Into the House of the Ancestors

Karl Maier

Description

Experience Africa's vibrant and volatile struggle at the crossroads between tradition and modernity . . .

INTO THE HOUSE OF THE ANCESTORS

"Rich . . . fascinating." --The New York Times Book Review

"A master of eyewitness description and of the telling interview, [Maier] has unearthed Africa's hidden heroes and heroines." --Financial Times

"Maier has written a sensitive and complex narrative. . . . excellent descriptions of the lives and experiences of both ordinary and extraordinary individuals in different parts of Africa." --Richard Leakey, The Times (London)

"A remarkable book. . . . It is no easy task to articulate an intangible undercurrent in an area so geographically large and culturally diverse, but Maier has succeeded admirably. Maier gives us hope that [the Africans] can rebound and even thrive. Highly recommended." --Library Journal
Glorious Light.

New Roads Taken.

A Spirit of Peace.

The Healing Touch.

The Battle for the Mind.

The Universal Soldier.

Heroes of the Apocalypse.

An Act of Faith.

Circling Spirits of the Age.

Postscript.

Notes.

Acknowledgments.

Index.

Sujets

• Histoire
• África
• Karl Maier
• African studies
• Republic of New Afrika
• History of Africa
• History
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470348284
• Langue: English

Extrait

I NTO THE H OUSE OF THE A NCESTORS

Inside the New Africa
Karl Maier
For Sarah
This text is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 1998 by Karl Maier. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], E-mail: [e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maier, Karl
Into the house of the ancestors: inside the new Africa/Karl Maier.
p. cm.
Includes index
ISBN 0-471-29583-3 (paper : alk. paper)
1. Africa, Sub-Saharan-Politics and government-1960- 2. Africa, Sub-Saharan-Social conditions-1960- I. Title.
DT352.8.M35 1997
967.03 2-DC21
97-26809
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface
Glorious Light
New Roads Taken
A Spirit of Peace
The Healing Touch
The Battle for the Mind
The Universal Soldier
Heroes of the Apocalypse
An Act of Faith
Circling Spirits of the Age
Postscript
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
The great powers of the world have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa-giving the world a more human face.
-Steve Biko, 1971
Preface
A commotion in the dark corridor outside my train compartment awoke me from a sound sleep at 2:00 A.M . We had reached the Swiss-Italian border, and the Italian police were rudely questioning an African woman about the legitimacy of her European passport. A bright flashlight was brought to bear on the document, and one officer repeatedly scratched the passport with his fingernail to test its authenticity. It s new, an English one, he yelled out the window skeptically to a couple of immigration officials who were chatting with two border guards armed with machine guns. After a few more minutes of questions, the police reluctantly told the woman that she was free to go. She hoisted her large blue bag and wandered toward my compartment, the only one in the car with its door open. Everyone else was asleep. After a few minutes of hesitation, she leaned in and asked me if I would move my feet so she could sit down.
I am ashamed to say that my initial reaction was as cold as the night air; I had another five hours ahead of me and wanted as much room as possible to stretch out. A few moments later the woman s accent registered in my still groggy brain. She was definitely West African and I was fairly certain she was Nigerian, probably from the sprawling commercial capital Lagos where I had lived for two years. Suddenly many of the faces of Nigerians who had welcomed me warmly into their homes, offices, and lives flashed through my mind, and rediscovering my manners I quickly scooted over. She lifted the bag up to the luggage rack above our seats, sat down, and wiped the sweat from her brow. It was the dead of the European winter, but she was hot from lugging her bag around and undergoing the grilling from the Italian immigration authorities.
Fully awake now, I asked her where she was from, and at first, no doubt wary of yet another query about her nationality, she mumbled that she was British. Yes, but originally, I asked again. She smiled and replied louder, Nigeria. From Lagos, I bet. Yes, she said, how did I know? I used to live in Lagos myself. What part of the city are you from? I asked. Ikorodu, came the reply. I told her how I remembered the huge night market on Ikorodu Road where thousands of tiny kerosene lamps on the market stalls bathed the entire four-lane thoroughfare in a soft yellow light. She smiled. So you enjoyed Nigeria, she said confidently. Were you there on business? No, I was a journalist. Oh, the army boys don t much like journalists, do they? No, I said, I suppose they don t, but then again, they don t seem to like anybody these days. That s right, she grunted. Terrible people.
