Legendary Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe died yesterday aged 82. In 1981, he addressed a writers’ conference at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Index on Censorship published this extraordinary speech the same year
Writers are by instinct — and, one might add (alas), experience — somewhat sceptical of governments. We fear them even when they bear gifts … This scepticism is healthy and appropriate … In the cosy optimism in which most of us elite Nigerians live and move and have our being, danger may seem rather far-fetched. But behind the smiling facade of the present dispensation slouches the rough beast of fanaticism — religious fanaticism, ethnic fanaticism and political fanaticism.
Let me illustrate briefly with what I have read and seen in the last two weeks alone. A columnist in one of our leading national dailies wrote approvingly of Iran as the one country in the Third World which has successfully checked the onslaught of both East and West with the effective weapon of religion. This was about two weeks ago. This week we have all read and heard that among the strange things happening in Iran was the execution of a poet, Sa’id Soltanpour, for crimes of “earthly corruption” and “war on God”.
It is hardly necessary to say more on the matter. Writers are natural sceptics and there is no way they can be safe in an atmosphere of religious fanaticism. I used to wonder why Bertrand Russell held that one of the greatest evils introduced into the world by religion was the notion of righteousness which, incidentally, the Jews must take credit for inventing. But looking at the contemporary world and contemporary Nigeria infested with all kinds of dangerous lunatics who believe in their own righteous justification to commit any crime in the name of God, we must understand what Bertrand Russell was talking about.
And now to political fanaticism. Do we need prophetic insight to see the deadly portents? And again the real source of worry is not the existence of fanaticism but the absence of any genuine force of public sentiment to check its manifestations and prevent a consolidation of incipient fascism.
The other day a state governor said to an airport press conference: “Damn it, I am the government!” And he received an ovation and delighted laughter instead of shocked silence.
Louis XIV of France said precisely the same thing more than 300 years ago. He not only ruined France, but two reigns later his descendant paid for it with his head in a revolution that unleashed a horrendous bloodbath. Perhaps an airport press conference is not the ideal place to argue the enlightenment and political sophistication of a country. Perhaps things are better in the sober, intellectual atmosphere of academe. If you think so, I have bad news for you. About the same time another chief executive told an audience at this university: “Politics is power, and nobody gives up power peacefully.” He was applauded. By academics! In a seat of enlightenment!
My concern here is not what politicians say or do, but the absence of a countervailing tradition of enlightened criticism and dissent. I am not talking about our accustomed factional and inter-party squabbles that are largely devoid of objective ideas and principle. I am saying that in this situation a writer, who must be free, whose second nature is to dance to a “different drummer” and not march like a boy scout, such a person has no choice really but to run great risks. And we had better know it and prepare for it.
CHINUA ACHEBE 1981
Chinua Achebe was a patron of Index on Censorship
