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Dalrick Sambula

Ms. Theresa Coye

African Literature

December 10th, 2019

Violence and Reason

They are all just a response, but what are they responding to? A characteristic of African

literature is the violence it displays in its plot synopsis, weather this be passive or active

violence. The author usually finds ways to sneak it in, even or blatantly display it in their work.

This paper, with help from other sources, will discuss the use of violence in three different

African short stories. The stories are: A Good Solider by Maaza Mengiste, Préférence Nationale

by Fatou Diome and The Moustached Man by Patrice Nganang, these stories will be used to

discuss and examine the reason behind the applied violence. This paper will centre around the

belief that imperial power sill shadows their former colonies which makes its citizens react in

either passive or active violence to gain equality.

The first story, A Good Solider by Maaza Mengiste. The protagonist Benny is yelling

responses to his father's questions. He reflecting back and forth of what his life was and what is

now. He recalls the time before the soldiers returned is father only to take his mother for him to

never see her again. Benny's father then migrates from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to California. On

their way, Benny reminisces on his mother telling him the story of how his father's sweet voice

diverted from music to war cries which the government failed to silence. Upon their arrival to

The U.S.A. Benny’s father then gets a job at a restaurant and is one day recognized by someone
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from back home. It is then we learned the name of Benny's father which is Mesfin Gebregiorgis.

After their confrontation, Mesfin returns home and once again trains Benny until they both start

to cry. This is until Mesfin is captured by the enemy and does the exact thing which he was

training benny not to do, sell out his members.

Violence and its uprising have three causes, either racism, despotic/tranny or patriotism

(Diop, 2002). This then credits the violence in the story as a despotic act as it is a response to the

threat which Mesfin put the government in. The leaders are still imperialized by Italy and are

trying to keep the countries’ wealth and power to themselves. This causes Benny’s father to act

against it and henceforth, causes the leaders to use their force against the people daring to act

against them. Violence is displayed when a party is either seeking, holding or losing power

(Ogunyemi, 2010). The leader’s power was being treated so in order to keep powers, they

committed acts of violence against their people. Mengiste also displays a bit of irony in the story

as soldiers of a country are to protect the people and make them feel safe. In the book, however,

the soldiers did from beat murder and evidence from Benny's mother arrest even suggests rape.

The second story Préférence Nationale by Fatou Diome is about a black woman who is in

France as a result of a failed marriage proposal. The story highlights the difficulty of becoming a

France national much less a citizen due to their slack and strict standards. Following her

proposal, she then takes it upon herself to find employment. She first goes to a bakery where she

describes the blackest thing being the baked baguette. Upon meeting the "Racist" manager

however, she overreacts because she believed she was being patronized. This then leads her to

apply for a French tutoring job, upon meeting the employer who was a cashier at a shop, she got

patronized as well, she then gives the casher a little history lesson on why she is poor before

leaving in anger. Towards the end of the story, the woman looks at a card and call her friend who
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got a job she couldn't, the story ends when she is ridiculing a job allowance card for being

worthless.

In this woman's case, she was reacting the way she was because she was being

marginalized by the people who had the power to employ her. In her article, Faith Smith

suggested that tales and stories of slavery are too painful to pass on to the oncoming generation

(Smith, 2003). The man at the bakery failed to realize that the African people are down because

of the wealth the Europeans robbed them of with little surplus returning to the African people.

(Olusoga, 2015) suggests that the African people should now move on from slavery and focus on

trade as it is now a thing of the past. This argument, however, would be deemed unreasonable as

The Europeans are not as over slavers as yet and evidently at the bakery, they still look down on

the Africans. In the times of the European dominations, the black people were considered

property and not people (Elliott, 2019). The story first introduces this as it mentioned: "They

won’t give me citizenship, but my Senegalese cat has his papers.” This highlights the system of

France and even Europe for not completely being over not just slavery, but a patronizing view of

the Africans. The problem emerges deeper as she was also told by the cashier that she doesn't

want her child's education to be corrupted by outsiders. It is then the woman responded in the

passive violent act in which she did. Her frustration stemmed from the years of rape and poverty

not done to her. But by the African people who fell victim to the European powers and influence,

they were too weak to fight off at the moment. Her violent reaction via frustration can also be

ladled by the reader as another direct response to the unappreciation the society has on the

peasants of a country. In the book, the author also makes mention of the peasants being under-

appreciated and overworked without acknowledgment.

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The final book The Moustached Man by Patrice Nganang, the protagonist Ngono is

introduced when he was running from a crowd while having a flashback in Germany. Ngono is

scolded by his ancestors for being a coward and running away from a "white man" who is just a

man like himself. Upon this realization, Ngono then turns back and decided to fight, the

frustration and violence grow tenser as the brawl gets bigger. Ngono then hits a man who he

recalls only having a mustache. As the fight continues, Ngono starts throwing rocks before the

police come and arrest him. After giving his report describing a "mustache Hitler" he then

receives bail and walks out the police station.

(Diop, 2002) referred to the three causes of violence caused which are racism,

despotic/tranny or patriotism. On both sides, the violence was by different motives. Ngono was

being patriotic culturally due to him speaking to his ancestors before perusing the men. Though it

may seem ironic, his attack was in the name of love to his culture as him returning to fight was

his response to go against the coward stereotype his culture faces in his home country of

Cameroon. The men however were racist as evident due to the name calling Ngono was

receiving and exchanging with them. Violence is a common human behaviour which occurs

throughout the wold, the types of violence however are categorized (Jacquin, n.d.). He also

suggested the types of violence which range anywhere between homicide to murder. In the event

of the brawl, Ngono experiences and conflicts assault as he attacks the three men and they fight

back. Ngono also portrays frustrated Africa skewering the leftovers of European power trying to

find their identity through frustration and of course violence. As the story progresses Ngono is

conflicting between staying true to his homeland in Europe or accepting the stereotype of a

coward derived from an African stereotype.

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Twentieth-century African literature has now become a defied example or portrayal for

displaying violence to get through and over their past (Baise, 2001). In A Good Solider, Benny's

father responds to the imperial power influencing his people with a war cry. This forces the

solders to respond to them with forced suppression. While the woman in Nationale Préférence is

responding to the years of raping from her homeland which left her and her people hungry. She

has no other choice but to passively resort to violence like the ones who cut off her hope are still

cutting off her food source driving her to frustration. Ngono is responding to the continued insult

his African people still face even after the "European Terror" ended on his people. The three

protagonists are responding to the relic of the European power and the psychological trauma they

are left with after the years of being stepped on by European domination. Another reason is that

African societies have failed to create a national interrogation following post-colonial times

(Diop, 2002). This would mean that the brainwashing which the European pursued on the

Africans would still be present even the decades after their given independence. Without the

presence of a nationalist goal and the division of ethnic identity. The nation would suffer from a

weak base causing then vulnerable to the slightest wind or imperial power. Benny's father tried to

establish a base but was quickly shut down by his government. The division of their ethnic

identity didn't allow rooms for optimization and this, therefore, led the government to suppress

any means of patriotic violence with vitriolic violence.

(Jolly, 1996) questions if violence in African literature can be displayed without a feeling

of conservation to not make the victim seem marginalized or ladled. This, however, would be

insulting to the Africans given their years of violence history not only from colonialism but also

imperial effects. The woman in Nationale Préférence is trying to not seem petty as she tries to get

a job. She however can't help but remember or acknowledge the situation she is in is caused by
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the Europeans continued misplaced treatment towards them and their people. She further

expresses her disappointment or justifies her violence. This is in the form of the history lesson.

She tries to give the reader an understanding of why she responded the way she did not just being

an angry misplaced African in European displaced society. (Jolly, 1996) The theory also

examines The Moustache man as Ngono in the heat of the moment realized his slave ancestors

didn't. He realized the brainwash was something he could now resist. Realizing this Ngono

decided to fight back the Germans he no longer saw as white, but rather as men like himself who

he then violently resisted in of himself and also of his African people who suffered for years in

the hands of the European men, and their influence. A Good Solder’s use of violence was a

contemporary act against the injustice being displayed at the time. The far cry from equality

which forces the band to sift from love songs to war messages.

Violent acts, however, are not always armed conflicts as we saw in Préférence Nationale. The

name of the story itself hints that there would be some form of violence whether it would be

passive-aggressive. In some means, violence or the rebellious act was just used as a method to

accept a deeply flawed world. (Baise, 2001). Préférence Nationale, the woman was qualified

even if she wasn't educated (which she is) to sell bread. The employers' bias towards her,

however, questioned not her reason to work with her, but her reason to even be in the country.

The woman knew from the get-go that she wouldn't be hired for the job therefore, she must keep

on looking if she wants to eat (make money to survive). She accepts the fact that the world isn't

perfect but she also doesn't accept how she was rejected. Before the man even refused her

services she hysterically refuses feeling down but also acknowledges the fact that that’s just the

way life is. The woman finally accepts the fact that it is an unfair world as she sits looking at her

card and reflecting on the irony it displays.

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Violence in another instance is a direct response to social, political and economic

conditions (Diop, 2002). Ngono was an African man from Cameroon who was in Germany. His

skin color, however, landed him in the bottom of the hierarchy in that contemporary time. This is

because there was only a hand full of Africans in Germany and it wasn't this diverse nation it is

today. Ngono could have tried to fight it, it wouldn't change the fact, however, that he would

have had to face the German men who were chasing him like an animal down the street. Ngono

reacted and attacked the men because he was trying to prove that the social hierarchy was just an

ideology created by the Europeans to divide the people they deemed unfit to call their own.

Benny's case is more political as the narrator describes the setting as gunshot ringing at night

while the soldiers were bursting in and out of people's homes. The upstir was a political response

of the band his father founded and, on both sides, a violent response only seemed right to

prolong what would be a revolution on both sides. In this case, Benny's father was playing

offense trying to create equality while the government, the imperialist government was still

clouded by the Italian perspective and believed they had no choice but to defend this ideology

they bought from the Italians. The woman from the final story was reacting against the

economics agenda. She was frustrated (as mentioned) that the man who she loved, had sex with

and believed in left her high and dry he was done with her. She further expresses her

disappointment with the lady who refused to hire her just because she was from something that

used to be.

Though important for society or progress to function, violence can cause stress to those who

may experience or come across it (Jacquin, n.d.). The lady from Préférence Nationale admitted to

herself that the man may not have been racist, rather, it could have been her paranoia getting the

best of her. This, if have been true cost, could have cost her other great jobs had the story
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progressed. She also admitted she didn't phone her friend because she would have heard about it

which she was trying to avoid. Benny, being exposed to such violence at such a young age. Also

suffered from paranoia, his father may have tried to hide it but it was evident even he did as he

did the exact thing, he was trying to stop benny from doing. The story there ends when he finally

gave in crying and sobbing because he knew he had given into the stress he tried so hard to

rebuttal. Ngono had a history of violence as well. This is evident when he punches the man and

tries to figure out where the strength came from. The evidence becomes clearer as he frequently

communicates with his ancestors who are not there.

African Literature has a history of violence which is sometimes questioned by scholars. The

reason for their violence, however, are responses to their post-colonial and imperial history

which history itself fails to document. Though the violence displayed is not always blatant, they

usually resemble events and time which by the "documented rule of history" always fails to

acknowledge. This becomes more evident as we read books such as genocide, continued racism,

and extreme imperial influence or influences. Stories in which events such as these are evident

are:: A Good Solider by Maaza Mengiste, Préférence Nationale by Fatou Diome and The

Moustached Man by Patrice Nganang. The authors then try to use or uses violence as a reminder

that imperial power still exists and needs to be removed by any means necessary to move

forward.

Works Cited
Baise, E. J. (2001). Violence in Literature - Introduction. Retrieved from
https://www.enotes.com/topics/violence-literature-97
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Diop, O. C. (2002, January ). Violence in African literature.

Elliott, M. (2019, August 19). The Unvarnished Truth. New York, New York, New York.

Jacquin, K. M. (n.d.). Violence Behaviour. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/violence

Jolly, R. J. (1996). Colonization, Violence, and Narration in White South African Writing. South Africa.

Ogunyemi, C. (2010, December 6). Violence in African American Literature: A Comparative Analysis.
Sweden.

Olusoga, D. (2015, 8 September). The roots of European racism lie in the slave trade, colonialism.

Smith, F. (2003, September). Finding Words in an Age of Violence.