7 - Wars as Postcolonial African Illness in Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation
Corresponding Author(s) : Omon Osiki
Africa Development,
Vol. 46 No. 1 (2021): Africa Development
Abstract
There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens,
allegedly the most advanced species in the universe. In Africa, right on the
heels of colonialism and the celebration of independence loom the devastation
and desolation of war. It is not a sweeping statement to conclude that
everywhere colonialism has touched in Africa and let go, ruthless tribal wars
have followed suit. The thematic preoccupation of the post-war literature is
the training of children, mostly boys, to kill, in the form of the phenomenon
of the ‘child soldier’. This article argues that one of the extreme cases of
geopolitical illness that Africa suffers is the prominence of war in the turbulent
journeys of her nation-states to nationhood. The article also examines the
psychological implications of wars and bloodshed on the lives of children,
who ought to be protected, which results in illness behaviours. We explore
these themes with close reference to Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation.
Keywords
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)BibTeX
- Adesanmi, P. and Dunton, C., 2008, ‘Introduction: Everything good is raining: Provisional notes on the Nigerian novel of the third generation.’ Research in African Literatures, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 7-12.
- Balcells, L. and Kalyvas, S.N., 2014, ‘Does warfare matter? Severity, duration, and outcomes of civil wars’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 8, pp. 1390-1418.
- Osiki, Owonibi & Ojedokun: Wars as Postcolonial African Illness in Uzodinma 159
- Caruth, C., 1996, Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Cramer, C., 2007, Violence in developing countries: War, memory, progress, Bloom- ington, IN: Indiana University Press.
- Denov, M., 2010, Child soldiers: Sierra Leone’s revolutionary united front, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- De St. Jorre, J., 1972, The Nigerian civil war, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Emenyonu, E., 2008, ‘War in African literature: Literary harvests, human tragedies’, War in African Literature Today, Vol. 26, pp. xi-xiv.
- Fanon, F., 1995, ‘The fact of blackness’, in B. Ascroft, G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin, eds, The post colonial studies reader, London: Routledge, pp. 323-326.
- Felman, S., ed., 1982, Literature and psychoanalysis—The question of reading otherwise, New York: John Hopkins University Press.
- Freud, S., 1971, ‘Creative writers and day-dreaming’, in H. Adams, ed., Critical theory since Plato, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
- Freud, S., 1991, ‘The psychotherapy of hysteria’, in J. Tranchey and A. Stranchey, tr., A. Richards,ed., Sigmund Freud, Joseph Breuer: Studies in hysteria, Freud Library Vol. 3, London: Penguin.
- Gersovitz, M. and Kriger, N., 2013, ‘What is a civil war? A critical review of its definition and (econometric) consequences’, The World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 159-190.
- Ghobarah, H. A., Huth, P. and Russett, B., 2003, ‘Civil wars kill and maim people— long after the shooting stops’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 189-202.
- Hawley, J.C., 2008, ‘Biafra as heritage and symbol: Adichie, Mbachu, and Iweala’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 15-26.
- Hemmings, R., 2005, ‘“The blameless physician”: Narrative and pain, Sassoon and rivers’, Literature and Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 109-126.
- Iweala, U., 2006, Beasts of no nation, London: Harper Perennial.
- Kalyvas, S.N., 2006, The logic of violence in civil war, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
- Keegan, J. and Bull, B., 2006, ‘What is a civil war?’, Prospect Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 9, pp. 18-20.
- Kurtz, R., 2014, ‘Literature, trauma and the African moral imagination’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 421-435.
- LaCapra, D., 2001, Writing history, writing trauma, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Lacina, B., 2006, ‘Explaining the severity of civil war’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 276-289.
- Martins, C., 2013, ‘How many people have you killed? Child-soldiers in literature and film’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 53 (Cahier 211), pp. 649-675.
- Mastey, D., 2017, ‘The adulterated children of child soldier narratives’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 39-55.
- Africa Development, Volume XLVI, No. 1, 2021
- Munro, B., 2016, ‘Locating “queer” in contemporary writing of love and war in Nigeria’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 121-138.
- Nwahunanya, C., 1997, A harvest from tragedy: Critical perspectives on Nigerian civil war literature, Owerri: Springfield Publishers.
- Onuoha, G., 2014, ‘The politics of “hope” and ‘despair’: Generational dimensions to Igbo nationalism in post-civil war Nigeria’, African Sociological Review/Revue Africaine de Sociologie, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 2-26.
- Osiki, O.M., 2014, ‘The magnitude of Samson option: Militancy, terrorism and national development in Nigeria’, Vuna Journal of History and International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 212 226.
