African Politics No Longer at Ease by Obi Okonkwo Essay

In Africa, the interests of various individuals and groups have transformed the possession of power into nightmarish dimensions due to the flaws in the political structures of the societies. Although some of these degenerative weaknesses have been explained by historical experiences, there still remains the fact that the progressive development of any society depends on a conscious pruning of flawsin the organizational structure of the society by those with the power to provide guidance and direction. Moreover, this burden of leadership could elicit either patriotic parasitic tendencies in the utilization and exercise of power. (Ehling 23-25) According to Steven Gale in his Critical Commentary ‘Chinua Achebes No Longer at Ease’ where he†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ [In Things Fall Apart, he] dramatizes only a local struggle around the turn of the century in the Igbo heartland of West Africa between Protestant missionaries backed by British imperial power and the inhabitants of several Igbo villages. Clearly, the many confrontations between Europeans and Africans on the African continent over several centuries varied considerably according to particular political, geographic, and social circumstances. Nevertheless, Achebe focuses on an underlying ethical conflict between two civilizations that eventuated in the destruction of the traditional Igbo way of life. In No Longer at Ease, Achebe offers a reprise of the tragic confrontation of Things Fall Apart, but in a mediated and modernized form. †¦ No Longer at Ease [embodies] radically different conceptions of tragedy that reflect the fundamental changes that have occurred in Africa in the wake of its encounter with European civilization (108-109). Achebe might have tried to resolve the tension between traditional Igbo practices and those demanded by a modernizing postcolonial AfricanShow MoreRelatedThe Center Does Not Hold: A Cultural-Religious Hole in Achebes Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease1339 Words   |  5 PagesCultural-Religious Hole in Achebes Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease Both Okonkwo in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart and Obi in No Longer at Ease represent departures from two worlds, left in a kind of limbo which offers no way out and no salvation. 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