ENG 482: Poetics of Relation Research Guide: Nobel Lecture: The Past Must Address It's Present

Within The Past Must Address Its Present, Soyinka's skills as both a writer and a social critique are clearly.  While not introduced in his Nobel Lecture speech, Soyinka's use of disease and death imagery in relation to apartheid is both striking to a listening audience and urges them to take immediate steps to quarantine the outbreak.  Moreover, this diction, in combination with the overt allusions to Nazi eugenics and racial superiority throughout the speech, evokes the clear evils of the Holocaust.  Using his award as a political platform from which to address the world, Soyinka's deliberately intertwining diction exemplifies his argumentative skill.  After all, if theories of racial superiority and eugenic treatment- which themselves hinged on the diction of disease and illness inherently present within specific ethnic and social groups- were the driving social reason for stopping Nazi Germany, then shouldn't apartheid in South Africa and other nations be stopped on the same moral and ethical grounds?

-Grayson Hill 15’

“In understanding Black humanity, Soyinka argues, “there is a deep lesson for the world in the black races’ capacity to forgive.” Soyinka’s assertion suggests the black race, which has continuously been exploited, abused, and stripped retains an integral part of humanity. For forgiveness can only occur when one recognizes the humanness in another individual. The “largeness of spirit” and selflessness embedded in blackness makes the black race the “supreme sacrifice” in a way that others are not,” and they understand humanity in a way that others do not.

-Aminata Dumbuya 14’

Soyinka argues that within our historical acceptance of oppression lies a metaphorical “umbilical cord” and evidence that society legitimizes the hate that pervades history. Childlikeness, he suggests, becomes a method of operation hinged on years of false entitlement and lies. Soyinka asks his listeners, particularly people aware of the South African Apartheid, to sever the umbilical cord that ties the present to the horrors of the past and impedes the ability to create a new future: “We are saying very simply but urgently: sever that cord. By any name, be it Total Sanction, Boycott, Disinvestment, or whatever, sever this umbilical cord and leave this monster of a birth to atrophy and die or to rebuild itself on long-denied humane foundations” (6). Refusal to refute a violent act ultimately legitimizes the act. American history, for example, originates from Native genocide by European settlers; yet, we celebrate the union between the “pilgrims” and the “Indians,” inadvertently accepting the violence and disease that the Europeans imposed on indigenous people.

-Taylor Pisel 14’

The opening story and explanation serves as a meditation on the nature of theater as well as the racial and political inclinations of English theatergoers of the 1950s. The majority of the rest of Soyinka’s lecture is devoted to the current political horror of Apartheid South Africa, and the injustice of the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. In doing so, he draws an interesting comparison to the Allied Powers’ imprisonment of Rudolf Hess during World War Two. He seems to be paraphrasing a statement released by the South African government that first made the comparison in response to worldwide calls to release Mandela. It would seem that the comparison was intended to declare both men war criminals and therefore justify Mandela’s imprisonment, as much of the Western World would agree the Hess was justifiably imprisoned.

But Soyinka points out that while this is an absurd comparison that portrays Rudolf Hess as Nelson Mandela in blackface, he also says “But yet again to equate Nelson Mandela to the archcriminal Rudolf Hess is a macabre improvement on the attitude of regarding him as sub-human.” As Soyinka wisely points out, while comparing Mandela to Hess first seems an offensive and absurd comparison, it is a small step up from those who had previously demonized Mandela as an animal or barbarian. Soyinka goes on to describe the atrocities of Apartheid South Africa and call for the release of Nelson Mandela, whom this address was dedicated to. Soyinka’s choice to dedicate his speech to Mandela and repeatedly call for his release shows his global political awareness and desire to help oppressed people. Rather than lecture about his work or the problems plaguing his home country, he lectured on what he perceived to be the greatest social injustice currently underway in the world, which I found noble.

-Mark Brannan 14’

I was reminded of John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse and the metafictive movement whereby the audience/reader is made aware of the technical structures of the literature.  In the same way that metafiction draws attention to itself as a man-made and man-involved entity, metatheatre draws attention to its own fictional status as a theatrical pretence.  It is by this form that the actors described in Soyinka’s recollection could “dramatize their wish to have that uncooperative actor join them”.  I was troubled by this mode of presentation given that none of the actors had been immediately involved in the incident, nor did they have the scholarship to preserve the integrity of the event by depicting it as realistically as possible. It is likely that the primary intent of the actors was to showcase their abilities as creative minds rather than to factually express the historical events. This is not to say that interpretive takes on history are unethical – they not only serve as entertaining productions but can also be requisite for, as Soyinka remarks “provok[ing] changes, that an actualization of the statistical journalistic footnote can arouse revulsion in the complacent mind, leading to the beginning of a commitment to change, redress”.  However, it seems that given the play’s audience, whom Soyinka considered “collectively responsible for that dehumanizing actuality,” it would have been more morally responsible to present the event as it actually occurred. The actor’s ability to improvise throughout the production disrupts the integrity of the actual events and has the capacity to create a false depiction of the subject (“every death of a freedom fighter was a notch on a gun, the death of a fiend, an animal, a bestial mutant, not the martyrdom of a patriot”) and also has the capacity to create in the audience an unintentional or even insulting reaction, (“it provoked a feeling of indecency about that presentation rather like the deformed arm of a leper which is thrust at the healthy to provoke a charitable sentiment”).

-Carolyn Griffith 14’

Soyinka claims that an emphasis on God and law can be potential distractions in the common mind. It is easy for people to misconstrue the word of God, just as it can be difficult to ignore a law or foundation whose existence started before one's time. Soyinka promotes alternative ways of thinking, ways that could test a society. However, Soyinka ultimately believes that after this test, much like after a theatrical performace, those involved will find a sense of peace.

-Coleman O'Neill 14'