Where Things Do not Fall Apart

Abstract

In Salih’s narrative the centre holds. The village can take whatever the outside world throws its way without losing its distinctive identity. Salih is advocating, and celebrating, the village’s inclusiveness and tolerance, while pride in culture and heritage is the central message being sent. In contrast, the Igbo pre-modern world is portrayed in Achebe’s work as a tragic place, a world that was losing its own identity and facing an inevitable defeat in the battle against forces of colonisation and westernisation. Wad-Hamid, however, suffers no such fate. It persists more or less in its pre-colonial worldview, only marginally affected by the colonial encounter. It continues to believe in its saints and spirits, to maintain its traditions and assimilate or reject the outside world on its own terms. Its language, religion and culture escape intact. Things do not fall apart; instead, there is a place for strangers and all sort of influences. But these influences do not blow away the whole edifice and its inhabitants as happened in Achebe’s village; rather, they become ornaments and positive additions to the existing reality as they melt into it.