ReadingThere Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Abstract

Here is an intellectually dense reading of Chinua Achebe’s personal history of Biafra, which deconstructs and illuminates the book. Deconstructive components expose elements of Achebe’s narrative that fly beyond the intellectual grasp of his hasty castigators, many of whom vented without having read the book. In the related vein, the illuminative components expose the obligation and burden that Achebe discharged in the book as a Biafran. It is therefore a book whose narrative retraces the responsibility of Achebe’s faith vis-à-vis a historical challenge, which he fulfilled with determination by writing it.

On Biafra: Subverting Imposed Code of Silence

“…V-Y Mudimbe’s (2013) ‘Reading There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra ’ is a fine example of a dense philosophical piece of work that glitters with brilliant insights taken from an array of scholars whose ideas underscore the seriousness with which Achebe raised and addressed his issues of concern on the subject matter of his book. No one should therefore be surprised by why Mudimbe is attracted by Achebe’s take on ‘The Intellectual Foundation of a New Nation’ (Achebe, 2012: 143) that Biafra embodied in the Ahiara Declaration: ‘We could forge a new nation that respected the freedom that all mankind cherished and were willing to fight hard to hold onto.…”

“…No one should therefore be surprised by why Mudimbe is attracted by Achebe’s take on ‘The Intellectual Foundation of a New Nation’ (Achebe, 2012: 143) that Biafra embodied in the Ahiara Declaration: ‘We could forge a new nation that respected the freedom that all mankind cherished and were willing to fight hard to hold onto. Within Biafra, Biafran people would be free from persecution of all kinds’ (Achebe, 2012: 143; cited by Mudimbe, 2013). In this assertion lies the powerful raison d’être for Biafra, encapsulating a reaffirmation of its sacred legitimacy that cannot be erased or wished away.…”

“…In this assertion lies the powerful raison d’être for Biafra, encapsulating a reaffirmation of its sacred legitimacy that cannot be erased or wished away. It is also from the Ahiara Declaration that Mudimbe gleaned the ‘…special attributes—the very principles that [Biafrans] were fighting for: unity, self-determination, social justice, etc.’ (Achebe, 2012: 144; cited by Mudimbe, 2013). Those philosophical rules and principles remain as important today and, even more, as they were at the time when Biafra’s founding leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu read them out to the world in the Ahiara Declaration June 1, 1969.…”

“…This contrasts with Mudimbe, who acknowledged the same in his second paragraph as the affirmation of ‘a deposition’. Another big deal and contrast between both scholars in their respective articles in the Special Section is that where Mudimbe perceives the book as ‘The testimonial, [that] in effect, narrates both a lived experience and designs the obligation of the consciousness for an intellectual’ (Mudimbe, 2013), Jeyifo sees a book which: ‘…is almost at every turn aware of itself as the work of a writer, an intellectual addressing other writers and intellectuals and challenging them on such fundamental issues as the relationship of the writer to ethics and justice and the responsibilities of the true, humanistic intellectual to racial, national and ethnic others’ (Jeyifo, 2013),…”

Imagined nations and imaginary Nigeria: Chinua Achebe's quest for a country

“…This stance is evident in his last book, There was a country (2012), a memoir that, according to V.Y Mudimbe, 'retraces the responsibility of Achebe's faith vis-à-vis a historical challenge … [and offers] the definition of the écrivain engagé'. 1 Achebe began shouldering the 'historical challenge' with the publication of his seminal and widely-acclaimed novel, Things fall apart in 1958. As Simon Gikandi observes: '[f]or many students and scholars of African literature, the inaugural moment of modern African literature was the publication of Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart …; since then the Nigerian novelist's reputation has never been hard to sustain'.…”