WHEN NIGERIAN writer Wole Soyinka was a student in Britain in the 1950s, he enrolled in the infantry. The future Nobel laureate intended to exploit the colonial power's training resources to ready himself for a war of African liberation. But when the Suez crisis broke out in 1956 and he was called up to serve with the British forces, Soyinka realised his mistake. After declining the call-up, he only narrowly escaped being court-martialled. He convinced his superiors that he couldn't possibly have sworn loyalty to Her Majesty by ensuring that no intelligible English emanated from his lips.
Those years were formative for the emerging playwright, poet, essayist and activist who watched appalled as the first generation of African nationalists began visiting England regularly, more interested in bedding white women than transforming the colonial order. His expectation of pan-African liberation dimmed as he witnessed the lavish spending of the self-preening new leaders, who spoke with vicious condescension towards the societies they claimed to represent.
'The conviction of liberation and expectation of collective energy made some of us feel that we could entrust the future of the continent to these first generation leaders,' says Soyinka, 71, on the eve of the publication of his memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn. 'It was inconceivable that, coming out from under the yoke of external colonialism, any group of leaders would dare to treat their own people with the same contempt as the former colonial powers.
'Of course, some recognised from early on that these leaders saw themselves only as stepping into the shoes of the colonial masters, so were a little bit more prepared. But collectively we failed to take the necessary actions to stop it.'
Soyinka fell out of favour with Nigeria's new political elite on his return from Britain in 1960. During a festival commemorating Nigeria's recent independence, he staged A Dance of the Forests, which cast doubt on the country's ability to shed the colonial culture of corruption. The play drew sharp criticism for metaphorically depicting Nigeria as a mythical half-child who is born old and must, therefore, die young.
He also attracted fire from intellectuals associated with the so-called Negritude movement, which endeavoured to define and promote an African spirit, and took exception to his use of European literary techniques. Soyinka cautioned his Negritude critics against promoting a stereotypical opposition between western rationalism and African emotionalism. 'A tiger does not proclaim its tigritude,' he wrote. 'It acts.'
Yet Soyinka says he later came to accept 'that Negritude was an insurgent tool that was needed for the peculiar nature of French colonialism, which tried to make its colonials French and denigrated African values - unlike the British, who felt that the black man could not apprehend European civilisation, so left their colonials alone with their culture.'