Threats and Prospects of the Arts in the Age of Digital Media

 The history of writing is an evolving phenomenon. There are several propositions as to when and where writing began. However, across ages and civilizations humans have had the ingenuity of inventing ways of recording important timelines. The proto-writing and the Bronze Age, the Mesopotamian and the ancient Egyptian civilization have had a means of documentation.

Then came the invention of printing press circa 1440 in Rome by the German named Johannes Gutenberg, which fueled the proliferation of writing, and that of reading. However, in not-too-distant past writers composed their works manually; using a pen and paper, and only the privileged ones had the luxury of typewriter. This was regarded as a new development in leaps and bounds compared to the previous ages. 

Readers must have to use books; libraries existed and functioned manually. This at times seemed to be cumbersome and boring to the digital media minded individuals. The presence of modern media technology has redefined the concept of reading and writing and library itself. Opinions from some quarters have averred that books are dying, but writing is still alive; instead of making people lazy and having the reading culture dying a slow death, the digital media agency turns those who were ordinarily not readers into becoming ones, even without them knowing. What you read daily on social media platforms are tons of untitled essays that might end up being equivalent to a number of book chapters.

The social media environment offers an atmosphere of infotainment in which people carry libraries in their hand and peruse contents in a more relaxed and less stressful way. But there is also a line picking the argument from different perspective, that social media is corrupting, and making people lazy. People do not like to endure to read anything that seems to be lengthy, beyond 180-character, literally. But this in turn gave birth to twitterature and related micro-fiction genres.

However, though much more concerned with sculpture, film and photography, Walter Benjamin in his famous “Work of Arts in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” expressed concern over the authenticity of the work of arts in the mechanical age, and said that the process of mechanical reproduction has the tendency to denude work its aura of eternal traditional aesthetic values. 

Let’s debate, critique, and agree to disagree with each other over threats and prospects of reading and writing in the age of mechanically digital media reproduction.

Editorial at ABU Creative Writers’ Club

The Secret Life of Hajiya Binta Zubairu (from 1956- to the death of her husband and son)

Thrilled and hilarious! I was wildly excited all through Abubakar’s Season of Crimson Blossoms and quickly quaffed the offering down my gullet without me knowing. It’s the story of a common Hausa family, of a widow mother, an elderly woman of stately dignity living with a niece and a grandchild. What a thrill you read a novel and meet people you know. As I read, I found myself laughing and yelping and whispering and talking to characters I feared people called me mad. 

Lines are poetic and ringing in Abubakar’s work. It is a delight. Characters and their dialogue seem real and believable, speaking and behaving convincingly. Faiza, the eccentric girl proves mesmerizing in her manner and speech pattern as a real Hausa girl. She is young and knows the new fashion in town. She disagrees with Hajiya over dress and appearance, laughing at Hajya like my sisters laugh at our mother for her lack of sense of trends.

Abubakar must have caught a conversation one-on-one with his characters. Have you met Mahmood Mai-shayi, quick, energetic and agile? He reminded me of a tea seller in our area. Abubakar created memorable characters by letting them to speak themselves. However, Season of Crimson Blossoms is nearly ruined by attempt at providing what Orville Prescott called “political documentary details.”

People like me who had never been to the closet of women bedrooms would find the book revealing, revealing the secret thinking of women about sex and things we never hear about girls. 

Beyond the world of Hajiya Binta and her sexual adventure lies a world of rhythms of street culture and subculture assembling at San Siro, and streets of Jos with its joy, daymare and nightmare. There is the notorious Nigeria’s image looming large in Reza’s boldness to confront the law for hindering his illegality. There is something that many people out of this culture may not understand about Reza, you understand. 

Season of Crimson Blossoms is a story of Hajiya Binta, a widow who struggles between the intersections of faith, culture and personal fulfillment. Hajiya Binta was originally caught in a tasteless marriage that almost looked like sexual slavery, escaped her past ten years after her husband died, Mal Zubairu, and finds life in Reza, in whom she sees and feels her late son, Yaro. At childhood, Yaro shared a lot with Reza, was in drug and weeds and in the street puddles. Hajiya nursed deep affection for Yaro but was forbidden to show it openly “because of kunya, the socially prescribed modesty” she “had to live with…” 

Reza breathes life to the story and propels it. A product of broken home, he was raised by stepmothers after his mother was separated from his father. As a result, he grew up with a thirst for maternal emotional needs. 

