Ojo-Ade returns in French and English colours

 

Veteran scholar and writer, Prof. Femi Ojo-Ade, speaks on his two new books, Écrits africains, écrits francophones and Gorée’s Unwavering Songs, AKEEM LASISI writes

There is something novel in the profile of Emeritus Professor at the St Mary’s College, Maryland, USA, Prof. Femi Ojoade. He is described as having made a serious attempt to colonise the French Language.

That sounds very dramatic, bearing in mind that Europe had not only extensively colonised Africa for decades, it has also continued to dictate the pace on the platforms of neocolonisation and globalisation. Well, the origin of Ojo-Ade’s ambition and the hyperbole used to describe it lies in his belief that once you have mastered a language, you can achieve a lot with it.

This is the way his citation has it, “Femi Ojo-Ade, a long-term ambassador of African culture and one of those privileged to have learnt French, a colonial language of imposition, has made a serious attempt to colonise the language, to use it to his and Africa’s advantage, and to position his culture at the centre of human experience.”

A proof of his engagement with the language is that he has just published a book titled Écrits africains, écrits francophones. Written in French, it is a collection of critical essays followed by three poems.

Says Ojo-Ade, who also speaks Portuguese, “It is an exploration into, as well as an exposition on, the African experience worldwide, from slavery through colonialism into the modern era of globalisation. France and her language have played a major role in that encounter.”

The book is coming alongside another collection of poems titled Gorée’s Unwavering Songs. Both are due to be presented in Lagos on June 5.

In a commentary on the poetry book, Professor of English, Lincoln University, USA, Ropo Sekoni, says it is a poignant work of remembrance that captures the beginning of the historical derailing of Black humanity.

Sekoni adds, “Ojo-Ade’s preoccupation with the Black experience worldwide is reminiscent of the Pablo Neruda’s love of his people. The songs remind us of what most people re-shaped by history want to forget but which the wise want to remake. Ojo-Ade’s voice, expressed in free verse in this volume, is a voice we must not miss.”

Also, Professor of Afro-Hispanic Studies at St Mary’s College, USA, Israel Ruiz, says the poet uses the metaphor of Gorée Island, “in its double meanin: as ‘the door of no return’ for millions of African slaves, and as the location that historically links Africa to its Diaspora.”

On why he decided to publish the books now, Ojo-Ade says a writer, particularly one under the spell of the muse, cannot really decide when in matters of literary productivity and presentation.

“The French-language essays have been in the offing for a couple of years. The pivotal essays, on President Obama of the United States and on Frantz Fanon, were the last to be written: the first, as a result of the euphoria, precisely in France, over the presidency of the first black man in America; the second, as a point of reflection on the 50-year anniversary of the passing of Fanon, arguably one of the most important Blacks to have ever lived. I should mention that, before the Obama essay, I already edited a collection on him, published in the United States — The Obama Phenomenon, Africa World Press.”

He says the poetry collection comes as a result of his vertical journeys/adventures at various sites of the African experience. These, according to him, are adventures marked by travails and triumphs and tragedies, largely due to the colour black.

He explains, “Gorée, symbol of slavery in its most dehumanising form, served as inspiration for a poetic explorationand, ultimately, a re-affirmation of Africa and Africans continentally and in the Diaspora.”

He laments that Africa has once again found itself at the vortex of trauma and torture and tragedy, all and none of its own making. “Sad to say”, he adds, “our lives as Africans are caught in a spider’s web where the only way out would appear to be more entrenchment in a convoluted abyss of disease and death; and so the beat goes on.”

He stresses that most of the poems are anchored upon his observations on Africans and African Americans and other Diasporic Africans, in places such as Haiti, Brazil, the United States, Nigeria and South Africa.

He adds, “Contrary to what ‘experts’ would have us believe, race and racism remain front and centre in our experience of the world. Take Obama and the American presidency. His electoral victory, according to many Americans, ushered in a “post-racial” era in their history. Yet, on the contrary, racism has become more flagrant, more blatant, and more frontal than ever before. Obama is disrespected with impunity; he is openly called nigger, monkey, Kenyan Islamist commie, with no apology offered. In the same millennial America, Blacks are profiled just for being black.”

But Ojo-Ade is generally inspired by his people’s sad condition, the people that, he notes, Fanon and Jacques Roumain before him have called the wretched of the earth.

“When I look at what the people, particularly, black people, are going through the world over, I cannot but think and write down my thoughts. It is a process of questioning and seeking answers in the hope of making life a bit bearable, of providing some hope to a condition of hopelessness,” he says.

The book presentation holding at the University of Lagos will have as the chairperson chair of the Diaspora Committee of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa.