Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

'Power must always be defeated'
By RICHARD HALICKS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/02/04

As he approaches his 70th birthday in July, Wole Soyinka can look back on a life of great struggle and greater accomplishment. The Nigerian intellectual is poet, playwright, novelist, memoirist, essayist, renowned university professor and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

Wole Soyinka speaks of the "sense of absolute infallbility" of President Bush and Osama bin Laden, the idea that "I'm doing the will of God, and therefore anything goes."

But as he concludes his first seven decades, he is what he has always been: a fighter. "If a fanatic comes to kill me, I consider it my duty to try to kill him first," Soyinka tells a cheering crowd at an Emory University lecture. "I am not interested in dialoguing with the fanatic."

Soyinka, who taught at Emory until last fall, returned there last week to deliver the last in a series of five lectures commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. and called, collectively, "Climate of Fear." Last week's lecture — "I Am Right; You Are Dead" — discussed the lethal dangers of fanaticism.

Although his bravado delighted the crowd, his comparison of President Bush with Osama bin Laden drew wintry glares from some in the small university theater (and a few cheers, as well).

At one point during the follow-up Q&A, Soyinka hailed the bloodless disarmament of Libya and spoke of how diplomacy had won the day. Referring to photos that day of Tony Blair with Moammar Gadhafi, BBC host Sue Lawley wondered aloud: "If Blair can go into the tent with Gadhafi, can Bush go into the cave with bin Laden?"

Said Soyinka, "I think if Bush goes into the cave, he will not come out."

Earlier that day, the writer sat for an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The conversation ranged widely, going back to Soyinka's imprisonment in the 1960s for more than two years — much of it in solitary confinement — simply for proposing peace talks to end the Nigerian civil war. He spent those long months teaching himself how to make ink by grinding up plants he collected in the exercise yard, making pens from bones and other found items, hoarding toilet paper and cigarette paper to write on.

"One day a crow flew over the prison and dropped a feather. I was so grateful to that crow. I wrote a poem for him."

Soyinka also spoke of his mighty disdain for political correctness, and of the impact of Islamic law in his home country. Here are some highlights of that conversation.

Q: You've talked about the "you're with us or you're against us" mentalities of Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush. In that respect, at least, you've likened the two, using the expression "the twin strain of the same fanatic spore."

A: It has always struck me very forcibly every time I listen to George Bush — including his State of the Union address in January — he dismissed the disapproval of the rest of the world by saying that the nation was serving the will of God. When people use that kind of language, you are listening to a kind of fundamentalist streak in that person. . . .

So it's that kind of strain I'm talking about, the sense of absolute infallibility. I'm doing the will of God, and therefore anything goes. No! In a society, the social order depends on consent, on debate, discussion, not from an externally derived authority. And that kind of language to me is very dangerous from anyone. And that's what I'm referring to. It is the same with bin Laden. He claims the right to liberate me — one of his speeches included Nigeria on a list of those nations to be liberated. I said, "This man is nuts!"

Q: It does seem that the "God is on our side" statement permeates so much of the dialogue today.

A: What I find is that zealotry breeds counter-zealotry. People say the only instrument I can use against this force or this position which claims external authority is by surmounting that level of conviction from the same kind of amorphous authority. I refer to people like Timothy McVeigh, to the anti-abortion activists who believe they're carrying out the will of God by shooting down abortion doctors, even patients, police guards. And they insist they are carrying out the will of God.

It is that kind of language that society should not tolerate. People should accept responsibility for themselves, in themselves. Say, "All right, this is what I believe. It's my duty to kill doctors." Go ahead. And then take your punishment. Don't try to invoke the authority of an external force which not everybody recognizes.

Q: And you're seeing the same thing in some of the northern states of Nigeria, yes?

A: Yes, absolutely. For instance, one of the politicians there has said the Quran is superior to the constitution. I say, "You're talking nonsense. . . . You say your Quran is superior. I have the right to say that the book of Ifa, which is the scripture of the Yoruba religion, is superior to the constitution and superior to your Quran and superior to your Bible. So that kind of language must be abandoned if we agree that there is to be a social order. A social order is viable only through some kind of agreement which is a secular constitution.

Q: Nigeria is about 50 percent Muslim?

A: Well, the tendency is to say that it's 50 percent Muslim and 50 percent Christian. People forget that there's a very large percentage of so-called indigenous religions — animists, Orisa worshippers, ancestor worship. Even some of those who call themselves practicing Christians or practicing Muslims take insurance by giving traditional religion its due, just in case that's where the supreme deity really is. They go to mosque on Fridays, and you see them at the festivals of the traditional deities and on to church on Sundays. So I've never accepted that 50-50 division.

Q: Can you talk about the impact of Sharia [the traditional Islamic legal code, which has been adopted by some Nigerian states] in your country?

