"What must a people do to appease an embittered history?"
Beatrice, Anthills of the Savannah.
Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah and Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters both serve to demonstrate that the true freedom of Africa lies in the recognition of each of its citizens' individual liberty. Achebe's Anthills largely follows the story of two friends who are both involved and concerned with the future of their country. One, Christopher Oriko, is the Commissioner for Information of the nation and the other, Ikem Osodi, is the editor of a newspaper, the Gazette. Both men, therefore, are intellectuals who participate in the distribution of the ideology that will form their nation's character. Similarly, Soyinka's The Interpreters follows the lives of several friends upon their return to their country after being educated elsewhere. Each of Soyinka's characters is concerned with the pragmatic and ideological character of his country, but each character's ideology and beliefs are clearly situated according to their own personal history.
This paper concludes, as Achebe, Soyinka and Appiah seem to, that the solution of the issue of Africa's mental, social and cultural independence lies with the recognition of each of its citizens' individual liberty. The paper relies largely on Appiah's discussion of race as a governing factor in the history and definition of Africa and the African people. It concludes that race, in and of itself, is an insufficient defining characteristic of the African people. Rather, it agrees with the connecting thread in Anthill and The Interpreters that the syncretic and multicultural history of Africa and the resulting variety in the intellectual and ideological philosophies of its people will and should be the foundation for any type of African character and independence.
Race as the Foundation for African Unity
In his study titled Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic ...