Cultural Fixity and Essentialism in Okot P’ Bitek’s Song of Lawino  and Song of Ocol            

                                                       By

                                           Andrew Nyongesa

ABSTRACT

After the colonial experience, most African writers opted for cultural fixity to cope with western cultures that had eroded African ways of life. Writers like Frantz Fanon, father of postcolonial theory, underscored the role of colonialism on the devastation of the self image of the colonized hence the native intellectual had a bounden duty to restore it. Some literary writers like Ngugi  Wa Thiong’o advocated a rejection of foreign languages in African literature because they saw it is a medium of transmitting Western culture. Henceforth, the temptation to reject all forms of Westernization was rife. The emergence of the Negritude movement by Lepold Senghor, Aime Cesaire and Leon Damas crowned cultural fixity, which resulted in wanton glorification of African cultures. However, there were those voices of reason, for instance, Chinua Achebe, that advocated cultural hybridity. Achebe stood for intermixture of African forms with European forms in literature. That colonialism is a reality and Africans should take some aspects of Western culture including language. This article employs Bhabha’s concept of hybridity and fixity to examine Okot P’ Bitek’s poetry.

                                           Definition of Terms

Occident: the west, Europe and America.

Orient: used to refer to the East ( Asia) and Africa.

Duality: means balkanization of the world into two opposing factions.

Essentialism: Belief that one’s culture is the most important.

Statement of the Problem

In attempt to decolonize Africans after independence, most African writers took the path of cultural fixity to restore the lost self image of the citizens in their nations. This article employs Bhabha’s concept of hybridity to examine Okot P’ Bitek’s poetry and assess the plausibility of cultural fixity in post independent African societies. To what extent is cultural fixity feasible in post independent Africa?

Introduction

In his work, “Cultural identity and Diaspora,” Stuart Hall comes up with models of cultural identity that define transition of identity of the Caribbean populace. First, he postulates the traditional model that views identity in terms of one shared culture, hiding inside the many. Hall refers to it as artificial for cultural values are imposed on people because they share a history and ancestry. Citing the Caribbean example, Hall asserts that Caribbeans use this model to seek rediscovery of identity in Africa given their African origin (393). He likens this to what Frantz Fanon calls “Passionate research,” (393). Hall points out that such identity was crucial in postcolonial struggles but is not relevant in the contemporary, cosmopolitan world. Bhabha expounds on the concept of cultural fixity. He observes that fixity is a barrier to positive change. Referring to Fanon, he stresses that perpetual insistence on past traditions hinders transformation. He asserts that Fanon’s metaphor that the people are in “Fluctuating movement of occult instability,” is not plausible without acknowledging the third space (Bhabha, Cultural Diversity and Cultural Difference,   207).

In The Location of Culture, Bhabha observes that sticking to past histories and cultures would bring about dangers of fixity and fetishism of identities (9), and it would deny the writer insight into experiences beyond the borders. He writes:

Fanon recognizes the crucial importance for subordinated peoples asserting their indigenous cultural traditions and retrieving their repressed histories. But he is far too aware of the dangers of fixity and fetishism of identities within the calcification of colonial cultures to recommend that roots be struck in the celebratory romance of the past by homogenizing the history of the present (9).

In this text, Bhabha suggests that cultural fixity is asserting past traditions and reliving repressed histories. It lauds fixed identities and denounces mixed ones. Edward Said, in his work Orientalism observes that oriental scholars laid the foundation of cultural fixity when they divided the world into two essential factions: the Orient and the Occident. They described the Occident as rational, humane, strong, and powerful as opposed to the Orient that is irrational, inhuman, weak and sexually unstable. He writes, “Europe is powerful and articulate, Asia is defeated and distant. It is Europe that articulates the Orient… the orient insinuates danger. Rationality is undermined by Eastern excesses,” (57). By creation of these binary factions, orientalist scholars posited a polarity typical of cultural fixity. Orientalism is an essentializing discourse because the West sees itself as far better than the East. After independence, Africans asserted  their culture leading to polarity between them and the West. Cultural fixity therefore sets the stage for conflict, which Bhabha refers to as the politics of polarity.

Fixity in the Song of Ocol

The song of Lawino and Song of Ocol represent the views of the two essentialist groups: the Orient and the Occident locked in binary opposition. Ocol is an alienated academic speaking for the Occident and Lawino, the Orient, proud of the so called irrationality. Ocol accuses Lawino of irrationality, sensuality and all demerits characteristic of the orient as postulated by oriental scholars. In the Song of Ocol, he says:

What is Africa to me?

Blackness

Deep, deep fathomless

Darkness

Africa,

Idle giant

Basking in the sun

Sleeping, snoring

Twitching in dreams

Diseased with chronic illness

Choking with black ignorance

Chained to the rock

Of poverty

Stuck in stagnant mud

Of superstitions

Frightened by the spirits

Of the bush, the stream

The rock

Scared of corpses. (207)

The advent of colonialism invents a cosmopolitan society, the whites interacting with Africans for decades. Ocol opts for alienation as a strategy to cope with foreign values. He has rejected African traditions in favour of western values. Having taken western education to advanced levels, he knows the ins- and -outs of it thereby so proud of it. In his view, there is nothing good in African culture. In condescending voice, he dresses down African culture hence creating the duality invented by orientalism:  Occident/ Orient. In the above text, we see black/ white, ignorant/ knowledgeable, superstitious/ rational, dualities proclaiming Western culture as far better than African culture.

