HARDtalk Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Author b045ln9h default

welcome to hard talk I'm Steven Santo how should we make sense of Nigeria's 21st century identity newly anointed as Africa's number one economy it is an oil-rich emerging power but it's also beset by corruption poor governance and a wave of internal conflict that could threaten the very unity of the state well my guest today is the highly acclaimed Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie per fiction explores her country's troubled past and current challenges how does this writer see Nigeria's story unfolding shame Amanda and gauzy Adichie welcome to hard talk thank you you have described what Nigeria is going through today the security crisis as the most violent period in our nation's existence since the Bayaka war do you feel the crisis matches by offer in terms of its challenge to Nigeria you know because because it's it's trying to compare what was clearly a civil war with two clearly armed sides and so in some ways clear science which largely knew what they were fighting for whether or not that that was a good thing but it's hard to compare that with what's going on and on which I think it's just more more force and more so no I don't think I can compare it I don't think it I draw parallels but I do think though is that since Biafra I don't think that anything else has she couldn't last sense of security as a people before we get to what is happening today I do want to explore by out for a little bit with you because it seems so much to have shaped your creative life your writing life but also your personal life your family history as well and perhaps we should start by reminding people exactly what happened in that period the war of 67 to 70 the East the eastern region of Nigeria fought for secession for independence it wanted to be a new nation by Aphra to leave the young Nigeria behind and your family was very much caught up in that yes my father my parents lived through the war my grandfather has died in the war as fighters or justice they died in refugee camps they died they got ill and they died because there was no medicine and the refugee camps my father was one of the many academics who supported the secession and who who fought for the cause in their own ways and my father worked in a directory it's my mother you know the at the time that everybody was very much invested in the window war effort so it was in the beginning the secession was a cause that cut across class black and also to an extent ethnicity because there are other small ethnic groups in Biafra but then towards the end of the war it wasn't the case many people were just I mean the war had not only destroyed limes but I like to say that the war robbed a generation of its innocence I suppose what it what it also did was raised questions about the the coherence the sort of fundamental integrity of this very new State of Nigeria which in some ways was a sort of post-colonial construct and I wonder if as a young girl learning about it with your family whether you were encouraged to feel Nigerian or whether you were encouraged to feel first and foremost ebo your people your tribe um no I was Nigerian and ewar I think I think the idea of ethnicity and of an ethnic identity being somehow mutually exclusive with a nationalist identity is really doesn't apply and it's not in my life you know you're I don't know obviously how committed your grandparents and parents were to the idea of an independent path but many ebo wanted no more part of Nigeria well yes but but that was because there were there were political things that had happened that because in Nigeria ethnicity has for so long been politicized so that the political decisions that are taken and they target particular ethnic groups but I don't think that children are raised I was certainly wasn't raised to think you're EMU fest you're Nigerians second I was both at the same time and in many ways I think identity is something that shifts often depending on where you are so that times and actually depending on what you're doing and so that times when I'm more amore than anything else and that times when I'm more Nigerian than anything else but I've never thought of both as computing identities because they're not for me yeah Chinua Achebe one of Nigeria's great writers the late Chinua Achebe he's he's said before he died that you know he was very disappointed that Nigerians no longer learning enough he felt about the reasons for the war of 67 to 70 it wasn't being taught in schools he felt in the right way and therefore I think he felt that important lessons to be learned were not being learned by today's Nigerians now you've your book a half a Yellow Sun is is you know all about what happened and tracing a family through what happened do you do you share his feelings yes but it's actually not something mewn Nigeria as a country has never really engaged with Biafra but I also don't think it's that surprising though because countries in general hide parts of the history that they're ashamed of or that they're uncertain about there's a lot that's unresolved from that period in our history and so while I think it's wrong I don't think it's terribly surprising that I didn't learn very much about the Nigeria for a warrant school for example and having grown up the daughter of people who survived the war people who were actually know deeply wounded by that war them I didn't know very much either because they didn't really talk about it it's it's very interesting for me to imagine what your father then made of you committing so much of your time and effort as a young writer to exploring that past and I just wonder what he may need of the end-product my father is a lovely man and I'm very much a daddy's girl and you know both my parents didn't talk about that period because they just it was very difficult for them and they didn't talk about it until I started to ask questions and I can't I really cannot explain in an intellectual way why I was haunted by that period but I have been since I was 13 and I would ask questions endlessly and you know my father particularly my father he was generous enough to tell me what he had gone through and many of the stories he told me form the basis of the novel half of a Yellow Sun and I remember when I finished it I was very worried about what he would think and and so what I did was I was at home in asuka with them and then left the manuscript on his study table and then the next day I left and went to Lagos yes I didn't want him to read it when I was there and then ice asked my brother to go check on daddy and see what his expression was like when he was reading and but I have to say my father and approved and he also said that he was very taken by how I had to use the details but but he had provided the movie version of half of a Yellow Sun which is obviously out in the UK and many Western countries hasn't actually been certified hasn't been given a certificate for release in Nigeria is that do you think because again Nigerians and the authorities don't want to be confronted with the divisions the tensions the fragmentation that lies potentially within the country well I think I think leadership is very much aware of the fragmentations in