By Tiku Takem, Ph.D. (United States of America, USA)
Bate Besong is a widely – known intellectual and social critic whose creative corpus as well as his commentaries articulate his political and ideological anxieties towards the insensitivities of the postcolony. Consequently, he has crafted an aesthetics of liberation predicated on the impulse to map out an alternative vision for the suffering masses. Requiem for the Last Kaiser, 1one of Besong’s popular plays, is a typical example of his drama of liberation. Its relevance to the political and social affairs of contemporary Cameroon is located in its engagement with the profound contradictions of the neo-colonial state characterized by ineptitude and absolutism of political leadership.
Parallel to Michael Chapman’s view of liberation aesthetics as “forms of cultural expression and presentation arising in political opposition to various forms of modern imperialism,” 2Requiem for the Last Kaiser does no just expose the injustice in the social and political system in Cameroon, it rejects and confronts outrightly the internal colonialism in which a powerful minority class exploits and subjugates the people.
Located within the broad spectrum of the dystopia that epitomizes the postcolonial predicament of modern Cameroon, it could be argued that Besong’s aesthetics of liberation are rooted in certain specific socio-historical events. These include the cosmetic political change by the oppressive ruling class that allowed freedom of speech, of association and movement, and the economic crisis of the mid 1980s.
The wind of change that blows across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s impacted the political climate in Cameroon, to the extent that the vacuous rhetoric of liberalism, which shrouded the autocratic regime of Paul Biya at its inception, conceded changes, although marginally. Mass pressure forced authorities to begin respecting the basic human rights of Civil Society, such as freedoms of speech and association. Although the government still fought hard to gag the press and other organs of public expression, people now felt free to criticize the ruling class openly. This encouraged writers like Bate Besong determined to put their art in the service of the people, to create radical plays that opposed, rejected and called for the overhaul of the oppressive socio-political system.
The crises that led to the economic slowdown from the mid 1980s further impoverishing the people, stoked the flames of radical sentiments as expressed in the works of Bate Besong. Incomes were slashed thrice and the currency devalued by fifty percent, as more people lost their jobs. As the crisis pauperized University professors too, forcing them to join the ranks of the under privileged, some embraced radical ideas and began challenging the oppressor class of politicians. As Karl Marx argues, a period of “misery, oppression, slavery and exploitation generates the revolt of the working class”3. In this regard, the romance came to an end between the African intelligentsia and the political elite, initiated during colonialism when the former led the political struggle, and writers expressed artistically the new found aspirations of the people. Little wonder then that a dramatist like Besong, who is also a University Professor, embraced a radical consciousness. Intellectuals began to write and talk freely, articulating their resentment against the reactionary government of the day.
What the foregoing points indicate is that the inability of the state to provide social justice for the majority as a result of the exploitation by the comprador bourgeoisie, cultivates the potential for a radical constituency, which in turn lead to the production of radical ideas among intellectuals and writers. Accordingly, radical writers adopt “Socio-historical determination in examining events in their society by going to the roots in order to establish the causative factors” 4 in order to provide appropriate solutions. Indeed Charles Glicksberg observes that the committed play wright” hopes he can lead men and women to perceive that the power to change the world rest entirely in their hands; and to act on the rationality arrived as such understanding”5. Thus, in the display of complete outrage and total disapproval of the status quo, the radical dramatist embraces political commitment such that his drama is deployed as a revolutionary weapon and a powerful medium for conscientising the masses. Consequently, he increasingly exploits history and tradition as an inspiration for aesthetic technique as well as to explore and interrogate the relevance of political power in contemporary Cameroonian society.
In Requiem for the Last Kaiser one is immediately confronted with the unmistaken feeling the Bate Besong’s aesthetic mandate seems to inhere a clear mission to shock his audience into the scandalous reality of the blatant marginality of the common folk. Aimed at awakening them from a condition of subjugation to one of hope, this play becomes a motivation to collective action in order to reclaim the essence of collective destiny. The play constructs a revolutionary consciousness in order to overthrow a dictatorship in a neo-colonial African setting. It is obvious that Idoute, (which stands for Etoudi, the official residence of the Cameroonian President) where the play is set, reveals the unmistaken intent of the writer at launching a direct critique of the current dictatorship in Cameroon.
