Adopt or die
Reith lecturer Wole Soyinka draws parallels between Bush and Bin Laden: a case of I am right; you are dead?
Related programme
An article by Lynda Morgan on 'A Quest for Dignity', part of the OU/BBC's programme website for the 2004 Reith Lectures on the 'Climate of Fear' by Wole Soyinka
However, Soyinka is not just concerned with the loss of dignity of victims of torture and appalling imprisonment. He argues that loss of dignity plays a major role in the formation of quasi-states and the willingness of activists to engage in terrorist activities. He suggests that such people are searching for a dignity that they feel they have been denied. They have been treated by disdain by other groups, and feel themselves to be despised. Their lack of self-worth is exploited by terrorist leaders, since international denial of personal dignity forms a fertile recruiting ground for the quasi-states. Implicit in this argument is the culpability of the West, which has not valued alternative cultures and religions. In his work Myth, Literature and the African World (1976) Soyinka quotes 'a certain Lothrop Stoddard' who wrote in 1920:
'Certainly, all white men, whether professing Christians or not, should welcome the success of missionary efforts in Africa. The degrading fetishism and demonology which sum up the native pagan cults cannot stand.....'
We may feel that such an extreme view can be safely confined to the past; but numerous critics, including such well-known figures as Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Robert Young, and Chinua Achebe, have continued to explore Eurocentrism and its contemporary effects and implications. The demands of 'political correctness' may mean that such views are unlikely to be expressed in such blunt and derogatory terms. But that doesn't mean that notions of Western superiority have disappeared; and the actions and culpability of the West are explored in Soyinka's final lecture.
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Content last updated: 07/07/2004
