A Tussle for Decolonization of the Mind: Representation of the Whiteman in “A Grain of Wheat”

The main aim of this paper is to critically examine the representation of the Whiteman (the colonizer) in the African prose narrative context and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “A Grain of Wheat” specifically. The thrust has emerged from the main concepts of the binary opposites postulated by the critic Franz Fanon regarding the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Hence, the postcolonial theory is adopted as a literary analytical theoretical framework in this paper, for it works as a boundary line that explicates such texts. Via a close analysis of the selected text based on the tenants of postcolonialism, orientalism, Occidentalism its concluded that A Grain of Wheat is one of the literary texts that represents African elites’ tussle for decolonizing the mind.


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Published by SCHOLINK INC. the passage of time (Heart of Darkness, the Dark Continent). Though, the basic identity as an African is not in doubt, an aspect of cultural heritage and identity is subjected to such a wide range variety of interpretations. That is, the most important problems related to African literature and novel in particular are the problem of representation and how for an African writer to present his own culture and heritage in a language that was not originally set for expressing Africanness of a literary text. The other problem which a colonial or postcolonial African literary text faces is the operational methodology: that is; how to theorize and how to use and apply these theories (specially the post-colonial ones which are built upon the idea of binary opposites) in the analyses and criticism of the African texts.

Methodology
This paper is a descriptive analytical research primarily depicts the idea of the binary opposites in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "A Grain of Wheat", with special focus on Black/White, Colonized/colonizer, outsider/insider and Self/Other dichotomies. "A Grain of Wheat", is used as the main source of primary data and textual analysis is done, guided by the tenets of the postcolonial theory.
Descriptions of actions and scenes, analyses of characters and language provide data for this study and are used to present the main arguments. Through close textual reading of the novel, changing circumstances of the characters, plot and the narrators' point of view, we investigate strategies employed by the author to map paths for emancipation of their characters, hence help finding the intriguing facts about the tussle for freedom and decolonization of the mind. Postcolonial theory with its different turns will be used as a literary approach and theoretical framework in this paper.

Theoretical Framework
In this paper, postcolonial theory is adopted as a literary framework for the analysis of the primary text.
According to Bhabha (1994, p. 171), postcolonial criticism "bears witness to the unequal and universal forces of cultural representation" that are involved in a constant competition for political and economic control in the contemporary world. Moreover, Bhabha (1994, p. 171) sees postcolonial critique emerging from colonial experiences. He argues: "Postcolonial perspectives emerge from the colonial testimony of Third World countries and the discourses of 'minorities' within the geopolitical divisions of East and West, North and South. They intervene in those ideological discourses of modernity that attempt to give a hegemonic 'normality' to the uneven development and the differential, often disadvantaged, histories of nations, race, communities, peoples. Postcolonial theory formulates its critique around the social histories, cultural differences and political discrimination".
Hence, the colonial discourse and its aftermath have deepened the idea of centralizing the European languages and culture, which consequently led to a breakthrough in the tussle for liberation by the colonized. Ashcroft et al. (1998, p. 14)  Orientalism.
According to Young (2001, pp. 383-426), postcolonial theory as a "political discourse" emerged mainly from experiences of oppression and struggles for freedom after the "tricontinental" awakening in Africa, Asia and Latin America: the continents associated with poverty and conflict. Postcolonial criticism focuses on the oppression and coercive domination that operate in the contemporary world (Young, 2001, p. 11).
Postcolonial literary theory can be defined as a dialectical discourse which broadly marks the historical facts of sociocultural decolonization, national liberation and identity actualization. It allows people emerging from socio-political and economic domination to reclaim their sovereignty; it gives them a negotiating space for equity. A number of theorists share this view, including Kenyatta (1968, p. 36); Bhabha (1994);Spivak (1988, pp. 197-221); Ashcroft et al. (1989Ashcroft et al. ( , 1995. The closely related theory is Occidentalism which is "the expression of a constitutive relationship between Western representations of cultural difference and worldwide Western dominance" (Coronil, 1996, p. 57). But it does not represent the counterpart of post colonialism or Orientalism, but its precondition, a discourse from and about the West that sets the stage for discourses about the West's Other(s)-i.e., for Orientalism. Compared to colonialism, Occidentalism is the base upon which most of the colonizer/colonized differences were best articulated, as Mignolo (2000, p. 13) states: If racism is the matrix that permeates every domain of the imaginary of the modern/colonial world system, "Occidentalism" is the overarching metaphor around which colonial differences have been articulated and rearticulated through the changing hands in the history of capitalism … and the changing ideologies motivated by imperial conflicts.
They are that overarching metaphorical and differences, ideologically articulated otherness and the colonized/colonizer dichotomies fused with the imperial conflicts, which this paper attempts to overshadow via a close examination and critical analysis of A Grain of Wheat as a Colonial and Postcolonial text. Although, the basic premise of Ngugi seems to have been re-tracing the post-colonial history of the mother-land Kenya and exposing the colonizers' dictums of civilizing the darkest continents but at the undercurrent he cannot help representing them. His basic source for counter-discourse is none else but Conrad, who infused a spirit of rebellion in Achebe as well. Ngugi maintains that Conrad's justification of one type of imperialism slightly better than the other, in fact, impairs his vision. In one of his interviews Ngugi talked of Conrad and his concept of imperialism in the following way,

Conrad is very despondent when he comes to portraying workers' efforts to overthrow it or when he portrays people over racists in Africa in the Heart of Darkness or Asians in Lord Jim and others.
There the people are made to look as if they were waiting for their parents or a white hero would come and save them (Rao, 2009, p. 167).
But Ngugi does not present the whites as torch-bearers or harbingers of a new civilization on a divine mission to civilize educate and deliver them from the clutches of backwardness, irrationality, dogmatic beliefs and darkest holes, rather he presents them as colonizers, usurpers and a band of ruthless people who have ruined the African civilization. And as Kenneth Harrow notes, even, "the storm aptly suggests the pervasive destruction caused by the white man's arrival and invasion" (Harrow, 2010, p. 251).

Theological Debates and Duplicitous Whites
Ngugi's representation of the colonizers is subtle, mostly implicit and holistic. Whenever he refers to them through different characters or through an omniscient narrator, he takes them, on the whole, aiming at hegemonism and expansionism. Taking a holistic picture, the natives deem the whites virtually responsible for all the wrongs done to them. When the whites arrived in Kenya, they were perceived as "people with clothes like butterflies … strangers with a scalded skin. … a" and even for a church they were "given a temporary shelter" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 10). All this reflecting that the whites, though welcomed for their religious practices, were not identical with Africans and were regarded as Others right from their advent. The whites are shown as hypocritical, perfidious and duplicitous who enshrouded themselves in the religious robe to justify their claims of the natives and to ascribe a holy and divine justification to their advent in Kenya. But, the natives would perceive the whites as strangers; thus amplifying and alluding to them as different and alienating themselves from them. The whites were hailed and identified as strangers, because the Kenyans would find no point of affinity and assimilation with them. They also gave a contemptuous and scornful look to their scalded skin, which was so scalded that, "the black outside had peeled off" (Ibid). So for the natives, the burnt skin of the whites would qualify them as nothing but the Others. It revealed to them that the whites were not even complete and perfect human beings and the Whiteness was but a deformity and a lack which would give natives a reason to glee. The natives express their apprehensions at the Christian myths narrated to them about crucifixion and the concept of trinity. It was virtually a naïve idea to them that, "God would let himself be nailed to a tree" (Ibid)? For them, God was the ultimate authority who was over and above everything and not dependent on anyone or not liable to punishment by any force whatsoever.
But here, the whites are shown luring the natives by the religious hymns and imperceptibly acquiring more land. The initial acquiescence of the Whiteman's philanthropist deeds was now being replaced by the growing anger among the elders who thought they were hoodwinked and duped by the deceitful whites. The elders of the land protested and "they looked beyond the laughing face of the white man and suddenly saw a long line of other red strangers who carried, not the Bible, but the sword" (Ibid).
These swords are "Whiteman's swords hung dangerously above people's necks to protect them from their brethren in the forest" (Ibid). As far as the religious teachings and interpretations were concerned, the whites used to misconstrue, distort and twist the Biblical notions for their own good and ends. For example, when Kihika was a school boy, his teacher interpreted the lines from Bible, talking of the circumcision of women and calling it a heathen custom, and authoritatively announced that, "as Christians we are forbidden to carry on such practices" (Ibid), to which Kihika did not agree and said, "This is not true, sir" "What!"

