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Beauty is a clear path
In 1964 a young idealist named Ayi Kwei Armah, like so many Ghanaians then and now, returned to his native land from a time working abroad. In Armah’s case he had been in Algeria working as a translator and before that, a sociology student in Harvard.
He spent the remaining Nkrumah years working on his first of several novels, ‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born,’ published in 1968.
Ghana’s political leadership must have proven to be a grave disillusionment for Armah from the time he returned until Nkrumah’s overthrow, judging by the bleak and somber imagery of this novel.
From the opening scene, in which the main protagonist known only as "the man,” is spit upon by an angry bus conductor, Armah weaves an intricate tapestry of filth, decay, and dirt.
Nothing is clean in this story, least of all the leaders of the people, and they are beautifully symbolised by over-funded but under-implemented anti-litter campaigns and trash clogging up streams.
Amidst all this muck, our nameless hero is a sad yet hopeful glint of purity because he, a transportation worker, refuses multiple temptations of bribery and other forms of corruption. His nature is described in the following allegory:
“Even from the small height of the dam, the water hit the bottom of the ditch with sufficient force to eat away the soft soil down to the harder stuff beneath, exposing a bottom of smooth sandy pebbles with the clear water now flowing over it.
"How long-lasting the clearness? Far out, toward the mouth of the small stream and the sea, he could see the water already aging into the mud of its beginnings.”
Until the final few chapters, Beautyful Ones is driven more by imagery and pretty prose than it is by plot. These images are allegorical of frustrated struggles for survival, freedom, independence, integrity, and comfort.
In the world of this story, these struggles are impure and ignoble things, and they do not necessarily support each other. The characters find themselves torn between integrity and comfort, always desirous of “the gleam” or material comfort, often willing to make small and then large compromises to get it.
The one character who resists such corruption finds himself ostracised and scorned by his friends and family while his old friends ride a wave of dirty deals to the top.
The Party officially outlaws ownership of private enterprises by its members, yet they in turn find other names to attach to their assets and conduct business (on the side) as usual.
The events of the simple story are set in 1966, by which time no one is happy with Nkrumah, just afraid. In a series of flashbacks, we are taken to a time when he was the different one, the only one who refused to kowtow to white colonial masters, who in fact demanded independence.
While his contemporaries begged for leadership privileges at the white man’s feet under the white man’s rule, the story tells us, Nkrumah demanded power for an independent Ghana ruled by indigenous Ghanaians.
Alas, his wish granted, Nkrumah becomes just like the rest of them, and we are led to believe that “all anyone here struggles for: to be closer to the white man. All the shouting against the white men was not hate. It was love. Twisted, but love all the same.”
But then, the plot twist that takes the reader from the realm of dark images into a suspenseful finale, and I don’t think I’m giving too much away if I tell you that Nkrumah goes into exile before the last page is turned.
Our pathetic protagonist should be redeemed, but the same integrity that martyred him to a lost cause gives him the foresight to see that a military dictatorship is no better than that of a single ‘President for life.’
In an Orwellian ending the dirty and mighty have fallen deep into the dirtiest realms of humanity, but the clean and lowly see no hope for improvement, and cannot help but find themselves unclean from time to time, a product of their filthy environment.
‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born’ is a sublime piece of writing from one of Africa’s greatest literary talents, who produced a stream of powerful works that, like his protagonist, refused to compromise truth for the sake of personal gain, no matter how great the temptation.
This work may not satisfy the optimist, unless he contents himself to say, “That is the Ghana of 1966; things are different now.”
For the pragmatist who retains faith in this nation, this masterful tale gives a sage warning about promising starts.
With the restoration of democracy in Ghana, let us hope that all our leaders will heed Armah’s warning: the clear path to true beauty, laid down by bold words, can easily be muddied when one is tempted by pretty things.
