"The Shadow of the Sun" — the truth about dreams and their fulfilment, a review

Author: Sławomir Lepak date: 2001-01-01 ——————————————————————–

“This is not a book about Africa, but about a few people from there, about meetings with them, about the time spent together. This continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied and immensely rich cosmos. Only in a great simplification, for convenience, do we say — Africa. In reality, apart from the geographical name, Africa does not exist.” That is how Ryszard Kapuściński speaks about Africa and about his latest book, The Shadow of the Sun.

Having read the book, I entirely agree with Kapuściński. Travelling across Africa, he describes for us the life of the people there. The theme of independence recurs frequently too. Staying in many African countries, he had the “pleasure” of being at the centre of a gathering conflict. Wherever Kapuściński was, he always speaks of the people living there. The author is often struck by the conditions in which those people live. Very often a large family lives in one room, which they try to leave as early as possible in the morning because it is terribly stuffy. People who want to rent a flat — since buying one is beyond them — do not ask the owner about the price or the terms; their first and fundamental question is: “but is there a draught here?” It is entirely the reverse in the homes of the influential and the wealthy. Kapuściński had occasion to spend time in such buildings, so he could compare. The colossal difference astonished him. A handful of people live in the large, cool houses of the well-off while the poor suffocate in their little rooms. Often people cannot afford to rent at all. Then they build themselves the proverbial roof over their heads. It is always in the worst part of the city, since that is the only place the city authorities permit “such” people to build. On marshland, on bogs, on desert, someone puts up the first shack. Others follow his example, and in this way a street comes into being. First, though, these people have to gather the material for a “house”. But from where? They will certainly not buy building materials, because they cannot afford them. So they bring pieces of tin, of board, of cardboard, and nail and stick it all together. They lay the floor of this construction with grass, banana leaves or rice straw. For these people all this is their own house, built with their own hands. Unhappily, there are people who can demolish those houses in an instant. Kapuściński witnessed such an incident in Lagos. On the site of the slums the city had decided to build something else. Policemen threw the inhabitants out of their homes. It was done amid confusion, weeping and shouting. Bulldozers drove over their houses, leaving bare earth behind. These people will never be able to afford better houses, because their work — if they have any — brings them very small earnings.

Few people can boast of steady work. Kapuściński, staying with his friend Godwin in a certain village, saw people who did have steady occupations. Unhappily, even they do not always have anything to do. He met tailors there who, bent over their machines, spend most of the day talking. Cobblers and barbers have steady work. Many people own car workshops or fuel outlets. Unhappily there are a great many such places, so they bring small profits. It may seem strange to us that for a person in these regions a bicycle is a tool of work. Kapuściński met such a man in Godwin’s village too. Simon — for that was his name — carried goods on his bicycle for people going to the bazaars. Godwin explained to Kapuściński that to these people Simon is a wealthy man, because he has something others do not. The women, meanwhile, pound cassava or roast bananas. The chief form of earning for women is trade. They sell dried fish, juicy papayas, or soap of their own making.

In search of work people cover many kilometres, carrying their possessions on their backs. Zanzibar is one example, a place people came to from every part of Africa. They found work there harvesting cloves and coconuts. Only in that situation did their poverty “make life easier” for them. In a few hours they could build a shack and lay out their belongings in it. Only then do they begin to worry about food. Unhappily, that is far harder. Those who have work often go hungry, but those who do not go hungry more often still. Hungry children save themselves by the worst possible means — theft. Those who get away with food will share it with their peers. Some, unhappily, are caught and punished. The police beat them cruelly with truncheons and leave them in the street. Kapuściński shows vividly the insensitivity of the rich to human suffering, to hunger. In their houses meat is roasting, and not far away is a province in which people are dying of hunger. Kapuściński said recently in an interview for Radio PiK that people are the same everywhere. He was right, because the problem of hunger and of callousness occurs not only in Africa. In European countries, too, people live in extreme destitution and go hungry. Often people move away from districts where people poorer than themselves live. They find their behaviour, their way of life and their conditions distasteful.