- Osiki, O.M., 2016, ‘Globalization of violence. Terrorism and its impact on (inter) national Security’, in U.A. Tar, E.B. Mijah and E.U Tedheke, eds, Globalization in Africa: Perspectives on development, security, and the environment, New York: Lexington Books, pp. 289-305.
- Osiki, O.M., 2021, ‘The global war on terror and its African front’,in U. Tar, ed., Routledge Handbook of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in Africa, London: Routledge, pp.88-99 Osiki, O.M., 2021, ‘The global war on terror and its African front’,in U. Tar, ed., Routledge Handbook of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in Africa, London: Routledge, pp. 88-99.
- Osinowo, H., Sunmola, A. and Balogun, S.K., eds., 1999, Psychology: perspectives in human behaviour, Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited, pp. 7-30.
- Owolabi, D.F. and Anonymous, O.M., 2017, ‘A psychological perspective to terror and terrorism’, in Terrorism and counter terrorism war in Nigeria: Essays in honour of Lieutenant General Yusuf Buratai, Lagos: University of Lagos Press, pp. 71-96.
- Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Susan Sontag and the expression of trauma in Alice in Bed and Death Kit’, Akungba Journal of English Studies and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 13-29.
- Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Aesthetics and anaesthetics: A review of the nexus of literature and medicine’, Akungba Journal of English Studies and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 173-190.
- Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Trauma in the realities of Tayo Olafioye: A study of “the Thun- der in Woman”’, Romanian Journal of Bioethics / Revista Romana de Bioetica, Vol. 10, No. 1.
- Pearn, J., 1999, ‘History, horror and healing: The historical background and after- math to the Rwandan civil war of 1994’, Health and History, Vol. 1, No. 2/3,pp. 202-208.
- Poster, M.F., 2014, ‘Thoughts on war, trauma, and the need for diplomacy’, Inter- national Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 55-63.
- Roessler, P., 2011, ‘The enemy within: Personal rule, coups, and civil war in Africa’, World Politics, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 300-346.
- Ro , J., 2005, ‘Paradigm in distress? Primary commodities and civil war’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 443-450.
- Osiki, Owonibi & Ojedokun: Wars as Postcolonial African Illness in Uzodinma Rosen, D., 2005, Armies of the young: Child soldiers in war and terrorism, Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
- Rosenau, J.N., ed., 1964, International aspects of civil strife, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
- Salehyan, I., 2009, Rebels without borders: Transnational insurgencies in World Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Straus, S., 2012, ‘Wars do end! Changing patterns of political violence in Sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs, Vol. 111, No. 443, pp. 179-201.
- Stremlau, J.J., 1977, The International politics of the Nigerian civil war, 1967-1970, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Tal, K., 1996, Worlds of hurt: Reading the literatures of trauma, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
- Williams, Paul D., 2011, War & conflict in Africa, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
References
Adesanmi, P. and Dunton, C., 2008, ‘Introduction: Everything good is raining: Provisional notes on the Nigerian novel of the third generation.’ Research in African Literatures, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 7-12.
Balcells, L. and Kalyvas, S.N., 2014, ‘Does warfare matter? Severity, duration, and outcomes of civil wars’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 8, pp. 1390-1418.
Osiki, Owonibi & Ojedokun: Wars as Postcolonial African Illness in Uzodinma 159
Caruth, C., 1996, Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cramer, C., 2007, Violence in developing countries: War, memory, progress, Bloom- ington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Denov, M., 2010, Child soldiers: Sierra Leone’s revolutionary united front, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
De St. Jorre, J., 1972, The Nigerian civil war, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Emenyonu, E., 2008, ‘War in African literature: Literary harvests, human tragedies’, War in African Literature Today, Vol. 26, pp. xi-xiv.
Fanon, F., 1995, ‘The fact of blackness’, in B. Ascroft, G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin, eds, The post colonial studies reader, London: Routledge, pp. 323-326.
Felman, S., ed., 1982, Literature and psychoanalysis—The question of reading otherwise, New York: John Hopkins University Press.
Freud, S., 1971, ‘Creative writers and day-dreaming’, in H. Adams, ed., Critical theory since Plato, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Freud, S., 1991, ‘The psychotherapy of hysteria’, in J. Tranchey and A. Stranchey, tr., A. Richards,ed., Sigmund Freud, Joseph Breuer: Studies in hysteria, Freud Library Vol. 3, London: Penguin.
Gersovitz, M. and Kriger, N., 2013, ‘What is a civil war? A critical review of its definition and (econometric) consequences’, The World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 159-190.