The occident particularly singles out superstition to degrade the Orient. Ocol says the black man hears eerie noises form the lake side and sees snakes in the whirlwind. By this he implies that western logic is far better than African superstition, which is akin to lunacy.

The African houses his gods,

Or he carries them

On his head

Or on his shoulder

As he roams the wilderness (207)

In the western perspective, the African has no home that is why his home is described as a ‘wilderness’. He lives with wild game, ‘following the spoor of the elephant’. The orientalist attribute of irrationality is further depicted in Ocol’s image of the child. He declares that that the African is a child. Obviously, children have immature reason with lots of emotions. He says,

Child

Lover of toys

Look at his toy weapons

His utensils

His hut

Toy garden

Toy chickens

Toy cattle. (207)

In the eyes of Ocol, the West views Africans as caricatures on the world stage owing to irrationality. It has rendered them incapable of inventing superior weapons, building comfortable homes and establishing reliable economic activities (toy chickens/ toy cattle). The orientalist attribute of weakness is depicted in Ocol description of Africans as timid, unadventurous and scared of the unbeaten track. He implies that the occident is courageous, adventurous and ready to venture in unknown fields. Ocol says:

Unweaned

Clinging to mother’s milkless breasts

Clinging to brother

To uncle, to clan

To tribe. (208)

In this text, he accuses Africans of excessive love for their culture, which is shocking because he has extreme love for western culture. Ocol, a fixed character accuses African of cultural fixity. The Africans are just responding to the West, fixity therefore begets fixity and feeds on itself.

Ocol distastes weaknesses so much that he regrets having been born black. His relationship with Lawino is tense and hostile. Lawino opts for cultural fixity to combat fixity; she wholly and unreservedly embraces African culture and denounces Western culture as professed by her husband, Ocol. She denounces western forms of grooming among women:

Ocol is no longer in love with the old type

He is in love with a modern girl

The name of the beautiful one

Is Clementine

Brother when you see Clementine!

The beautiful one aspires

To look like a white woman

Her lips are red hot

Like glowing charcoal

She resembles the wild cat

That has dipped its mouth in blood

Her mouth is like raw yaws

It looks like an open ulcer

Like the mouth of a field

Tina dusts powder on her face

And it looks so pale

She resembles the wizard

Getting ready for the midnight dance. (42)

Lawino shocks us by casting aspersions on what most Africans at independence view as aspects of advancement. She does not even use a tongue- in -cheek voice but uses satirical, almost a sarcastic voice. Clementina is a caricature of the westernized, modern woman to depict her hostility and contempt for Western culture on one hand and adoration for African ways on the other. We are shocked at the images she uses to compare Clementina: she resembles the wild cat/ that has dipped its mouth in blood. The wild cat is a greedy nocturnal predator renowned for night raids on poultry and stashed beef in the kitchen. Her mouth is like an ulcer, the lipstick; to her is not beauty but a sign of bloody danger. The powder makes her resemble a wizard, another nocturnal symbol of evil. Her diction depicts spite for Western culture. Lawino attacks all Western related forms of beauty, for instance, she says such women have counterfeit breasts:

Oh, my clansmen

How aged modern women

Pretend to be you girls

They mold tips of cotton nests

So that they are sharp

And with these they prick

The chests of their men. (44)

She now turns the attack on dances of white people. She says she loves the dances of her people and does not want lo learn the games and dances from the West. This is typical of Cultural fixity. She gives the reasons why she hates these dances:

You kiss her on the cheek

As white people do

You kiss her open sore lips

As white people do

You suck slimy saliva

From each other’s mouths

As white people do (53).

The diction in this text brings out her contempt for Western culture, for Lawino African culture is ideal. The kissing is described as an exchange of ‘slimy saliva’. She praises African dances, that the youth dance during the day and the songs they sing have relevant themes like broken love, shortage of cattle and they dance when sober (50). But the Western dances are performed at night when dancers are drunk. They do not sing as they dance, they are as silent as wizards (52), with female partners, not their wives. Lawino sees western dances as immoral. She further depicts her unreserved love for her culture by lauding those aspects that are incompatible with the contemporary society:

Butter from cows milk

Or the fat fro edible rats

Is cooked with likura

Or itika

You smear it on your body

And the aroma

Lasts until next day. (68)

As much as this was good body lotion in those days, it is more reasonable to use the foreign lotions today. Lawino scoffs at the good from the West for the sake of fighting the occident:

I confess

I do not deny

I do not kno

How to cook like a white woman

I cannot use the primus stove

I do not know how to light it

Electric fire kills people

They say

It is lightning

They say

The white man has trapped

And caught the rain cock

And imprisoned it

We wonder what is wrong with learning to use the primus stove. What is wrong to learn to use the electric cooker? She has been deceived that it is lightning that kills. Bhabha observes that all cultures are hybrids and indeed no society progresses without borrowing from the Other. Sticking to past cultures as Lawino does results in ‘fetishism of identities’. Lawino has shown unreasonable affection for her culture and rejects those western inventions geared towards betterment of her life, which is the fruit of embracing cultural fixity.

                                                        Works Cited

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Giffiths, Hellen Tiffin, eds. Postcolonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 1995.

Bitek  P’ Okot. Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. Nairobi. East African Education Publishers. 1972.

Bhabha Homi K.The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.

─.“Commitment to Theory”. New Formations 5 (1988): 9-23

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Rutherford, Jonathan. Identity, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1977.

Contact Andrew Nyongesa at two websites: www.authorsden.com/andrewnyongesa and amazoncom/author/andrewnyongesa. Contact him at the first site or email address ( nyongesa.andrew .yahoo.com