A: [Even in] states which have declared themselves to be Sharia states, it's a contentious issue because Sharia is not supposed to apply to non-Muslims. We have a very tense situation where some states go to the extreme and insist that all those who live within the borders of that state are subject to Sharia. This is a provocation. It's an assault on the constitution, an assault on individual rights and even group rights. It leads, of course, to religious intolerance under the banner of Sharia. There's been a greater increase in assaults on churches and on Christians. And, of course, Christians will then retaliate wherever they can.

Since Sharia was introduced, the harmonious coexistence between different groups has really sunk to abysmal levels. It's always been a political ploy. The Sharia was introduced by a governor who needed something emotive to appeal to the electorate in his state. He admitted as much. He didn't have the money to match the more powerful political party, he saw this instrument which he needed to use, so he used it. And left devastating results on the psyche of the population of Nigeria.

Q: In "The Rhetoric That Binds and Blinds," the third lecture, you talk about the "ecstasy of losing oneself in the sound-cloned crowd driving the most ordinary being to jettison all moral code and commit unthinkable acts." And I thought that was a very apt description of Nazi Germany.

A: Absolutely. In fact, in the lecture I point to Nazi Germany.

Q: But also very much alive today.

A: It is. Let me give you an instance. Take Ceausescu . . . after the fall of Ceausescu, I went to Romania and spoke to some of the writers there, you know, really intelligent people. And I remember one of them saying, "You know something . . . I used to go to these nationalist rallies just to watch. I actually at one stage found myself being swept up by the fervor of the rally." Like there was something inside it that was real, that was almost palpable. He confessed that he experienced this nebulous force which can actually sweep a crowd . . . this annihilation of individuation within the crowd. In most cases, when people leave that scene of excitation, they recover themselves, analyze the event, use their heads. But for others, the chants continue to ring, and the chants become the truth in their heads, leading them to do things at which moral intelligence would recoil. . . .

Q: You've spoken out rather forcefully about the impact of political correctness.

A: Political correctness, or rather the original social, positive motivation of a new kind of conduct, a new kind of relationship between groups in society — which was a very noble endeavor — has really degenerated to the most absurd levels, especially in the United States and Canada. In Canada, where I teach occasionally, you had a situation at a university, which shall be nameless, where the head of the art department told an artist, a lecturer in the department, that he was not allowed to draw a female figure because this was sexist. Yes! This is real. This is a real instance!

Political correctness has become a kind of fascism. It has taken on fascist colors and fascistic dimensions. Language is being distorted. . . . Even in shops, nowadays people are no longer called workers. They're partners. Politically correct language. Partners, my foot! They will sack the partner without blinking an eye. Workers are workers. Bosses will always be bosses. The class struggle will continue until we all die. The fact is that there are employees and there are employers. Why are you pretending somebody is a partner? We are not partners.

The language is sanctimonious and sickening, and it's infectious. . . . I say now political correctness has become a disease. There's a kind of minute-by-minute self-censorship that destroys human spontaneity. There's a new fundamentalism sweeping Canada and the United States, and it's called political correctness.

Q: You've spent a lot of your life struggling against long odds. I'm borrowing this from an earlier interview you did at Berkeley, but I love this quotation. It's from [the memoir of your childhood] Aké. Your grandfather is advising you on how to deal with bullies: "Wherever you find yourself, don't run away from a fight. Your adversary will probably be bigger, he will trounce you the first time. Next time you meet him, challenge him again. He will beat you all over again. The third time I promise you this, you will either defeat him or he will run away. Are you listening to what I'm telling you?" Has that proven to be true?

A: Well, I haven't attempted to follow it literally!

Q: But the spirit of what he was telling you certainly seems to be the way you have lived your life.

A: Yes. Although I don't think I've counted how many times I've been trounced [laughing], or gone back, or what the ultimate result was. My conviction simply is that power must always be defeated, that the struggle must always continue to defeat power. I don't go looking for fights. People don't believe this, I'm really a very lazy person. I enjoy my peace and quiet. There's nothing I love better than just to sit quietly somewhere, you know, have a glass of wine, read a book, listen to music, that really is my ideal existence. I don't go looking for fights. I promise you.

Q: People don't believe you.

A: Nobody believes me! But it's true! (Laughing).

Q: So much of what you have done has had severe consequences for you. And I wonder where that strength of character, that courage, has come from. For example, when you stand up in public and say, "I think we should have peace talks," and you wind up in prison for more than two years. How does that happen?

A: That's a very difficult question. I usually answer, "It was something I ate as a child." I don't know. And in prison I had lots of time to ponder, "Why do I do things that get me into trouble?" I didn't find an answer. I also, to my surprise, didn't incur any internal suggestion that, when I get out of this one, I will stop. It has never occurred to me to stop.