The Sunday Mail
Non-conformism is the hallmark, tragedy and (rarely) triumph of the young reader.
The impressionable mind stumbles upon Fanon and Marechera and work hard at — as Ruzvidzo Mupfudza would say — “slaying your father”.
You believe you know better. You must destroy the idols on your father’s altar and erect your own monument to self.
It is all part of the journey to self-discovery.
Part of non-conformism, for me, was turning my nose up at Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”.
The book was standard fare in Literature in English classes and was so roundly celebrated that I, being the know-it-all non-conformist, decided I would not give it my time of day.
I studied enough of it to get over 50 percent in an assignment, and smugly put the text away knowing I would simply not answer a question on it in any final exam.
Until my older sister very usefully informed me that the person who will not read is worse than the one who cannot read.
So back to Achebe and Okonkwo I went, and I have never regretted any page turned.
Each new reading of that book, written 59 years ago, brings new wonders; each fresh insight explains why Rino Zhuwarara is enamoured of it; each new contextualisation why George Charamba waxes lyrical about it.
Consider Unoka’s indolent and gripping entry into the tale.
“Unoka … was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbours and made merry.
“He always said that whenever he saw a dead man’s mouth he saw the folly of not eating what one had in one’s lifetime.”
Every time I picture Unoka pityingly shaking his head at the sight of the mouth of a dead man who did not eat all he had, I both laugh and shudder. Do we not see that in our own land? Living and spending as if there is no tomorrow?
Back to the story.
“He was very good on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace.
“Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. Sometimes another village would ask Unoka’s band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with them and teach them their tunes…”
So we have a poor man enjoying a life of leisure. Sounds familiar?
“He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing more, and piling up his debts.”
We all know someone like that. Every neighbourhood has that one chap we all vow never to give a cent to again but find ourselves — either because we have been sweet-talked or we feel for the family — extending another helping hand to; knowing full well we will curse when the money is inevitably put to horrible use with no prospects of being paid back.
Let’s continue.
“One day a neighbour called Okoye came in to see him (Unoka) … Okoye was also a musician. He played on the ogene. But he was not a failure like Unoka. He had a large barn full of yams and he had three wives. And now he was going to take the Idemili title, the third highest in the land.”
Ah, so it is possible to talk a good game and still be successful! Are the pieces coming together? Anyway, we proceed to the conversation between Okoye and Unoka.
“It was a very expensive (Idemili) ceremony and he (Okoye) was gathering all his resources together. That was in fact the reason why he had come to see Unoka. He cleared his throat and began: ‘Thank you for the kola. You may have heard of the title I intend to take shortly.’
“Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
“Okoye was a great talker and he spoke for a long time, skirting round the subject and then hitting it finally. In short, he was asking Unoka to return the two hundred cowries he had borrowed from him more than two years before.
“As soon as Unoka understood what his friend was driving at, he burst out laughing. He laughed loud and long and his voice rang out clear as the ogene, and tears stood in his eyes. His visitor was amazed, and sat speechless. At the end, Unoka was able to give an answer between fresh outbursts of mirth.
“‘Look at that wall,’ he said, pointing at the far wall of his hut, which was rubbed with red earth so that it shone. ‘Look at those lines of chalk,’ and Okoye saw groups of short perpendicular lines drawn in chalk. There were five groups, and the smallest group had ten lines. Unoka had a sense of the dramatic and so he allowed a pause, in which he took a pinch of snuff and sneezed noisily, and then he continued:
“‘Each group there represents a debt to someone, and each stroke is one hundred cowries. You see, I owe that man a thousand cowries. But he has not come to wake me up in the morning for it. I shall pay you, but not today. Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them. I shall pay my big debts first.’
“And he took another pinch of snuff, as if that was paying the big debts first. Okoye rolled his goatskin and departed.”
Do we now see the Unoka in us as a nation? Yes we have the humour, yes we have the brilliant turn of phrase. But is that all there is to living in a community? Is that how states subsist in the comity of nations?
Zimbabwe has huge debts. Some stats put them at around US$10 billion. And the reality is that our standing in the family of nations is compromised by not honouring these debts.
Yes, the West screwed us, to put it mildly.
As a good global corporate citizen, we inherited a US$700 million debt from Ian Smith — who we were fighting — in 1980. Thereafter, we listened to the counsel of Bretton-Woods, in good faith, and piled on the debt.
Now we owe plenty of cowries and the truth is we can’t pay them overnight.
(Besides, the United States owes US$16 trillion, at the very least, which it is not going to pay and our US$10 billion is like the “few” cowries Unoka owed Okoye.)
But we have the uppermost responsibility to manage our debt.
So firstly, Zimbabwe should start negotiations to establish reasonable terms to settle its arrears, and we should begin those negotiations in good faith and within the national interest.
That is our responsibility as debtors and it is in our national interest to take those first steps if we ever dream of accessing significant lines of credit from bilateral or multilateral sources.
Secondly, we must learn not to borrow unnecessarily and also learn that we should not borrow on bad terms.
Let us learn and deploy the art and science of practical negotiation.
And thirdly, we need to learn how to manage our spending so that we can free up the available resources for domestic investment in the things that matter, and not in trinkets like pricey imported cars for public officials.
We gain nothing in being hard-headed and fast-mouthed when confronted with our obligations.
It is good that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, at his inauguration, spoke extensively about how Zimbabwe intends to be an upright member of the international community.
Let us deploy our ingenuity into putting Zimbabwe back into good standing and not use our sooth tongues to wriggle out of debt while plunging the country into pariah-hood.
We should walk the talk. Zimbabwe is not Unoka.
