Reading along in the autobiography, the forlorn, but hopeful, political soliloquy streaming through the pages of: THE ELOQUENCE OF THE SCRIBES : MEMOIR ON THE SOURCES AND RESOURCES OF AFRICAN LITERATURE (2006), by Ayi Kwei Armah, of Ghana, I empathize as he "seeks" colleagues of the requisite consciousness with whom to effect much-desired African redemption.
It is a lonely, frustrating sojourn for anyone to pursue without essential security; reinforcements of state power: whether by charter, letters marque and reprisal; independent means, money; intelligence agents; skilled leaders in the organization; experienced in the appurtenances of global empire consolidation .
Thus far, he had none of these. Few Africans do. Few people do.
But, indomitably committed to his quixotic vision of African liberation, he left Harvard in an attempt to reach the African training camps in Cuba or Angola. Traveling on the cheap, he reached Mexico City by hitchhiking largely. Denied access to Cuba thereby, he hopped a freighter to Spain, crossed into Africa; made it to Algeria where his attempt to get to Angola was preempted at the Ghanaian embassy, his home country. Finally after further frustration, he contracted hepatitis and was hospitalized in Algeria. Friends flew him back to the State of Massachusetts whence he'd begun this improbable wild-goose chase, in search of the revolution .
Ayi Kwei Armah is a very powerful writer, even if he is an incompetent would-be African revolution-seeker!
Thursday, December 15, 2016
THE ELOQUENCE OF THE SCRIBES
Reading along in the autobiography, the forlorn, but hopeful, political soliloquy streaming through the pages of: THE ELOQUENCE OF THE SCRIBES : MEMOIR ON THE SOURCES AND RESOURCES OF AFRICAN LITERATURE (2006), by Ayi Kwei Armah, of Ghana, I empathize as he "seeks" colleagues of the requisite consciousness with whom to effect much-desired African redemption.
It is a lonely, frustrating sojourn for anyone to pursue without essential security; reinforcements of state power: whether by charter, letters marque and reprisal; independent means, money; intelligence agents; skilled leaders in the organization; experienced in the appurtenances of global empire consolidation .
Thus far, he had none of these. Few Africans do. Few people do.
But, indomitably committed to his quixotic vision of African liberation, he left Harvard in an attempt to reach the African training camps in Cuba or Angola. Traveling on the cheap, he reached Mexico City by hitchhiking largely. Denied access to Cuba thereby, he hopped a freighter to Spain, crossed into Africa; made it to Algeria where his attempt to get to Angola was preempted at the Ghanaian embassy, his home country. Finally after further frustration, he contracted hepatitis and was hospitalized in Algeria. Friends flew him back to the State of Massachusetts whence he'd begun this improbable wild-goose chase, in search of the revolution .
Ayi Kwei Armah is a very powerful writer, even if he is an incompetent would-be African revolution-seeker!