Coming Back!

Three rich literary texts have given us the chance to observe another topic: the dilemma between preserving our roots or becoming a global citizen. The Return by Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Another fools' day touches down: shush and These too are our elders by Jack Mapanje.

In The Return, the sensation that everything changes is vivid when we see the main character coming back after a five-year absence. He, attached to his roots, expected everything remains the same but, to his surprise, nothing was the same in his hometown. Human beings change everyday and nobody can stop that. That is why, it seems absurd to see people who are stubborn and pretend nothing changes around them. These people are condemned to failure. In the poem, Another fool's day touches down, the return of one person is portrayed and this return is also marked by changes. But in this case, the person that is coming back is the one who has changed, we are talking of an individual whose distance has affected his point of view, his values, his beliefs, his customs and habits. He has adopted exotic ways and people from his own group react against these changes. It is again this fight against what is ours and what is external; and this person, has become an external element of this community. In the poem These too are our elders, this confrontation between the original roots and the external factors is presented, between the traditional and the new, between the parochial and the global is presented.

It is interesting that the setting of the three literary texts are presumably Africa in relative recent times. However, the ideas presented in the three texts may be seen in any other part of the world since no people of the world escapes today from these conflicts.