{"id":413,"date":"2012-09-28T17:27:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T17:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/?page_id=413"},"modified":"2019-03-14T14:29:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T14:29:01","slug":"jendele-hungbo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/writings\/scholarship\/jendele-hungbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Writings \/ Scholarship: Jendele Hungbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exile and the African Intellectual in Wole Soyinka\u2019s You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABSTRACT<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Exile has become one of the major features of the lives of public intellectuals especially where the brutality of the state as far as home is concerned becomes unpredictably dangerous. In Africa, the question of exile is more crucial to the understanding of the roles played by intellectuals who often challenge the arbitrary deployment of state power. It is common knowledge also that a great number of African intellectuals today live either permanently in exile or constantly straddle the space between home and exile. This often leads to a sense of alienation, which in turn affects the overall identity of public intellectuals. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine the question of exile as it affects public intellectuals in Africa. Using Wole Soyinka\u2019s autobiographical text You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006) as illustration, the paper will seek to understand the way African writers and intellectuals deal with the question of exile as well as the line of departure between exile and escapism. In other words, do African intellectuals merely embark on exile as a mere alibi or do they do so in response to the dangers inherent in the constant hostilities between them and the state? As bearers of an identity defined by a kind of \u2018contingency, afflicted by alienation, estrangement and exile\u2019 (Medalie, 2004:12), do these individuals long for home?\u00a0 The paper seeks answers to these questions through a close reading of Wole Soyinka\u2019s experience of exile as narrated in You Must Set Forth at Dawn. The propriety and expediency of exile is a central theme to which an entire section of the narrative is devoted. The paper will close, by attempting to point out the major impacts of the problem of exile on the field of intellection in Africa and then by reiterating \u2018the need to overcome displacement\u2019 (Anyidoho, 1997:16).<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>
\nThe question of exile is a very prominent one in postcolonial literature. African literature, being a major aspect of this literature, therefore, engages with the issue of exile to a very large extent. Though exile has been part of the intellectual and literary traditions of different parts of the world from time immemorial, \u2018few centuries have experienced displacements of writers, artists, professors, and professionals as dramatic as those which accompanied the political upheavals of the twentieth century\u2019 (Pavel, 1998, p.25). In like manner, the postcolonial world, and specifically Africa, continues to take the front seat as far as the ostracism of intellectuals is concerned even into the present century. It is then possible to argue that the history as well as the socio-political reality of various countries in Africa, including Wole Soyinka\u2019s Nigeria makes an exploration of the trope of exile inevitable in the works of writers who cannot help sparing a thought for the condition of their homeland. This is even more so if one considers the fact that most of the writers themselves often fall victim to dislocation from home. It then explains, to a large extent, why exile often constitutes a major trope in autobiographical works which capture the life experiences of their authors. The internal and external frames of being implicated in the autobiography make exile a crucial component of the numerous discourses in this genre.i<\/sup> To be sure, the term exile cannot be said to have any monolithic meaning in literature, as it is open to a multiplicity of interpretations. As Susan Suleiman argues:<\/p>\n

\u2026few subjects elicit as much intellectual ambivalence \u2013 but especially of late, as much intellectual fascination \u2013 as the subject of exile. In its narrow sense a political banishment, exile in its broad sense designates every kind of estrangement or displacement from the physical and geographical to the spiritual. (1998, p.2)<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Sara Forsdyke in her conceptualization of exile contends that:<\/p>\n

Exile in the broadest terms can denote any separation from a community to which an individual or group formerly belonged. Exile in the strictest sense involves a physical separation from the place where one previously lived. In the modern era, however, we know of many cases of what is called \u201cinternal exile,\u201d in which case an individual or group is removed from the immediate surroundings but not expelled from the country altogether. (2005, p.7)<\/p>\n

As convoluted as this understanding of exile may appear, the term taken in its broadest or strictest terms, signals the numerous possibilities of alienation which an individual or group is prone to in society.<\/p>\n

The idea of alienation that is implied in almost every definition of exile is not limited to the physical level alone. In other words, exile, whether in the life of an individual or that of a community, occurs at different levels. These levels, which obviously may not be exhaustively listed here, can be classified into physical, creative, cultural and psychological levels. While physical exile suggests a physical movement of the individual or group, creative exile which is relevant especially to writers occurs when prevailing circumstances detract from the writer the ability to practice the vocation of creativity either for a particular period of time or even the way he would have loved to do so.<\/p>\n

The peculiar historical context of African literature makes it one of the major domains of exilic incidence arising from the constant tensions between the state and writers who seek to bring to the fore the failings of the state and its agents. As Chabal observes, \u2018a revolutionary agenda could not but influence both the debate about the role of literature in society and the course of its development\u2019 (1996, p.23). In Nigeria, as in other parts of the African continent, this revolutionary agenda results in reprisals against writers who subsequently relocate, especially when such reprisals become fatally threatening. Wole Soyinka details in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> the difficulties of exile and the pains it brings especially to writers who feel a great sense of commitment to their homeland. This painful nature of exile is depicted by the oriental intellectual and critic, Edward Said, who argues that exile is \u2018strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience\u2019 before defining the term as \u2018the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home\u2019 (2001, p.173). Describing the experience of exile is, therefore, a laborious enterprise because of its involvement with distance, separation, displacement and detachment as realities confronting the intellectual especially in autocratic societies where the danger of rootedness becomes too daunting to be ignored. Chinua Achebe on his own part estimates an unquestionable injustice in what the exile is made to go through. For Achebe, \u2018what is both unfortunate and unjust is the pain the person dispossessed is forced to bear in the act of dispossession itself and subsequently in the trauma of a diminished existence (2000, p.70). Though the kind of dispossession that Achebe invokes here is mainly cultural, the idea itself is applicable to all forms of exile and especially to that which seeks to deny the individual of his homeland and all the apparatus of home which the possession of it would have conferred on such an individual.<\/p>\n

