The postcolonial ụsụ.

by

Obododimma Oha

One remarkable thing that is talked about concerning  the ụsụ the bat in Igbo culture is that  the animal is neither a bird of the air  nor a four-footed animal that walks the ground (abụ-anụ-elu-abụ-anụ-ala).  In other words, the bat in its identity is nowhere. It is a hybrid. It is also narrated as being an unhappy animal. Even its cry is upsetting and weird. If we want to be charitable, we would just call it a hybrid. Some Igbo proverbs even mention the hybrid as uttering as follows: “Usụ si na ya ma na ya jọrọ njọ jọgbue onwe ya; ya kpatara ya jiiri abalị aga” (The bat  says that it knows that it is very  ugly and so chose to be nocturnal). To be a nocturnal is not a laudable natural attribute. Metaphorically, it is to choose to be into the unacceptable, the terrible and terrifying, the awkward, the irregular. Generally, the nocturnal belongs to night, to darkness, and not to the world of light and the clear. The nocturnal is in hiding, and has something to hide!

But am I putting this terrible stamp onto the postcolonial, thereby already condemning it to death? No. There are good and exciting sides. But these are not in focus right now. I am rather looking at the ugly, hybrid bat and postcolonial experience of dark things.

Let me start from the spiritual. There were forms of worship that the outsiders met when they arrived. But we know that a fish swallows another in order to grow. So, the outsiders had to find ways of convincing the insiders (doing battle by other means) that their ways of worship were the best. They were very persuasive in a number of ways. Therefore, some insiders were swept off their feet. The soup cooked outside tasted better than the one always known, even if it was tasteless and funny. Above all, these external forms of worship, as weapons, further destroyed bonds and community spirit. These were just what the outsiders wanted. It was also appealing to ụsụ.

The local forms of worship were not excellent or free of pitfalls asking for reform, but they had to be erased and forgotten so that new incoming forms could sit comfortably and hold sway in ụsụ.

Also, the old forms, as part of the thinking about harmony and interconnectedness of things in creation, had important social functions, had ways of entering community and holding life together. The incoming forms, as disruptive agents, frowned at these connections. If the community found justice through ogwugwu, then that deity became the target. That means that a system has to be found for ụsụ who admired foreign ways and to make ụsụ violate the practice of expecting justice from ogwugwu! Both the new political and legal systems that try to unsit the indigenous must be fully mobilised to reject ogwugwu intervention so that the community would also be neither here nor there.

Oh, the political system! Aha, that may take us back into the dark alleys of history. Just like the incoming forms of worship, the political system preferred and recorded for ụsụ  was the foreign. That is perfectly in line with ụsụ being a perpetual learner. If ụsụ wanted to follow other nations politically, it must present self as a humble learner who can make mistakes, abuse the political system sometimes, but still tolerated as a performer, a comedian, on the world stage. The learner has to exhibit humility by presenting self and political lesson notes at Chatham House. Yes; the pupil has to present notes for approval to the master; it is only natural.

This confusion facing ụsụ also from spirituality to political life is even clearly manifested in the reconciliation of traditional system of government with the received Western systems. In the received systems, rulership is supposedly through common will, ordained by the majority, even if the majority is made up visionless idiots. But, surprisingly, it is this controversial, received rulership that has to endorse the indigenous as legitimate. Thus, somebody who has found his or her way into government is now in a position to install or remove a king who has emerged from an indigenous or is a rightful occupant of the throne. Instead of a governor of a state or president being the tenant and subject of the traditional ruler just for few years, it is now the traditional ruler who is his or her subject and can be removed unless a supporter. The ways of the postcolonial ụsụ in government can be amusing. But it exhibits that same attribute of being neither here nor there!

Then, think of identity generally, particularly the type invented through culture. Our fellow, the ụsụ, tries to appear Western, from dressing to speaking the language of the West, but cannot be accepted as Western. And what of the education and ụsụ’s learnedness? Ah, ụsụ remembers nothing, including having learned anything from earlier indigenous actors. This ụsụ believes that the Western is the only education and can cite many Western thinkers ever known without being able to cite one thing they learned from their grandfather. It is “according-to” knowledge. Why can’t open the mouth to vomit al the nonsense swallowed?

 OK, back to the language that has to carry this tokunbo knowledge. Our fellow is told that he or she still suffers and expresses a lack. As somebody with a lack or handicap, ụsụ has to move only in the night of Western identity. This hybrid creature has to negotiate and auction self in order to be accepted provisionally by the Western establishment. The sharp-mouthed cannot be in somebody’s obi and represent the host as being one-eyed! The visitor should know and keep to own limits. So, ụsụ at home; ụsụ also out there!

I can go on and on to pull at the whiskers of ụsụ and annoy the hybrid; but let me just end here and wait for that terrible nocturnal cry. Our fellow, ụsụ, would even not like to be called ụsụ, a night aviator and one which is avoided by birds of the air and loathed by four-footed animals of the ground. We should be sorry for ụsụ and understand its dark anger.