By Dan Amor
It was once the fashion to
single out four men of letters as the supreme titans of world literature - Homer,
Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe - each the embodiment of a great epoch of Western
culture - ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern. These four literary icons of
all times remain secure, but acclamation of Professor Wole Soyinka as the
prototype of the inquiring spirit and courageous intellect of modern man has
been sharply appreciated in our time, especially as we pass beyond the more
leisurely issues of the post modernist era.
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| *Soyinka |
The intensely contemporary
character of his works has made him the tallest iroko tree in the
post-modernist forest of global dramatic literature. Yet, the commencement, two
weeks ago, of the Wole Soyinka 82nd Birthday Festival, which ultimately
climaxes today, July 13, his date of birth, unfortunately doesn't seem to wear
the official insignia of the Nigerian government especially because he has
started telling them the truth about the Nigerian condition. But, it is
expected, as Christ Himself says in Matthew 13:57, "A prophet is not without honour, save his own country and his own
house."
In retrospect, in March
1996 when the Nigerian artistic and literary community was agog with the explosion
of a series of events to mark the tri-centenary and two score anniversary of
the birth of Von Goethe (1749-1832), the German creative genius and great
thinker of all times, the Sani Abacha-led military junta, despite its sadistic,
base and tyrannical complexion, surpassingly accorded the celebration an
official recognition while declaring Soyinka, the custodian of our artistic
signature wanted, dead or alive. Given the authoritarian intolerance of the
Buhari government and the President's implacable disdain for anything cerebral,
no one actually expected less from them especially at a time when Soyinka is
telling him to listen to the cries of the Igbo and the minorities in the
country, and to heed to the call for the restructuring of this lopsided federation.
Oscar Wilde, the great Victorian English epigrammatist, in a state of
protracted gloom once observed that: "Formerly
we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap
editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are
absolutely detestable." Indeed, the brilliant Wilde cannot be faulted.
But there is no more breeding ground for such critical vituperation than our
current socio-political climate.