The experience of \u2018anguish and predicament\u2019 embedded in exile, be it voluntary, forced, secular or spiritual, tends to make it a less attractive or less-wished condition among humans. It is for this reason that Said argues further that any attempt in literature, or outside it, to imagine exile as a placid phenomenon would be unfair to those individuals, especially public intellectuals who bear the brunt of alienation. As Said questions:<\/p>\n

Is it not true that the views of exile in literature and, moreover, in religion obscure what is truly horrendous: that exile is irredeemably secular and unbearably historical; that it is produced by human beings for other human beings; and that, like death but without death\u2019s ultimate mercy, it has torn millions of people from the nourishment of tradition, family, and geography? (2001, p.174)<\/p>\n

The loss which the exile encounters is indeed great as Soyinka shows in his experience of exile in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em>. He devotes two parts out of the eight-part text to the issue of exile as it affects him as in individual as well as a member of a society held under the excruciating impact of successive dictatorships. The two sections, \u2018Nation and exile\u2019 and \u2018Homecoming\u2019 detail the kind of horrendous dangers which often motivate intellectuals like the author to opt for flight as well as how much desirous of return such intellectuals could be even in the face of potential danger. Though Soyinka has experienced exile in varying forms and at different times of his life, his latest experience of relocation during the regime of Sani Abacha engages his attention in this text. In order not to hold Abacha entirely responsible for his four-year exile, Soyinka attempts to trace the events that culminated in his escape from the country in this particular instance back to the days of the Babangida regime during which the people were deceived with political machinations they expected would lead to a democratic dispensation but which eventually resulted in an interim civilian administration. The interim government was easily pushed aside by Abacha whose assumption of power spelt greater doom for the country and made intellection a more dangerous enterprise for the country\u2019s intellectuals, opinion leaders and leaders of civil society organizations.<\/p>\n

The first noticeable point of exile in Soyinka\u2019s text can be discussed from a cultural perspective. Beyond the idea of physical exile is the predicament of African writers or writers generally in the postcolony who have to conduct literary expression in a language alien to their indigenous culture. As Rowland Smith points out, there is a \u2018sense of alienation which has so frequently resulted from the imposition of western codes on the formerly organic cultures\u2019 (1976, p.ix) of such writers. Susan Suleiman also argues that the impact of the use of a foreign language cannot be wished away simply in words of \u2018fine distinctions\u2019 as \u2018these words all designate a state of being \u201cnot home\u201d (or of being \u201ceverywhere at home,\u201d the flip side of the same coin), which means, in most cases, at a distance from one\u2019s native tongue\u2019 (1998, p.1).ii<\/sup> This alienation from tradition also extends to the question of what Smith describes as \u2018exiled consciousness\u2019 which appropriates both the linguistic dilemma as well as the qualification of the physically exiled writer to adequately represent the experiences of his people back home. In other words, beyond the issue of language the question of vision arises and the exiled writer is often called to account on his ability to partake in what Kofi Awoonor once termed \u2018the festival of the senses\u2019,iii<\/sup> which defines the experience of the people on the continent and what strategies may be expedient in fostering a renewal or a reversal of the negativities which obstruct the wheel of national or continental progress. Though Soyinka writes in English he compensates for the alienating implications of this linguistic choice by deviating from the stringency of western standards as far as the genre of the autobiography is concerned, thereby creating a distinct African narrative with unique aesthetic oeuvres.
\n
\nThe significance of language in You Must Set Forth at Dawn,<\/em> therefore, consists in its contribution to the making of selfhood towards a better appreciation of the character of the author-protagonist. This kind of choice, as Anne Hoffman argues, \u2018calls our attention not only to narration as an ordering activity aimed at producing coherence, but also to self as a construction out of disparate impulses\u2019 (1991, p.10). Soyinka\u2019s occasional and sparing resort to his native Yoruba in inscribing certain expressions in an attempt to create a special aesthetic effect in the narrative is however a constant reminder of the writer\u2019s background which is a very crucial element in his construction of identity. Apart from drawing extensively on elements of Yoruba culture and mythology Soyinka engages in a kind of code-mixing that reminds the reader of his native Yoruba culture and the influence this wields on the author. This is evident in\u00a0 the use of animal names like \u2018egbin<\/em>\u2019, <\/em>\u2018etu<\/em>\u2019, <\/em>\u2018igala<\/em>\u2019, <\/em>\u2018aparo<\/em>\u2019 as well as the injection of native expressions like \u2018olori-kunkun<\/em>\u2019, \u2018Ogun re e<\/em>!\u2019, \u2018Mi o ri iku l\u2019oju e<\/em>\u2019 which the writer goes ahead to footnote in the course of the narrative. In mirroring the subjectivity of the writer\u2019s self, this attitude to language is also indicative of the cosmopolitan nature of the identity of writers or individuals generally in the postcolony. Again, as Isabelle de Courtivron contends, \u2018contemporary bilingual authors are inevitably, hybrids and exiles. And through their experience of linguistic fragmentation, they express a more universal quest: the search for home, the hunger for return\u2019 (2007, p.32). The impact of experience which includes education and other forms of knowledge embedded in the civilization to which people in the postcolony are exposed tends to lend justification to this idea of a linguistic tradition that defines the identity of the writer in a particular way. This identity is also not limited to language as it often constitutes a factor as well in generic determination of works of art produced in different places and under varying circumstances.<\/p>\n

