Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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that ident~fy post-colonial reglmes of do~n~nat~on<br />
The writing of Ngugi's Devzl on the Cross was in more than one sense a<br />
product of the post-colonial violence to which Mbembe draws our attention. It was<br />
written while Ngugi was in detention and marked the actual enactment of violence in a<br />
post-colony through the capture and isolation of the body under the guise of the Public<br />
Security Order inherited from the colonial regime. In Detained (1 98 1 a:3), Ngugi<br />
confesses that the novel was written 'with blood, sweet and toil'. Written in one of the<br />
largest prisons in post-colonial Africa, the Ka~niti Maximum Security Prison, this<br />
novel helped Ngugi to keep his sanity. It is significant because it stands as a defiance to<br />
Kenyatta's regime which put him in detention so that his 'mind would turn into a mess<br />
or rot' (Ngugi 198la:lO) which is reminiscent of Gramsci's prosecutor who, under<br />
Mussolini's orders in 1926, asserted: 'We must stop this brain working for twenty<br />
years! ' (Gramsci 197 1 :xviii). Having failed to control Ngugi, the Kenyatta regime<br />
sends him to solitary confinement which is, as Michel Foucault (1984:2 10) reminds us,<br />
'certainly the most frenzied manifestation of power imaginable'. In writing this novel,<br />
Ngugi seems to have refused to succumb to the dictates of violence to which the<br />
Kenyan regime often resorts in silencing all its critics. The novel became Ngugi's<br />
weapon for preserving the body and for overcoming the state of fragmentation imposed<br />
by the regime. Wariinga, the heroine of toil and the harbinger of freedom, whose image<br />
looms large in the text, was conceived in cell 16 in 1978 (Ngugi 198 1a:3). If the<br />
regime's aim was to break Ngugi and to reconfigure his body, in Devil, he turns this<br />
attempt upside down. Instead, it is to the obscene body of the post-colonial regime<br />
weighed down by its 'impotence', that Ngugi directs our laughter. But, first, the content<br />
of Devil on the Cross.<br />
The novel deals with a group of six protagonists travelling together in a matat~l<br />
taxi to Ilmorog. The protagonists discover that they are all mysteriously invited to a<br />
Devil's feast, where thieves and robbers ofKenya enter a competition for the election of<br />
the seven cleverest thieves and robbers. The characters are Wariinga, Wangari,<br />
Gatuiria, Muturi, Mwireri and Mwaura the driver. The narrative operates at two levels:<br />
the allegorical story illustrated by the competition or feast organised by the Devil, and<br />
the Story of Wariinga who is the pivot of the plot. Like Petals ofBlood (1 977), the novel<br />
takes place mainly in Ilmorog and partly in Nairobi. The novel is dedicated to 'all<br />
Kenyans struggling against the neo-colonial stage of imperialism' (Ngugi 1987:5). It is<br />
no wonder, then, that the major trope in Devzl should be neo-colonial dependency, with<br />
the devil on the cross as the structuring symbol. This is best illustrated in Wariinga's<br />
nightmare in whlch the white colonialist devil is crucified by the masses, apparent<br />
reference to political independence, only to be rescued by the local comprador.<br />
Significantly,<br />
[tlhe Devil had two IIIOU~~S, one on his forehead and the other at the back of<br />
h~s head HIS belly sagged, as rfit were about to glve btrth to all the ev~ls of<br />
the world 111s skill was red, 11ke tl~atofap~g (Ngug~ 1987 13)<br />
This is significant because the physical features of the Dew1 draw attention to h ~s<br />
Ngzlg~, the Bod>> and Power<br />
e image that he gives to those that rescue him and in turn serve<br />
, the Devil rewards his rescuers by fattening their bellies. It<br />
ast' is arranged by the local 'thieves' to commemorate a visit<br />
rticularly from America, England, Germany, France, Italy,<br />
s part of 'the International Organisation of Thieves and<br />
vil's feast, where national robbers and their foreign allies<br />
veal their tactics and motives, provides Ngugi with the space for<br />
g, through the grotesque and the obscene, the banality of<br />
. Ngugi uses the Bakhtinian notion of the grotesque and<br />
lers of post-colony into objects of ridicule. But he moves<br />
se of the grotesque and the obscene as vehicles of public ridicule<br />
province of ordinary people. It is to the local comprador<br />
about their cleverness and their cunning on how to steal from<br />
w to bow to foreign control, that the grotesque is restricted. He<br />
how state power-represented by the local co~nprador-draina-<br />
ce through an absurd ceremonial display of their wealth as<br />
ulation by the ruled. It is in this .feast that Ngugi erects the<br />
capitalism as a fetish. The worshippers of the fetish gather to<br />
e fiction of its perfection' (Mbernbe 1992:21). Each and every<br />
stage demonstrates, in their blunt testimonies, that the post-<br />
into a stage for bizarre self-gratification; an absurd display of<br />
s in the feast of 'modern robbery and theft'. The feast<br />
leged language through which power speaks, acts and coerces. The<br />
leader of the foreign delegation of thieves and robbers-he<br />
cal delegates 'to drink the blood of [their] people and to eat their<br />
rial powers have done to the Africans over the centuries], than to<br />
gi 1987:89)-is greed and power magnified to their full and logical<br />
o their essences. Yet the actual idiom ofthis display, its organization<br />
focuses on the body: specifically the belly, the rnouth and the<br />
thieves display striking forms of deformity. Hi? portrayal of the local<br />
e foregrounds the grotesque image of the body in whlch the belly and<br />
out. The satire on the comprador class conveys Ngugl's mockery of<br />
wer, and is best captured In the narrator's graphic descr~pt~on of<br />
u hada belly that p~otruded so tar that it would hdvc touclled thc ground<br />
been supported by the b~aces that held up 111s trousers It seemccl as<br />
had abso~bed all h~s lrrnbs and all the other o1gan5 ot his body<br />
neck-at least. h~s neck W ~ not S vls~blc HIS arms and leg?<br />
ips HIS llead liad shrunk lo the slze of a iist jNgug~ 1987 99)<br />
in the act of becoming: 'it is continually built, created, and