A Far Cry from Africa by Derek Walcott

A FAR CRY FROM AFRICA

 Derek Walcott

Derek Alton Walcott (1930-2017) was a Caribbean poet and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. The major theme that Derek Walcott discusses in ‘A Far Cry from Africa’ (1962) is split identity, as evidenced by the ambivalence of the speaker who has connections to both Africa and England. He had both white and black grandparents.

The poem explores the history of a specific uprising in Kenya (Mau Mau Uprising) then occupied by British in the 1952-60. Certain members of the local Kikuyu tribe, (Mau Mau Fighters) fought a violent 8-year-long campaign against the settlers, whom they saw as illegal trespassers on their land.

                     

     Stanza 1

 A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt

 Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,

 Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.

A breeze ruffles or lifts Africa’s brown-yellow fur of Africa. (The brownish yellow is the common colour of African landscape). People from the Kikuyu tribe fasten themselves to the veins of the grassland, as fast and lively as flies.

Africa is compared to an animal with yellow-brown fur.  Kikuyu is the name of a native tribe in Kenya. They are compared to flies- buzzing around the animal ‘Africa’. They are feeding on blood, which is plenty like streams.

Pelt- the skin of an animal with fur on it.

Veldt- (African plain) flat open land with grass and no trees.

Corpses are scattered through a paradise.

Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:

 "Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"

The landscape of Africa is littered with corpses. The poet compares his land to a paradise. Only the worm, who is the colonel of decaying dead bodies cries out: “Don’t feel sympathy for each of these dead people.” The dead are irrelevant. The victims somehow got what they deserved.

Carrion- the decaying bodies of dead animals.

 Statistics justify and scholars seize

 The salients of colonial policy.

People use statistics to justify colonialism, scholars jump on different facts about colonialism to debate it. Walcott is describing the Mau Mau uprising against British colonists in Kenya during the 1950s. At first, the poet blames the victims, now he blames those who forced the colonial system onto Kenya and polarized the people.  

 What is that to the white child hacked in bed?

 To savages, expendable as Jews?

What do these abstract discussion matter to a white child of a settler family who was chopped to death (murdered) in bed? What does it matter if the native Africans, who are treated as savages, are seen as worthless as Jews in Nazi concentration camps? (Their reasons will not matter to the ‘white child’ who has been murdered because of his white colour, in retaliation by Mau Mau fighters, who are treated as savages.) The word ‘savage’ is used to present the British colonialist’s point of view.

Hacked- hit, cut, chopped

Expendable- think it is acceptable if they are killed.

  Stanza 2

 Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break

 In a white dust of ibises whose cries

 Have wheeled since civilization's dawn

 From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.

In the second stanza, Walcott returns to the images of African wildlife. The poet describes the old hunting custom of natives walking in a line through the long grass and beating it to flush out the prey.

When the beaters (farmers) thresh the rushes (grass-like tall plants), those plants break and ibises fly out of them and fill the air, like white dust. They fly in a circle crying out, which they have done from the beginning of civilization. The call of ibises is as old as civilization, heard from the dried rivers to the great plains where there are plenty of animals.

Beater – a person employed to drive birds to an open space, so they can be shot for sport. 

Rush- a tall plant-like grass that grows near water. (Its long thin stem can be dried and used for making baskets or seats or chairs.)

Ibis- /aibis/ a bird with a long neck, long legs, and long beak, that live near water.

 The violence of beast on beast is read

 As natural law, but upright man

 Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.

We consider the animals’ violence towards each other as natural. They kill each other for food. But men who perfected their skill of hunting extend their violent act for other purposes- using force to exert control and to prove superiority over others. They seek divinity by deciding who lives and who dies.

 Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars

 Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,

 While he calls courage still that native dread

Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

People are as crazy and delirious as these wild animals. Their wars are like a bloody dance to the beat of drums made of corpses’ skins. (A drum is made of animal hide stretched over a cylinder.) The native Kenyans say they are valiant or courageous. But it is just the fear of death- the white colonizers will kill them and call it peace. For the whites, peace has not been the result of a compromise with an opponent. It is a situation arrived at when the opposition has been crushed or they cannot resist anymore.

Stanza 3

 Again brutish necessity wipes its hands

 Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again

 A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,

 The gorilla wrestles with the superman.

Once again, the brutal idea of necessity is used to justify violence.  It’s just like someone trying to clean their bloody hands with a dirty napkin. Dirty napkin represents the dirty causes everyone is fighting for. It is a waste of our sympathy just like the atrocities that occurred during the Spanish civil war. As in racist stereotypes, the situation with the Kenyans and white colonizers is much like an ape (Africans) wrestling with a superhero (Europeans).

 I who am poisoned with the blood of both,

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

I who have cursed

The drunken officer of British rule, how choose

Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?

He is both of English and African descent and carries the blood of both parties in his vein. He opposed British colonial rule, which is like a drunken army or police officer (rules are enforced by drunken officers). How can he choose between his deep connection to Africa and his love for the English language? It is very hard.

 Betray them both, or give back what they give?

 How can I face such slaughter and be cool?

 How can I turn from Africa and live?

Either betray both of them and give them back what they have given. How can he face all this violence and remain cool and calm? How can he abandon Africa and keep on living? Thus, the poem ends with a series of questions.

 

Written against the backdrop of the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960), in which the native Kenyans fought against the British colonial army in the mid-20th century, the poem captures a confused mind as both the British and Kenyans resort to violence in the struggle. The inability of the speaker to side with any side during the conflict is because of the gruesome nature of the uprising and the counterretaliation. In fact, it is the legacy of colonialism which has forced the speaker into this split psyche, forever divided by the colonizer and colonized. Associated with this main theme are topics like anxiety, isolation, cruelty, violence, religion, and love.

Themes

1.               Violence and Cruelty

The poem explores the history of a specific uprising in Kenya (Mau Mau Uprising) then occupied by British in the 1952-60. Mau Mau violence was directed at the whites, animals kept by whites and other Kikuyus who refused to join Mau Mau.

2.             Culture Clash

There are several cultural clashes in the poem. Eg. The clash between the culture of those outside the uprising and those killed by it, outsiders (scholars) with the luxury of judging the conflict and insiders (victims) for whom no explanation is sufficient. There is a clash within the poet- he is pro-African and pro-Kikuyu but anti-Mau Mau. He is pro-English (culture and language) but anti-British (Colonialism).