In a way, therefore, Soyinka goes beyond the understanding of the autobiography as what James Olney describes as \u2018a fascination with the self and its profound, [and] its endless mysteries\u2019 (1980, p.23) to create a postcolonial narrative in which the individual\u2019s story in not complete without that of others in the community to which he belongs. In any case, Olney himself appreciates the peculiarity of the autobiographical imagination in African writing a distinction which prompts him to regard Achebe\u2019s fiction for instance, as \u2018supra-personal, multi-generational autobiography of the Ibo people\u2019 and Ououloguem\u2019s novel Le Devoir de Violence<\/em> as \u2018a symbolic autobiography of the entire continent and community of Africa\u2019 (cited in Maduakor, 1987, p.160)iv<\/sup>. In addition to this is the kind of agency that Soyinka assumes in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> which keys into the argument by Ibe Nwoga that:<\/p>\n

People have only to know what is right for them and their society and they will struggle to achieve those aims. The African writer is operating within this context, varying in intensity of facts in different parts of Africa, but still demanding that he use his art in pursuit of public ends. (1976, p.13)<\/p>\n

Nwoga\u2019s view, as far as this agency implied by \u2018the pursuit of public ends\u2019 is concerned, finds companionship in the contention of another African literary critic, Adewale Maja-Pearce. As he puts it:<\/p>\n

Always in Africa, it is the individual who must risk everything for an idea of what their societies could be, but this is inescapable in societies where the institutions of the modern democratic state are deliberately subverted by reactionaries who, lacking a larger idea of human relations, wish only to perpetuate themselves and their kind in power. (1991, pp.xii-xiii)<\/p>\n

This kind of responsibility which Maja-Pearce talks about is clearly outlined by Wole Soyinka himself in a bid to give a kind of nationalistic definition to the concepts of patriotism and nationhood:<\/p>\n

If one accepts Nigeria as a space that must move beyond what a politician once described as a \u201cmere geographical expression\u201d to what my vision dictates as a humanized space of organic development, then I may be moved to stop quibbling over mere nomenclatures. Until then, that unfulfilled promise, Nigeria, must remain only a duty that we on our part, must continue to urge upon those same \u201cGovernments of African countries\u201d challenging them to realize their own pronouncements, denouncing them before the entire world when they fail to do so, and insisting in that case that they be treated as pariahs, as the real traitors to their own kind and to humanity in general. (Soyinka, 1996, pp.132-134)<\/p>\n

Although Soyinka realizes that the battle for liberation of \u2018that space, Nigeria, cannot be the duty and the burden of the writer and intellectual alone\u2019 (Ibid, p.134), his approach to the question of exile in You Must set Forth at Dawn<\/em> is one that goes a long way at suggesting the expediency of agency even when it bears its attendant costs including exile for the writer or the intellectual. The tension that results from the taking on of agency by writers in most African countries or even the developing world in general becomes one of the major precursors to nomadism on the part of writers and intellectuals with its attendant consequences on both the society as well as the individuals who become so alienated.<\/p>\n

It is pertinent to note here that the act of writing itself is a form of defiance and subversion which the state views as a serious transgression against its authority. For the writer and intellectual, there is always a desire to be able to perform this act which for him is also a profession without any iota of hindrance. Soyinka makes this point in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> as he writes about the informing principle behind his independence play A Dance of the Forests<\/em> in which \u2018the enemy, as I had identified it, was power and its pitfalls\u2019 (p.53). The reaction of the establishment to such creative brazenness is always to read a kind of insurrection into the work of writers:<\/p>\n

The view was not shared by cultural bureaucrats, quick to smell out subversion. They cautioned that the play contained a subversive message. It had won the contest for the official theatre presentation for the occasion but was now deemed a damper, unsuitable for a festive occasion. (p.53)<\/p>\n

The fact that Soyinka had to stage his independence play at an alternative venue goes to show the beginning of conflict between the intellectual tradition and the postcolonial state right from the onset. The passion for creativity and the theatre as agents of Soyinka\u2019s activism can be seen in the way he combined his private theatrical activities with research at the University of Ibadan. But the establishment often has its own way of dealing with such transgression as Soyinka\u2019s relocation to the new University of Ife even fails to provide an anticipated shield from professional alienation. The banning of works of writers, their prohibition from teaching and the introduction of grand regulations which tend to interdict intellectuals in the academy has often been a major strategy in controlling dissidence. This is evident in Soyinka\u2019s resignation from Ife, along with five other colleagues, after the pronouncement of \u2018a new university credo\u2019 by the authorities of the institution urging support for \u2018the government of the day\u2019 (p.61). His exile from the university community, as executed through the response of the institution to resignation notices served by the six lecturers, is even more instructive in the understanding of the power relations which often result in professional alienation and physical exile of intellectuals from the academic space:<\/p>\n

We gave the university the required three months\u2019 notice. Obedient to instructions from the Ministry of Education, however, the university responded by accepting the resignations\u2014but with immediate effect. All resigning lecturers would be paid three months\u2019 salary in lieu of notice, and we were ordered to vacate our university residences within forty-eight hours! (p.62)<\/p>\n

The violence which attends the eviction of intellectuals from the academic community, which ordinarily should be their habitat, is exemplified by the manner in which the ministry handled the implementation of the forty-eight hour notice:<\/p>\n

To leave no doubt whatever in the minds of the anticredo group that the government\u2019s intent was understood, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education filled his white Mercedes-Benz with thugs, invaded Sam Aluko\u2019s house, terrorized his wife and children, flung their furniture and luggage all over and out of windows, and smashed a few household items. They left, warning that they would return after twenty-four hours. They tried also to find the residences of the other lecturers but failed\u2014in any case, they were not eager to remain too long on campus, and two of us actually lived off campus. (p.62)<\/p>\n

The kind of scenario presented by Soyinka above validates the claim made by Micere Mugo that:<\/p>\n

in some of the most repressive regimes a writer does not have to be engaged in any serious revolutionary activity to be targeted for harassment. The simple act of speaking out and breaking the terror of silence imposed by such states is enough of a \u201ccrime.\u201d Indeed, most writers under neocolonial dictatorships find their creativity censored, stifled, and targeted for vicious attack by the system. Through the use of terror, the offending systems go all out to impose silence in yet another effort to close another channel for raising the consciousness of the people. This is particularly so when the artistic works reach their primary audience. (1997, p.84)<\/p>\n

Since most writers, especially in Soyinka\u2019s generation, were based in academic institutions, such institutions, as the author hints at in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em>, became targets for the unleashing of the power of the state which contributed to the alienation of creative writers and intellectuals from the ivory tower. This kind of exiling influence is more visible today in the form of an unabating brain drain which sees the best intellectual resources of the African continent relocating mainly to the West from where they live relatively comfortable lives devoid of the kind of intimidating terror they have to contend with at home.<\/p>\n

Soyinka\u2019s engagement with creative exile comes to the fore in various parts of the book.\u00a0 But it is more clearly outlined in the section titled \u2018Three Lost Years\u2019. This section tells of the impact of the writer\u2019s commitment to activism on various other fronts, including his winning of the Nobel Prize, which tends to make it difficult for him to concentrate on his primary vocation of writing:<\/p>\n

I handed over 1987 to the Swedish deity of dynamite and fulfilled my duties, swearing silently that the moment the next beauty queen was crowned had better be recognized as my hour of liberation. I had been stretched to the limit. My constituency was always wide\u2014in the creative industry, in home politics and those of the continent, in issues of human rights\u2014which, for me, includes the right to life, a commitment that led to my creation of a national Road Safety Corps and the unglamorous labor of hounding homicidal maniacs off the Nigerian highways and educating them the hard way. (p.335)
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\nThe need to engage in different forms of activities other than that of creativity, which can be regarded as the primary enterprise that defines Soyinka as a person, suggests a kind of exile which for every writer is one to be viewed with seriousness. In other words, exile would extend beyond a geographical change of location and the greater pain of it would reside in the denial of the individual involved the opportunity of freedom to engage in activities which tend to offer him much fulfillment. As Olu Oguibe observes:<\/p>\n

exile is not so much about movement, relocation or departure as it is about loss; loss of the freedom to remain or return to things familiar. Exile is a rupture, the cessation of things previously taken for granted, the collapse of a world of relative certainties, and therein lies its sting. (Oguibe,2006, p.22)<\/p>\n

This kind of rupture which Oguibe points out can be seen in several events narrated by Soyinka in the text. Perhaps the most poignant of these is the death of Femi which signals a kind of terminal exile embarked upon by the deceased and also represents a cessation of life engendering a painful moment in the life of family members and acquaintances chief among whom is Soyinka himself. Soyinka\u2019s choice of words in narrating what he considers the final moments of the life of his friend is indicative of an evocation of exile, particularly the form that leaves no room for return except in the symbolic form:<\/p>\n

Femi\u2019s eyes appeared to dissolve and sink into a deep, endless tunnel, fathomless. I stood above these opaque windows and stared into their roiling recesses, encountering nothing but space, just space, infinite space into which I was violently pulled, so that I felt weightless. I came to and found that I had leaned over and encased his free hand in both of mine. I withdrew slowly, chilled to the bone, acknowledging that he had withdrawn himself from the world, even as my hands left his. (p.340)<\/p>\n

The palpable fear which this description engenders as well as the presence of withdrawal both in lexical terms as well as in the ambience and mood generated by the author are all indicative of a form of exile with its attendant pains and disorientation. The pain of exile which Femi\u2019s death imposes on Soyinka is made greater by his burial in exile which is what is implied in the question: \u2018Why did his family choose to abandon his body in an obscure German village called Wiesbaden?\u201d (p.336). This question clearly demarcates between burial and abandonment. For Soyinka, drawing on African philosophical thought about the ideal place of final rest for the human soul, no burial could take place in a foreign land as the spirit of the dead is deemed to be in proper tranquility only when the body is interred in its \u2018home\u2019 land. This belief is reinforced by the contention of Oseloka Obazie that \u2018in the Yoruba and Igbo custom, regardless of costs, loved ones who die overseas are brought home to rest\u2019 (Obazie, 2006). The insistence by Soyinka, therefore, on bringing the body of his dead friend back home is indicative of a return after a period of exile as well as the desirability of return after a period of absence no matter in whatever form or how long the period of absence. The spirit of Femi is therefore brought to rest because of Soyinka\u2019s commitment to \u2018bringing him home in defiance of the unfathomable conspiracy to leave him in that foreign land like a stray without ties of family and friends\u2019 (p.3). As Soyinka clearly shows in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> the fragmentary capacity of exile is often appreciated best in the concept of death. This is evident in the way the author feels about the departure of close associates like Femi Johnson, Ojetunji Aboyade, Dele Giwa and Ken Saro-Wiwa among others.<\/p>\n

A similar incident which signals the imperative of return for the exile is that of the attempt by Soyinka and his culturally conscious colleagues to retrieve Ori Olokun<\/em>, a bronze head which is a mythical embodiment of memory, culture and genealogy for the Yoruba nation. The search for the original head, believed to have been excavated by a German explorer in Ife and taken to Britain during the colonial period, signals the importance attached to history, memory and the cultural being of a people whose roots cannot be allowed to remain in a foreign land. The whole idea of rootedness, therefore, dictates that the exile must return even against all odds in order to reclaim home which is his original habitat and a place where his impact is especially felt and his being appreciated. Although some critics, like Maja-Pearce (2007) have expressed disquiet for the kind of illicitness attending efforts to bring back the bronze head the point needs to be made that exile is often a very provocative issue especially when it involves matters that border on people\u2019s individual or collective identity. In order to understand further the urgency of this cultural object and its mythical quality, for the culturally inclined Yoruba especially, we may wish to turn our mind to the annual ritual of the washing of the head preceding its expatriation which Soyinka vividly describes in the text:<\/p>\n

