NAME:
ADEOLA STELLA ALAOMA
COURSE TITLE :
CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF LITERARY
TRANSLATION Phd
CODE;
FRN 913
LECTURER:
PROF AKAKURU
QUESTION
Translate page 6 & 7 of "L'endroit et8 L'envers dans le
discours Littéraire Africaine" D'akakuru.
Page 6
< It’s crazy… how the knowledge acquired in secondary school is
illusory; I who was almost proud of what I had learned all that school
year—at the very first real test of life itself, not the fake one of
exams—I discovered enormous gaps in my little kingdom… It’s
really worth ruining poor folks’ youth if it’s just to feed them for
years with approximate things. >
And this state of affairs was not accidental. According to Herskovits,
no educational policy admitted that African societies had any values
on which a program could be built: nothing was considered valid
except the “eternal truths” of Western civilization. Hence the absence
of a positive teaching policy on the part of Western powers, apart
from the narrow opening that explains the “rough odds” taught to
Black people.
Page7
THE RIGHT SIDE AND THE REVERSE SIDE
(miraculé); Medza in _Mission terminée_, etc. All these characters
learn to read and write thanks to Western schooling, and some like
Samba Diallo in _L’Aventure ambiguë_ and Barnabas even go to
France.
Generally speaking, education is presented as a liberating force that
allows the flowering of latent capacities in the individual. It is thanks
to it that Barnabas manages to work for the Whites (_Chemin
d’Europe_), and that Medza (_Mission terminée_), though educated,
finally becomes aware of his alienated condition. In fact, many Black
1
characters believe that Western schooling will enable Black people to
uncover the secrets of the White man and finally defeat him, who
dominates them. The native nurse traveling in the bus that takes
Barnabas to Yaoundé gives a good example:
> “Come bid farewell to the child of this land
> whom God has chosen to go study
> in the Whites’ country, from where he will return
> to save us, to save Africa.”¹
And this state of affairs was not accidental. According to Herskovits,
no educational policy admitted that African societies had any values
on which a program could be built: nothing was considered valid
except the “eternal truths” of Western civilization. Hence the absence
of a positive teaching policy on the part of Western powers, apart
from the narrow opening that explains the “rough odds” taught to
Black people.
SCHOOL AS A FACTOR OF HUMAN FLOURISHING
And this bias is corroborated by the Most Royal Lady, Samba
Diallo's aunt, in Ambiguous Adventure. Since, as Monsieur Ndiaye—
a teacher at the White school—asserts, the new school allows the
youth of the Diallobé to "learn how to join wood to wood...", the Most
Royal Lady invites the people of the Diallobé, whom she summons, to
send their children to school:
> "The foreign school is the new form of the war being waged against
us by those who have come, and we must send our elite there, while
waiting to push everyone else into it."²¹
2
> Even in the cases of Banda (Cruel City), King Albert (King Albert
of Effidi), and Mekanda, the chief's brother (The Miraculous King)...
Footnotes:
¹⁹ Oyono, Ferdinand, Road to Europe, p. 161.
²⁰ Kane, Cheikh H., Ambiguous Adventure, p. 21. p. 44.
²¹ Kane, Cheikh H. Ibid, p. 47.
Key Contextual Notes:
* "L'école des Blancs": Literally "The school of the Whites,"
referring to the colonial educational system.
* "Apprendre à lier le bois au bois": This is a famous metaphor from
Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure, referring to the
technical and material mastery (science/engineering) of the West.
* "Évolué": A colonial-era term for an African who had "evolved" by
adopting Western education, language, and customs.