Transcription
[Music] Sometimes we write as, I think, we're really closeted masochists. Our entire relationship with the past is full of ruptures.
One of my guiding mantras: Let nations die that humanity may survive. I want to trial for allegedly holding up a radio station at gunpoint in defense of democracy. I believe was a human problem and I'm a human being. You're quite right to say got myself involved. My name is Wally Franco. I'm a Turkish British novelist and, like every storyteller, I'm drawn to stories, but also silences—the things we cannot talk about. I have multiple attachments, just like all of us, and multiple attachments mean multiple stories.
I am Ifi Schaffer. I felt a new ellipse Iraq even before it mattered, like me in Nigeria. She's often at loggerheads with her country's government through her works; she gave a voice to those who are often unnerved. I knew about Wole Soyinka as the first African author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I see it really as the recognition of a core of creativity which goes back centuries, but also in his role as a defender of human rights and freedom of speech. I was looking forward to having an open conversation and discuss issues that are both timely and universal and close to our hearts. What unites us makes us all human. [Music]
Well, it's such an honor to share the same stage with you. You and I have been talking about the arts of storytelling and what it means in today's polarized world. And I always thought, especially for authors, for storytellers who come from wounded democracies such as Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, Brazil—the list is so long, and it's getting longer. I don't think as writers from such motherlands we have the luxury of being non-political. We can't say, "I'm only going to write my stories and not really think about what's happening outside the window." But one thing that draws my attention is, especially after the year 2016, I think more and more Western authors, too, began to feel maybe the urgency to speak up, because we've seen how country after country, democracy can die, that history can go backwards; it doesn't always necessarily go forward. And you, of course, spoken so powerfully and eloquently about the need to be vocal in our criticism and what happens to the human soul if we do not criticize tyranny.
I'm very glad that we're starting with the very language of the storyteller. Let me use this opportunity to say that no writer is just a storyteller; a storyteller is a historian, as a psychologist, is a philosopher, is a builder, is a creative person. So I'm very happy that we're identifying ourselves here tonight as storytellers. You started off on a very difficult soul-searching subject, which is: What is my responsibility as a writer? What is yours? I don't see any special responsibility for a writer beyond expanding the horizons of his or her community, of humanity in general. I know that I agree with you that some of us do not have that luxury, and I resent it. I resent the fact that we are burdened by that weight of history. I resent that because there is something which existed before, let us say, the colonial experience, it's kind of defining us second-class humanity. And yet we know—you and I know—that yes, we do feel that we have to transcend a certain wrong positioning which has been given us by external forces. And then after that, after we chase them out, what happens? We get our intent, our colonizers, and then you have to fight these new orders all over again, to distort the history of our society, our past, in order to enthrone themselves permanently with our boots on our necks.
I think that sometimes we write as, especially from the quote-unquote developing world, third world, Africa, I think we're really closeted masochists; we love to take on this burden. I see no other explanation for it.
Well, it is quite irrational, I agree, but also perhaps, of course, as storytellers, we chase stories; we chase words. But I equally believe we are drawn to silences—the things we cannot talk about easily in a society at a given time—and that includes taboos: political taboos, cultural taboos, sexual taboos. Just to be able to ask, "Why is it that we can't talk about this issue?" It's important for writers to ask questions, not try to guide the answers.
I was intrigued by what you said, and it did resonate with me, because I often think Turkey has collective amnesia. Our entire relationship with the past is full of ruptures. And because of that vacuum, now it's being filled with either ultra-nationalistic interpretations of history or religious interpretations of history, where you can't talk about the complexity of history. And if you want to draw attention to that, you can easily be labeled as a traitor, as a betrayer. Yeah, just—just a cognitive flexibility to ask, "How would I feel had I been a minority member in that period," for instance. Just to focus on individuals is very difficult, because the official history has no human beings in it. Being a novelist in a country like Turkey is a bit like being slapped on the one cheek and being kissed on the other cheek at the same time. And I'm saying this because clearly these are lands where words are heavy, so every writer, every journalist, anyone who deals with words knows that because of something you write, you might easily get into trouble. But on the other hand, perhaps paradoxically, in countries where words are not that easily written, pronounced, maybe—maybe they matter even more.
I watched the film *O* decades ago, when, as we speak, and he just flashed across my mind. It had to do with the colonization of the Americas. It depicted a native Indian village, and in that village there was an obviously gay individual who lived in a hut and who related more with women, when it was accepted like that in the community. And there it was. And now, in that same—on that same continent, in probably in that same part of the world, you have those who are—you know, who are saying that if you—this is the sin, you know nothing about biology, human anatomy, know nothing about hormones, nothing at all about the exploration of the human tendencies, and there they are now stigmatizing. And this is where the writer, I believe, especially in the so-called settled societies, the writer has a special responsibility, at least has the tools to rewrite the historic conception, just like that filmmaker who obviously deliberately inserted this kind of domestic scene.
By contrast, a country like Nigeria—and within this decade—her legislators, who are—all the problems are sealing Nigerians, the poverty, kidnapping, etcetera, etcetera—took time off to pass a law which included phrases like, "The expression of affection between two people of the same sex is going to…" And I asked myself, and I wrote at the time, "What's your business with what happens with consenting adults? You don't have enough problems of your own already?" And so you have the politicians, for their own purpose or the other, rewriting, you know, sort of imposing their own newly acquired prejudices, deliberate distortions of humanity in the name of progress. They do—they do rewrite so many things; they do rewrite history, religion, and also law. They passed the laws. When I—when I look at Turkey in particular, of course there are so many women who are very vocal and strong in all areas of life, from academia to medicine to the business world, but in one—there's one field in which women are very few in numbers, and that's politics, mostly dominated by very conservative, very religious men. One of the laws that they recently tried to pass actually involved reducing the sentence of rapists if they agree to marry their underage victims, because, from their mentality, in a way, the rapist is doing a favor to the family. In all they care about is this concept of honor. And of course there was a huge backlash from—from the society, and then they took it back. But the reason why I'm mentioning this is: We need—we need women to support each other; we need a very strong women's movement that goes hand-in-hand with minorities, with LGBTQ rights; we need a strong civil society. When society is divided, when women are divided, especially, I think the only thing that benefits from that is patriarchy itself. And I am concerned because earlier we talked about how country after country we've seen a decline of democracy and erosion of democracy, and I think whenever there's more nationalism, there's more religious fundamentalism, there's also an increase in sexism, there's also an increase in homophobia. All of these things are related.
We touched tangentially on the issue of power. I would write—as do you—with fiction, with history, and so on. You know, be—what are politicians more afraid of—history or fiction? And they'll tell you the reason why I ask is because I come from a society where we discovered quite—I think not so long ago—that history had been taken off the curriculum. And, yeah, it is a shock for me, and so I ask myself, "Well, they haven't been able to destroy fiction, but they had history at their disposal, the corridor history." So, as I said, what are they really afraid of? Yeah, yeah. And I think it's precisely when stories and the arts of storytelling can—can make a difference. As I was listening to—I was thinking, one of the books that I read very early on in life and left a big impact on me, it was the works of Ivo Andrić from the Balkans. When I was reading his work for the first time as a high school student, it occurred to me there were like two peasants talking; they're talking about the Janissary system, which was the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in a way that—the military. And so, at school, what I had learned was we were a great Empire; wherever we went, we brought civilization. But then there were these two Balkan peasants talking about that institution; one of them was saying, "Thanks to this system, our poor children were able to get education and go all the way up and become viziers." And the other one was saying, "Are you sure? Because of this system, they forgot their identity; they were converted to Islam without their will, you know, and they never saw their families again." So yes, they did get education, but at the expense of what? As a reader, a lover of storytelling, fiction, I understood what the writer was trying to do, you know? Can you shift your angle, Elizabeth's that cognitive, you know, flexibility, and try to see the same story through the eyes of another person, and then another, and keep doing this until we realize there's no such thing as History with a capital H imposed on us, but there are all these realities and complexities that we honestly need to talk about if you want to be truthful.
Ignore the people, shall we? Have them ask one or two questions. You're both storytellers, which you've spoken about, but you're also activists and role models and changemakers. And I wanted to ask you both if there was a specific moment or period in your lives when you came to embrace and accept your role as changemakers, and if so, what gave you the courage to step into those shoes?
Your first… I don't see myself as a courageous person at all, honestly. I'm just a curious person, and I don't want to lose that curiosity about life, details, the connectivity with fellow human beings. Maybe—maybe it goes all the way back to my childhood, because I realized when I look back, there were so many times when I felt like the other—myself, you know, a bit like insider-outsider, kind of clinging to the edge, trying to belong. So to me, it comes very naturally to give more voice to people who have been othered. And I think in my work I always want to give more voice to the silenced and try to bring the periphery to the center; that matters to me. But also maybe part of the reason is the way I was brought up. I grew up without seeing my father, and I was raised by two completely different women: my mom is very Westernized, very modern, urban, very rational, well-educated; and my grandmother—probably would take all the other boxes, you know—more Eastern, very spiritual, less educated, and yet very wise. And she's a woman who had been denied a proper education, but she firmly believed in the education of girls. So to me, watching their sisterhood, their solidarity, the way they supported each other had a huge impact on me. You know, they didn't agree on everything, but they supported each other. So I think observing people, despite the circumstances, how we need to empower each other, how we need to connect with each other, and how we can all learn from those bonds, that left a huge, huge impact on me as I was growing up.
Yep. I told our hosts this morning, I said, "Don't worry, I know her; I know her already. Don't worry, we'll have a good conversation. I know her." And reading about her, I just saw myself also. The ability, the temperament, have been affected by one's environment, you know, one way or the other, for good or evil. In a few days I'm going back to Nigeria, and believe me, right up to the time I get on that plane, I ask myself, "What on earth are you going back to that blasted country for? Isn't it—is it life more peaceful here? What on earth is pushing…" I just don't know. But I'll give you an example of something which has affected me tremendously, and thank goodness this example comes from a child, a girl child. Her name is Leah Sharibu. She was one of the school pupils who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria, and they were ransomed. But when they were leaving, the fundamentalist terrorist insisted that they must renounce their religion before they were released. All of them did except one—Leah Sharibu. And I asked myself, what was it that impelled a child to say no, like Nelson Mandela did when he was given conditional release? She was between 14 and 15. Said at that age, no. Longing for freedom, longing for environment, familiar man… What was it that pushed—adults didn't know—and stayed behind, and she was kept behind. She's still a prisoner till today. I think it's the same impulse that drives us as writers and activists—that something intolerable, unacceptable in our environment, I would just have to say no. It's something which is agitated me so much; they're written a long poem to her.
When you were put on trial for insulting Turkishness in 2006, I wonder if you could just sort of say a little more about that, and—and also I'm particularly interested in what you wrote when you were acquitted; you felt that the trial was an uprising against authoritarianism, so you had some hope for Turkey at that point, and I just wondered whether you had—and you know—whether you've still felt hopeful in the circumstances that you explained to us earlier.
Turkey is such a complex country; it doesn't—I can't—I don't think it can be simplified. No country can, of course, but it harbors so many conflicts, and this government has been in power for such a long time. And when they came to power, a bit like in Hungary, they came to power with lots of promises of reform, including supporting Turkey's EU membership, peace process with minorities, with Kurds, with Armenians, making a new constitution that would be more liberal, more pluralistic. So the first years were shaped by that narrative. And today, I'm a thug to say this, but Turkey has become the world's leading jailer of journalists, surpassing even China's sad records. Now, do—do I have hope about my country? Of course I do. And I also know that the government and the people are not the same thing. When we talk about wounded democracies, I think it's always very important to bear in mind the—the sadness. The tragedy of lands such as ours is that oftentimes the people are ahead of their governments, and yet we don't hear their voices; we don't hear the complexity of the civil society. That's why I think it's very important to be very vocal and clear when it comes to criticizing authoritarian governments and bringing up issues on human rights and freedom of speech. Especially these are not negotiable issues, postponed issues. We need to be very loyal to defending human rights, but at the same time connect with the people, you know, connect with minorities in that society, the women in that society, the youth in us, and never to isolate the people.
Hi, this is a question for Mr. Chinua Achebe. I read that in the 1960s you held a radio station at gunpoint for electoral fraud. I was wondering where do you draw the line in terms of political protest?
First of all, are you saying you don't believe in Nigerian justice? I was acquitted in court, and here you are accusing me again. I've been acquitted, buddy. I mean, what am I supposed to do next, just to satisfy everybody? I'm innocent. I think all of us, whether we like it or not, we develop—especially in circumstances like ours—we develop a philosophy of violence. It's always a very personal one; it's inner conviction, inner restlessness, the desire to be at peace with yourself. You cannot sit down and say you're writing a poem when next door somebody's being raped or violated in some way. You put down that pen; you can write about it afterwards, but you know you are compelled to take action at that point. Oh, you cease to be a human being, you know. One of the issues that I was hoping we could talk about is also where to draw the line between freedom of speech and hate speech. I find it particularly difficult, because all my adult life I have fought for and believed in freedom of speech, and one of the things that worries me is, on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly among young people, this need for safe spaces and vetoing speakers with very different views is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, and I am worried that if we're only surrounded by people who think like us, vote like us, dress up like us, that's a very narcissistic existence. So I think the point where I draw a line is the kind of hate speech that incites violence, that targets minorities, people who are in a vulnerable position; that is something else. But other than that, I want to have multiple opinions, discussions, open spaces, and especially to hear the voices of people whose voices have been denied so far. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
People like to think that their nationalism is not as ugly as someone else's nationalism. One of the major fears I had when I was in exile was that they might get me, because I've been declared wanted to live over there. The opposite of kindness is not necessarily evil; it's the moment we become numb, desensitized and indifferent. Being a novelist in a country like Turkey is a bit like being slapped on the one cheek and being kissed on the other cheek at the same time. No writer is just a storyteller. I started—tell—as a historian, as a psychologist, is a philosopher. When societies are deeply polarized, the only people who benefit from that are the populist demagogues. The issue of identity is one which we must admit it applies not just to writers, of course; it's in fact it's our heart—or the—of the sort of dilemma, nationalist dilemma, which plagues Europe. This—of identity has become—some—to become a critical issue generally in the world. And yet there are human beings who transcend—not always in a positive way—the nation. For instance, certain religions, certain religionists feel that they owe more and that the identity should be seized and related to through their religion.
Ultimately, a writer—but myself especially—who draws so much from this society and, of course, who's a global wanderer, aspires—are periodically… Oh, I know how I seize myself—myself, Caesar. I know what that is, but what really am I to—to the other? Am I defined by nation, or what? What's your response as I think an even more pathetic writer than I am? I suspect how do you seize identity? How do you see it in your work? Is a question that matters a lot to me because I do not think that we have to have a monolithic identity, despite what they say to us. There's a lot of pressure on so many of us to belong into one single box and stay in that box, you know: "Are you a Muslim? Just be a Muslim. Are you this? Just be that, and stay there forever." But I think as human beings we have multiple belongings, and it's worth fighting for that multiplicity. When I look at myself, I realize very clearly, of course I'm very attached to Istanbul, and I carry it with me wherever I go, but I'm also very attached to the Aegean, the Balkans. I carry in my soul so many elements from the Middle East. I'm a European by birth, by choice; the values that I share—over the years I became a Londoner, a British citizen, and despite what our politicians say today, I think I would like to think of myself as a world citizen and a global soul. Why can't I be multiple things?
People like to think that their nationalism is not as ugly as someone else's nationalism; that their nationalism is actually the right type of nationalism; that it's a civilized nationalism. And I don't—I don't believe in that. I think the core of nationalism is quite ugly; it is divisive; it is based on a distinction between us versus them, and the assumption that us is somehow better than them. And it takes one financial crisis, or it takes one political crisis, for that core to surface. So when I say that, I do make a distinction between loving your country, loving your culture, you know, being attached emotionally; these are beautiful feelings. As an author, every time, you know, I have written a book in Turkey, people said, "Oh, she wrote a book about Armenians; that she must be a secret Armenian." Then I wrote another book—let's say another story—they say, "Oh, she must be a secret—you know, she must be a secret code," because all these conspiracy theories—in places where there is no democracy—but underlying is the assumption that if it's not your story, why should you even care? You know, if it's not your identity, why would you even try to write about someone else's story? I think we need to be very aware of that and very critical of that.
In West Africa, some years ago, the Nigerian government decided to expel Ghanaians from Nigeria. In fact, there's an expression in Niger—they called Ghana Moscow. Yeah. And I found myself personally violated; I felt that a violation had taken place on my behalf, in my name, and I found it very repugnant. In fact, in my university, my department became a kind of refuge, and I defied anyone to come and touch them while I was there, because I could not understand why there should be such a distinction—amounting to the right of expulsion—between them and me. And we've had that experience all over the continent. As soon as there's a slight problem created by mismanagement, mismanagement of the economy, the immediate impulse is to look for scapegoats, or, of course, the first-line scapegoats are those who are quote-unquote foreigners. And of course, see what's been happening in South Africa—amounting even to the lynching, the pursuit and lynching of foreigners: people from Mozambique, at one time, Zimbabwe, Nigerians, of course. See, this leaves one in such a weak position when one now has to decry the ultra-nationalism and the waves which are sort of taking over Europe, affecting politics, immigration policies, and even the internal governance in which the machinery of the government is arranged primarily against foreigners.
One of my sort of guiding mantras is: Let nations die that humanity may survive. The problem I have is I don't know what will take its place. Nations have become so long in the tooth that you need a real expert dentist to—but the old thing is this is as if we have no memory, as if we have forgotten. And I'm not talking about history that took place a long time ago and that affects everything. There is a complacency as well; I observe this a lot, as if some parts of the world were more solid lands, more safe and steady; you really didn't have to worry about democracy in those countries—mostly the Western world was seen in this way—you really didn't have to worry about human rights or freedom of speech or women's rights or minority rights; you would have to think about these issues in liquid lamps outside the Western world. And I think after the year 2016, that perception has been shattered to pieces. But still there is this assumption that some countries are inoculated against the—the rise of the far-right. Germany was thought to be one of those countries, because people thought, after experiencing the horrors of fascism, people would never make the same mistake ever again. And now, for the first time since the Second World War, we have a far-right group within the German parliament. And of course Sweden was regarded as another inoculated country because it's the welfare state and the bastion of social democracy. Now we have the rise of the far-right in Sweden. And the…
UK was thought to be inoculated against the rise of the far-right. Why? Because it’s a—it’s a—it has very different traditions; it doesn’t even have a written constitution; a very strong hold of, you know, liberal democracy; and so many other historical reasons. But again, we can’t say it right; it will never happen again. And we are seeing the rise of hate speech, hate attacks, particularly targeting minorities, immigrants. Suddenly, this toxic language in politics made it okay for people to say things that were unsayable until recently.
And yet, I sense this contradiction in me. Such as, for instance, on the African continent, I feel closer to Africans in the Diaspora, and I feel a closer affinity definitely to the Maghreb region in North Africa. I find myself far more interested in the fortunes—cultural, of course—retentions in Brazil, for instance, where you have the Yoruba people in Cuba, etc. I know a happy kind of visceral connection. Even in sports, I must confess, I’m a racist when it comes to sport. I’m interested—I’m interested in tennis only when Serena or Venus Williams are playing, or golf—I don’t care for golf—but anytime I hear Tiger Woods’ name, I want to know how he’s getting on. That is there, and I wonder whether we shouldn’t be thinking more in terms of cultural blocks. But definitely, I confess to that contradiction in me—contradiction. I think it’s peaceful to feel that kind of attachment, emotional belongings. I—I don’t associate that with, you know, a nationalistic way of thinking, or any more reductionist way—way of thinking. So the opposite. I find—find it important that we feel those emotional attachments. That’s why I insist on making a maybe distinction between patriotism and nationalism. I think patriotism is way too important to leave to the nationalists. I also think faith, for instance, is way too important to leave to the religious. I think politics is very important—to leave to career politicians.