Together with some companion figures, Ori Olokun\u2014the head of Olokun\u2014was traditionally buried in the courtyard of Ife palace by the priesthood, brought out only at his annual festival, when it is ritualistically washed, honored, and then returned to its resting place until the next outing. (p.191)<\/p>\n

This annual ritual which features a great deal of celebration symbolizes return for Ori Olokun and the blessings which the adherents of the deity believe accompany this return signifies the spiritual and material capital which the return of the exile often translates to for his community.<\/p>\n

The activities which distract the writer from creativity are usually not always a result of victimization from the state. What this calls our attention to is the fact that exile is not always a political phenomenon. In fact, there are as many factors responsible for it as the variety of forms of exile which can be identified especially when we talk of the term in relation to artists or writers who combine activism or intellection with the creative vocation. This point is by no means intended to undermine the power of politics in the vexed issue of exile as one cannot agree more with Sara Forsdyke in her contention that \u2018decisions about who is included or excluded from a community are always bound up with political power and that, in some sense, political power is the power to determine who shall and who shall not be a member of a community\u2019 (2005, p.8) v<\/sup>. As rewarding as the Nobel is, the attention it brings to the writer as Soyinka narrates in the text is enough to impact negatively on his creativity. This perhaps explains the contention that \u2018The Nobel appears to be a bug whose bite is craved, sometimes without any sense of inhibition\u2019 (p.331). The pressure on the recipient of this craved \u2018bug\u2019 becomes great considering the numerous sponsorship engagements which subsequently take the writer away from his primary business of writing. The impression that Soyinka creates of himself in form of his reaction to this kind of dilemma is that of someone who finds the distraction unpalatable. But there is the need to understand the fact that intellectuals also like Soyinka command a great deal of power which their achievements like winning the Nobel and other prizes confer on them and which also help them to become individuals that the state is unable to deal with at will as it would have if they were not in the class where such awards thrust them. Beyond the level of the state the kind of international recognition which such a prize offers can be said to be part of what the writer needs in the course of his emergence into an intellectual of note within and outside his home country. A good example of this is the kind of \u2018generosity\u2019 Soyinka receives from the Erico Matei Foundation after the conferment of the award:<\/p>\n

I found myself at the receiving end of further generosity from the Erico Matei Foundation, the ENI (AGIP) people. I was set up in a luxurious hotel where if I chanced to sneeze, the management came running. I was not allowed to pay for anything. I was provided with an escort who was extremely pleasant and charming but talked my head into a coma. She was entrusted with a budget for shopping\u2014outfitting me for the cold of Stockholm. (p.324)<\/p>\n

This description of his experience clearly shows Soyinka as a powerful individual who, though in most instances would want to be identified with the subaltern populace, assumes a kind of power which cannot be taken for granted and as a result gets the kind of treatment that an ordinary individual would not have got. The major question that this raises for us is that of the culpability of the state in all experiences of exile that the intellectual suffers. It is possible to argue that there are certain forms of exile, physical, creative or otherwise that the public intellectual goes through as part of the price he has to pay for his own being and not necessarily a condition arising from the alienating and imperialist tendencies of the state or the ruling elite.<\/p>\n

It then becomes clear that the alienation which the intellectual or artist is likely to suffer in terms of his or her inability to be creatively engaged is a product of two potential dilemmas\u2014the intolerance from the state as well as the responsibility which the intellectual\u2019s public acclaim confers on him as a powerful individual. This is the kind of orientation we find in Soyinka\u2019s engagement with exile prompting Norman Rush (2006) to conclude that \u2018Soyinka\u2019s unceasing political activism has been carried out within Nigeria when that was possible and overseas when it wasn\u2019t, utilizing the connections and institutional support his growing academic stardom and literary eminence afforded him.\u2019 Stardom itself, it must be noted, is a form of power which gives privilege to intellectuals all over the world and which by implication makes them different from the ordinary citizen or the subaltern character that they may seek to be identified as. The power conferred on intellectuals by their stardom notwithstanding, they remain vulnerable to the crushing influence of state power especially when such power resides in the hands of individuals or regimes with dictatorial tendencies. As Pavel puts it:<\/p>\n

By emphasizing universal education \u2026 states gave intellectuals a key role; at the same time, the nation-building process promoted them to a central symbolic role in the legitimation of national unity. The power and prestige they henceforth carried by virtue of what Paul Benichou (1973) called \u201cthe coronation of the writer\u201d also made them more vulnerable to fears and whims of the potentates, especially those who ruled with an iron hand at the apex of an illiberal system. (1998, p.28)<\/p>\n

This kind of scenario has made several other critics to suggest that exile, in whatever form, is not a desirable thing which the writer willingly opts for. In one of such instances Oguibe observes that \u2018the sojourn of exile is particularly tragic because it is inevitable, inescapably bracketed by the fact of loss, not of things willingly forsaken but of things forcibly left behind, things from which separation is a violent act that leaves a wound for which there is no healing even to the grave\u2019 (2006, p.22).<\/p>\n

However, the stardom, prominence and eminence which most intellectuals draw on especially in taking on agency for the community requires a kind of globality which makes rootedness less attractive. This is the point at which global citizenship and nationalism combine to produce a serious dilemma for the intellectual. Soyinka\u2019s desire to remain in Nigeria notwithstanding, he opts for flight when it becomes obvious to him that the Abacha regime would not be any considerate in dealing with activists who do not see issues with the same political lenses of the authorities. The fear that is generated in this development is captured by Soyinka in his reaction to the confirmatory encounter between him and Ibrahim Alfa who is the air force chief of the regime: \u2018Inwardly, I shook like a leaf and began to give serious though to relocation\u2019 (p.372). Exile becomes obviously tragic and undesirable when it involves physical relocation as a result of threats to the lives of intellectuals. What is to follow the takeover of the country by Abacha, as Soyinka describes it, would leave no one in doubt about the palpable danger that intellectual activity under the regime would imply:
\n
\nEmboldened, he began to toy with the captive populace. Inauguration of yet another constitution-writing body, one third of which would be his own nominees. A new timetable for civilian restoration, then another. Arrests. Detentions. Constitutional Assembly sent on forced vacation, returned sober and compliant. Mysterious assassinations generally attributed to armed robbers. Abrupt retirement of more professional soldiers. Deployment of suspect military units to the civil war front in Liberia. Flights of targeted individuals, including the dictator\u2019s earlier collaborators. (p.373)<\/p>\n

Soyinka shows here that he is not among the first category of people to opt for exile and that it becomes an inevitable choice only at a point when \u2018the ascendancy of raw, naked power was rapid\u2019 (p.374).<\/p>\n

Also linking his final decision to relocate to a series of entreaties coming from different quarters including state security agents who ostensibly have information about plans to eliminate him in order to prevent a one million man march on the Abuja seat of government, Soyinka treats exile as the opposite of escape making it a means to an end in the taking on of agency for the community. Yet this does not prevent him from expressing the pain and the feeling of a sense of loss in the whole game:<\/p>\n

I dawdled, not because I underestimated the complex despot but because of a deep resentment that, at sixty years of age, I was again about to be dislodged from my home\u2014and by a being I truly despised. I knew his record from the civil war; so did the army. Abacha had been a prime player on the killing fields of the Midwest region\u2014men, women, even children\u2014after the Biafran forces had been routed. The future Maximum Ruler did not discriminate. (p.383)<\/p>\n

Even when Soyinka eventually crosses the border into exile after a harrowing journey through the grooves and the swamps the bitter experience of exile is still invoked in his feeling: \u2018For one who had sworn to himself that no tyrant would ever again chase him beyond the bounds of his nation, it was a moment of bitter defeat. Even when the choice is willingly made, exile sinks into one as a palpable space of bereavement. At that moment, I believe I died a little\u2019 (p.387).<\/p>\n

Anger, the kind expressed here by Soyinka at his forced departure, has often been one of the major products of exile literature. For the intellectual such anger becomes productive. It produces or reinvigorates agency as a response to the hegemony of the power that produces the exilic condition in the first place. Hence, Soyinka converts his exile experience into an opportunity to mount a campaign against the Abacha regime from the international arena. This is seen in his co-ordination of the activities of the clandestine Radio Kudirat as well as his formation of a pro-democracy group comprising mainly exiles outside the country at the time:<\/p>\n

I had not left Nigeria by the hazardous route just to imbibe the air of foreign climes, and I soon set about gathering a number of exiles\u2014students and workers\u2014together to create the National Liberation Coalition (NALICON). There was already an opposition movement, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), in existence. It had been formed within Nigeria by a combination of former military officers and political veterans who had finally resolved to challenge Sani Abacha\u2019s dictatorship. (p.398)<\/p>\n

Apart of serving as a resistance movement with a motive similar to that of NADECO, Soyinka\u2019s NALICON also came into being as a result of his loss of faith in the strategies adopted by the latter in dealing with the military dictatorship. For him nothing short of an armed struggle, other than the mild resistance which NADECO appeared to provide could solve the problem at hand. Soyinka\u2019s contempt for NADECO\u2019S modus operandi is seen in his narration of the character of the conduct of its activities and its members:<\/p>\n

The first \u201cgetting-to-know-you\u201d meetings with NADECO made it clear that this was a ponderous organization, top-heavy and with competitive egos. Singly, its membership boasted experience and dedication; collectively, however, they tended to indulge in peripheral contests that consumed time and eroded their political credibility. (p.398)<\/p>\n

It is possible to argue that the urgency which accompanies Soyinka\u2019s agency makes it difficult for him to proceed at the kind of pace described by him especially when consideration is given to the lethargy implied in the leadership of the movement by Anthony Enahoro:<\/p>\n

There was a civil service approach to the making of tactical decisions for the overthrow of a tyranny. NADECO became an even more difficult working partner with the arrival of my favorite political maverick, Chief Tony Enahoro, who, paradoxically, thrived on endless meetings, copious minutes, points of order, standing orders, and the moving and seconding of motions, counter motions and amendments to motions. (p.399)<\/p>\n

It needs pointing out here that the urgency with which Soyinka acts notwithstanding, his carpeting of NADECO and its prime actors especially Enahoro is indicative of the fact that the camp of activists itself is not impeccable community devoid of politics. The disagreements which later surface even within NALICON and the UDFN to which Soyinka laments that \u2018the affliction I sought to escape in NADECO traveled with the luggage of a handful\u2019 (p.405) is indicative of this lack of immunity to crisis in any organization. This kind of situation also produces a kind of nomadism which afflicts activists who find it difficult to remain rooted within one organization while organizations themselves acquire a kind of mobility in character which detract from their ability to make the desired impact on society.<\/p>\n

The desire for return is of great significance as one of the ways to show that the exile is not in any way an escapist who seeks an avenue to avoid the reality at home. In ruling out exile as route of escape for intellectuals, Said observes that the emotional fragmentation which comes with it is usually borne solely by the individual who finds himself in such a condition. vi<\/sup> For him, therefore, \u2018in a very acute sense exile is a solitude experience: the deprivations felt at not being with others in the communal habitation\u2019 (2000, p.177). In order to return to this communal habitation, the exiled individual continues to seek return both in the physical and metaphoric forms. This kind of attitude is evidenced by Soyinka\u2019s fascination with his discovery in Jamaica of \u2018a slave settlement called Bekuta, a name that immediately resonated in my head as none other than the name of my hometown, Abeokuta\u2019 (p.21). It is a natural relief, therefore, that the exiled Soyinka finds the new space suitable enough for his interment should he die in exile:<\/p>\n

As I set out on one mission after another, in pursuit of what surely, simply had to be the repossession of one\u2019s real space, my mind took refuge in Bekuta. It was not a morbid condition, just a matter-of-fact possibility that stared me in the face. Agitated by the thought that some misguided friends or family would take my remains to Nigeria, I announced openly that, if the worst happened, I did not want Abacha\u2019s triumphant feet galumphing over my body and would settle for the surrogate earth of Jamaica. And I began to make preparations to buy a patch of land in Bekuta. (p.23)<\/p>\n

In this approach to the issue of return can be found a validation of the self through historical association which results in solidarity with the new space which becomes is able to offer the value of home. The essence of Soyinka\u2019s fascination is seen in the kind of celebration associated with return. The reunification of the individual with his home is a very important moment that calls for celebration and the kind of rapturous welcome that Soyinka receives at the end of his four year exile which makes him to end the narrative thus: \u2018I am back in the place I never should have left\u2019 (p.499).<\/p>\n

In the discussion of exile there is a particular form of alienation which appears not to often attract the attention of critics. This is the alienation that dictators themselves go through as a result of the sense of insecurity they imagine especially after they have created an atmosphere in their territories which makes rootedness unattractive to writers and intellectuals. In presenting Babangida\u2019s reactions to the political situations in Nigeria during his reign, for instance, Soyinka seems to suggest a particular kind of exile which afflicts the ruling class. This form of exile is discernible in the alienation from the people\u2014and this is at times physical\u2014which rulers suffer when they fail to reason with the people and also become suspicious of everyone or in extreme cases everything around them such that moving freely within the geographical entity over which they claim to preside becomes increasingly unattractive. In narrating Babangida\u2019s response to critical comments on his handling of his own transition programme, for instance, Soyinka writes:<\/p>\n

His response to the avalanche of cautionary articles, satirical cartoons, public rumblings, threats, reasoned advice even from within the military, and passionate denunciations that inundated private and public spaces and the media was to remain holed up in his fortress, silent. (p.347-348)<\/p>\n

This attempt to remain immune to the feelings of the society and hence the reality of the moment can be read as a kind of exile which holds serious danger even for members of the ruling class who, unfortunately, see their withdrawal from society as a kind of fortification which may guarantee them further control over the people and offer them security from the querying public. This further draws our attention to the connection between exile and political power. The politics of exile that plays out in most African countries like we see in the case of leaders who inadvertently ostracize themselves from society often has its telling effects on the whole of society in the long run. More poignant than Babangida\u2019s withdrawal from society is the schizoid nature of Sani Abacha who hardly left the fortified precincts of Aso Rock vii<\/sup>. As David Weeks and Jamie James argue, \u2018a person with a schizoid personality prefers to be on his own, showing\u00a0 an extreme aversion to groups, a tendency which usually results in a remarkable concentration on strange, obsessive hobbies\u2019 (1995, p.9). The significance of this kind of argument is to bring to the fore the fact that members of the ruling elite, who are often responsible for the exile experience of most intellectuals in the postcolony and elsewhere, at times subject themselves, albeit unknowingly, to conditions which can be interpreted as exilic when they withdraw from the rest of society as a means to self preservation.<\/p>\n

Above all, the thematic device of exile becomes, therefore, the discursive space of the struggle for and the attainment of agency in Soyinka\u2019s autobiographical writing. In other words exile and agency go hand-in-hand with the process of self definition which is one of the major projects if not the central concern of the work. You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> clearly becomes a text in the region of what Ruth Obee citing Bernth Lindfors describes as \u2018the literature of self definition, the theme of which is the search for the lost and alienated self within the framework of his own community\u2014where the alien and the exile find meaning and affirmation\u2019 (Obee, 1999, p.113). This search and affirmation involves in Soyinka\u2019s case a self reflexivity as well as a kind of reaching out to the immediate and remote communities of the writer in an attempt to forge a better appreciation of his character, being and actions. Exile and return represent for African intellectuals like Soyinka, a kind of nomadism that they find not just unpalatable but one that imposes negative consequences on their creative ability as well as their desire to remain at home where there is the freedom of a cultural consummation that they find nourishing to their body, soul and intellect. So, we can see in You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em> a careful attempt by the author to present exile as the opposite of wanderlust. Exile at this point also becomes a form of resistance. As Sara Upstone notes, \u2018it is a strategy of resistance as empowering as any conventional assertion of belonging\u2019 (2006, p.34). This resistance is crafted as one of the different forms of commitment which the writer uses to provide a visionary interpretation of the reality around him. The adoption of this kind of artistic approach which is a known feature of Soyinka\u2019s poetic and dramatic writings in a life narrative cannot be without a purpose. As Biodun Jeyifo observes, \u2018Soyinka has increasingly turned to other prose forms like fictionalized biography and the autobiographical memoir to engage closely related aesthetic and moral challenges and dilemmas that he had engaged in his dramas, poetry and novels\u2019 (2004, p.170). This then explains the intertextual link between the title of this text and an earlier poem by Soyinka titled \u2018The Road\u2019. Soyinka\u2019s odyssey which implies the exilic experience of constantly going and coming is given expression in the idea of \u2018setting forth\u2019 onto the road. The road here holds both physical and transcendental meanings which seek to explain the restlessness of the odyssean space that the road symbolizes. In doing this therefore, Soyinka explores exile to two different ends\u2014self fashioning and commitment to a vision of liberating society through intellectual activism which extends beyond mere literary engagement. These two ends are obviously related and will continue to generate further debates which make them \u2018not only urgent but an absolute precondition for dealing with the primary business of self-definition and creativity in a world devastated by a history of dispossession\u2019 (Anyidoho, 1997,p.16). It is also in continually engaging critically and actively in the manner in which some writers like Soyinka have always done that public intellectuals can begin to feel some measure of respite from the excesses of the hegemonic power of the state and its institutions of aggression which are constantly deployed to haunt such men of intellect out of their own territories.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Endnotes<\/p>\n