The play is about the arbitrariness and excesses of dictatorship in an African society. This is dramatized not through a sequential plot but through episodic flashes that alternate between scenes that illustrate the machinations of oppressors and those that depict the condition of the oppressed resisting their oppression. The play opens with Akhikikriki (the supreme ruler) in a coffin, symbolizing imminent death of dictatorship. He epitomizes tyranny and thus bears the brunt of Besong’s satire. With his head barely sticking out, he begins a long monologue, more or less fantasizing about his enormous power. His word like those of his cohorts are couched in obnoxious images of conceit and power.
By drawing from the multi-layered experiences of the subjugated majority and the consciousness of the dominating minority, Besong employs the “strategy if symbolic construction” to illustrate his attack at the undesirable characteristics of the political hegemony, while demonstrating, sympathy for the down-trodden class.
Besong’s political discourse about transferring power from the dominant class to the masses employs language for the “expurgation of the other.” Although the language of opposing camps is inhabited by metaphor of oppression throughout the play’s universe, except at the moment when the oppressed retrieve power and freedom, these images begin to define the perception of power and its trajectory from one group to the other. The language of the oppressors which reveals their dominant position is designed to parody and satirize tyranny in Cameroon and its imperialistic alliances. The language of the oppressed goes beyond just ridiculing to establishing resistance, empowerment and liberation.
Although some of the most significant devices employed include effective use of linguistic realism, the mousetrap and stereotype characterization, Besong’s use of language creates the most sustaining effects in the play. This discursive strategy in the re-enactment of language such that oppression is perceived in its most subtle complexity. This is illustrated in the way Akhrikikriki express himself:
The people understand me, very well. I also understand
them …At the Great Gathering, I’ll mesmerize them..
I’ll get them when I want…Take these journalists of and
torture them. I am the Consciousness, the Tempo and
heartthrob of Idoute. I am the He-Alone and Guide. (P.1)
This illustrates very vividly the manner in which postcolonial dictatorship not only perceive their power but how they appropriate it. Besong reveals as tellingly the ugliness of arbitrary power in the way the oppressed narrate their deprivations. Ultimately, it is through language that the writer begins to weave a revolutionary ethos that leads to the liberation of the people.
Having suffered oppression for too long, Woman (leader of the marginalised in the play) begins to construct a revolution by recruiting a vanguard including Student, Poet etc. The revolution is necessary to alleviate the terrible plight of the masses, exploited by their own leader, “whose stomachs” as Woman Says, “are made of coded accounts, the sweat and blood of workers.” (p.3). Student supports the point: “They have been eaten to the core by the syphilis of the new political cargoes… They have proven themselves so far as the semen – drops of their colonial master…” (p.5). Thus, Student becomes the first recruit by Woman for organizing the revolution. The vagueness of their names is stereotypical and symbolizes the marginalized and faceless class.
Besong seeks to stimulate the masses to change the structures that subjugate them in order to forge a new society based on democracy and prosperity. He is convinced that such a vision can be actualized only through appropriate leadership, which he finds in Woman. She states:
We must constantly look into our inner resources, fortified by persuasion
and appeals to the masses against the ‘beni-oui-ouis in Church and State.
Struggle must be our life” to break the chains of the robbers destroy their
satanic institutions, so that the people (can govern. (p.5)
Eventually the oppressed people, in a move reminiscent of the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789, stage an attack on the palace of Akhikikriki and sack the dictator. Thus establishing a new era of social justice for the majority.
Thus, while the pattern of discourse of a group that used to control power shows that dominant position is increasingly being subverted, the manner of expression of the oppressed reveals the emerging hegemony. The onslaught by the masses on Akhikikriki and his cohorts is a vivid testament of this point. At this point the silent majority have regained their voices and can now express their sentiments.” Get down … thief Akhikikiki! You with your Government without justice… “(p.58)” Mandela! Freedom Amandla! With these cries of victory, Besong indicates that ultimate power rest with the people who would always be victorious in the face of injustice and oppression.
Notes
1 Bate Besong, Requiem for the Last Kaiser. (Limbe: Press book 1998). Subsequent references to the text are made from this edition
2 Michael Chapman, “The Aesthetics of Liberation: Reflection from a Southern Perspective,” in Current Writing 10 (1) 1998 P.1
3 C.F. Saint Gbileka’a, “Radical Drama in Nigeria,” Unpublished Seminar Paper, University of Jos, Nigeria. P.20
4 C.F. Saint Gbileka’a, Ibide. P.22
5 Saint Gbileka’a Ibide p.21
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