Wole Soyinka Interview (page: 5 / 9) Nobel Prize for Literature	Print Interview

After primary school, did you need to get a scholarship in order to attend grammar school?

Wole Soyinka: No, you didn't get a scholarship in primary school. You got a scholarship only in secondary school. There were missionary schools, so children of very poor families who happened to be attached to missionary families might be assisted through school, but there weren't scholarships as such. You sat examinations. At the end of your primary school, you sat examinations to certain schools where scholarships were available. Otherwise, you had to go through the other schools where there were no scholarships. And in this case I sat for Government College Ibadan and got a scholarship.

Was there pressure for you to go to Government College?

Wole Soyinka: Oh yes. My father always made it clear that I had to go to Government College. The Government College was the elite secondary school, if you like, and they had scholarships, and that was important for the family.

How did your parents encourage you?

Wole Soyinka: The first thing is my parents realized quite early that I loved books. Therefore they encouraged me to read as much as I wanted to, my father in particular, and to ask questions about the books, which he answered very patiently, I thought. I don't think I have that much patience myself. Then, they had ways of making us understand that education was critical. Our primary responsibility was to go as far as we could in our own education. So it was letting us see that we had that responsibility to ourselves, to the family. I think it was mainly that way.

Was there a particular teacher who most inspired you or challenged you? Maybe it was Mr. Olagbaju.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Wole Soyinka: I would say it was that first teacher I had who admitted me into school, in quite an unorthodox manner, Mr. Olagbaju. He was also a family friend. This is interesting. For instance, once I started going to school, sometimes I wouldn't go back to my own home. I'd just follow Mr. Olagbaju home. Then he might send a message that I'm with him, and that they shouldn't bother about me. So that also gave me some kind of independence, in addition to then getting to read Mr. Olagbaju's books and then pestering him with questions. So in that way I found quite a bond with Mr. Olagbaju, and of course with his children. So that became a second home to me as I grew older.

When I went to Abeokuta grammar school, I didn't come so much under the influence of my uncle, that was more a personal one. He was a principal of that school, but he didn't teach us that much. He taught the higher classes in the two years I was there. My father of course was also a teacher. Mr. Olagbaju in a kind of informal way. Also my uncle, the Rev. I.O. Ransome-Kuti.

In what way did you receive news about World War II?

Wole Soyinka: Ah, it was all over the town. First of all, I listened to discussions over the phone between my auntie, Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, and the district officer, the white, European district officer. They used to talk about the war. We had this crude, hand-cranked telephone in those days. I think probably that household had one of the few telephones in town. We certainly had none in my household. I know they used to discuss it, and my parents, of course, used to. My father, in particular, his circle of friends. But I think the way we felt the impact most was when by-laws were passed which compelled the whole town to black out our homes during the night. You had to paint your windows, or put drapes on, make sure no light came out. Then you had slogans like "Win the War." "Help Win the War." And you were supposed to use and re-use an envelope, to save money for the war effort. I didn't fully understand what the war was all about, but we knew that there was one side which was good, the other side which was bad, and we had to help the good side win. There were little things, like even barbers, hairdressers, used the opportunity to create "Win the War" hairstyles, which appeared in their windows. "Win the War Cut, tuppence," the other one a little bit more. And then there came news.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. We were about 60 kilometers from Lagos, the capital, and of course in Lagos the anti-enemy preventive action was even stronger. And once, there was an explosion on board a ship in Lagos, and we got news about that. And then we really felt the war was coming very, very close. It wasn't actually German action, just an accident on a boat, but for us this was enemy action, and so we all got quite tensed up. And occasionally, when a light plane flew overhead, we learned to associate that with the war effort. Then of course, there were soldiers constantly being bused from one side of the town to the other. We had Lafenwa Barracks, and we had foreign soldiers who sometimes came through. So the war was very much a palpable event for us.

You saw a lot of change in your community because of the war. Was it also coming through in newspapers and radio?

Wole Soyinka: Yes. Radios, yes, we had the loudspeaker, and there was a special section in the paper devoted to war news. I think it was over the radio I first heard the voice of Winston Churchill. It was just like a duel going on between Winston Churchill and the other man called Adolph Hitler, into which other people were roped.

Your mother was part of organizing women's groups, who gathered for self-improvement. What did that teach you about dealing with the local authorities?

Wole Soyinka: Not much, unless of course you're talking about the traditional ruler. Let me begin this way. It was, first of all, a women's improvement society, in which women were being taught how to be part of the evolving modern society. How to improve their dressing, for instance, comportment.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. It began as a kind of middle-class movement, one which tried to absorb the peasantry, the peasant women, the little small-time traders and so on, into a lower middle-class kind of sensibility. And then it became more politically conscious, and as the women brought their problems, "This is what we experience from the servants, the policemen of the king." These were called the Native Administration Police -- they were called the akoda. They used to waylay these women and tax them on the spot on goods they were bringing from the farms. So this kind of oppressive action was brought to these meetings for discussion. So these meetings became more and more politicized. Until the focus was beamed on the ultimate traditional authority, the Alake of Abeokuta, the king, and his council of elders. And so we saw -- I was able to experience -- the divide between the peasantry, the ordinary people, and the traditional rulers. That's on the one hand. On the other side, listening to the conversations and the disputes between my aunt and my uncle, and the British district officers, political officers, I was able to see -- recognize -- also the fact that the British government, this external authority, was also an instrument of oppression and was in fact alienated from the genuine aspirations and self-fulfillment of the overall society. So I had this in two directions, this dichotomy, this conflict of interests between one group and the other group in authority.

Can you tell us what these tax officers did, and why they were so feared?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Wole Soyinka: In traditional society, pre-colonial society, there was always a levy towards the improvement of society, community levy during festivals, et cetera, et cetera, so these were traditional levies, and there was a way, a regular routine way of collecting these levies. They were hardly ever resented. If a king went beyond his authority, he was soon deposed in one form or the other. Now when the British came, then they brought their own levy -- capitation tax, poll tax, taxes on salaries -- you know. So there was an increase of the burden of extraction from regular earnings of people. And the worst part of it was that the traditional authority took the opportunity also to increase what used to be the regular, accepted forms of taxation. That taxation extended to taxation on crops. And they were collected from women coming in, bringing their crops to the market. So in addition to, let us say, the market levy, which is traditional -- markets had to be kept tidy, you know, facilities have to be made. People never resented all of that. But now came the point where additional levies were being made on the actual goods being brought from the farms. And sometimes the women would be arrested, their goods seized completely. Finally this movement of the women, self-improvement movement, spear-headed by my aunt, Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, decided to take on both the district officers and the traditional king. That's what happened.

Weren't you recruited at an early age to assist, teaching some of these peasant women to read?

Wole Soyinka: Well, I was already co-opted. Anybody was co-opted who happened along. So it wasn't enough just for me to sit in and watch, no. So when I came in, Mrs. Kuti would just say, "All right, where have you reached now in your school? Take on those women. Teach them what you've been learning." It was that kind of mutual self-help. So I did teach some of the women to read. I assisted my mother, I assisted Mrs. Kuti, and I enjoyed it. Yes.

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