Poor people lost their chance of social advancement in youth, when they were not taught to read and write. In poor Africa only education offers a chance of a better life. But the authorities in Africa prefer to rule over illiterates who know nothing of a better life, of a better world, and who will therefore not try to change their situation. This is slowly beginning to change, because children want to learn. Often, instead of a request for bread or fruit, one hears a request for a pencil. For these children a pencil is a spark of hope for a better future. With it they can go to school, learn to write and read, think positively and hopefully about what is to come. Some people succeeded and became “somebody”. The saddest thing, however, is that most of the Dark Continent’s intelligentsia live in London, Paris and Rome. What remain at home are the “dark masses”, perpetually exploited and poor. News of the outside world does not reach these people. The African authorities tell them only what they want to. Being cut off from the outside world becomes a source of revolts and revolutions. Rebels fight against the supposed “terror of the colonialists” in order to regain independence. At one meeting with the people the leaders of Ghana said that freedom must be regained first and that the rest would surely follow of itself. The rulers of many African countries are people who once fought in Europe for the freedom of those countries. Now they stand in defence of their own homelands. Africa seems particularly wronged by Europe: it was here that the first colonialists appeared as early as the fifteenth century. They brought diseases and disrupted age-old laws. The worst thing they did, however, was the mass export and trade in slaves. It is that which left a permanent mark on European-African relations. The White man was always a synonym for greatness and power. Only the events of the last century brought a truly fundamental change. The Second World War was a decisive turning point. It was then that Black Africans were recruited en masse into the British and French armies. Only then did the myth of the White master burst. Africans became witnesses to the White man’s spectacular defeats. With their own eyes they saw the fall of Paris and of London. On returning “home” they founded their own movements and parties, which set out to fight for the independence of their countries. Those who lived in the French colonies put forward a demand to become citizens of France. The British colonies held that the whole of Africa should be independent and united. Their slogan was: “Africa for the Africans!” At their head stood Kwame Nkrumah, who at one meeting threw out the battle cry: “Independence now!” The results were not long in coming: Ghana was the first to free itself, and other countries followed. The 1970s were a particular period in Africa’s history. It was then that a certain intoxication with the idea of independence set in. It was a period in which every social group had a different aim for which independence was worth winning. Poor peasants wanted bread for themselves and their families; the educated wanted posts and money. Their dreams seemed to be coming true. Wealthy British officials lost their posts, and those posts were taken by men who only yesterday had been poor and humiliated. Today they are fortune’s chosen, with high positions and full pockets.

When rebellions and revolutions begin to engulf the greater part of Africa, Kapuściński has ever greater difficulty moving about. Africans stopped believing the White man and stopped fearing him too. Kapuściński argued that it was not he and not Poles who were responsible for the poverty in which the inhabitants of Africa live. He told them that his country too had been in bondage for many years. But the Africans did not believe him. They thought a thing like that could only have happened to them. Now they had the upper hand.

There were many ideas for improving Africa’s situation. The best were put forward by experienced and educated people. They held that the only way out was to change the politicians. They wanted to give a new generation its chance. It also mattered to them that everyone should be given a share in public life. Crossing a border, one can already tell whether the country one is entering is free or whether war is still going on in it. It shows in the behaviour of the customs officers. Those standing at the border of a free country do not ask for documents; all they can do is complain about their pay. In the other case the customs men beat arrivals at once and try to let nobody in. Africa today is already quite different. Black Africans are proud to be citizens of their own state. They no longer pay attention to the White man; they almost entirely ignore him. They are the majority in their own country — the White man is “only” a visitor.

Ryszard Kapuściński has presented African reality superbly. Anyone can feel as though he had been there. I was astonished by the author’s courage, who despite the prevailing terror always got to wherever something was happening. Kapuściński is an uncommonly modest man. It is precisely through that modesty that he was able to reach an understanding with Africans. Because Kapuściński effectively merged into the everyday life of the people he spoke with, he was able to look at certain matters in a very particular way. On the one hand he speaks as an African, on the other as an “ordinary” white European. Kapuściński’s accounts are marked by a distinctive naturalness. The writer presents things as every African sees them.

The Shadow of the Sun should be considered purely as a collection of columns and reportage. I have already come across the view that Kapuściński’s writing disappoints through a certain chaos in the composition of the book. I consider that this is precisely the strongest side of this author’s books. It is these small and scrupulously recorded observations that create an unusually rich picture of Africa. Each new book by this author is an extensive compendium of knowledge about a given region and the culture found there. Most of this author’s books are beautifully written textbooks of history and sociology. Reading The Shadow of the Sun gave me a great deal of pleasure and at the same time opened my eyes to the particular richness we can encounter on the Dark Continent.

Author: Sławek Lepak

Bibliography

1. “Nowe Książki” 1990, Miesięcznik Krytyki Literackiej i Naukowej no. 6/856 2. “Literatura Polska”, Przewodnik Encyklopedyczny PWN 3. “Lektura Polska”, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Jan Tomkowski 4. “Tego nie dowiecie się w szkole”, Wojciech Wiśniewski, Nasza Księgarnia 5. “Leksykon polskich pisarzy współczesnych”, Piotr Ramcewicz

From the editors: this piece was written in 2000 for a Polish-language class in a Polish secondary school.