While Hajiya sees her son in Reza, Reza also sees his mother in Hajiya Binta, to whom he felt not only filial affection for but also romantic.  While putting a ring on his palm his mother’s smile enchanted him. “The elegant with which she performed the gesture mesmerized the boy” (p.41). The boy also has affection for his mother, “the gleam of gold in her teeth and her beautiful face shimmering like an image under water” fascinated him. Something here is already hinted. Therefore, the affair between Reza and Hajiya Binta is transferred Oedipus complex and inverted Electra complex  respectively – Reza “mother-fixated, she, “son-fixated.” 
 

In this case there is a little problem about their relationship, since each is struggling to mend the little jarred pieces of their past. However, half-way through the reading I became disturbed and troubled as Hajiya’s sexual escapade became wild and untamed. Blame the author for authorial conspiracy, letting Hajiya going to hotel rooms and giving her so much energy to conduct her affair with agility and rhythm that surpassed person her age.

You won’t get troubled about the whole thing until you pick Hajiya out of the fictional world and plant her into the real. A mother of four, with a string of grandchildren and a niece? What is even more troubling is that Hajiya Binta is decent, respectable and dignified surrounded by the comforting atmosphere of family life. Imagine a woman of her age having an affair with an irresponsible young man like Reza with all the putrefying smell and bad feeling after each sexual encounter. 

It’s hard to forgive Hajiya given that Hadiza and Munkaila approached her with the proposal of remarrying, which she never bothered to consider. Hajiya Binta could have fought oppressive social codes in ways that preserve her honor and dignity and that of her family. She could marry since the children are not totally opposed to the question of remarrying than as to the character of the person. The fact that there would a possible resistance to the idea of marrying Reza proves that decency and respectability are cherished values in Binta’s culture.  

With courage and candor, Abubakar touches on raw aspect of society. The question however, is not to blame Binta directly, but to look into the condition that begat her, that begat Reza and Gattuso and San Siro.

PS

Parresia did a splendid job on editing and proofreading. However, I think there is the need of improvement on consistency on whether to italicize throughout or not, and check really if “Unguwa” can be written as Angwan Rukuba Junction (p.169), (later I learned this is how many Hausa-speakers of central Nigeria say it) and if Mararaba market (p.181) is not actually Mararraba. I almost forget this, that two dots appear at the end of the paragraph where Munkaila was stamping his immaculate shoes “every now and then” (p. 159).

What Defines Work of Arts?

Owing to its fluidity, it is very difficult to pin down the greatness of work of arts by aesthetic or thematic values; since these values work according to individual tastes and likes, and seem to mean different things to different people. Despite this slippery canvass, conventions and rules are usually applied to determine a piece as a high quality work or not.

Theories and opinions have been put forward with regard to what defines a great work of art, with sharp distinction between Conservative art Critics and the New Critics. The New Critics and the scholars of Popular Culture seem to be working in sync to eliminate the line between high and low arts.

Many a writer struggles to get a place in literary scene. Some important writers that are being celebrated today were the unknown men of yesterday. They were never celebrated in their life-time, nor received any critical attention from the literary luminaries and critics of their days.  Some died unread, unknown, and only came to receive literary accolades posthumously.  John Kennedy Toole for instance, was unable to publish his work in his life-time, A Confederacy of Dunces, only to be published and earned the Pulitzer Prize for fiction after taking his own life. Nicolas Gogol, died a sad writer, only to be discovered after his death and named as one of the greatest Russian novelists. Shelves upon shelves were filled with commentaries over his works. The American novelist Francis Scott Fitzgerald died with a pain gnawing at his soul, the critics of his time were unable to understand his work, the Great Gastby, and fetched him the attention he deserved. It was until after his death that the book came to be regarded arguably as one of the greatest American novels of the 20^th century. 

Since Adam, thousands upon thousands of works have been written, of which many had left the shelf. It is important to investigate the qualities and standards that define a truly work of art. Therefore, the question is what qualifies a work of art to sail into the district of literary canons and be accepted as a good work? Is it the thematic values or the aesthetic qualities; stern, muscular and serious narratives? Is it personality, accidents and conjectures, qualities or superb literary craftsmanship?

Stories behind the Veil - Kabafest

Kaduna Book and Arts Festival is a wonderful retreat that gathered writers from within and without Nigeria to discuss issues from the perspective of literature and the role this can play in human society.

