Dec 15, 2009

A Far Cry from Africa | Introduction

Derek Walcott's ‘‘A Far Cry from Africa,’’ published in 1962, is a painful and jarring depiction of ethnic conflict and divided loyalties. The opening images of the poem are drawn from accounts of the Mau Mau Uprising, an extended and bloody battle during the 1950s between European settlers and the native Kikuyu tribe in what is now the republic of Kenya. In the early twentieth century, the first white settlers arrived in the region, forcing the Kikuyu people off of their tribal lands. Europeans took control of farmland and the government, relegating the Kikuyu to a subservient position. One faction of the Kikuyu people formed Mau Mau, a terrorist organization intent on purging all European influence from the country, but less strident Kikuyus attempted either to remain neutral or to help the British defeat Mau Mau.

The ongoings in Kenya magnified an internal strife within the poet concerning his own mixed heritage. Walcott has both African and European roots; his grandmothers were both black, and both grandfathers were white. In addition, at the time the poem was written, the poet's country of birth, the island of St. Lucia, was still a colony of Great Britain. While Walcott opposes colonialism and would therefore seem to be sympathetic to a revolution with an anticolonial cause, he has passionate reservations about Mau Mau: they are, or are reported to be, extremely violent—to animals, whites, and Kikuyu perceived as traitors to the Mau Mau cause.

As Walcott is divided in two, so too is the poem. The first two stanzas refer to the Kenyan conflict, while the second two address the war within the poet-as-outsider/insider, between his roles as blood insider but geographical outsider to the Mau Mau Uprising. The Mau Mau Uprising, which began in 1952, was put down—some say in 1953, 1956, or 1960—without a treaty, yet the British did leave Kenya in 1963. Just as the uprising was never cleanly resolved, Walcott, at least within the poem, never resolves his conflict about whose side to take.

A Far Cry from Africa Summary

Background
‘‘A Far Cry from Africa’’ discusses the events of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya in the early 1950s. In the mid-twentieth century, British colonialism was a fading but still potent force in the world. In the African nation of Kenya, British colonists had settled and introduced European concepts to the local people: money, taxation, and ownership of land. When the British asked, ‘‘Who owns this land?’’ tribal people responded, ‘‘We do,’’ and the British assumed that "we" referred to the tribal government, although the land was actually owned by individual families. Because the British were replacing the tribal government with their own, they then claimed all the land in the name of the new British government. Naturally, the Kenyan people were outraged. Now, instead of owning and farming their own land, they were reduced to being laborers for the British owners. As employees, they were further insulted by being paid only a fraction of the amount a British worker received for doing the same work.

The Kikuyu tribe was the largest in Kenya, and the most educated. In 1951, some Kikuyu outbursts of violence against the British occurred, and in 1952 a secret Kikuyu society known as the Mau Mau began a war of violence against the British and any Africans who were loyal to them. By October of 1952, the situation was so serious that the British called out troops to fight the rebels, and a three-year war ensued, during which 11,000 rebel warriors were killed and 80,000 Kikuyu men, women, and children were locked up in detention camps. One hundred Europeans and 2,000 Africans loyal to them were killed. Later, the leader of the rebellion, Jomo Kenyatta, was elected prime minister of Kenya when Kenya became independent from Britain in 1963.

In the poem, Walcott presents some graphic images of the conflict and asks how he can be expected to choose one side over the other, since he is of both African and European descent. He cannot condone the colonialism of the British, or the violence of the Mau Mau, because choosing either side would mean he is turning against that part of himself.

Lines 1-3:
The first three lines depict the poem's setting on the African plain, or veldt. The nation itself is compared to an animal (perhaps a lion) with a ‘‘tawny... » Complete A Far Cry from Africa Summary