Refflections with Olu Obafemi
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WHAT is of critical import is not the numerical strength of his publications but the quality and value of his seminal writings in lending penetrative insight into essential soul and mind of the Africa (what he has graphically captured and conceptualized as the African experience and imagination, the humiliation and subjection of the African personality through centuries of the inhuman slave traffic, colonialism, imperialism and neo-imperialism and the valiant struggle of Africans, since as far back as the Haitian revolt of 1918-19, in which the Africans regained their manhood through physical battle, an experience which Irele informs us, contrary to our usual claim that Negritude began with the ‘discovery’ of the concept Aime Cesaire and popularized by Leopold Sedar Senghor, as the original beginning of the Negritude movement. On Negritude itself, the study of its history, ideology and ramifying impact, there cannot be many citable authorities before and after Abiola Irele.
Critical education and elucidation of the Negritude phenomenon emerging from his over five decades of encyclopedic discourse and critical narrative flows thus, perhaps not in that logical sequence; Negritude as a ‘movement of emotion and ideas (on the level of emotions, that attribution to Senghor of Negritude as establishing the power of emotion and rhythm with scant reference to reason and intellection is often erroneously made and which Irele clarifies for us); Negritude defined further as a ‘psychological response/reaction to the social and cultural conditions of the colonial situation, and the fervent and rigorous quest for a new and original orientation and self-reinvention as established by creative writers, scholars and intellectuals such as Senghor, Cesaire, the Diops, Oyono, Laye, Beti, and so on — all of whom offered testimonies to the human and psychological problems and ‘inner conflicts of colonialism; Irele further draws an ideological parallel between Negritude and Pan-Africanism , the latter transcending sheer propaganda and going beyond the immediate condition of depravity wrought by colonialism toward a symbolic ‘progression from subordination, centering scholarship beyond dependence mentalities to independence and identity retrieval through ‘revolt and affirmation.’
Limited, as we are in this brief Tribute, it is important to highlight what seems to me to be the highpoint of Irele’s ideological and philosophical submission on Negritude, one that began to manifest in his earlier study of Cesaire’s works on Negritude. We find this, most unmistakably in Irele’s comprehensive study, The Negritude Moment: Expectations in Francophone and Caribbean Literature and Thoughts from which matters of historical salience on the subject emerged, namely a re-visitation of the history and origin of Negritude, a concept, ideology and movement that has become one of the most influential cultural and political theory beyond the twentieth century. Irele re-establishes the crucial need for African movements to reconstruct ideologies for self-justification and positive re-evaluation through rigorous analysis and evaluation and historical contextualization of Negritude; re-exploration of Negritude as a concept, providing succinct account and narrative of its historical and ideological backgrounds, its epistemology and cognitive dimension, in terms of the key themes that preoccupied the French-speaking black creative writers and intellectuals, the difficulties that bedevil and confront their collective experience, especially the white-supremacist hegemonic ideological and civilization domination of the mind, psyche and material being of the black man; the need to develop counter-narratives of counter-factual dimensions to the imperialist ones. He focuses, summatively, on the various debates that Negritude has generated over the decades and the emergence, inexorably, of ‘ postcolonial evolutionary consciousness in the black world, what the late radical sociologist, Omafume Onoge aptly defined as ‘positive affirmative consciousness in Negritude..
In laying emphasis on Negritude in our Tribute, it must never be misconstrued as the sole engagement and contribution of Irele to African literature, theory and ideology—indeed African literary cannon and aesthetics. Far from it. He has engaged all genres of literature and philosophy—from oral literature and performance to contemporary literary theatre and performance; from poetry and prose-fiction to anthologies and philosophical polemics on the human condition in Africa. He has lent pioneering insights into the works of key African creators— from Achebe and Conton to Soyinka and Laye, Kamau Braithwaite, Amadou Korouma and Derek Walcott. He has led exploration into the works of pioneer Yoruba classicist like D. O. Fagunwa and the fictional experiment of Amos Tutuola, just as much as he has given robust critical attention to the works of the later generation of Osofisan, Osundare, Omotoso, and so on.
If Irele has not been adequately rewarded in terms of recognition and endowment (as he has not been), his many awards and laurels such as the Fellowship of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and the Nigerian National Order of Merit are critical palliatives for a man whose works and name occupy a covetable and enviable place in the un-etched Hall or House of Fame of Nigeria, Africa and the Globe. Happy Birthday to a worthy, frontline African and Africanist Humanist, legendary thinker and indomitable world scholar and intellectual—Francis Abiola Irele at eighty well-lived years on earth.
- Concluded
Errors and Apologies: The actual date of birth of Prof Irele is May 22, 1936, not May 28, 1936 as was published in part one last week.