II.4. CONTEXT OF THE
POEM
On the one hand song of Lawino, which is a narrative
poem, describes how Lqwino's husband, Ocol, who is the son of the tribal leader
of their specific Acoli tribe, has taken a new wife. Although Ocol's polygamy
is accepted by society, and by Lawino herself, it is apparent from his actions
(as described by Lawino) that he is shunning her in favour of his new wife.
Ocol is also said to have a fascination with the culture of the white
colonialists, as does Clementine as an example of this, Lawino says Ocol no
longer engages, or has any interest in, the ritualistic dance but prefers the
ballroom style dances introduced by colonizing Europeans. This loss of culture
on the part of Ocol is what disturbs Lawino to Ocol to stay true to his own
customs, and to abandon his desire to be white.
Song of Lawino is text that illustrates the very
notice-able effects that can be achieved when developing stands of argument are
skillfully integrated within the total form of polemic poem. The work, a long
narrative lament that runs through thirteen separate episodes, from the slyly
funny «woman with whom I share my husband» to «from the mouth of
which river?», represents an extended dramatic monologue with the
lamenting argument coming from the wife of Ocol, a chief's son.
It is important to note, however, that while Lawino's lament
is aimed primarily at her husband (in the first instance), the poem, as a
whole, works as a comprehensive satiric assault. The assault, as Ngugi has
pointed out, quoted by BEELER KARIN (1993:34), is «on the African
middle-class elite that has so unabashedly embraced western bourgeois values
and modes of life»; thus song of Lawino operates within both an
individual and a collective frame of reference, with Lawino's biting comments
constantly extending the arena of polemical debate away from her husband and
towards a general critic of the traditional-modern confrontation in Africa.
The generalizing process can be seen through out the poem in
section where Lawino lashes out at her husband's sexual neglect of her, seeing
his neglect as evidence of a wider problem:
«For all our young men
Were finished in the forest,
Their manhood was finished
In the class-rooms,
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books» (SOL, P.
117).
Here the personal experience is widened into a critic of a
whole generation. Larger questions regarding the concept of manhood, the
significance of «book-leaning» are brought into play as part of the
poem's polemic values (compared with modern) as being meaningfully coherent
values, values that should retain their place in contemporary Africa. All that
Lawino asks is that her husband should stop his insults, should stop being
half-crazy that he should consider her view, the ways of your ancestors/ are
good/ their customs are solid/ and not hollow/ they are not thin, not easily
breakable/ they cannot be blown away/ by the winds; (SOL, P. 41), because their
roots reach deep into the soil.
Okot P'Bitek allows Lawino to ask some pointed political
questions: what is the meaning of Uhuru? Why do the political parties of the
post- Uhuru period which both claim to fight for peace and against poverty,
split of the nation (U ganda) into hostile group? Why do they not join hands?
The poet leads Lawino to a strikingly effective metaphoric summation of
situation (SOL, P.111).
Lawino as a socio-political observer is allowed to conclude
that if only the parties would like fight poverty with the fury with which they
fight each other, that if only disease and ignorance were assaulted with the
deadly vengeance with which «Ocol assaults his mother' son then «the
enemies would have been greatly reduced by now». By careful control of the
twin polemical strands, Okot successfully broadness the traditional-modern
debate into an area where a possible reconciliation of competinglife-styles can
be considered:
I do not block my husband/ from his new life/ if he likes, let
him build for her/ an iron roofed house on the hill! / I do not complain, / my
grass thatched house is enough for me. (SOL, P.41).
On the other hand, song of Ocol, which was written
after song of Lawino is Lawino's husband responds to her lament,
expressing his disgust for African ways and the destructive force of his
self-hatred: smash all these mirrors/ that I may not see/ the blackness of the
past/ from which I came/ reflected in them»Rather than reflecting the
superiority of western civilization, Ocol's voice has been characterized as an
enraged, violent outpouring against Africa and African culture.
To close these lines, Okot asks us to prevent our culture from
western influence and do not despise cultures of other people: «don't you
look down upon your own; occasional treats you can never depend upon don't
uproot the cultures of your land». (SOL, P.41).
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