I’m curious about your views on—on language, too. How does it feel to write in English? And did you get any reaction? Because I—I did get a lot of reaction. For I do write in both English and Turkish, but more and more I write in English. And it’s difficult to explain this to people sometimes, so only thinking nationalistic terms, because for them it’s always an either/or choice. So if you write in English, it means you have abandoned your essence, your mother tongue. And yet, I think this is the age in which so many of us dream in more than one language. And so when I look at my writing, I realize if I’m writing about melancholy, sadness, longing, I find it easier to express these things in Turkish. But humor, irony in particular, and stuff is much easier—there’s no question at all for me—well, language is both a vehicle; it’s—it’s a technicality for use; at the same time, it has this extension into being a repository not just of ideas, of history, of philosophy. So the—for me, I’d see no reason why humanity cannot have its cake and eat it. And that’s so when I talk about being multilingual, for me this is the ideal. If you want, the streets of Nigeria, for instance, they started English, end up in Yoruba, switch into broken English. For me, it’s an expression of—of the complexity of the thinking process; that it’s instinct. If you don’t find the expression in one language, you switch naturally to the language from which the idea derived originally. Of course, I’ve got this flack also: Why do you write in English? It’s in Latin—English is, in fact, the language of coup makers in Nigeria. When they want to take over—take over, you know, the control of our lives, they speak in English. So you can’t get anything more basic than a sudden transformation of yourself from even a partial democracy to outright dictatorship. But anyway, you know, I think it’s about time we brought him—
I was wondering if you’ve ever felt particularly frustrated about the lack of impact, given the rising erosion of democracy and shrinking civic space. So do you think that the language and narrative of human rights defenders, including yourselves, somewhat should try and change to reach out more effectively to the people that currently seems to be lured more by the—damaji—but the language of far-right nationalists and populists? In this age, we all need to become more engaged citizens. To me, that’s incredibly important. And there’s one thing that worries me when I read the memoirs of writers and poets who have survived the worst calamities in human history, including the Holocaust. Almost all of them are saying something similar; they’re saying bad things happen not because people are bad—there are some bad people, but relatively speaking, their numbers are small—and so they’re saying the opposite of goodness is not necessarily badness; the opposite of kindness is not necessarily evil; the opposite of goodness is, in fact, numbness—is the moment we become numb, desensitized, and indifferent. That is a very dangerous turning point, because upon that ground you can sow the seeds of all kinds of racism, all kinds of sexism and xenophobia, once enough people become numb. So it matters to speak about human rights and each other’s stories. But you’re so right, something needs to change in our style as well. Sometimes populist demagogues are better in terms of addressing people’s emotions than their liberal counterparts. It’s so dualistic; they talk about the people versus the elite. But I think more and more of us—deliberately—you need to start using the words—the words, you know, break them into pieces. So I deliberately use populist in—eat—because populists don’t have a problem with elitism as long as they are—they’ll eat—now, they’re not really criticizing it; it’s them—and many of them are—they’ll eat. In fact, when we take a closer look. And the second thing is they think of the people as a homogeneous whole, but they divide people into real people versus unreal people; people who really matter versus people who don’t matter that much—much. So all I’m trying to say is the problems are real, but populism is the wrong answer to those real problems, and we need to do a better job in terms of addressing those real problems and remind each other and ourselves that human rights matter.
I wanted to ask you both about your periods of exile, when you’ve been unable to return to Nigeria or to Turkey for your own safety, but yet you continued to write about these places. What is it like being so intimately connected to a place, so absorbed emotionally, intellectually in a place, but physically separated? And how has that influenced your writing? I found it very difficult to accept that I was in exile; there—very difficult, especially the major one, the second one, which was forced on me, and it was actually a life-and-death escape—escapade, if you like. I think I carried that—that sense of belonging with me so deeply that one of the major fears I had when I was in exile was that they might get me in exile, because I’d been declared wanted, dead or alive. The dictator was actually setting up consulates to hunt down the opposition. But the way I found peace—and this is a self-revelation—was that I began looking for a place where I would be buried if I was got. Outside my fear was not some being killed outside, but having some—my family or some well-meaning friends—take my body back while The Dictator was there. Now, that’s how rational one can be. That way I was at peace with myself. Say, “Good, don’t take my body back if that character is still in charge. I don’t want him trampling all over my corpse.” I still laugh at myself. So, look at you—instead of buying more wigs for these guys in yourself, you’re paying the money to God. But that’s exactly what I did. It’s part and parcel of one’s composition.
The social political changes in your countries—in Turkey, for example—still affect your writing style as much as it used to when you started writing. It’s—it’s also connected with the previous question, isn’t it? Exile—sometimes self-imposed exile. Can we have multiple homes? Multiple homelands? Can we be completely ever disconnect from our homelands? Which I think—I don’t think it’s possible. Just the opposite, perhaps you even follow it more closely when you’re abroad. You—you—you care about every single detail. So it’s a very—very fragmented existence in a way. You’re always a bit of an insider-outsider, which could be a good position for arts—for the art of storytelling, because you’re enough of an insider to feel attached to places—many places—but maybe have a little bit of cognitive distance—just a little bit of distance—maybe to see things from a different perspective. But if it’s a good situation—position for art, I think it’s a very lonely place for the artist. You know, you’re always in between. And I—and I carry that feeling with me, to be honest. The number of people from all over the world who have started to feel as if they were in some kind of exile—you know, that number is increasing. More and more people have started to get worried about their motherland’s—you know, they can’t recognize the changes that are happening, even when they live in those countries. So it happens to me a lot when I give talks; there are people, you know, in the audience, they say, “I come from—Zoila—I come from Brazil. I can’t recognize my country either.” Nor can I. You know, we’re all asking, “What happened to my sweet country?”
I was wondering how do you think that colonial mindset has had an impact within our culture, and what possible changes you think that we could bring up to ourselves as people from different countries who live, you know, in Europe or in countries that are not our countries, to better society in the future? The culture is a powerful weapon, I know, but at the same time, culture can prove very—very feeble in face of some really intractable situations. In Nigeria, I use the expression, “or endows descent into an abyss of inhumanity,” and I was speaking of an astronomical rise in kidnapping, ransom, in—in rape, in pedophilia, ritual killing, sex trafficking. We asked ourselves, “What—what happened to our humanity? And what’s the—what the solution?” Saw these girls were sold into prostitution, actually put under some kind of superstitious chain, with the terrified that if they reneged on the terms of the—of the enslavement, that terrible things will happen to them, to their family. And they believed it because they come from a superstitious culture. But the same culture is being used now to remove that fear from them. You have somebody like the Oba of Benin, for instance, who sort of pronounced first that curse, you know, with Assembly of priests and Chiefs—now, the curse on all who traffic—continue to traffic, you know, their own people into sex slavery. But one should not depend too heavily on the power of culture. Culture enlightens, relieves, entertains, sustains, but at the same time there are negative aspects of culture which just becomes an extra burden, even outside your own environment.
Just to follow up on that, I—I think today the major clashes that we’re experiencing are taking place in the field of culture. We are so obsessed with data—you know, measurable, quantitative data—but there are things that matter so much that can’t be measured that easily, and yet they’re extremely important. So, as you know, there were all these predictions about a clash of civilizations, mostly between the Western world and Islam. That’s not what we are experiencing. But I think what we’re experiencing, rather than a clash between civilizations—within nation-states, within our societies—we’re experiencing cultural fractures, you know, cultural battles almost. And so there’s a lot of tension going in that—in that field about identity, belonging: Who are we? How do we raise our children? But at the same time, of course, as writers we also believe in the transformative power of culture. When societies are deeply polarized, the only people who benefit from that are the populist demagogues. So how do we find a way to go beyond our equal chambers, beyond our comfort zones? And I think that—that is also possible—culture. So it’s been such—such a pleasure, as I said. I thought I was trying new—and I hope this kind of communication can continue all day. Why this game? You can’t really make reparations for something as monumentally horrific as slavery. I think I’m doing natural—and we connect on our collective anger a lot of the time. What did poetry do for you? It’s just right. [Applause] You.