[i]Exile has a multigeneric application in postcolonial literature as almost all aspects of this literature deals with the concept one way or the other.<\/p>\n

[ii]The language debate, a very complex and expansive issue in African literature, has been tackled by numerous scholars like Achebe (1975), Ricard (2004) and Soyinka (1988). It will be limited to a mention here in view of the scope of this paper.<\/p>\n

[iii] Cited in Rowland Smith (1976)<\/p>\n

[iv] Olney\u2019s argument can be found in his Tell Me Africa: An Introduction to African Literature<\/em> Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, p17)<\/p>\n

[v] Forsdyke\u2019s typology of exile includes political, religious, judicial and economic exile.<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/p>\n

[vii] Aso Rock is the name for Nigeria\u2019s presidential villa located in the country\u2019s capital, Abuja<\/p>\n

\n

REFERENCES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Achebe, C. (2000) Home and Exile<\/em> New York: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n

_____________ (1975) Morning Yet on Creation Day<\/em> New York: Anchor Press.<\/p>\n

Anyidoho, K. ed. (1997) The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile. Evanston: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Northwest University Press.<\/p>\n

Chabal, P. ed. (1996) The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa.<\/em> Johannesburg: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Witwatersrand University Press.<\/p>\n

De Courtivron, I. (2007). \u201cThe Incomplete Return\u201d Life Writing<\/em> 4: 1, pp.31-39<\/p>\n

Forsdyke, S. (2005) Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy<\/em> Princeton: Princeton University \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Press.<\/p>\n

Hoffman, A. (1991) Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing.<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New York: State University of New York Press.<\/p>\n

Jeyifo, B. (2004) Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism.<\/em> Cambiridge: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

Maduakor, O. (1987) Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to His Writing.<\/em> New York: \u00a0\u00a0 Garland Publishing Inc.<\/p>\n

Maja-Pearce, A. (2007) \u201cKongi and Temporal Power: A Review of Wole Soyinka\u2019s You \u00a0 Must Set Forth at Dawn\u201d<\/em> The New Gong Magazine<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 www.thenewgong.com.\/Soyinka.html<\/a> accessed 25\/11\/07<\/p>\n

____________. (1991) Who\u2019s Afraid of Wole Soyinka?<\/em> Ibadan: Heinemann.<\/p>\n

Medalie, D. (2004) \u201cThe Widowhood of the Self: Vita Sackville-West\u2019s All Passion \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spent<\/em>\u201d The English Academy Review<\/em> 21, pp.12-21<\/p>\n

Mugo, M. (1997) \u201cExile and Creativity: A Prolonged Writer\u2019s Block\u201d In: Anyidoho, K. \u00a0\u00a0 ed. The Word behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile<\/em> Illinois: Northwestern University Press, pp.80-99<\/p>\n

Nwoga, I. (1976) \u201cThe Limitations of Universal Critical Criteria\u201d In: Smith, R. ed. Exile \u00a0\u00a0 and Tradition: Studies in African and Caribbean Literature<\/em> New York: African Publishing Company, pp.8-30<\/p>\n

Obazie, O. (2007) \u201cBook review: You Must Set Forth at Dawn\u201d Kwenu.com Book Review \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forum<\/em> www.kwenu.com<\/a> accessed 20\/11\/07<\/p>\n

Obee, R. (1999) Es\u2019kia Mphahlele: Themes of Alienation and Humanism<\/em> Ohio: Ohio \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 University Press.<\/p>\n

Oguibe, O. (2006) \u201cExile and the Creative Imagination\u201d Chimurenga<\/em> 6,\u00a0 pp.22-27<\/p>\n

Olney, J. (1980) \u201cAutobiography and the Cultural Moment: A Thematic, Historical, and Bibliographical Introduction\u201d In: Olney, J. ed. Autobiography: Essays \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Theoretical and Critical<\/em> New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp.3-27<\/p>\n

Pavel, T. (1998) \u201cExile as Romance and as Tragedy\u201d In: Susan Suleman ed. Exile and \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Creativity: Signposts, Travelers, Outsiders, Backward Glances<\/em>. <\/em>Durham: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Duke \u00a0 University Press, pp.25-36<\/p>\n

Ricard, A. (2004) The Languages and Literatures of Africa: The Sands of Babel<\/em> Oxford: \u00a0 James Currey.<\/p>\n

Rush, N. (2006) \u201cExile\u2019s Return\u201d New York Times<\/em> (Sunday Book Review) April 23, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/book\/review\/23rush.html accessed 16\/6\/2007<\/a><\/p>\n

Said, E. (2001) Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays<\/em> London: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Granta Books.<\/p>\n

Smith, R. (1976) ed. Exile and Tradition: Studies in African and Caribbean Literature. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>New York: African Publishing Company.<\/p>\n

Soyinka, W. (1988) Art, Dialogue and Outrage<\/em>. Ibadan: New Horn Press.<\/p>\n

_________. (1996) The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian \u00a0 Crisis. <\/em>New York: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n

_________. (2006) You Must Set Forth at Dawn<\/em>. New York: Random House.<\/p>\n

Suleiman, S. ed. (1998) Exile and Creativity: Signposts, Travelers, Outsiders, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Backward Glances. <\/em>Durham: Duke University Press.<\/p>\n

Upstone, S. (2006) \u201cThe Fulcrum of Instability: Salman Rushdie\u2019s The Ground Beneath \u00a0 Her Feet <\/em>and the Postcolonial Traveller\u201d Wasafiri<\/em> 21: 1, pp.34-38<\/p>\n

Weeks, D. and James, J. (1995) Eccentrics<\/em>. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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