This is a brilliant, but painful book. But I must warn you. As an environmental and socialist activist I do not think that I can review it, or even discuss it, without talking about the ending. If you don't want to have that spoiled I suggest that you go away and read it, without continuing.
Still here? Let's talk about Imbolo Mbue's amazing book. I came across this after learning that it was being banned by some school boards in the United States and I was puzzled, because it didn't seem to fit the normal pattern of banned books. It is set in the (fictional) African village of Kosawa. Rather like a theatre play Kosawa forms the backdrop to everything which happens, even though events might take place thousands of miles away. It is Kosawa that feels the impact of global changes and it is the village from where the characters experience and judge events. Kosawa is threatened by Pexton a US oil multinational which has discovered oil beneath the village land. At first the villagers are keen to embrace the small amount of wealth that comes their way, though Pexton's representatives lie and trick the villagers about what they will receive.
But the relationship quickly sours as Kosawa's children begin to die. The pollution from the oil refinery and the leaks from the pipes poison the land and water, and the villagers are powerless to stop the leaks. Appeals to government make no difference, Kosawa is a dictatorship and the ruling class is closely linked to Pexton's oil revenue. The country's dictator has made Pexton's actions legal. Repeated meetings with Pexton's representatives bring no change, boring the villagers, until one day the villagers kidnap Pexton's men and demand action.
Imbolo Mbue skilfully weaves events through the eyes of Kosawa's inhabitants, in particular the children and women, something that emphasises who the victims of the pollution are. In doing so she shows how the villagers frame their experiences through their own understanding of the world - spiritual and ecological. The villagers cannot help but believe they've done something wrong, and are being punished by their Spirit. They cannot, at least initially, comprehend the ruthless nature of a oil company compelled to maximise profits at the expense of people and the land they live in. They can, however, comprehend the viciousness of a state that will do everything to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful, and Kosawa quickly feels that violence.
The people of Kosawa attempt to appeal to the government. Their delegates go missing. Those who go to find them, in turn, face violence and suppression but catch the ear of an investigative journalist who kicks up a stink in the US press. Here, in my opinion, is where Mbue's novel becomes an extremely powerful and clever work. The US press reports galvanise a solidarity movement that puts pressure on Pexton, and in turn brings NGO assistance to Kosawa. I feared the novel would peter out in a story of Western NGO salvation. Instead, Mbue shows how the NGO sector desperately tries to hold back the villagers, promising them salvation through the US legal system and discouraging "rocking the boat". The villagers wait, and some die, and the urge to action grows stronger.
Some of the younger generation launch an armed struggle. Burning Pexton's property, assassinating its workers' and harassing the government. Its powerful, but invites retribution. At the same time, one of their number, Thula, makes it to a US university on a Pexton funded NGO organised scholarship. Their Thula reads Franz Fanon, Marx and Engels and Paulo Freire and becomes an activist. Shocked to see that in the US there is poverty, inequality and injustice, she is arrested and inspired to learn more about social movements. Her return to Africa sees her try to launch a revolution, and there's a powerful tension between her and those who remained behind - a tension between those that see the armed struggle as the way forward, those who see mass pacifist movements as the only moral way forward and those that would rather not struggle at all.
I have my own views on what sort of movement might bring social and climate justice. This review is not the place for them. The point that Mbue makes powerfully, is that the none of the movements that Kosawa inspires succeeds. The village is defeated, its people dispersed and its struggle forgotten except by a few survivors. I think this is the genius of the novel - we expect fairy tail endings. We're seduced to believe that a peaceful revolution will win at Thula become President, or the NGOs win justice or the right person is assassinated. Instead there is no victory, and we are left to dwell on what might have been. Ultimately this is a novel that is about the importance of struggle. Because without struggle there can be no hope, but struggle itself doesn't always win.
It is a poignant, and powerful novel - a book that fits with the Black Lives Matter and the Climate Justice movements. It's a book that places agency into the hands of ordinary people in Africa, and shows that the enemy is a capitalist system and its representatives - whether they are US oil companies or ruthless African states. It is a wonderful work that offers the reader no easy answers.
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