INTERVIEW: 80 days ‘grossly inadequate’ to celebrate Professor Wole Soyinka

Since April 25, internationally-acclaimed Nigerian playwright and poet, Professor Wole Soyinka, has been celebrated daily with a long list of events that will end on July 14, 2014 — a day after his 80th birthday.

The executive director of the Wole Soyinka Open Door Series, Alhaji Teju Kareem, spoke with TheCable on why nearly three months was earmarked for celebrating the Nobel laureate, and on other matters about the celebrations.

80-day celebration for one man 

It is interesting to know that if we had our way, we would celebrate him for even more than 365 days. Eighty days is very symbolic. However, for us, it is as a result of a lot of incapacitation in the area of support and understanding of what the International Cultural Exchange stands for. We celebrate our essence, our being, as a people. We celebrate our virtues as a people.

As at today, we cannot point to anyone doing more — I don’t want to use the word, “better” — than Professor Wole Soyinka in upholding the essence of humanity in his action or struggle (when comfortable and convenient for him or when it is not), as an academic and as a human being. He has displayed the vigour of wanting to uphold human dignity all through his life. So, the ideal is when we celebrate him for 80 days. Celebrating that ideal for 80 days is grossly inadequate. It is as well as saying we cannot but uphold a person who represents the virtues that we all stand for; that is equality, fairness and respect for one another as human beings. Somebody has championed the course; we can only join in the little way we can, viz-a-viz the 80 days.

Other individuals who exemplify the ideals of the Open Door Series

The project is not named after Soyinka. The project is International Cultural Exchange (ICE), then a project under the ICE is Project WS, which is Project Wole Soyinka. We have the essay competitions, the advocacy, the excursion and so on. It is very synonymous to our aspiration, to the cause of the open door series. Our aspiration is to disabuse the fear that exists between one man and the other due to lack of understanding of the character, ideals, and in this case, culture of each other. You would discover that the greatest fear between one man and the other is the lack of understanding of each person’s being; and our being is represented in our entire culture. So if you are able to eliminate that fear, the world will be a better place to live in. And Soyinka has continuously stood for that. So it is not a preference for a person. I will borrow the words of one of the world’s greatest leadership figures, Martin Luther King Jr.: “It is not the colour of your skin that matters, it is the content of the character.” It is the content of Soyinka’s character, which is exemplified in his everyday fight towards eliminating fear that exists between one and the other — that led to segregation, apartheid, oppression and corruption — that we celebrate.

There are one thousand and one persons who are deserving of such honour. But in this instance, culturally speaking, we have not found any other deserving at this moment, especially when literature is our tool of celebration.

The unique item of this year’s celebrations

For us, it is the boldness of the icon in allowing us into his domain. That is the celebration of one of his works, A Dance of the Forests, which has hardly been performed. And we’re not just performing it, he is allowing us to perform it within his confines, which we all appreciate is very private to him. It takes all of us back to the nature that the man Soyinka so much exudes in his behaviour, in his character, in his being. You will always see the simplicity in him.

So, this year, allowing our audience to be taken to a natural ambience, to be taken to almost what we can call the original abode of human being, which is a forest, the natural habitat of man. And he has allowed us to take the celebration back to the natural habitat of man. We cannot find anything so noble, so simple and so much a lesson to everyone who will be present that day — that every other thing is cosmetics. As long as we appreciate that, our greed will reduce; and if our greed reduces, then corruption will reduce, and so will oppression, because you do not oppress for any other reason but for some capital or mental or psychological gain to yourself.

If we all become so simple in our approach to life and understand that from the dust we were created and to dust we will return, then a whole lot of issues and concerns that lead to frictions making the world so unbearable for us to live in will belong to the past. So, for us, it is a new infusion. It is novel, and we can not ask for better, at this point in time, to add to our programme. And what is that? To make human beings realise that the simplest things of life can be well appreciated and most desired.

The must-see event

The must-see event is actually the one so many will miss, unfortunately; and that is the student essay competition. Having the privilege of laying your hands on one of the essays that the young ones would write as a result of the atmosphere that we would create, which will energise and fire these kids up. Don’t forget that most of the works of great writers were done between their adolescence to their early thirties. The A Dance of the Forests that we are celebrating was also written when Soyinka was 26. So, for us, it is something to cherish if one can read what will come out of the innocent mind of the girls and boys coming through Nigeria. It will be something to cherish if we can. But unfortunately, that is the one likely to be missed by many, because the essays will be written under live camera within one-and-a-half hours or two hours. That, for me, is the peak of the celebrations. I can assure you, since the prof’s 76th birthday, I have read every essay written by those kids. And you know what? I want to do it again this year.