Introduction: Ken Saro-Wiwa as Public Intellectual

• Published in: Research in African literatures Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. vii - xvi
• Main Author: Newell, Stephanie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 22.12.2017
• Subjects: Achebe, Chinua; Advertisements; Advertising; Advertising campaigns; African literature; Amnesty; Blame; Campaigns; Censorship; Civil wars; Colonial government; Colonialism; Courts; Credibility; Decolonization; Defamation; Environmental literature; Federalism; Genocide; Globalization; Government officials; Human rights; INTRODUCTION; Libel; Minority & ethnic groups; Naming; Nationalism; Petroleum; Poetry; Political activism; Political debate; Political leadership; Politics; Postcolonial literature; Postcolonialism; Praise; Public figures; Public relations; Saro-Wiwa, Ken (1941-1995); Soyinka, Wole (1934- ); Surveillance; Traditions; War; Wiwa, Ken; World War II; Nigeria; Niger Delta; West Africa
• ISSN: 0034-5210; 1527-2044
• DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.48.4.01

Wallace-Johnson, for example, was considered so dangerous to the British war effort in the late 1930s that he was imprisoned on Sherboro Island for a large portion of the Second World War (Spitzer and Denzer); Azikiwe was regularly ordered to appear before the colonial courts on charges of libel and defamation and was the subject of extensive British government surveillance; in postcolonial Nigeria, Fela Kuti's human rights activism and outspoken political critiques led to repeated military brutality against himself, his family, and members of his commune between the 1970s and 1990s; and Soyinka had to flee for his life on at least one occasion under threat from the military authorities (Jeyifo). The parallels between Nigeria in the years of military rule and the late colonial period do not stop there, for just as post-1945 colonial governments in West Africa embarked on costly public relations campaigns to counter nationalist demands for accelerated decolonization, so too, according to Saro-Wiwa's son Ken Wiwa, the Nigerian government responded to the international condemnation of the Ogoni leaders' executions in November 1995 with a $10 million public relations offensive, employing media professionals to smear Saro-Wiwa's reputation and to shore up the damaged international credibility of the regime (In the Shadow 3). Simultaneously, the oil companies launched environmentally "green" advertising and public relations campaigns to highlight their efforts to clean up the devastated land in the delta region (Amnesty International, "Shell"). In the spirit of West African traditions of holding public figures to account through public acts of naming, in his writing Saro-Wiwa made a practice of isolating individual political leaders for praise or blame.3 In so doing, he presupposed a lively discursive engagement with his texts by readers.