Jopseph Conrad  Heart of Darkness - Marcus Ragomale

Heart of Darkness  Marcus Ramogale   Achebe and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness": A Reassessment of African Postcolonialism in the Era of the African Renaissance

Heart of Darkness  By exposing this sort of racism, Achebe and other postcolonial critics have helped liberate Africa from the devastation of colonialist discourse.  In my view, "Heart of Darkness" sets out to expose, as part of an authorial design, the destructiveness of European racism and the absurdity of the colonialist's much-vaunted "civilisation."

Heart of Darkness  Marlow's disenchantment with white civilisation does not, of course, lead to an automatic identification with Africa.  In fact, thanks to his ingrained racism, he is consistently ambivalent towards Africans even after his African journey: at one stage he describes them as fellow human beings and at another as animal-like creatures.

Heart of Darkness  In fact, thanks to his ingrained racism, he is consistently ambivalent towards Africans even after his African journey: at one stage he describes them as fellow human beings and at another as animal-like creatures.  This ambivalence creates tension which dramatises a moral struggle in which the deep-rooted nature of racial prejudice is demonstrated.

Heart of Darkness  Marlow fails to free himself from the grip of racist thinking, because he rejects the racism and colonialism that derive from the European continent only to embrace their British version.  However, a perceptive reader can see that even the British model is held up to subtle criticism, for according to Marlow himself, "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much" ("Heart of Darkness," YS, 50-1).

Heart of Darkness  Marlow's new knowledge — that evil also rules in the lives of the supposedly civilised — is not used to shed light where it matters most: Europe.  This may explain why early in the story the narrator describes Marlow's African experience as "inconclusive" (51).  Its inconclusiveness seems to suggest an ethical indeterminacy created by the absence of a moral finish in his account.

Heart of Darkness  Marlow, in spite of several racist comments he makes, shows a remarkable critical attitude towards his moral shortcomings and those of his fellow whites.  For example, at the company's Outer Station he is appalled by the waste he sees everywhere and the ruthless exploitation of Africans.

Heart of Darkness  The evidence of an evil force behind the company's activities prompts him to say the following: "I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak- eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (65).  Although Achebe's soldierly approach was necessary in 1975 — as it helped to mobilise other combatants against colonialism — it has to be recognised today, thanks to the experience of the intervening 25 years or so, that African postcolonialism cannot afford to remain stuck in its anti-colonial mode.

Heart of Darkness  Twenty five years after his lecture and some forty-odd years after the emergence of the first African country to be granted independence, postcolonial critics in Africa have to realise, as some have done, that the source of African problems is not solely extraneous.  In other words, African problems are not caused solely by the iniquities of what Wole Soyinka calls an "external tyrant" (Soyinka, "The Writer...," 16).

Heart of Darkness  By focusing attention mostly on the evils of white power, African postcolonialism is in danger of encouraging the view that African self-criticism is unimportant.

Heart of Darkness  As I have indicated elsewhere, Africa also needs an "inward--looking discourse" which will force appropriate attention on her strengths and weaknesses.  Such a discourse will have to eschew fashionable truths and political correctness in favour of a sobering and empowering self-analysis (Ramogale, 9).

Heart of Darkness  If African postcolonialism remains trapped within a resistance strategy that is outwardly-directed, then it will fail to bring about total emancipation, for the problems of Africa do not only have an external source only but have an internal one as well.  Such an argument is often rejected by postcolonial critics on the grounds that Africans cannot afford self- criticism as it will only open up Africa to racist attack, thus undermining the African cause.

Heart of Darkness  As a consequence, self-examination is a marginal activity in African postcolonialism.  We have thus become accustomed to a simple moral debate in which the villain is invariably the white racist or imperialist.

Heart of Darkness  Because a "moral ideology tends to ossify complex social problems into symbols which are perceived as finished forms of good or evil...writings influenced by such an ideology tend to inform without involving readers in a truly transforming experience" (329).  In other words, the information acquired from such writings does not lead to the "transformation" of the reader's consciousness but results, instead, in the reader's "recognition" of known evil (332). Such writings, it may be argued, are not sufficiently liberating.  END