Nigeria I don't think they need a film to remind them of that do you think I mean I I really I I don't know I think that everybody is on edge in Nigeria at the moment just because of really because of Boko Haram and it's not that surprising that because we're all on edge people overreact and so there's a film and it's about Biafra and be afraid spaced on a very turbulent part of our history and and certain people in certain positions get frightened and they think maybe we shouldn't let people see this but I think that's I think it's a shame really because the film isn't even very political but the novel is much more political than the film and it's really just a beautiful romantic film and what's sad I think is that by doing this they have politicized it and and now that people who are probably going to watch the film looking for something to be offended by well that was then and by Afra did so much to shape that sort of early period of Nigeria's history today as you've just mentioned Boko Haram is that perhaps the sort of biggest challenge to Nigeria's for unity and stability would you yourself as you live at least part your life in Nigerian in Lagos would you look at Boko Haram and think there is something there which is an expression of of sort of alienation of inequality of deep socio-economic problems in my country or do not see it as an expression of that well I don't think the answer is is that simple I mean I do think that that socio-economic inequality is part of the problem I don't think it is the problem and I say this because you know poverty is a problem that cuts across the country it's not something that is particular to the Northeast except if you look at the figures it is striking the degree to which absolute poverty is clearly highest in the north and northeast well but I think we should ask the question why I mean Nigeria is a federation right so and we have this very interesting sort of revenue allocation formula which means that many northern states actually get more money and southern states and so when we talk about poverty in the north and the Northeast well I think it's important to remember that yes there are many people who are poor but the northern governments are not necessarily poor and and then then I suppose one needs to ask why I think part of the narrative and this is something that seems to exist more outside Nigeria than in Nigeria is that Boko Haram is a result of sort of certain kind of socio-economic neglect of that part of the country by by the government but but you know while I think the government bears a lot of responsibility I think when you really look at the way Nigeria walks and the way the states get their money it's not it's not true at all that that that area should be necessarily much poorer well and then the other way to look at Boka around par from those sort of deep lying socio-economic factors is is is to take seriously it's it's specific message which you know it against modernity you know literally it means against sort of Western education and quite clearly with the most high-profile shocking tactic they've adopted that is abducting the schoolgirls in particular in chibok abducting more than 200 schoolgirls in one go they seem to be delivering a messy directly against the education of females again sort of any progressive liberal view of gender equality in Nigeria is that do you think at the heart of what they are about no I don't think so I think the I think they're delivering a message about Western education and I don't think it's as gendered you don't see it as a gender because because if it was then they wouldn't have murdered all those innocent boys that they murdered in their school I mean this is a group that has attacked both boys and girls that the abduction of the girls I think I think there's something cynical about it suppose that that we live in a world where gender still matters very much and and you make a bigger point if you if you have dug girls I think and also just more cynically that you can you can use them as sex slaves so I don't think that Boko Haram is necessarily about not educating girls I think Boko Haram is about western-style education somehow being a bad thing what about the reaction to the abducting of the girls I mean we know Booker her and anybody who follows Nigeria knows it's been around a long time for five years and and the violence has been endemic in certain parts of the country for a long time but something about that chibok event has captured the world's imagination with all of the hashtag bring back our girls campaign and everything else which started in Nigeria but really gained traction when Michelle Obama and others got involved as well do you wonder sometimes what what it is that that the West sees in this particular event I just wonder how you see it and fortunately I'm not a member of the West so we might have to ask the West in a way because you spend half your time in the United States and a lot of your time still in Nigeria and you in a sense you've got a foot in both worlds actually it's been more than half in Nigeria now but you I don't know I have thought about it and I think I think there is a sense in which it's a story that fits into certain expect of what should happen in a place like Nigeria it's also a story that is easy to connect to emotionally without necessarily knowing what the political context is and I think and one of the things that I think has happened is because of the emotional emotional weight of this story it's often been constructed in ways that I find interesting such as the idea that it's really just like the Taliban because because that fits a prefabricated box of but but it isn't right it really isn't and and it's it's complex in its own way but at the same time I think that you know I think that the attention that that has that the very Nigerian grassroots social media campaign that then sort of spread across the world it's always I think it was useful because it did make I think it made the Nigerian government sit up a little bit more I think it made them think of of the abductions less as as a local political thing which is what I which is what I think they had seen it adds and made them sort of think of it as something more global and if that will bring the girls back which is the hope then and I think that's a good thing yeah um you say you don't see it through the sort of prism of gender but I do want to pursue a bit of a gender discussion with you because you've made a very clear point of saying you are a feminist and you rather amusingly said you know what I'm a happy African feminist and you may not some African women may not believe that's possible because they assume that if you're a feminist you're not happy because you haven't found the right husband or you're not really African because you've been so influenced by Western thinking yeah so you tell me how easy is it in today's Nigeria to be a feminist well I don't know about easy it's it's what I am and it's what I will I will die as a feminist and you know and the idea that feminism is somehow a Western import is very troubling to me because it's untrue but many Nigerian women you've said we have one Nigerian academic came up to you not so long ago and said oh that's not our culture feminism