The "White" destruction.

Last Wednesday session, when the teacher was talking about some events in the novel, specifically when Okonkwo returns to the Village after being exiled, and notice how the culture of the white people impose upon the village’s culture,  immediately came to my mind Pocahontas. Not because I've watched the movie one of those days, but because at some point, both share the fact that during the conquest, the Whites  (Englishman) impose their way of thinking upon the one of the conquered community, losing many traditional and cultural aspects of each community.

Because of this idea, I look for a reliable source that mention something related to this “supremacy” that the whites though they had and I found an African Study called “Culture in Chinua Achebe’sThings Fall Apart” (Click the name if you want to read it). The author of the study highlight the importance of the book as it represent how the Igbo culture was before destruction caused by the arrival of the Conquerors. In fact, the Igbo culture was very civilized. When Okonkwo beat one of her wives during the Week of peace the village decide not to kill him; however, if something like that would’ve happened in Europe, probably they would have hung him, ignoring completely the Week of Peace.

From a general point of view, the idea presented by Achebe is not something that only happens in Africa. What’s more, it was a common practice that Englishman did every time they discover a land, and conquer it; they claimed they brought civilization and as a consequence many tribes lost their traditions, but this happens in Africa, India, and Latin America as well. However, it is really significant as Achebe is the first one who illustrates how Africans were; he took the Igbo culture and portrayed not only the how Europeans seen them, but also how they were before the Englishmen arrived there.

What is really important is that the “civilization” that Englishmen spread through the conquered colonies means the destruction of them. Those cultures lost their own traditions and connection to nature. Furthermore, they were the ones that spread the use of weapons, for instance guns. In my opinion, Achebe illustrates a situation that was usual while tribes were conquered, but the biggest difference is that he shows the destruction and damage cause by the conquerors rather than the good aspects of them. Moreover, Achebe shows that there is neither single culture considers as the one that should be an example for the others, nor the term “civilization” is always connected to Englishman traditions. A tribe can be much more civilized than a develop country because what matter are the values forgotten by the conquerors.