<p class="bodytext">In an era when one man’s hissy-fit pronouncements from across the seas so easily make the world convulse, it is worth asking: why is he allowed to do this and how come there are no adults in the room to apply the brakes? Who can call time on the mood swings of a wannabe dictator? Does anyone actually have the ability to control the array of autocrats who are in power in various nations right now?</p>.<p class="bodytext">Chinua Achebe’s fifth novel, Anthills of the Savannah, which examines the kind of structures and systems that allow autocrats to so easily take power and hold it, begins with a scene from a cabinet meeting in the fictional African country of Kangan. The chapter is narrated by the Commissioner for Information, Chris Oriko, who is attempting to get the Sandhurst-trained president, Sam, to visit a drought-hit, restive region, Abazon.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sam — he’s only referred to by his first name or his honorific as His Excellency — had taken power through a military coup a few years before the novel begins. Initially, Chris tells us, Sam was “…terrified of his new job. This is something I have never been able to figure out: why the military armed to the teeth as they are can find unarmed civilians such a threat”. But this proves to be just a passing for His Excellency. “He soon mastered his fear, although from time to time memories of it would seem to return to torment him.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">What helps Sam rule with increasing authoritarianism are the men he’s surrounded by — with the exception of Chris, who occasionally has qualms of conscience. The rest, whether the Attorney General or the Commissioner for Education or any of the other departments, live to provide their leader a frictionless existence. Achebe illustrates the toadyism that defines these underlings through not just the verbal exchanges during that opening scene of the cabinet meeting where they agree to whatever Sam wants done in his name but also the very act of the Chief Secretary arranging the president’s shoes under the table side by side “to save His Excellency the trouble of prolonged searching at the end of the meeting”.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, there is a thorn in the dictator’s side and it’s an outspoken newspaper editor and poet, Ikem Osodi, who writes frank editorials and likes poking the bear one too many times. Ikem narrates parts of the story and it’s through his monologues — both inner and spoken — that Achebe ponders why post-colonial societies seem to be in thrall to authoritarians especially considering that “Worshipping a dictator is such a pain in the ass. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were merely a matter of dancing upside down on your head. With practice, anyone could learn to do that. The real problem is having no way of knowing from one day to another, from one minute to the next, just what is up and what is down.” There is also a third voice in the story, that of Beatrice, a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance and Chris’s girlfriend, who watches the three men locked in a futile struggle to get the upper hand. Ikem’s outspokenness eventually rubs up against Sam’s increasing intolerance to opposition — violent acts of retribution dominate the latter half of the novel, and none of the men, neither the ruler nor his enablers, escape the consequences. Yet, the book ends on a surprisingly hopeful note, with Achebe suggesting that a move away from patriarchal structures is what is required for actual, meaningful change.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Anthills of the Savannah was Achebe’s fifth novel, one which he’d abandoned in the 1970s and got back to finishing only a decade later after his homeland of Nigeria once again came under military rule. The inability of the oppressed to let go of their shackles, the power-hungry elite who refuse to listen to their fellow citizens, the failures of rulers to implement structural reform and the blindspots of liberal intellectuals were the themes on which Achebe built his story and they remain as relevant now as they were four decades ago.</p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="italic">The author is a writer and communications professional. She blogs at saudha.substack.com</span></p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="bold">That One Book</span> <span class="italic"> is a fortnightly column that does exactly what it says — it takes up one great classic and tells you why it is (still) great.</span></p>
<p class="bodytext">In an era when one man’s hissy-fit pronouncements from across the seas so easily make the world convulse, it is worth asking: why is he allowed to do this and how come there are no adults in the room to apply the brakes? Who can call time on the mood swings of a wannabe dictator? Does anyone actually have the ability to control the array of autocrats who are in power in various nations right now?</p>.<p class="bodytext">Chinua Achebe’s fifth novel, Anthills of the Savannah, which examines the kind of structures and systems that allow autocrats to so easily take power and hold it, begins with a scene from a cabinet meeting in the fictional African country of Kangan. The chapter is narrated by the Commissioner for Information, Chris Oriko, who is attempting to get the Sandhurst-trained president, Sam, to visit a drought-hit, restive region, Abazon.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sam — he’s only referred to by his first name or his honorific as His Excellency — had taken power through a military coup a few years before the novel begins. Initially, Chris tells us, Sam was “…terrified of his new job. This is something I have never been able to figure out: why the military armed to the teeth as they are can find unarmed civilians such a threat”. But this proves to be just a passing for His Excellency. “He soon mastered his fear, although from time to time memories of it would seem to return to torment him.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">What helps Sam rule with increasing authoritarianism are the men he’s surrounded by — with the exception of Chris, who occasionally has qualms of conscience. The rest, whether the Attorney General or the Commissioner for Education or any of the other departments, live to provide their leader a frictionless existence. Achebe illustrates the toadyism that defines these underlings through not just the verbal exchanges during that opening scene of the cabinet meeting where they agree to whatever Sam wants done in his name but also the very act of the Chief Secretary arranging the president’s shoes under the table side by side “to save His Excellency the trouble of prolonged searching at the end of the meeting”.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, there is a thorn in the dictator’s side and it’s an outspoken newspaper editor and poet, Ikem Osodi, who writes frank editorials and likes poking the bear one too many times. Ikem narrates parts of the story and it’s through his monologues — both inner and spoken — that Achebe ponders why post-colonial societies seem to be in thrall to authoritarians especially considering that “Worshipping a dictator is such a pain in the ass. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were merely a matter of dancing upside down on your head. With practice, anyone could learn to do that. The real problem is having no way of knowing from one day to another, from one minute to the next, just what is up and what is down.” There is also a third voice in the story, that of Beatrice, a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance and Chris’s girlfriend, who watches the three men locked in a futile struggle to get the upper hand. Ikem’s outspokenness eventually rubs up against Sam’s increasing intolerance to opposition — violent acts of retribution dominate the latter half of the novel, and none of the men, neither the ruler nor his enablers, escape the consequences. Yet, the book ends on a surprisingly hopeful note, with Achebe suggesting that a move away from patriarchal structures is what is required for actual, meaningful change.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Anthills of the Savannah was Achebe’s fifth novel, one which he’d abandoned in the 1970s and got back to finishing only a decade later after his homeland of Nigeria once again came under military rule. The inability of the oppressed to let go of their shackles, the power-hungry elite who refuse to listen to their fellow citizens, the failures of rulers to implement structural reform and the blindspots of liberal intellectuals were the themes on which Achebe built his story and they remain as relevant now as they were four decades ago.</p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="italic">The author is a writer and communications professional. She blogs at saudha.substack.com</span></p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="bold">That One Book</span> <span class="italic"> is a fortnightly column that does exactly what it says — it takes up one great classic and tells you why it is (still) great.</span></p>