not us that is true but I think that's because the idea of feminism is very limited by a single story that there's a there's a stereotype of a feminist and people think if a feminist it means even in the West it means you don't shave and you don't used to your Durant and you burn bras and that kind of nonsense and I was a child who just didn't understand why boys were supposed to be more important than I was and I didn't read any books to see to come to that conclusion I just found it silly I was in primary school I was doing better than the boys and somehow the boy had to be the class monitor and I remember just thinking well that doesn't really make sense we really should focus on ability right we should have the best person be but in general it's it's not an easy thing to talk about gender and I think I think that's the case everywhere in the wall but in Nigeria in particular but it's something that I think is important because you know because it's important I wonder the extent to which it automatically makes you a campaigner because again interesting quote from you you said if it's true that the full humanity of women is not our culture so taking on that argument you hear in Nigeria then we must make it our culture which suggests to me that you know you have a real commitment now to sort of changing Nigeria that sounds very grand I don't think my ambitions are that well I think I have a bit of a Messiah Complex I have to I have to confess to this I do want to I do want to walk for a better world and and I think that gender injustice is one way to do that so when you star I'm just thinking recycle we start it and it's doable here's the thing I really do think it's doable people have used culture as a way of closing down to the ativ people have used culture to say well it's not a culture therefore women have to accept it as they're not and my position is that culture is constantly changing and that if you came to EMU land in Nigeria where I'm from 100 years ago and you had twins the twins would be killed because EMU culture felt that twins were somehow abnormal now a hundred years later all the what people would be horrified at the thought of killing twins what about if fascinating let me ask you another question which may be relevant to the ebo tradition and culture his female genital mutilation or as some still call it female circumcision across Nigeria that's been pervasive for generations not in my part well maybe in the ebo tradition that was never my part of Iolani know right we just I am not familiar with it we didn't do my mother didn't but I did notice looking at the figures that that across Eastern Nigeria the the figures were 50% more traditionally of women were going through that experience so here's the question if that to some Nigerian still represents tradition and culture do you feel that you know there is an absolute right here for a modern Nigerian woman to say no that is as the UN have said in so many other institutions that is just plain unacceptable and wrong yes of course because the culture changes I mean the idea what I believe in very much is the idea that change has to come from within the culture and there are many women I mean they're figures that but there many women in those societies who object to it and who are working to change it and I've just I don't believe that culture can be used as a reason for any form of injustice I just I just don't and I think that in the end culture really what's the point of culture but the culture really should be about preserving the continuity every people and I think that today if we continue to exclude women from many positions of power and also many cultural institutions of power then at some point we just won't survive I said you live sort of half in half us and Nigeria you said no I spend most of my time in Lagos the fact that you you know had a university education in the US you've spent a lot of time in the US and I believe your partner is in the u.s. does that make you when you come back to Nigeria and you've written a book called Americana about Nigerians who go away and then come back from the US does it make you a harsher critic of your country or a more defender it's actually interesting both both I think what do you think you put the emphasis in both really because I think I think both come together for me what leaving home did for me and was that it made me realize how much I loved Nigeria how just deeply emotionally I am invested in in Nigeria but also how how much I realized that we can do better because I was looking at it from the outside and most of them the most intelligent the most innovative people I know a Nigerians and looking at it from the outside I find myself thinking but why are we underperforming and and that then makes me much more likely to complain which is what I do endlessly when I'm at home but it but it's a it's the complaining that comes from from a belief that we can do so much better so I do think it's both because it's it's a holy country I have but that's not why I love it I just happen to love I am deeply deeply the only country you have because you do have ties in the United States now and I'm just I'm interested because you've written a lot about America and you've talked about how as an African woman going to America it was odd in a way because there you were defined by your race yes in a way that you'd never been defined by it that obviously back home and I just wonder again having lived in both cultures and societies whether you just feel more comfortable in Nigeria than you ever could in the United States yes absolutely I grew up in Nigeria my sensibility is Nigerian I look at that walls through Nigerian eyes and while I like America very much and I'm comfortable there it's not mine and is that partly because race is a problem in America I don't think so I think if I had been born there and raised there maybe would all of the problems of recently I think I probably would consider it mine so it's not so much about race it's so interesting cuz apparently that's what African Americans that is like Americans do I think sometimes find it troubling the the way in which Africans don't adopt their sort of race perspective yes because many Africans don't get it I think the assumption there's an assumption that with your if you're a dark-skinned person then you automatically understand Rhys is the way that race functions in America but that's not true and and so for me as a person who went to the u.s. to go to college and I really had no idea about what it meant really I mean I had read roots and I knew intellectually that slavery had happened but to be in the u.s. and suddenly to to hear jokes about watermelon and fried chicken and to lend that these were supposed to be offensive I was just I was also be confused and then to be expected to be offended by things I didn't necessarily understand was even more disorienting I mean I get it all now but at the time I didn't oh we have two men there but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a it's been a pleasure having you on Hajj well thank you very much thanks thank you very much indeed you

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Length: 24min 35sec (1475 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 05 2014