How do things fall apart?

Things Fall Apart is a Nigerian classic novel written by the late legendary Chinua Achebe. 

One of the many things that stood out for me was Chinua being fed up of strangers and ignoramus' writing our stories. He wanted the story, for once, to be told and heard from the horse's mouth. And if I do say so myself, he did a great job. 

I love that Chinua was able to portray the Igbo man in black skin as, not just some primitive being who had no clue about systems and governance and what-not, but as an organized people who had a way of doing things; we call it culture. 

He was able to outline;

* how disputes were settled 

* how sickle cell disease was managed with local treatment

* how we entertained ourselves through sports; wrestling 

* our festivals 

* how chores were designated for each member of the family 

* Story time under the moonlight

* time with family where values were taught via tortoise stories 

* traditional marriage, scratch that, marriage...we got married traditionally..that's the only way we did it

* our market days

* our community holidays

* our ruling systems orchestrated by the gods 

This showed that there was a way to things, whether or not those ways were the right ways. 

On the other hand, the "white man" came with the notion that we were disorganized beings and wanted to instill with force, their own way of things without "coming down to our level" to first know our ways. 

I think that was were the birth of the fight against westernization started. 

Another thing that struck me in the book was the importance of work. Okonkwo thrived against all odds not because his 'chi' was favourable to him but because unlike his father, he was never afraid of work....in fact, he loved to work. 

This outlined our culture of work. We were generally not lazy people, we were men of war and valor. 

There was even a system to planting, borrowing, selling and storing yam seeds. 

There was subsistence farming, crop rotation, a system of irrigation and whatnot. 

Okonkwo however had little foxes that ruined his life.

Fear. 

Fear of failure and fear of weakness which equated to the fear of himself. 

Life lived in fear is as good as life not lived at all. 

Toxic masculinity. 

The book showed us the birth of it. It is ingrained in the fibres that was spun into the cloth called our culture. This is what made Okonkwo kill Ikemefuna (a boy that called him father). 

But culture is not solely to be blamed as there also lived a great warrior in Okonkwo's time who loved his wife and was not caught by the bug ("Be a man"). This shows that one's personality has a role to play. 

. 

. 

. 

How did things fall apart? 

Things fell apart as the white man did not regard the blacks, did not care about the blacks enough to want to know them but rather assumed that their archaic ways were detrimental and made attempts to forcefully and abruptly embellish them. 

Things fell apart as the blacks didn't see a reason to change their old way of life, the only way they knew to live by, and resisted the change. 

Things fell apart as the blacks lost their culture, their gods and their tradition. 

How do things fall apart? 

Things fall apart where there is different cultures, languages, opinions, school of thought. 

Things fall apart where one language, one tongue, is lost.

Things are still falling apart, only now, nobody really cares, and even if they do, what can they do about it? 

Nothing really. 

Love, DeeDee

XOXO