Dr. Paul Gleason
EN 303—Studies in Non-Western Literature
http://jj-killerbunnyblog.blogspot.com/
4 December 2008
The Child’s Game of War
It is difficult to begin a paper on a novel as physically violent as Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nations as my favorite. Some of the situations Agu had to survive during his time in the rebel army were gut-wrenching and so graphic this novel deserves an NC-17 rating. Still, the voice of Agu and the frightening clarity of the world through his eyes make this the one novel that has stayed in my consciousness. Agu reminded me how well off we are in this country where war is broadcast on the news instead of fought in our streets and back yards.
Agu makes a chilling observation of war early, “this war is coming to make most men small like children and children small like baby” (Iweala 33). After “enlisting” in the army, Agu realizes how war obliterates all the structures and order of society and how quickly men can degenerate into little more than beasts fighting for survival in the field. His observations are the stuff of philosophers and Nobel Peace Prize winners, though he is only a pre-adolescent. The horror that he is trained to kill with a machete and not feel anything towards his fellow human is written so concisely that the reader does not even appreciate the brutality of the war until the blood is covering his hands and body.
Another gut reaction I had to this text was how easy it is to forget how controlled and censored our mainstream news often is to the true ugliness of war not deemed important to American interests and war’s effect on real people and families. Agu could easily have been a kid at one of Messmer’s Prep Schools with his uniform and studious attention to classes. I continually struggle with how much responsibility for the world America has as the richest superpower. I feel we have not done enough to support reform and solve many of the problems in Third World nations that have degenerated into civil war and the untold and seemingly unceasing atrocities of those wars. Books like this one help keep these realities in our popular conscience, but it takes a commitment to justice to make sure reform will be enacted beyond giving the nod that this is a horrible situation.
One of the discussion topics that have really bothered me was if Africa had oil, would we be more active in suppressing the violence and building up a self-sustaining government? Even though I would like to think it is not simply a matter of economics and supply-and-demand, I have to believe that we would have a much more active role in preventing these conflicts if we did have an economic interest in this part of the world. What could we do with just a fraction of the money we spend in Iraq each day in an African country mired in endless civil war?
Spivak writes of this “othering” and “the white man’s burden” in her essay “Righting Wrongs” after explaining the origins and meanings of the words “rights” and “wrongs” (Spivak 524-525). Her reading of Beasts of No Nations would probably excoriate Iweala for his “fairy tale” ending where Amy, a “white woman from America who is coming here to be helping people like me” asks Agu to “tell me what you are feeling” (Iweala 140). Spivak would argue that this is the ultimate example of Western intellectual arrogance and the caricature of what genuine aide and assistance would look like. It is impossible to understand or feel with someone who has had his family murdered in front of his eyes, forced to kill and rape and pillage and then be raped brutally by his commanding officer in the name of being a good soldier. Western morals cannot be applied to situations like this. Western judgment has no value.
Spivak also argues using Marxist language when addressing “the Realm of Freedom and the Realm of Necessity” when addressing Third World problems (562). It is not only unrealistic to talk about whether Agu is right or wrong from a Western perspective, it is a further perpetuation of stereotypes that these problems are the “white man’s burden.” A white man cannot solve these problems because a white man cannot understand them. Iweala exquisitely underscores this when he describes the Luftenant as “he is coward because his skin is looking very light and yellow like one of his parent is white man” (38). This is a veiled indictment of white men as the rapists of Africa and their offspring as bastards without a nation or cultural inheritance. While this is not a direct attack on Western intervention, it does bring to light the reality that white help will not be accepted if it is given in a patronizing way or offered in the way the original colonizing powers of Europe promised assistance then ran off with the natural wealth of Africa.
This sentiment is reminiscent of the headlines about three starving African nations refusing shipments of genetically-altered grain from America in 2002. (Kaplan). These nations were unsure of the safety of genetically-altered food and what effect it would have on their habitat if introduced. Because of this concern, they refused to allow the shipment to be unloaded even though their countries were suffering from famine. Western outcry went in the vein of, “Well, if they don’t want our help, let them starve.” That is an embodiment of the arrogance Spivak constantly accuses Westerners of when they view Third World problems as the “white man’s burden” through the lens of a superior point of view. While Spivak does concede that such help is politically necessary for any change to occur, she remains vigilant that the help be done with the basic motive of promoting self-sufficiency and an exchange between equals and not as a charity case for less-educated and civilized inferiors.
According to Spivak genuine Western intervention should attempt to establish an, “Education in the Humanities … to be an uncoercive rearrangement of desires” (Spivak 526). Spivak believes that reform can occur throughout the world if academically elite institutions around the world come down from their ivory towers and engage in the discourse with developing nations. She asserts and remains adamantly committed to the belief that Westerners can never truly understand what it is to be “othered” and without a voice. She does concede that it is only through dialogue and compromise that any political gains towards addressing these problems and creating a better world will occur.
Iweala seems to support Spivak’s argument at least internally when Agu thinks, “But every time I am sitting with her I am thinking I am like old man and she is like small girl because I am fighting in war and she is not even knowing what war is” (140). Agu has a world experience that Westerners can only imagine and then not even realistically. Iweala does not even have this experience as he was educated in America and came from a wealthy background. One of the reasons that Iweala may be critical of the hypocrisy of Western intervention may be his own questioning of the motives behind such intervention. I believe his experience told him that most of those offering to help were only doing it as a fulfillment of the “white man’s burden” that Spivak verbalized so well. I have a hard time believing that Iweala had a balanced view of American sentiment at Harvard which caters to some of the most elite and wealthy students in the world.
While child soldiers seem unbelievable to mainstream Americans, there is a bloody war claiming thousands of young lives on the streets of America every day in gang warfare and the drug trade. The movie Gangs of New York came immediately to mind as I was reading Beasts of No Nation. While there are several movies that deal with modern gang mentality and tactics, this movie illustrates how young the values of the gang are indoctrinated into the followers in a much more real way when Vallon's father, Priest, is killed by Bill the Butcher. Vallon is sent to reform school where he becomes a master criminal and fighter. This is the same pattern by which Agu is indoctrinated under the cruel tutelage of Commandant.
Americans have a hard time accepting the brutality of a racist system that preys on the vulnerable that are disenfranchised. I have worked and lived with gang members who have all sorts of reasons for committing acts of violence. The overwhelming majority would probably have turned out to be law-abiding citizens had they been given educational opportunities and access to avenues that would have allowed them to leave poverty and crime. These opportunities were almost non-existence or so unrealistic that very few would ever be able to realize them. Because of this, they turned to violence and are thrown away in slums and prisons.
Reading a book like Beasts of No Nations dramatically illustrates what happens when people lose hope and turn on each other. Agu thinks, “you can be starting in one place with one plan and then finding that the whole world is washing away beneath your feets” (Iweala 57). This is the same for child soldiers, gang members, literary critics and arrogant Americans who do not understand the implications of their actions on others and the world.
Works Cited
Iweala, Uzodinma. Beasts of No Nation. New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2005.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Righting Wrongs." South Atlantic Quarterly Issue
103 2/3(2004): 524-581.
Gangs of New York. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Leonardo DeCaprio, Daniel Day-
Lewis and Cameron Diaz. Miramax, 2002.
Kaplan, Jeffrey. "Scientists, Starving Africans Know Something We Don't."
Pacific News Service. 04 Aug 2002. 4 Dec 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment