IN CONNIVANCE WITH NATURE: INTER-FAITH CRISIS AND ECOLOGICAL DEPLETION IN HELON HABILA'S MEASURING TIME

• Published in: English studies in Africa Vol. 54; no. 1; pp. 73 - 87
• Main Author: Olaoluwa, Senayon S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 01.05.2011
• Subjects: Christianity; Ecocriticism; environment; inter-faith crisis; Islam; modernity; nature
• ISSN: 0013-8398; 1943-8117
• DOI: 10.1080/00138398.2011.588380

That 'ecocriticism explores the ways in which we imagine and portray the relationship between humans and the environment in all areas of cultural production' (Garrard 1) is a fact that singles out the concept as an indication of intellectual responsiveness on the part of its proponents within the framework of knowledge production. This explains why this paper explores the mutually hostile cultural forms of consciousness and identity that often emerge from the practice of Christianity and Islam, two world religions whose contest for universal values, when taken too far, as is sometimes the case, wrecks havoc on the environment and humanity. On this score, the paper specifically examines Helon Habila's inventive interrogation of religious crises in Northern Nigeria - a region that is notorious for violent inter-faith eruptions - in his latest novel, Measuring Time (2007). It will thus argue that by creating the little rural and peaceful community of Keti in the beginning of the novel, Habila sets out to highlight the values of the environment in the sustenance of humanity's existence and living. Besides, the beauty of nature on the hills especially, constitutes a source of pride to the entire community, which is why the paper argues further that the inter-religious crisis that subsequently erupts, critiques, on the one hand, an insensate disruption of the rural tranquillity made poignant by environmental pollution that results in the wake of a mass human slaughter. On the other, the burning of the hill grove that follows is a conspiracy on the part of humanity to aggravate the withdrawn largesse of nature made visible in the drought that precedes the burning. The paper concludes that a greater environmental consciousness needs to be created where natural disaster is worsened by religious intolerance and violent eruptions. It is the more so when such eruptions abstract from the religions' claim to progress.