MAY 25 is #AfricaDAY. Reflecting on the import of the day, I remembered an article I mused to celebrate a living African LITERARY ICON (Wole Soyinka) on the occasion of his birthday sometimes last year.... I am mirroring it today within the paradigm of #afrofuturism
"Wole Soyinka: A Modern Reincarnate of Ogun" as written by @SMBofAfrica
Akínwáandé Olúwolé Babátúndé Sóyíinká is a literary god. His writings on OGUN, his beloved Yoruba Pantheon shaped my ideas of the scientific past of the Yoruba nation within the framework of #afrofuturism
Akínwáandé Olúwolé Babátúndé Sóyíinká is a literary god. His writings on OGUN, his beloved Yoruba Pantheon shaped my ideas of the scientific past of the Yoruba nation within the framework of #afrofuturism
Within the remix of concocted and convoluted myths in Yoruboid cosmogony, OGUN is a mysterious figurine with multi-dimensional capabilities. He erupted as Yoruboid Pantheon with seven lives.
He’s known for his scientific understanding of the underpinning technologies behind warfare, hunting, music, drama, blacksmithing, road construction, and designs & modelling. Beyond Ogun’s spiritualism; he understood spiritual economics and state ideation and cultural sociation.
He initiated his protegees into healing from the etu ibon. He introduced into the society the efficacy of swearing or vowing with his technological manufactures. No wonder, he was deified.
On the one hand, OGUN used the technology of iron and metallurgical innovation to create paths for all the irunmoles or orishas in their transduction from immortality into humanity. Perhaps, Ogun should create pathways to Africa's futures
Ogun was a hunter that hunted not only for animals but for new settlements, ideas, dramatisation and literary repertories including poetry-chants (ijala ode).
On the other hand, as a reincarnate, Soyinka has in his repertories all the technologies that OGUN utilised (poems, ibon, drama, forests, etc). Like other Yoruboid Pantheons, Ogun’s ideation had critical imports on the thought system of Soyinka
You can see this in his disquisition in Dawn, Death in the Dawn, Abiku, Idanre, Hunt of the Stone and Ogun Abibimah
Ogun affects are trans Atlantic. It’s myths, worship, genre of music, his hunting skills and alagbede-metallurgy have been globalized; from Southwestern Nigeria to Benin Republic to Brazil and to Haiti.
Who can deny the trans-nationalism and trans-territoriality of Ogun as a concept, what I refer to as “Ogunism”? Ogun is called ‘St. George’ in Rio de Janeiro and ‘St. Anthony’ in Bahia, Brazil. For those in Trinidad it is ‘St Michael’.
What about Wole Soyinka’s genres? No one can argue its globalization. Like Ogun, the influence of Soyinka can be felt in all the continents of the world.
If you do a historical diagnosis of some of the gross inaccuracies and nuances, as well as skepticisms inherent in colonialist discourse of the early half of the twentieth century regarding the inability of Africans to produce great poetic verses and .....
and profound literary works, you will concur with me that Wole Soyinka played one of the leading roles in demystifying and debunking these prejudiced premises.
For me, Wole Soyinka is a living African Pantheon – a modern archetype of OGUN.
#afrofuturism
For me, Wole Soyinka is a living African Pantheon – a modern archetype of OGUN.
#afrofuturism
