Soyinka reflects on power, freedom

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka discussed power and “the seemingly endless struggle” between power and freedom in Griffith Film Theater Friday afternoon as part of a series of events that carried a global theme through President Richard Brodhead’s inauguration this weekend.

In his lecture entitled “Creative Myths and Politics of Art” Soyinka, an acclaimed Nigerian author and playwright who was the first African person to win a Nobel Prize, delved into broad yet penetrating observations. As a Nigerian, the philosophical and practical concepts of power are deeply relevant to Soyinka’s life and works because the shaky transition from colonialism to democracy in the last half-century has made questions of authority pertinent.

“Power—it is the antithesis of freedom that locks both in a seemingly endless struggle... and a primary motivating force of history,” Soyinka explained, driving home this fundamental clash by citing examples from history, literature and personal experiences.

Soyinka praised the bravery of philosophers, scientists and activists like Galileo, Socrates, Martin Luther and Mahatma Gandhi, who dared to challenge the notions that were considered taboo in their time. “We are all beneficiaries of a titanic struggle that has resulted in the transformation of humankind and societies,” he said.

Still, Soyinka said the struggle for human freedom is far from over. Advancements like the adoption of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he said, are hindered by terrorist groups that commit violent acts under the banner of freedom. To illustrate the unfinished struggle he focused much of the latter half of his lecture on denouncing the tactics and religious justifications used by Chechen rebels who held a school full of children hostage in Beslan, Russia.

When asked in a question-and-answer session about how a university should promote freedoms within its community, Soyinka said, “Universities should be a microsociety within society. A university has a responsibility to expose all students to the entire spectrum of political thinking, not to preach one against another.”

Soyinka’s lecture also touched on his belief that “discovery is the antithesis of boundaries, and power loves boundaries.” To illustrate this he described how as early as the Creation story in the Bible, God suppressed curiosity and intellectual freedom in Adam and Eve by forbidding them from eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

Before winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, Soyinka was imprisoned for two years by the Nigerian government in the late 1960s for making sympathetic statements to the secessionist Biafran territory against which the government was waging a war. During his imprisonment he was held in solitary confinement for 15 months, an experience that is reflected in his later works, which were often satirical criticisms directed at corrupt African leaders.