennial, 1940. (Print) Márquez, Gabriel García. "The Solitude of Latin America." Ed. Allén, Sture. “Nobel Lectures, Literature 1981-1990”. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1993. (Print)