A Critical Analysis of “IT ALL STARTED WITH THE CONVERSION” by Phakamile Yali-Manisi.
This poem is about the style in which Africans were colonized by the Europeans. It is about the subtle ways in that imperialism was injected into the systems of Africans, and how Africans were subtly ideologically conditioned through religion.
It is stating the root cause of the present dilemma that Africa encounter in the present day. That the problems of Africa today began with the conversion. The conversion from the African belief into Christianity. Hence Manisi provides detailed information on the description of the European clergy. With the use of vivid imagery and metaphor, the clergy’s “costume” and their hidden functions were described in the poem.
It is in this vein that Achebe stated that:
The white man is very clever, he came quietly
With his religion. We were amused at his foolishness
And allowed him to stay. Now he has won our
Brothers. Our clan can no longer act like one.
He has put knife on the things that held us together
And we have fallen apart.
This is how the whiteman (European) shattered the African sinews. Introducing religion into a communal society where just one religion is shared by the people is nothing more than a genius step. With the introduction of a new religion/ belief system comes heterogenous opinions and worldview among the Africans.
Thus, what happened to the Babylonians is bound to happen. With different opinions and worldview the centre of things must surely give way for things to fall apart.
Eventually, Achebe’s proverb becomes manifested.
The proverb that:
“when two brothers fight, a stranger inherit their estate”.
The European inherited the African scepter when the “sinews of those in front were shattered”. When there is no unified voice and system, it became easy for colonialism to thrive.
These lines present a graphic illustration of the argument:
And it shatters the sinew of those in
front
And when the country was in a plight,
The cannons penetrated deeply,
It penetrated and calmed things down.
The cannons are not mere explosives, they are beyond physical bombardment. They are metaphysical, political and the utmost mode of individual displacement and detachment from one’s cosmology. They are the form of weapon that dismantle one’s connection from one’s core source (sinew) of existence and identity.
“It all started with a conversion” also has a figurative meaning. It also means that the conversion is not only in terms of faith or religion. It is also of a political, economic and social state. Moreover, it seems that the poet and his people are gullible to have accepted the belief in another God, instead of sticking with their Gods.
The God that the Europeans bring has one “whose collar faces westward. In other words, it is not a God of the land. It is a foreign God with no interest of the land at heart.
Little wonder that the persona grows from the state of innocence into experience, in the space of just a few lines, to realise that “this bible is pregnant with abominations”. The abominations are precepts that are not compatible with the African cosmology. The persona eventually realized that the clergy had an hidden agenda which is to “rearrange the land” through colonialism.
In the end, it was already too late when it occurred to them that they have been deceived. Things had already fallen apart, and it was difficult to redeem their estates back from the stranger. Several wars were fought back to win it back, but to avail. Their missions never come to fruition. Nevertheless, they do not give up.
The final stanza explains this vehemence:
Watching the result of the pilling of
corpses
People lay stark without any shots fired
because they knew how to crawl on
their bellies,
avoiding the cannons as they made
towards the killer.
This poem is about the style in which Africans were colonized by the Europeans. It is about the subtle ways in that imperialism was injected into the systems of Africans, and how Africans were subtly ideologically conditioned through religion.
It is stating the root cause of the present dilemma that Africa encounter in the present day. That the problems of Africa today began with the conversion. The conversion from the African belief into Christianity. Hence Manisi provides detailed information on the description of the European clergy. With the use of vivid imagery and metaphor, the clergy’s “costume” and their hidden functions were described in the poem.
It is in this vein that Achebe stated that:
The white man is very clever, he came quietly
With his religion. We were amused at his foolishness
And allowed him to stay. Now he has won our
Brothers. Our clan can no longer act like one.
He has put knife on the things that held us together
And we have fallen apart.
This is how the whiteman (European) shattered the African sinews. Introducing religion into a communal society where just one religion is shared by the people is nothing more than a genius step. With the introduction of a new religion/ belief system comes heterogenous opinions and worldview among the Africans.
Thus, what happened to the Babylonians is bound to happen. With different opinions and worldview the centre of things must surely give way for things to fall apart.
Eventually, Achebe’s proverb becomes manifested.
The proverb that:
“when two brothers fight, a stranger inherit their estate”.
The European inherited the African scepter when the “sinews of those in front were shattered”. When there is no unified voice and system, it became easy for colonialism to thrive.
These lines present a graphic illustration of the argument:
And it shatters the sinew of those in
front
And when the country was in a plight,
The cannons penetrated deeply,
It penetrated and calmed things down.
The cannons are not mere explosives, they are beyond physical bombardment. They are metaphysical, political and the utmost mode of individual displacement and detachment from one’s cosmology. They are the form of weapon that dismantle one’s connection from one’s core source (sinew) of existence and identity.
“It all started with a conversion” also has a figurative meaning. It also means that the conversion is not only in terms of faith or religion. It is also of a political, economic and social state. Moreover, it seems that the poet and his people are gullible to have accepted the belief in another God, instead of sticking with their Gods.
The God that the Europeans bring has one “whose collar faces westward. In other words, it is not a God of the land. It is a foreign God with no interest of the land at heart.
Little wonder that the persona grows from the state of innocence into experience, in the space of just a few lines, to realise that “this bible is pregnant with abominations”. The abominations are precepts that are not compatible with the African cosmology. The persona eventually realized that the clergy had an hidden agenda which is to “rearrange the land” through colonialism.
In the end, it was already too late when it occurred to them that they have been deceived. Things had already fallen apart, and it was difficult to redeem their estates back from the stranger. Several wars were fought back to win it back, but to avail. Their missions never come to fruition. Nevertheless, they do not give up.
The final stanza explains this vehemence:
Watching the result of the pilling of
corpses
People lay stark without any shots fired
because they knew how to crawl on
their bellies,
avoiding the cannons as they made
towards the killer.
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