'A Far Cry from Africa' by Derek Walcott.
This is an African literature piece of literature that definitely carries the flavour of Africa. In fact, African literature is more post-normal as compared to any other literature with this theme. The title is "A Far Cry From Africa", it's a cry that is not close, that is not near, it is far away. It's powerful as well, in another sense, because it's coming from Africa. That means oppression is there and because of that oppression, the cry is coming up. The cry can also be taken in two senses. One may be a cry of pain, another may be a cry of protest. In both ways, the point can be seen to be A Far Cry From Africa.
Derek Walcott is a very famous post-colonial writer and is known not only as a teacher but also as a playwright. Dream and Monkey Mountain is one of the plays written by him, and in that drama as well, he portrays similar skills as he shows in his poems. This is why he is a post-non-writer. He is a poet as well, as the poems demonstrate. He is a poet in the sense that he is voicing the opinions of his people and the opinions of people who do not belong to him. He is an artist as well. Derek Walcott was able to win the Nobel prize based on his writing. He was born in Saint Lucia in the British West Indies and had double racial ancestry.is the poem.
Some of the metadata about the poem says that it was published in 1962. This poem was published at a time when colonialism had receded back into its territories and the offshoots and legacies of colonialism were converting themselves into postmodernism, especially at a time when the world was bipolar, meaning both communistic and capitalistic words were racing for supremacy in the world and we were trying to gain or become superpowers in such a situation.
However, the postcolonial nature of the poem allows for the raising of protest, whether in the form of soft poetry or harsh words, but it is there that some of the cultural tensions can be discussed. Because the poet himself has two types of genes, and the people too, when under colonization, they do have the opportunity to talk about and discuss the occupation of their continent and the sources being used by the colonial power. For example, in the 1950s, that thing is also referred to in the poem "A Far cry from Africa".
Also, the poem is most of the time about the local Kiku tribe and about the Maumo fighters. As the novel Chenva "Things Fall Apart" is also about the Ibu people, so is the case with this poetry by this poet, Derek Walcott. These people had run certain campaigns, one of which was at least eight years long, against the white settlers. This was also an effort to save their own country and to become the owner of their own place. This was the kind of struggle against the settlers. So this is the material of the poem. This is the theme of the poem. This is the kind of situation we can meet in the poem.
A Far Cry from Africa
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
“Waste no compassion on these separate dead!”
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews
It says that a type of wind is blowing and that the wind is harsh and that the wind is powerful and that the earth on which this wind is blowing is brown in colour, definitely the African earth, or the ground on which the Kiku tribe lives, and the wind is blowing very fast, as the flies go very fast in that sense, the land is being referred to, where the air of that area is being referred to and the people. So three things are introduced in the very first two lines of the poem in order to remind us that the poem is about the Kiku people in Africa, and the situation of the environment in Africa has also, been talked about. Then come the birds, the welt. For example, the bird, which is the African symbol of some holiness, is there and that holiness is being decreased in such a way because the people are dying, and the birds may also be shown to be dying, and they have the corpses spread here and there.
And so there is nothing but the Carian worms are there. These worms are crying and saying waste no compassion on these separate dead, that nobody should come and care for them because they have died. These people don't have any importance because they have died, except definitely if the people are of the African land, they may die and they are not important in the colonial context. That is why the importance of the people of the death of the people is being undermined.
For example, the poet says that statistics justify and scholars see the salience of current policy because people have died. Some people would come forward from the side of the current master who would say that this number of deaths could be justified. The reason for this can be justified as the colonial masters have been killing the people. They would say that they had killed some of the local people because they were bad people and they were trying to harm the cause of the good people, which is why they had been killed. So there will be a lot of justification for this, but the people are dead and people are suffering because of the blood being shed by them.
So, in that way, the condition is oppressive to the white child acting in bed. The poet says that if the same situation is talked about, the people who are living in their homes and rooms quite comfortably in their beds, are not at all concerned about this death. So the white master is being accused of saying that he would not be concerned about his death. They think that the locals are the ones who are savages. According to Edward Sabian's concept of postmodern theory, the binary opposition goes to suggest that if somebody is good and other people are bad, the people are declared to be the savages.
