A United States (US) based Independent Public Intellectual, Playwright, Novelist, Poet, and Essayist, Professor Iyorwuese Hagher, has urged writers to speak truth to power by telling stories of unique power and sufficient complexity that can engender change through collective effort.
Hagher stated this during his dialogue with the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Abuja on July 27th.
In his speech titled; “An Encounter With My Life In The Arts: The July 27th Dialogue with Iyorwuese
Hagher-ANA Abuja,” he stressed the vital role of narrative in shaping and influencing the world.
He urged writers to create works that not only engage audiences but also inspire and effect meaningful transformation.
The distinguished Professor said his aim in literature is to craft narratives that have an emotional impact on the public, Nigerian and African people, the oppressed black people, and those suffering injustice but without a voice nor fist to raise in counter-attack self-defence.
According to him, the writer is the doubled-edged swordsman and woman like Roman’s Ancient Legion armies, the Japanese Samurai, the Mongolian Hordes, and the Aztec Warriors, who defeated their enemies in decisive battles.
“Let us also rise to our call of duty armed with stories, poems, and plays like the Spanish Playwright and Novelist Frederico Garcia Lorca, who was described by the Spanish soldier who shot him dead as having ‘done more harm with his pen than others have done with their pistols,’ or Pablo Neruda whose poems are cited by youth revolutionaries today from Chile to Egypt.
“One aspect of my literary style has been my blunt refusal to glorify the distant past histories of our ancestors and their brutal conquests and injustices, as well as the steeping of consciousness in metaphysical calabashes and pots of magical realities.
“I believe these writers who engage in these forms of gorification of transgressive and gory metaphysical experiences in the name of ‘art as the mirror of society’ are doing grave injustice to Africa; they are spreading a false consciousness and belief in spirit beings which are merely hostile capricious forces that deny Africa entry to modernity, and pull us back into apathy, fear, and victimhood.
“These Juju priests must be swept aside to give rise to a new nationalist spirit of scientific critical thought and the embrace of change. Africa desperately needs new visions by the new nationalist writer who has delinked from tribal moorings and spiritual hallucinations,” he said.
Hagher further said the Nigerian youth are impatient in finding out who they are, noting that they look vainly at the Juju Priest writers and ethnic champions for their new identities.
“They have now mollified their expectations and look up to Nollywood and Big Brother Naija to define them. It is time for the writer and storyteller to demand an immediate stoppage of the miseducation and misinformation of the misguided youth to foster the next great generation.”
Adding, he said through dialogues like this, Nigeria’s candle might flicker and quench into new candles of light and conscience to brighten leadership responsibility and hope.
“I believe that writers can hold the pen as a double-edged sword to inspire a new great African generation to nation-building imperatives by cutting both ways against ethnic bigotry and the theft of a meaningful future from the youth who are left in despair and are now poised to express dissent in anti-elite insurgencies.
“We need to weld artistic words into weapons to confront injustice anywhere it rears its head by confronting the oppressors and helping the victims to heal.”
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