Set against the backdrop Boko Haram insurgency, all the outsider can see is harrowing, raging inferno. But the calm, dignified ambience at Gusau Institute belied that. One couldn’t believe this was the place that was cluttered with the media cacophony of Boko Haram crisis. 

The Ghanaian Kinna Likimani was so excited meeting us from Ahmadu Bello University.  For her, Zaria was a fond memory, a memory that bathed her in joyful remembrance. As a child she was once in Zaria, she said, when her mother was a staffer with the university. 

The Sudanese author Leila Aboulela braved travel warning and made her first experience to Nigeria. Kaduna was a home to her; the presence of small Islamic cultures, of kettle in the bathroom and hearing of azan and sight of minaret. Her spirit was so uplifted that it made her remember with dark nostalgia her days in UK where she had so much missed those things.

Kabafest is a long overdue that many had been waiting with bated breath on top of annoyance and worry over lack of program with character and pattern such as this. It is a platform that showcased wealth of artistic talents and richness, opened up spaces for discussions, promoted cultures and literatures especially that of the northern part of Nigeria that hadn’t have English language as a predominant language of communication. 

Maryam Bukar Hassan on stage for the Night Poetry Performance

There has for long been a barrier in communicating artistic wealth of the northern region to the outside world despite the old-age existence of indigenous art-forms and literary culture in Hausaland that predated the European colonization of the Black continent. It is important to note that when we talk of literacy and restrict it to the ability to read and write in English language alone, the scope and perspective is narrowed to a smoke-screen and dangerous narrative.  

In Nigeria there are two literatures: the modern Nigerian literature written in English and the old-aged northern Nigerian literature in Hausa and Ajami, which retains its distinct form till date. 

Panel discussions were held with authors writing in English, and authors in Hausa language. One interesting discussion that was brought to the fore was the issue of women in northern Nigeria. The controversial novel Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim continues to generate heated debates for its portrayal of a “strange” relationship. 

Issues are very complicated, and often problematic. Women everywhere in Nigeria face unique challenges and difficulties. However, human failures in the north are seen and defined as hypocrisy. Meanwhile similar cases are conferred the status of human nature and simply dismissed as human foibles and weaknesses. Thus, the question was asked why shouldn’t the north tune down, or even get rid of religion, which places so much demands especially on women?  

Debates raged on the question of veil. Must a woman use long dark veil? Is the veil Islamic culture? These threads had received seemingly passionate responses and reactions, though by no means exhaustive. 

Individual is an amalgam of pieces and forces that birthed and shaped identity. It is troubling to dissociate humans from these bits, because it will look like seeking to erase identity off people’s lives - the social, historical and the cultural footprints. 

Societies are spaces and social entities, and like other social spaces and institutions, they have their codes and ethics, written and unwritten that govern them. Religion and faith are essential characteristics that define community. It is difficult to imagine human beings without identity; dress style, mode of relations and social norms. 

 

 Left to right on the Panel Discussion: Fatima A Umar, Carmen McCain, Hadiza El-Rufa'i and Balaraba Ramat

Appearance shouldn’t be an issue if we believe in the ability of the individual, because as Fatima A Umar argued, you are dealing with the person and their intellect, not dress or her faith, which will amount to belief in the humanity of the person. 

On the question of religion and women rights, author Aboulela shared the feeling most Muslims have. In Sudan she feels she’s a feminist, in the UK she found total equality too extreme and ended rediscovering her faith and becoming a devout Muslim. 

Muslim women writing for the world face enormous challenges. Professor Zaynab Alkali recalled her humiliating experience at Heathrow Airport immigration office, travelling to Amsterdam for book reading. Fatima Umar, the curator of jaruma magazine, the lifestyle ezine, faced tremendous racist and discriminatory attitudes at Lagos Law School that she had to transfer to Abuja for her program. 

 

Zaynab Alkali left, Kinna Likimani middle, Leila Aboulela right

Discussions there at kabafest are rich; spaces like these are extremely important in understanding each other, communicating our differences so as to avoid reckless eyeballing. I have a worry over the future of the festival if the current Kaduna State governor left office. My hope is the Yasmin El-Rufa’i Foundation and private individuals will find ways and work together for the continuance of the program.  But I hope that the program will become a state affair.