It means that other people are civilized, and here is the very bitter irony of the postmodern world: the people who are being killed because they are thought to be savages, so their deaths don't have any value. Their number of deaths doesn't have any value. Their number of deaths has no value for white men, but if anything dies, they definitely have a value expandable as Jews, so the Jews are being referred to as it happened during WWII. According to the poet, the deaths of Africans, as well as the destruction of Africa's land and environment, are insignificant to the white man. There was a kind of death spread on the Jews because Christian people thought the Jews were not that important; the same was true of white men's dealings with African savages; they dealt with them in much the same way as they would deal with the Jewish people, resulting in a very bitter and ironic situation. As the property, life, and body of the colonized people have no significant value to the people who were their rulers or colonizers; this is the lament, this is the protest, and this is the kind of point at which the poem becomes the postnatal text.
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization’s dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Here the poet is talking about the things that are beaten up and the things that are killed or being killed and destroyed plants. For example, the flowers and civilization. Everything that has been happening in this world is deceased. It's not a new thing, but the thing that is happening this time is something difficult that is something different that has caused the problem.
According to the poet, violence is spreading everywhere and the animals that would beat each other would kill each other in the same way right now. Things are happening that human beings are killing each other, and that thing, as in the world of animals, is said to be natural. And so the upright man, who is a good and honest man, has to seek the help of divinity by inflicting pain upon himself. It cannot happen without inflicting pain. This thing is happening everywhere, not only in the world of animals but also in the world of human beings. The people are dancing. They are dancing because of the drum, which is made up of the carcasses of certain animals and the skins of certain animals. It's being bitten. It means that to dance to make this thing known, one needs to have a drum, and this term cannot be prepared until the antenna unless an animal is killed and the skin is used.
In the same way, somebody had to be killed, somebody had to suffer, even if the voice is to be raised, so the colonized people had to suffer. They have to be killed. Then they must inflict pain on themselves; only then will they be heard. nobody will be listening to them. So the poet discusses a very bitter irony, a very bitter strategical situation to make people realize how difficult the life of the colonized people is. The kind of situation in which a white man is present. The local people are present, the white man is the oppressor, and the local people are the oppressed people, so everything on the part of the oppressed people, even if it may be courageous, may be taken as a negative, but on the part of a white man, if the same thing is there, it will be taken as courage. All the good is assigned to the white man, and all the bad is assigned to the local oppressed person.
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
The poet says that after the fight, the hands are to be wiped out on certain napkins and that napkin becomes dirty because of the cost, the cost of being served, the cause of freedom to be served, and in that way, it was a waste of compassion because if the same thing had been happening in Spain as well, The gorilla people and the superman people fought with the other people, but he says that it's very difficult for him to praise or admire someone on one of the two sides. He says he has to talk about it because the person who is killing also belongs to him and the person who's killed also belongs to him.
In that way, it is very difficult for him to decide or part with one side. In this way, the dilemma of the poet comes forward. At the end of the poem, he belongs to the white people as well as the colonized Africans, and according to him, it's very difficult for him to divide the veins or to become part of one. According to the poet, he is the blood of both. He seems to feel poisoned. This situation has become very critical for the poet, so therefore he is with the people who are oppressed, but then he has to be careful not to say anything bad about the people who are the oppressors. That is the situation of every colonized person. Every post-colonial person has to represent his people also, and then he has to imitate the masters. In that situation, people keep on working and this very thing is called the postcolonial theories.
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
There is again a dilemma for the poet there. According to him, he has been talking about certain people of a white group who are the rulers. He says that it's very difficult for him to choose between these two things. For example, he wants to love his people, but then he has to write in English. In that way, he becomes English as well. He wants to remain African, but then he becomes English as well. So in that way, both things are going side by side, and he puts a question here about how he can side with one party. For example, betray them both or give back what they gave. So either the choice is that he should betray both the white and black people, or he should try to give everything back and become one person. How can he face such slaughter and be cool again? Again, a dilemma is there. He's being asked to stop and look at the people who are being slaughtered and feel good, but he says how can he do that? It's not possible for him, so he'll have to speak that as well.
It means he wants to talk about oppression but is unable to do so forcefully. Talk about the oppressor, and so that is the postnormal situation of every postmodern subject, and then he says the last question. How can I turn away from Africa and live in a way that shows patriotism, love, and nationalism toward Africa? So he says that he cannot go away from Africa, he cannot fight with other people, so that is why he has to stay with African people. If he goes away, his own life ends, his own identity finishes, and his own connection with the people finishes, so according to him, he has to stay with them. That's the type of poem that is suggestive of so many things that are most relevant to post-colonial theory, which makes the poet a post-colonial poet because he has to not only represent his people but also talk about the master, who is definitely a colonial master. The current master may be doing certain bad things to these people, and the people, because of their being colonized, have to tolerate all that. That's the situation portrayed in the poem, a far cry from Africa.
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