A JOURNEY INTO WANGUSA’S ANTHEM FOR AFRICA

By Natasha Sebunya

ANTHEM FOR AFRICA (2^ND Edition)

Author:           Timothy Wangusa

Publisher:       Kitara Nation (2021)

ISBN:               9-789970-9884-1-9  

“But there is nothing new happens under the sky,

There is no new wisdom or new foolishness;

Every bloody deed enacts its ancient original,

And every saviour becomes the monster he killed.”

(Counterpoise, 24)

Chronologically speaking, this sad-sweet tale of Africa ancient and nascent begins in the Land of Uhuru

“When Murungu first moulded Gikuyu and Mumbi,

He stood them upon this sacred mountain

And showed them creation’s splendour

In a harmony of light, drizzle and blossom.”

 (Land of Uhuru, 102)

Where we all begin

“Ah land of primordial maternal mould,

Ah land of the original one continental mass,

That was fabulous Pangaea or Gondwanaland,

From which infant continents drifted forth –”

 (Declaration,1)

To tell the tale of Africa with relevance to today, Professor Wangusa conjures a fictitious Afrolandia, semantically recognizable as a post-colonial Uganda, which he asserts:  serves as a prototype of any other African country.

The story of Afrolandia begins at the end of Ojozi Mujozi’s presidential era. Toppled by a coup, the coup d’état statement is recognizable as “The Eighteen Points Given to Justify Amin’s Coup”.

“Hereunder we set forth and telecast

To all continents and oceans

Seven insufferable reasons

Why it was our duty to topple the monster.

(Coup d’état Statement: Seven Reasons Why, 15)

In masterful verse and humour the poet rehashes the accusations raised against Milton Obote. This time, however, stripped of the military and official pomp of the original document revealing it for the vitriolic attack (though not necessarily untrue) that it later became clear to have been.

1. A man eater. 2. A crocodile. 3. A lecherous dog. 4. A vain pig. 5. A greedy hyena. 6. A crafty serpent. 7. A sadistic goblin

Circumstantial evidence now shows that Idi Amin had staged the coup upon learning that Obote intended to oust him for misappropriation of military funds. This was unknown to most Afrolandians and Ugandans who joined in the celebrations of Masaya, fat cheeks drunk on his promises to

… tirelessly exterminate

All night-dancers

All landmark-uprooters

All cattle thieves,

All violent house-breakers…

(Oath of Office, 22)

…overlooked the undercurrent of chronic narcissism and violence that informed Masaya’s conscience. All except Namwenya the singer, the book’s omniscient narrator.

I imagined Namwenya to look not too far off from the man in the cover. A visibly troubled man locked in a poet’s frown, seated, playing a lyre/ endongo. Above him, the title “Anthem for Africa” superimposed in his sky.

“I beg you young man, shake the rattles,

You there strike the wooden gong,

You to the drum, you to the clay pot,

You mothers and wives and daughters together

With ululation ready to stir my spirit,

You dancers to sing and clap in unison,

And reclining elders to stamp the ground –

While I speak on the resounding wires

Of the seven-string Elgonian lyre

(Tuning the voice, 10-11)

And indeed the verse is song. Namwenya seeks to evoke the talent of the griots of Mali, and his praises I would like to extend to Wangusa’s hand, for mine fails to reflect the true extent of my own enchantment with his work.

You reservoirs of secret knowledge,

You reservoir of secret knowledge,

Sworn to conceal mysteries and probe the mundane –

Sworn to conceal mysteries and probe the mundane –

You tutors of new- born sovereigns and citizens,

You tutors of new- born sovereigns and citizens,

You grand masters of protocol,

You grand master of protocol,

You adroit circumlocutionists,

You adroit circumlocutionists

Dressing the present in archaic formulas

Dressing the present in archaic formulas

And calling past monstrosities by fictive names

And calling monstrosities by fictive names

For delightful instruction of the diligent…

For delightful instruction of the diligent…

(To the Griots of Mali, 8)

Namwenya and through his dilemma, Wangusa discusses what he believes to be the poet’s role in society.

Write the vision,

Speak the word,

Coin the idiom,

Raise the alarm,

Alert the land –

(The Poet’s Burden, 26)

As well as the penalty,

Sure, we truth tellers in song

For ever carry the penalty of the word;

And in the midst of popular storms,

Poets have perished for bitter poetics

As politic men for diabolic policies.

(The poets burden, 26)

Namwenya is not just burdened to tell the truth about Masaya, but also to be heeded by the Afrolandians. He does three things to help this effort. The first is to pray. He prays three times throughout the tale. To the griots of Mali, to the rebels of the Maji Maji rebellion and to the culturally rich contemporary elders gathered at a community function.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

The second thing he does is attempt to address the conscientiousness that created our present state a mighty fall from our former greatness.

