THE DARK PAST:A RISING CONCERN OF THE FUTURE. A Critical Review of the poems: "Africa" by Sola Owonibi and "White romance" by Samuel Obono jnr.

History today no longer live in the past. It has become a burden the present must drag along,impeding its progress toward a desired future. Man must reflect on his past in order to channel his course in the future. Africa over the years have witnessed and suffered dark times that remains a scar even on her unborn children. One cannot help but reflect and express his or her own views, emotion and sometimes repaint the pictures in comparism with modern issues similar to what was obtained in the dark days. In an attempt to explicate on this subject, a question pops up: How viable is the redocumentation of the past to the betterment of the future of Africa?
This question is central to what this paper is about. The poems: "Africa" by Sola Owonibi and "White romance" by Samuel Obono Jr. Will be used as case study. I would advice readers to familiarize themselves with the above poems for a better understanding of this paper.

Sola Owonibi is an award winning poet and a playwright. He is the author of CHANTS TO THE ANCESTORS (2007). A collection of 65 poems from which "Africa" was extracted.
Samuel Obono Jr is an undergraduate writer currently working on his first collection of poems titled A SEASON IN REFLECTORIA.

Hardly has any African writer emerged over the last 50 years without having to reflect on the dark past of Africa in his or her work(s). Writers such as L.S Senghor, David Drop, Lenrie peters, J.P Clark etc have all written a poem or more on the dark past of Africa. Emerging writers also cannot but explore this area of great significance. This suggest that it is of paramount importance for any African not only writers to reflect on his past and it also affirms that a true African cannot be separated from his past.

In Sola Owonibi's "Africa" he takes us back in time to the era before the white men arrived.in the first stanza, he shows Africa as "generous mother of the universe
beautiful,simple and unexplored" until the whites came from across the seas and raped her, taking away her innocence and leaving her "an eternal stigma" (1-5). He goes on to explicate on the evils inflicted on the Africans by the Europeans: the slavery, the dehumanization,injustice suffered during this period,yet Africa endured and survived it all.
In the final stanza, Owonibi makes it clear that Africa had never stayed silent but have spoken up "under the torrents"against all forms of oppression and dehumanization.

Two lines are noted in this poem: "an eternal stigma" (line 5) and "not without scars..."(line 15). Both lines connotes that the past can never be buried in the past as its scars remain with us and on our unborn children. An eternal stigma never to be wiped off by time and change.

In "white romance", Samuel Obono Jr gives a "romantic" account of the African slavery experience. He view the experience as a gradual process of seduction.

"bamboozled by our own lust
again and again
till our robe of pride
kissed the ground."

This shows that Africans were carried away by the looks of the whites (line 9). Their sweet ways deflowered our ears and still does. This goes to say that though slavery and colonialism on a contact level have ended.africans still suffer from the experience as those at home and in the diaspora still strive to imitate the ways of the whites. They knew what our cravings were and carefully went about satisfying where necessary. Africans in turn endured, the guilt, shame breathlessly.(24-26) awaiting a climax,a point where everything would automatically come to an end as passion becomes a nightmare. All that her forefathers had laboured for is drenched and in the last 7 lines i.e. (35-41) Obono brings home the point that Africa is still under the shakles of mental slavery and colonialism as the whites seem to influence us from afar off, with the confidence that our Children cannot but follow their ways.

The poem shows that despite the fact that we Africans were exploited, we don't go all blameless. We participated in the afflictions we suffered. Both Sola Owonibi's "Africa" and Samuel Obono's "white romance" suggests that Africans must be aware of their past in order to channel a better course in the future.

On a final note. It becomes imperative for Africans to write, read, discuss and investigate the past as it is the only way of attaining the desired future.


Written by Samuel Obono Jr
on the 9th of May 2011.