approach. Okonkwo is strong and apparently virile, but he also shares the.
personality traits common to many athletes who excel in contact sports: he.
is rash, aggressive, and excessively concerned about what others think of.
him. While these are all traits which mold a champion on the football field.
or the wrestling ring, in our society they would not make a great leader.
Why, then, do the Ibo feel that wrestling prowess translates into leadership.
ability? Because their needs in terms of a leader were much different from.
ours. We expect our leaders to serve the individual members of the.
community, showing great discrimination as they weigh the pros and cons of.
various options.
The Ibo, rather, expect their leaders to reinforce the status quo. They have.
a set group of inflexible traditions which they reinforce constantly through.
the repetition of proverbs: "Where are the young suckers that will be grown.
when the old banana tree dies?" (Achebe, 46) uses an image gleaned from.
nature to express concern for the vitality of the following generation, as.
does the saying "a chick that will grow into a cock can be spotted the very.
day it hatches" (Achebe, 46). Leaders who constantly speak in proverbs.
inherited from previous generations are not making new decisions; they are.
simply searching their memory-banks for time-honored solutions that apply to.
the situation at hand.
The problem with this, of course, is that when a situation crops up which.
has absolutely no connection to anything the Ibo culture has had to handle.
before, they have no idea how to deal with it. Their experience as wrestlers.
teaches them how to be tribal warriors, not Western policy makers, and.
therefore they have no idea how to confront the challenges of Western.
culture. Ibo society, built up with layers of tradition through countless.
generations, might have continued to "hold" had no foreign substance ever.
intruded to disrupt it.
Mahmood Mamdani charges that much of the problem with the British colonial.