It’s a chequered board of nights and days Where Destiny with men for pieces plays, Hither and thither ,moves ,mates and slays And one by one ,back in the closet lays.
—Rubiyat , by Omar Khayam, Translated by Fitzgerald.
It’s an amazing parelel between a game of chess and Life.
Opening is sedate, structured and provides the base for a good game.
The middle game is full of excitement, gambits, traps , pitfalls and innumerable options . Every such option exercised would have profound implications not just in the middle game but in the whole game .
In the end game, the board is clear, pieces are few and options are limitted. The King that had been well protected by the resources available is generally out in the open fighting by himself with limitted mobility .
Time is in plenty, moves may be slow but have to be precise. There is hardly any scope for gambits.
…and a well played game ends in victory with the promotion of pawns to queens to take over the fight.
A story that spans across two centuries in time and two continents in space. A story of human greed and hope, of the incredible capacity for human beings to inflict cruelty on fellow humans.
No animal , however strong, enslaves another animal, same species or different. But we humans not only enslave animals, but also homo sapiens. Even today, the visible chains are not there but exploitation exists everywhere.
Coming to the book “home going” , it traces the lives of seven generations of two sisters born in the present African Republic of Ghana . One is enslaved and shipped to America and another is married to a slave trader but her descendants go back to their people , an Asante village.
The story meanders along two parallel lines one in Ghana and another in America. Both tracks run along the lives of seven generations . The story ends where, a descendant of one line from Asante tribe of the eighth generation, Marjorie Agyekum , meets a descendant of the sister sold into slavery , Marcus Clifton. Of course , the characters themselves are not aware of their lineage as victors write history , not the vanquished ,least of all, slaves.
Obviously it is not history but only fiction ,but a very probable story. The Cape Coast Castle and the dungeons were slaves were kept stacked like cargo still exists.
Former President Obama Visiting Cape Coast Castle in 2009
The narration is weaved around historical events like British-Asante wars and American Civil War.
A history of slave trade as taken from Wikipaedia…
The large quantity of gold dust found in Ghana was what primarily attracted Europe, and many natives of Cape Coast used this to their advantage. In exchange for gold, mahogany, other locally produced goods, and enslaved captives, local Africans received clothing, blankets, spices, sugar, silk and many other items. The castle at Cape Coast was a market where these transactions took place.
Inside the dungeon of Cape Coast Castle, where hundreds of slaves were held in cramped conditions before being transferred to boats bound for the western hemisphere
At the time enslaved Africans were a valuable commodity in the Americas and elsewhere, and slaves were the main trade in Cape Coast. Due to this, many changes were made to Cape Coast Castle. One of the alterations was the addition of large underground dungeons that could hold as many as a thousand slaves awaiting export.
Many European nations flocked to Cape Coast in order to get a foothold in the slave trade.
The business was very competitive, which led to conflict and for this reason, the castle at Cape Coast changed hands many times during the course of its commercial history.
What we read as history does not touch the trials and tribulations that natives world over went through , due to the greed of the White-man. Where-ever they went, be it Asia, Africa , America or Australia , their industry and zeal for exploration brought untold misery to the natives caught up in their adventurism. The European powers fought among themselves and also the local powers. Whatever, it is the simple innocent people who suffered ; after all, when elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed.
Long after slave trade was abolished the African Americans continue to suffer. The book brings out the problems faced by them in US leaving one wondering ,whether a slave was actually better off than a freeman who is still struggling with poverty, unemployment, drug menace and just plain racism that puts every black a suspect in the eyes of law.
In Akan region, the term for a white man was ‘Oburoni’ which according to the author translates to ‘wicked or cunning man’. Some tribes called him ‘the cunning dog’ ; a being that comes licking but ends up biting the hand that feeds.
It is Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel . But considering the kind of research that has gone into it and the style of narration , the story comes across as the work of a mature writer. The author is born in Ghana and raised in US. The character ‘Marjori’ seems to be the narrator of the story. In all probability, her US counterpart Marcus is also based on some real person.
The novel does remind a reader of the Famous true story “The Roots” by Alex Haley.
The book leaves the reader pondering over many questions.
How can a human being be so cruel to fellow human beings?
How could the idea of buying and selling human being coexist with the much talked about Christian values? Even as slave trade flourished the Evangelists were busy saving souls. Ironically, today about 70% of people in Ghana are Christians.
Does ending of slavery meant ending of exploitation of one human being by another ? Even today the rich nations exploit the poor nations and within a country one section exploits the other. Vast sections of the populations are still some kind of slaves without visible chains.
Lastly, would the world have been a better place today if only the white man had confined himself to the land mass of Europe? Wherever you see irremediable problems today in any part of the world, you find the white man’s greed there; Arab-Israel issues, Rohingyas, South Africa, African Americans and so on.
