Blog Post #20 - "Interview With Chinua Achebe" Discussion

1) What was the most meaningful takeaway from today’s discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work?

In the class regarding the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work, we looked at Achebe’s interview which was completed on the 2nd August 2000. Throughout the interview, I was taken away by the way peoples mind-set differently portrays a specific country or race, before the modern today, creating stereotypes. One example is how people focus on small negative parts of Africa to therefore create a stereotype against the whole country. This makes Africans feel as if they are outsiders or even unwanted whilst it stops them from sharing their culture and power from the world, but when people mention a large powerful country like the United States, they are talked about with respect and positivity compared to the negativity shown towards Africa and Africans through images of success, power, energy and politics. To people exposed to this stereotyping every day, it seems normal but Achebe tries to convince people that Africa and Africans have much more to offer, and that they shouldn’t take the “abuse.”

2) Select a specific quote from the interview or a general idea from the discussion and write a brief reflection.

"The mindless absorption of American ideas, culture, and behaviour around the world is not going to help this balance of stories, and it's not going to help the world, either."

Firstly, it is important to understand that division of power plays a big part because storytelling must have power within. This quote does not only make the story of the coloniser more 'consistent' and 'true” but it weakens the larger story of what happened, and it shrunk the story of the people which was causing them to be unheard. Achebe through this quote is trying to convey the message, that no one should write anything about anybody else unless they are a participant in the making of these stories because the imbalance of power is making their history a one-sided story that which isn’t allowing Africans to contribute to their history, and when non-Africans write stories, they show irregularities and have a weaker understanding of the culture.