Do you mind me asking what you are doing here? I ventured cautiously, not wanting her to think I was prying. Trading, she said. Buying textiles and leather goods, such as shoes and purses, in Zurich and Milan, and returning to sell them in London. Two-two months, she added in the Nigerian way of saying she made such trips every two months. But isn t it difficult wandering around in the middle of night, dealing with these border guards? My three children and I need the money. Life in Britain is expensive. How did she like Zurich? The people there were for the most part polite, she said. How about Milan? Ruffians, she hissed, clicking her tongue disgustedly.
I asked her if she ever returned to Nigeria, and she said yes, as often as she could. She had been back several months before, visiting relatives. Did she want to return to live there or were her children too integrated into British culture to leave? I asked. British culture, she snorted dismissively. I want nothing to do with British culture. It reminded me of the time Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought about Western civilization, and he responded, I didn t know they had any.
She said she was eager to return to live in Nigeria, but that under the current military regime, she doubted it would be possible anytime soon. Life there is no good. Nigerians are hardworking people, you have seen that yourself, but these military boys won t let the people survive. They chop [steal] all the money. Maybe when the army leaves, then I can go back. But when will they leave? No one knows.
We went on talking for much of the next two hours, about everything from finer points of West Africa s traditional pepper soup, for which the word hot does not begin to do justice, to where she was able to purchase ingredients for Nigerian dishes in London, such as yams, manioc (cassava) flour which is known as gari, and palm oil. It turned out there was little she could not find in London. Off and on we both fell asleep as the train ambled toward Milan, and off and on we talked. What would she do when the train arrived? She explained that the waiting room at the station would open at 4:00 A.M . She would sit there until about 7:00 A.M ., and then she would find a cheap hotel to set up her temporary office for the next three days of shopping in Milan before returning to Britain.
The train slowed to a crawl, and as she gathered up her bag we exchanged our good-byes, agreeing that it would be nice to meet one day on Ikorodu Road when things were better in Nigeria. I watched out the window as she climbed down from the car and stood momentarily on the platform as if she were lost. She threw the bag over her shoulder and headed for the stairs that would take her to an empty room and a three-hour wait for a cheap hotel to open. Before disappearing into the chilly night, she turned around and saw me looking out the window, and she smiled. As our train pulled out of the station that morning, it struck me how inadequate the stereotype is of Africa as the fragile continent. I have spent half of my adult life in sub-Saharan Africa as a journalist, and if there is one thing I have learned about Africans, if one can generalize for a moment about 500 million people, it is that they are anything but fragile.
They have accomplished what many other indigenous groups that felt the icy touch of European civilization-the Incas and the Aztecs in the Americas, for example-failed to do. They survived, and with a great deal of their culture, however bruised and battered, intact.
I have been asked often by westerners why in the world I have chosen to live for all those years in Africa, with its wars and famines, its horrible diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, the Ebola virus, river blindness, and many others, all the chaos and violence that appear on Western television screens like unending snippets from one long nightmarish film of the coming apocalypse. Of course, had there been CNN during World War I filming the mustard gas attacks, had the television cameras been poking through the fences of the concentration camps and into the gas chambers of World War II, or had there been footage of Africa s own holocaust, the Atlantic and Arab slave trade, perhaps the West would exercise a bit more humility in its judgment of Africa s current crisis. Certainly future historians, if they are truthful, will rate the violence of twentieth-century Africa as relatively mild indeed compared to the slaughter that Europe has experienced and imposed on others.
My answer to the question, however, is twofold. I freely admit to having succumbed to an overwhelming sense of admiration for the courage and sheer determination with which so many Africans seek to overcome their difficulties. In general, Africans are among the most hospitable and direct people I have met anywhere. It is true that I have had my brushes with trouble; I have been shot at, detained, threatened, and I came within hours of dying from malaria. But it is also true that never have I been more welcomed into people s homes or treated with more respect.
Af