The Whites as Others/Outcasts
In addition, it appears that the whites were treated as outcasts and therefore were given a place to erect a temporary shelter yards away, implying that the essential differences between the whites and blacks were like two banks of the river never to be bridged up. Moreover, the natives would deem their teachings not worth an iota of seriousness and would rather term the whites as mad men whose senses might have ceased and "the hot water must have gone into his head" (Ibid). Religion apart, even the designs of cultural and political expansionism convinced the natives of the eccentricity of the whites.
When the white man expounded that there was another country, "beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow to cover the Agikuyu. They laughed at this eccentric man" (Ibid). All the above three things namely; the rule of the woman, the homage paid to her by all men and women and the Queen of England's aspiration to spread her benevolence over the Kenyans and conquer Kenya showed nothing but backwardness and impotency on the part of the whites especially when compared with the Kenyans. It was so because the Kenyans had already experienced the rule of the women years ago and had undergone the period of political transition and evolution already, but the whites were shown experimenting with the out-dated and obsolete methods the Kenyans were done with. And it was only by impregnating the women that the Kenyans brought an end to the rule of the women. But, the whites have not been able to do so, thus appearing impotent for the above job. Harrow Kenneth encapsulates the whole situation in the following words; The protecting shadow of the Christian woman, the white man's benevolence and protection that hang over the land like a sword only form part of the larger irony of history for which the appearance of changing events is belied by the recurrence of oppression (Harrow, 2010, p. 258).
Another reason for the inability of the women to rule is narrated a bit later when a woman ruler is narrated to have "overreached herself, removing all her clothes, she danced naked in the moonlight" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 10). The men were awe struck and, "the moon played on her: an ecstasy, a mixture of agony and joy hovered on the woman's face. Perhaps she, too, knew this was the end: a woman never walked or danced naked in public. She was removed from the throne" (Ibid). So, it was on a premise that women were unable to rule and they were prone to swaying in the flow of emotions combined with a very deep sense of superiority imbibed in the very genesis of the natives' civilization that labeled the whites as strange, eccentric and insane. They are shown to be weaker selves incapable of having the reins of their kingdom and women in their hands.

The Tyrannous Whites
The whites are shown as ruthless and violent creature unleashing terminal wrath over the natives for their rebellion and non-compliance. Kihika's fiery speeches inflamed the people and recharged them against the whites' occupations of their lands. His dissenting note appealed to the people and they applauded when he un-earthed the whites' schemes. The whites were portrayed by him as shrewd, cunning and highly mischievous working for nothing else but for the sake of the Queen and the British Raj. He was worshipped as a hero but then, his tragic fate doomed him to the end when, after being trespassed by a fellow named Mugo, he was hanged. He was made a horrible example and his body lay dangling on the tree for many days. The imaging of the whites as tyrants was not confined to the Kenyans borders only; rather it included all those parts of the world where the British had subjugated the lands and the people in order to execute their colonial agenda. When Kihika and Wambuku are discussing the foreign occupation of the Kenyan lands, they explicitly deem the whites as thieves and dacoits saying, "in any case, whether the land was stolen from Gikuyu, Ukabi or Nandi, it does not belong to the white man" (Ibid). The enslavement and imprisonment of the black emerging voices against this tyranny was expedited by the whites at large to teach them the lessons. However, as a counter strategy, the blacks, in their private parties, would carry out the mimicry of the whites and make fun of them through mock-imitation. One such example is at the tea party where at the announcement of the tea being ready Wambuku asked, "Have you become the Europeans, taking tea outside in the wind?
"Yes, yes, true Europeans but for the black skin", Karanja replied, imitating a drawling European voice.

Knowledge and Power Nexus
In their portrayal of the whites, the natives portray them as essentially biased and indifferent to the blacks, with certain pre-meditated and inherited hatred towards them. They are shown having unjust opinions and observations of the natives and unable to think with impartiality. Particularly, the administrative machinery and the missionaries were never free of these follies of exhibiting their bias towards Africa and Africans evidently. For example, when one of the forest researchers aims at establishing the research centre at Githima, "he wrote letters to anybody of note and even unsuccessfully sought an interview with the Governor. Mad they thought him: science in dark Africa" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 33)? Science could not be introduced in Africa, merely because it was a dark continent; it was such a cogent justification for the scientific mind of the whites! At another occasion the whites are shown sparing no moment and opportunity to belittle, undermine and stereotype the that the whites have been able to maintain their control, otherwise the whites are inherently so coward that, Napoleon's "voice alone made the British urinate and shit on their calves inside their houses" (Ibid). The British are tricksters and are enveloping their cowardice in such unmanly guises.
In A Grain of Wheat, at many occasions, the natives portray the whites as compiling, editing and propagating many negative epithets about them. For example, Thompson, a civil servant in Africa, scribbled notes about the Africans titled as Prospero in Africa, which run like the following: "The Negro is a child, and with children, nothing can be done without the use of authority" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 10), and later on he maintains that Suddenly, I spat into his face. I don't know why, but I did it (Ibid).

The Subversion of Postcolonial Epithets
The whites as portrayed by Ngugi in this novel are reduced to the size of the dwarfs because of their irrational, prejudiced, immoral and inhumanly behaviours throughout. Ngugi's reading of the whites' confessional thoughts reveals that the natives look at the whites through dark glasses, taking them to be evils incarnate. The very irrationality that the whites ascribe to the blacks seems to have interwoven into their own character. That is why when he spat into the Negro's face he did it out of no reason at all.
Moreover, labeling Africans as actors, passing stereotypical statements, thinking of them as nothing more than children all these depict whites as suffering from many character-complexes in the eyes of the natives. Quite interestingly, the blacks, who themselves were subject to the charges of idleness and lethargy, labeled whites with the same as the story of Gikonyo-a black's rise to wealth, although on a small scale, carried a moral every mother in Thabai pointed out to her children saying, "his wife and his aged mother need no longer go rub skirts with other women in the market. This is only so because their son was not afraid to make his hands dirty. He never slept to midday like a European" (Ibid).
The blacks' perception of the whites as oppressors and exploiters is manifest at many occasions. The whites, through their bottle-necked tight control of the commercial as well as political empires strengthened their grip and maneuvered the system for their own benefit. The police stations were yet another example and Kihika could not help saying, "destroy that, and the white man is gone, he rules with the gun, the lives of all the black people in Kenya" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 10 speaker, people would sing: Kenya is the country of the black people (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 65).
In this way not only they show their resentment towards the oppressive forces of the whites but repudiate their claims of being the masters of the Kenyan land and populace. So much so, that even the train which was introduced by the colonizers in Kenya, was thought to be an iron snake, that terrified the blacks in the beginning but later on they came to know that, "the snake was harmless, that the red strangers themselves were touching it" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 71). This was a sigh of relief for the blacks and it manifested the mistrust in everything that belonged to the red strangers. It were these red strangers "who had ended the tribal wars to begin the world wars" (Ibid), thus threatening rather ruining the world peace, as native noticed and perceived it.
The slow and lazy manners adopted by the blacks are an example of imitation and blabbed talk to scorn and belittle the whites through stereotyping. The mimicking and miming of the whites continues in the stories of Gatu who narrates an unexpected meeting with the Queen of England in the detainees' camp. The above extract from the novel encapsulates the whole miming drama and the stereotypical discourse that not only focused on the common whites but instead also targeted the highest and the noblest figure no less than the Queen of England. The mimicry of her manners of discourse as well as her gait reduces her to the stature of a laughing stock for the blacks and becomes the source of amusement for them. It also refers to the westerner's "moral laxity and sexual degeneracy" (McLeod, 2007, p. 22 Margery looked up at him, but said nothing" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 166).
So, the freedom movements and blacks' rebellion against the whites are looked down upon by the whites and in their underestimation of the blacks they are convinced that the blacks are incapable of self rule and cannot sustain and survive without the governing structures and the white administrators.
Again, Ngugi shows to the readers the unmasked faces of the whites who consider themselves inevitable and indispensable for the survival of the blacks. But Margery's silent and dubious stare at Thompson does not seem to reinforce his ideas and notions.
However, the blacks' valuation of the whites, till the very end of the novel, remained consistent. They considered the faces of the whites as "inscrutable" (Ibid, which is a synonymous of mysterious, and the mystery enshrouded their faces because of their mistrust in the blacks, that is why whenever they looked at Mugo, they looked with, "cold eyes" (Ibid). This leads us to yet another episode where these cold eyes and inscrutable faces behave very unpredictably and display unmanly manners. Hear? Because they want the reward" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 199).
There is no doubt that this hatred begot hatred in the very hearts of the blacks as well. Therefore, a day before the Uhuru, Koina entered into Dr. Lynd's house and shouted at her saying, "'Let me never see you again in this country', he told her as he felled her dog with panga blows, 'do you hear? Let me never see your face in Kenya again '!" (Thiong'o, 1996, p. 21).
All these situations ended up when the blacks moved into the forest taking up arms and fighting for their rights. Now, the whites were perceived as nothing else but enemies.

Conclusion
The multiplied hatred towards the whites was mainly because they considered the blacks as sub-humans or animals, always behaving wildly and never succumbing to the whites' civilized dictums.
Moreover, they also had the realization that whites' usurpation of their material resources is wholly unjustified. In fact Ngugi believed that if colonialism involves colonizing the mind, then resistance to it requires decolonization of the mind, and therefore, in this process of decolonization the iconoclastic images of the whites were to be removed, broken and made to crumble down from the minds of the colonized. Thus, he like Achebe endeavors to establish the identity of the colonized and label the whites with all the stereotypes that they would profusely use for the natives.