Ghobarah, H. A., Huth, P. and Russett, B., 2003, ‘Civil wars kill and maim people— long after the shooting stops’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 189-202.
Hawley, J.C., 2008, ‘Biafra as heritage and symbol: Adichie, Mbachu, and Iweala’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 15-26.
Hemmings, R., 2005, ‘“The blameless physician”: Narrative and pain, Sassoon and rivers’, Literature and Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 109-126.
Iweala, U., 2006, Beasts of no nation, London: Harper Perennial.
Kalyvas, S.N., 2006, The logic of violence in civil war, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Keegan, J. and Bull, B., 2006, ‘What is a civil war?’, Prospect Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 9, pp. 18-20.
Kurtz, R., 2014, ‘Literature, trauma and the African moral imagination’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 421-435.
LaCapra, D., 2001, Writing history, writing trauma, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lacina, B., 2006, ‘Explaining the severity of civil war’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 276-289.
Martins, C., 2013, ‘How many people have you killed? Child-soldiers in literature and film’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 53 (Cahier 211), pp. 649-675.
Mastey, D., 2017, ‘The adulterated children of child soldier narratives’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 39-55.
Africa Development, Volume XLVI, No. 1, 2021
Munro, B., 2016, ‘Locating “queer” in contemporary writing of love and war in Nigeria’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 121-138.
Nwahunanya, C., 1997, A harvest from tragedy: Critical perspectives on Nigerian civil war literature, Owerri: Springfield Publishers.
Onuoha, G., 2014, ‘The politics of “hope” and ‘despair’: Generational dimensions to Igbo nationalism in post-civil war Nigeria’, African Sociological Review/Revue Africaine de Sociologie, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 2-26.
Osiki, O.M., 2014, ‘The magnitude of Samson option: Militancy, terrorism and national development in Nigeria’, Vuna Journal of History and International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 212 226.
Osiki, O.M., 2016, ‘Globalization of violence. Terrorism and its impact on (inter) national Security’, in U.A. Tar, E.B. Mijah and E.U Tedheke, eds, Globalization in Africa: Perspectives on development, security, and the environment, New York: Lexington Books, pp. 289-305.
Osiki, O.M., 2021, ‘The global war on terror and its African front’,in U. Tar, ed., Routledge Handbook of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in Africa, London: Routledge, pp.88-99 Osiki, O.M., 2021, ‘The global war on terror and its African front’,in U. Tar, ed., Routledge Handbook of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in Africa, London: Routledge, pp. 88-99.
Osinowo, H., Sunmola, A. and Balogun, S.K., eds., 1999, Psychology: perspectives in human behaviour, Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited, pp. 7-30.
Owolabi, D.F. and Anonymous, O.M., 2017, ‘A psychological perspective to terror and terrorism’, in Terrorism and counter terrorism war in Nigeria: Essays in honour of Lieutenant General Yusuf Buratai, Lagos: University of Lagos Press, pp. 71-96.
Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Susan Sontag and the expression of trauma in Alice in Bed and Death Kit’, Akungba Journal of English Studies and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 13-29.
Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Aesthetics and anaesthetics: A review of the nexus of literature and medicine’, Akungba Journal of English Studies and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 173-190.
Owonibi, S., 2012, ‘Trauma in the realities of Tayo Olafioye: A study of “the Thun- der in Woman”’, Romanian Journal of Bioethics / Revista Romana de Bioetica, Vol. 10, No. 1.
Pearn, J., 1999, ‘History, horror and healing: The historical background and after- math to the Rwandan civil war of 1994’, Health and History, Vol. 1, No. 2/3,pp. 202-208.
Poster, M.F., 2014, ‘Thoughts on war, trauma, and the need for diplomacy’, Inter- national Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 55-63.
Roessler, P., 2011, ‘The enemy within: Personal rule, coups, and civil war in Africa’, World Politics, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 300-346.
Ro , J., 2005, ‘Paradigm in distress? Primary commodities and civil war’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 443-450.
Osiki, Owonibi & Ojedokun: Wars as Postcolonial African Illness in Uzodinma Rosen, D., 2005, Armies of the young: Child soldiers in war and terrorism, Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Rosenau, J.N., ed., 1964, International aspects of civil strife, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Salehyan, I., 2009, Rebels without borders: Transnational insurgencies in World Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Straus, S., 2012, ‘Wars do end! Changing patterns of political violence in Sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs, Vol. 111, No. 443, pp. 179-201.
Stremlau, J.J., 1977, The International politics of the Nigerian civil war, 1967-1970, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tal, K., 1996, Worlds of hurt: Reading the literatures of trauma, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Paul D., 2011, War & conflict in Africa, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.