Wole Soyinka Interview (page: 8 / 9) Nobel Prize for Literature	Print Interview

You were the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Where were you when you first heard that you had won the Prize?

Wole Soyinka: It was an interesting story. I was actually in the air, flying. I was teaching at Cornell at the time, and I was on my way home, stopping in Paris for a meeting of the International Theatre Institute, whose president I was at the time. I was in my cousin's apartment. I arrived, and the rumors had gotten very, very strong. He was very excited, and I tried to douse his enthusiasm. He was working at UNESCO. I had a meeting at UNESCO that day. And he said, "Haven't you heard?" I said, "Heard what?" So I said, "Oh Yemi, come on. These rumors are always flying around. Just relax. Leave me alone." He said, "No, no, no. This is quite serious." I said, "Yemi, forget it. Nobel Prizes don't just drop in your lap like that. Let me sleep." And then a journalist came. My cousin went to work, but he'd let in a journalist.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Apparently that journalist had been sent by the Nobel Academy. Wherever possible, they like to send somebody physically to deliver the news, and -- or was it? No, his newspaper sent him to try and catch me and find my reaction. That newspaper, it was a Swedish newspaper which tries to get the immediate reaction of the Nobel laureate. So he came in and asked me. I said, "You, too?" He said, "No, no, this is it. This is quite true." So I said, "Thank you very much. I'm going to sleep. I've just flown across the Atlantic. I'm tired." "Oh," he said, "but aren't you going to wait and hear the news?" I said, "What news?" He said, "Well, it's going to be announced by such-and-such a time." I said, "Fine, I'm going to sleep." But the phone didn't allow me to sleep. So finally I gave up, made my coffee, offered this man some. Then he was going from -- switched on the television, switched on the radio, and he got tuned into the equivalent of national public service, this posh station. And then there was a program also by Bernard Pivot, a cultural program. And that man, he would go twiddle the knob. I started drinking my coffee and reading newspapers. And at the end of the program, he said, "But they haven't announced it!" And of course I'd heard. So I enjoyed that moment. Because he missed it while he was at the radio. I think Bernard Pivot -- somebody came in with a piece of paper, handed it to Pivot. He looked at it and put it beside him. And at the end of the program, he said, "Oh, the Nobel something has just been announced and it's a Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka." You know, so -- the man -- and he said, "They didn't announce it!" I said, "Announce what?" He said, "The Nobel Prize, they didn't..." "Oh," I said, "they did, they did." He said, "Who? Yes, yes, yes?" I said, "Wole Soyinka." He said, "Well?" I said, "Well, what?" I said, "Isn't that what you came for?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, but..." I said, "What do you want me to do? Get out the drums and start drumming, or singing, or faint or what? What do you want exactly?" He said, "But why didn't you tell me?" I said, "But you didn't ask me, as you recall, if it was announced, you were busy, all over the place." That's how I heard about it. I enjoyed the moment, actually, at the expense of the journalist.

When you made your acceptance speech, you dedicated your Nobel Prize to Nelson Mandela. How did you make that choice?

Wole Soyinka: Well, as I confessed earlier, my political orientation was very much South Africa-bound, very heavily so, obsessively so. Even to the extent that I undertook military training. I registered for Officer Training Corps at Leeds University, because a group of us felt that this was our mission, to liberate southern Africa. I wrote one of my earliest plays, The Invention, which was staged at the Royal Court Theatre, on the situation in South Africa. So Mandela, of course, came to symbolize for me, as for most of the world, the struggle in South Africa. It was inevitable that I should dedicate it to him.

But you're a Nigerian, and you could have taken the opportunity to direct that attention to your own country instead of South Africa. Why was that?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Wole Soyinka: Many people outside my own country are closer to me in spirit, and as far as I'm concerned, in blood, than many who pretend that they are leaders in my own country. Some of them, as far as I'm concerned, dropped from Mars. So I don't have any kind of a -- what you might call, basic patriotism. I lack it completely. I recognize communities. I'm very glad we spoke of communities. I recognize communities as being close to me. I'm a member of a certain community which is both internal, which happens to be located in the nation space called Nigeria, but that community also extends outside the Nigerian borders. And that community, as far as I'm concerned, is without color, without gender, without class. All those details for me are irrelevant. And they are my family, wherever they are. So Nigeria? Why should I dedicate my Nobel speech to Nigeria? Nigeria is just for me a figure of speech.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

We want to talk for a moment about the election of June 12th, 1993. If you could take us back to that election, and its subsequent annulment.

Wole Soyinka: That was another watershed loss for the democratic struggle of Nigeria, which was allowed just to trickle away,

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When, despite all obstacles placed in their way, the Nigerian people trooped out in the most disciplined manner you can imagine and registered their votes. And it was annulled, as the announcements were being collated and so on and so forth. Just annulled. And of course the people rose in protest. I was, again, involved in some of the protestations and witnessed the brutality of the military and the police during that time. And since then, Nigeria has not had one credible election. Everything has been manipulated, and so we had years and years of waste, even after the brutal military dictatorship. We'll be haunted, Nigeria will remain haunted by that day for another generation to come. I'm convinced of that.

The person who won was a remarkable character, remarkable character. A contradiction in some ways. Very, very rich. A rich man, but lots of imagination. I came to know him personally, and he wasn't somebody whom I thought could win an election, but he was a very clever, intelligent mover. He'd reached out in every corner of the country. Every corner. He beat his opponent even in that opponent's home town. If votes were counted in his hometown ward, he beat him there. So that's how good he was.

You're still very critical of events in Nigeria. Do you think it will take a grassroots movement, or will the pressure of globalization finally bring about change in Nigeria?

Wole Soyinka: A grassroots movement, yes, a very effective one. The problem with a grassroots movement, which is a very powerful tool, is the fact that all the blades of grass can gather themselves and go dutifully to the polls, raise their votes, and when it comes to counting time, miraculously, all these millions of blades of grass vanish and their voices are swept into the box that belongs to power. That really is a problem. The grassroots movement is very strong in Nigeria. Unfortunately, that grassroots movement has not yet reached a point where it can actually battle for its voice, which was where it all began in the West. The people were resolved in the Western Region, and cast their votes, and yet power took over their votes and pronounced them its own, which is what led to my original intervention.

Are there any actions you would like to see the international community take?

Wole Soyinka: The international community can only play a peripheral role. Symbolic, and at the same time actual. For instance, Obama's travel to Ghana, his first visit to Africa, when he deliberately bypassed Nigeria. Nigerians do not miss the significance of that gesture. So things like that, the isolation of a nation which refuses to treat its people like equal citizens, which constantly deprives them of their voices, which brutalizes them in many ways. Extrajudicial killings, repression, misuse of state power, of the army.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. The international community can constantly, directly or indirectly, sanction such nations, and where crimes against humanity have been committed, place the names of the perpetrators -- after they make their own inquiries, which is never difficult, all the facts are there -- place the principals under interdiction, ban them, most especially the most egregiously corrupt. Make sure they cannot come into their countries to enjoy their loot. Collaborate with the nongovernmental organizations in supplying information as to where the loot is, so that it can be recovered for the country. And also, open their doors, as for instance, a number did during the struggle against Sani Abacha, the most brutal dictator Nigeria has ever known. Open their doors to genuine refugees, not hassle them further with rejection, or with bureaucratic red tape. Sometimes, you know, some of these countries behave as if you need to bring your death certificate by extrajudicial execution before you're admitted as a political refugee. Sometimes these governments can be so obtuse. So a more openness towards the genuine dissidents in other countries. Those services, external services, are quite sufficient to enable those whose principal concern it is -- the dissidents within the country themselves -- to take action necessary to relieve themselves of oppression.

Is civil war in Nigeria a thing of the past?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Wole Soyinka: No. The oil situation -- I find there's a low-key civil war going on at the moment, which may be coming to an end, I think, but that's been more localized. It's been this contest over resources. The protest of the people of the oil-producing region about neglect, about the degradation of their normal organic production systems -- their farms, their fishing ponds, and so on. Over which a writer has also lost his life -- Ken Saro-Wiwa -- he and his companions who were hanged by Sani Abacha. That's the brutal dictator I mentioned earlier. So that kind of insurgency is still going on at this moment. But a full-scale civil war, well, I hope it's unlikely.

Since General Abacha's death, you've returned to Nigeria several times. One of the things you did, not long after that first return, was to pose for a public service announcement with a 38-year-old mother of four who had HIV-AIDS. What message were you hoping to communicate?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Well, first of all, people in the country were not taking HIV-AIDS seriously. My cousin was a Minister of Health under Babangida, and that was long before Abacha, because Abacha came after Babangida. And during that period, even during that period, the government was not taking HIV-AIDS seriously. And so when I was approached -- my son was involved in this particular film, by the way, and suggested it -- I accepted immediately. I felt somebody with, quote-unquote, a "high profile" might have some impact on people, and get them to be a bit careful. Within Nigeria we'd lost a number of people, even -- the cause of death not publicly acknowledged. Countrymen -- my cousin, of course, Fela Ransome-Kuti -- Fela "Anikulapo" Kuti, the son of my uncle, Reverend I.O. Ransome-Kuti, whom I mentioned earlier -- he died of AIDS. And so it was time for public awareness on any possible -- augmentation, because some of it was already going on. And that's why I agreed to do that.

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