And O the posthumous desolation,

As foretold by poet and prophet,

O the man-made wilderness that stretches

Where stood the seven-storey Tower of Sosso,

City of countless fortresses and single gate,

Where now the Guinea- fowl scatters the sand,

The cactus sinks its withered roots

And the hyena howls at midnight…

(Emperor Sundiata, 60)

But the despair is cushioned with a journey to the past. To Sundiata, the pyramids of Gizeh, to Ethiopia, to Limpopo, to the oil rich deserts of the Kalahari and Sahara…Now, I do not want to leave you with the impression that this is a power trip. Not at all. For the appraisal of Egypt is strongest for the shadoof, and of the great pyramid the Professor only marvels in humble ignorance:

Questions upon questions and no magic answer,

As you peer into yourself, then gaze at the stars.

But this one thing is sure, O Traveller,

However dazed your vision on return from antiquity:

That human endeavour once did wax to a climax –

And waxed thus on Africa’s Plain of Gizeh!

(Of the Great Pyramid, 110)

 Wangusa looks at: 1) Joseph Conrad’s brain, the curiosity fueled by the adolescent grandeur of adventure and the unchecked racism, brutality and ignorance of the explorers that accompanied the rediscovery, renaming and rearranging of the continent. 2) Cecil Rhode’s continental wish,

“From Cape to Cairo would I exalt thee, O Lord,

With a kingdom-of-heaven metallic highway,

Its milestones altars of human sacrifice!”

(A continental wish, 37)

3) John Locke’s theory of “effective settlement”, which made colonialism ethical,

‘Annexing distant lands an unwritten birthright,

Expedient to dispossess indolent squatters,

“Fruitful settlement” the guiding law.’

(The gift of a planet, 38)

And 4) the absurd case of Albert Schweitzer, no better summarized than W.E.B Du Bois’ “…with a religion that preached love and sacrifice, came a missionary who advocated work and loyalty with one hand and with the other hand opened the door to compulsory labour, over taxation, disruption of the family and the tribe and the rape of the land and its people.”

The problems of Africa are not reduced to the white man, and by showing how Masaya, Omujozi Mujozi and eventually even Namwenya do not escape the poet’s critique, Professor Wangusa illustrates throughout why oppressor and oppressed need to read this to reflect on each other, and to see the other clearly.

The third thing the Professor does is to chronicle Masaya’s rule.

People far off would never conceive,

People near him would never perceive

How he could be both magnetic and vitriolic,

The darling and scourge of damsels,

The patron and poison of scholars,

The envy and despair of diplomats.

(Portrait of the Conqueror, 53)

c

In Rape of the Aeroplane he retells the infamous operation Entebbe incident. How Idi Amin rose to power, backed by Israel, volatile as he was; soon after he turned on the nation “for selling him outmoded guns painted new” and backed a terrorist mission to hold the passengers as a negotiation point between the Palestinians and Israel. Israel went behind Amin’s back and pulled off a rescue mission that embarrassed the Ugandan military and dulled Idi Amin’s presumed valour. In epic fashion, Wangusa continues his allegorical tale. Kenya is symbolized as Kirinyagandia; Tanzania as Afrozania. He tells of the time Amin attempted to annex Western Kenya only to be anticlimactically met with a ban he tried to override by importing commodities by air. He tells of Nyerere, and Amin’s attack on Kagera. There are the AVS boys, the Afrozania boys, moral tales of the hare, weaving enriched by the Ugandan traditional story telling.

MY FAVORITE POEM  IS… 

“File Misplaced in Heaven” (80-81) – and it is the one with which I leave you:

Then did the people’s cry go up –
Then did our sighs strike the sky
In ceaseless acts of grieving.

‘How long, O Lord, hear our cry,
How long, O Pain-proof God?

‘Day and night we die like cattle,
Day and night are flung into poison tanks,
In glaring daylight seized by metallic claws,
And torn from astounded on-lookers.

‘What ultimate crime,
What special, unforgivable crime
Have we committed in this tortured land,
Worse than all our blatant neighbours?

‘As in blood faith was sown in our soil,
Must it with blood always be watered?
Must martyrdom recur in endless cycles,
And someone always die that others may fear?

‘Why are the innocent cut down,
And why is the slaughterer spared to the end?
How long our tears, O Lord,
How much longer shall we cry
Into your ears so divine and deaf?

‘Or is our country’s file
Perhaps misplaced in heaven –

‘And yourself on leave from there?’ 

[Order for your copy of ANTHEM FOR AFRICA at Ug Shs 30,000.]