A ‘pair of buttocks’ good for growth of Uganda’s literature
There are more thrilling fistfights in Kenya’s literary scene than there is in Uganda’s. The Kenya literary boxing bouts mostly take place in the pages of the Saturday Nation.
The most memorable bout I ‘‘watched’’ was two years ago when a writer named Harry Mulama, describing himself as ‘‘an independent scholar living in Kilifi,’’ penned a stinging article in which he called literature professors at the University of Nairobi ‘‘dead wood professors… whose claim to glory…is what they wrote 40 years ago.’’
Mulama provoked the ire of another writer, Collins Odhiambo, who in a swaggering rejoinder titled ‘conceited writer courted cheap publicly in attack on professors,’ wrote: ‘To stroke the ego of writer Harry Mulama is not the aim of this piece.
Rather, my overall objective is to demonstrate that constructive criticism is possible on these pages. I shall proceed in a scholarly fashion, employing deconstructionist, structuralist and psychoanalytic critical tools.’’
Until the arrest and detention of Makerere University researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi, rarely in recent times has a matter anchored on literature taken that much centre stage in public affairs discourse in Uganda.
In the past, literature found itself the subject of negative headlines whenever the President dismissed it as a useless subject.
Dr Nyanzi was charged for, among others, calling the President ‘‘a pair of buttocks.’’
Dr Nyanzi told court that she used the phrase a pair of buttocks ‘‘metaphorically.’’ But what is this metaphorical beast that can painfully sting a man with battalions of soldiers and super fighter jets that can slice through clouds at a speed faster than that of sound?
A pair of buttocks is a colourful phrase firmly rooted in the realm of literature. The literature professors at Makerere University are not dead wood.
So, as Dr Nyanzi’s lawyers and the State attorneys tussle it out in legalese, the professors should robustly assert their authority by deploying ‘‘deconstructionist, structuralist and psychoanalytic critical tools’’ to dissect Nyanzi’s texts, her philosophical drive and explain to us what this means for literature in Uganda.
I have previously written in these pages that literature in some respects is a reflection of the society that produces it.
African literature from around 1950-1980s, was much about colonialism, the struggle for independence by Africans, post-independence euphoria quickly followed by disillusionment, the ideological contest on which philosophy between communism and capitalism was better for the governance of society and then in the 1990s feminism began to emerge in works of literature in Uganda.
Chimamanda Ngozi- Adichie is arguably Africa’s hottest writer right now. Her newest novel Americanah is set in three countries: England, America and Nigeria. The setting of the book is a reflection of the contemporariness of the writer, her times, her characters, her themes and her society.
Such a setting in a 1950s or 1960s novel would have been for Africans who went to study abroad only to use the opportunity of ‘‘enlightenment’’ to organise and launch a quest for independence back home, as is the case in Peter Abraham’s A Wreath for Udomo.’Iron-fisted strongmen have always been fertile ground for the growth of literature.
It is a kind of poetic justice that President Museveni has been stung by a subject he despises. More significant though, the incarceration of Dr Nyanzi is also a reflection of the state of affairs in Uganda.
For literature, Dr Nyanzi’s incarceration for her creativity is good.
Her bombs are a cocktail of many chemical components: Radical feminism, sexuality, metaphors, insult, irony and more. Her lurid expressions introduce sexuality as a potential major theme in Ugandan literature. Her radical feminism provides a philosophy grounding that could inspire writers with a potential to make Uganda’s literary scene more exciting.
Mr Odokonyero has interests in media development, communication and public affairs
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