Ken Saro-Wiwa’s ‘Sozaboy’

‘Work is war’, declares Manmuswak, a character in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English, as he closes his blood-shot eyes to down his liquor. Saro-Wiwa’s novel draws us into the world of this incredibly interesting character, who links war on the African continent to the capitalist economy. A mysterious man with a penchant for cruelty and no cultural ties, Manmuswak invariably signifies the intersection between the neoliberal worker and the culture of violence that has come to dominate the global world order.

Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, akin to its counterparts like oil-rich Angola or the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is characterized by resource wealth, a destitute local population and armed warfare. In recent years, it would seem that a wave of armed conflict has swept across the African continent: scholars, leaders, and citizens alike have watched with concern as violence continues to disrupt the lives of so many. War on the African continent has historically been framed as a moral failure of African governments and populations to foster ‘ethnic and religious tolerance’. Historian, Paul Zeleza, notes that, for years, Western popular and academic media have attributed wars on the continent to ‘primordial afflictions of “tribalism”, or the depredations of the continent’s proverbial poverty and inequalities, or authoritarianism and poor governance’. Without denying the truth in this statement—as many African governments have thus far functioned as gatekeeping states while ethno-religious tensions have enflamed violence on the continent—Zeleza notes that these claims fail to recognize the culpability of outside actors. Interrogating the ‘business of war’, however, allows us to observe the ways seemingly remote wars on the African continent are directly linked to the neoliberal militarist capitalist economy. Amidst academic and journalistic conversations about ‘resource curses’, the business of warfare is usually overlooked.

Through the character of Manmuswak, Sozaboy explores the ways capitalism and war can be bedfellows on the African continent. Many people in the regions most affected by armed conflict are acutely aware of the fact that there is nothing to glamorize about war; it is simply devastating, and it leaves many displaced and destitute. For Saro-Wiwa’s Manmuswak, his work is to go to war, and aside from the utter lack of humanity he displays in the novel, he is a window into the lives of many adolescent soldiers on the continent who have been forced to become active participants in this culture of violence.