Achieving this interconnectedness between literary works and their

                        potentialities at eliciting a response or contributing to eliciting a

                        response—physical or intellectual—and the audience, should be the

                        avowed responsibility of the socially involved writer. Therefore, since

                        language and its variations (depending on the genre) remain the only

                        effective media through which messages (literary) can be transferred

                        to the receiver, it becomes incumbent on the writer to employ the medium

                        that encapsulates  the peculiarities of his intended

                        audience on one hand, and possesses the flavor and strength that can

                        break the barriers that may obscure the meanings of his work from

                        reaching the audience, on the other hand. The implications for the writer

                        in a developing society: he should choose a language or combination of

                        languages that can effectively present his case.

 

                                 Booth has discussed fervently the advantages and disadvantages                  

                       of an artist in a developing world using any of the colonial languages

                       as the medium of expressing his art. He also highlighted the implications

                       of adopting  an African language as the means of propagating his

                       convictions. However, as frighteningly discouraging as Booth’s

                       contentions are, Za-Ayem recalls and discusses the Kenyan experience;

                       and we realize that in spite of the advantages derivable from employing

                       the bourgeois, colonial languages in literary interaction with the

                       politically battered, economically disenfranchised and socially disoriented

                       peoples of the world, the indigenous languages

                       are more capable in evoking the kind of reaction Egudu talked about. The

                inference is that, with all the flaunted advantages, the colonial languages have

                very little chances of arousing the consciousness of the hoi polloi, to any degree

                for an effective uprising.

 

                          The indigenous languages however, are capable, when literary works are

                molded in them of making the authorities uncomfortable, if it is granted that, it

                is only when these powers that be are touched that they can realize that the

               governed are not receiving their fair share of the collective wealth placed in

               their custody. Since it is difficult or near impossible for an artist to penetrate the

               lair of the ruler/rich to physically present his work, and mass media have been

              brow beaten into submission, the only plausible option left is ‘the popular

              literature in the area of people oriented communication effectiveness.’

                   

                     Case: The compelling literary merit of the River Between; Weep Not

               Child; A Grain of Wheat; Secret Lives put together or the volatile The Trial

               of  Dedan Kimathi or the stinging criticism of Petals of Blood were not

               considered weighty enough to warrant any interference in the literary

               activities of the Kenyan literary guru, Ngugi wa Thiong’o. However, his

              involvement with Kimiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Center

             as a member of its management and chairman of its cultural sub-committee

             which organized the writing and production of, Ngaahika Ndeeda—

             I Will Marry When I Want (1977) led to his arrest in the night of

             December 1977 and detention without trial for one year. Subsequently,

             the license for further production of the play was rejected, members of the

             members of the group were ‘refused entry to resume rehearsals at the University.

             And on March 12, 1982, the two-thousand-seat Kimiriithu Community was

             destroyed by the police and the theatre taken over by the government.’

              The Kimiriithu Community Theatre did not feature any of paraphernalia

             of the university’s pro-government propaganda machinery or public relations

             department of the powers that be. It was, as Agye put it:

                                    

                           …a popular theatre in its true sense. It is theatre by the

                           people emerging from their collective effort. The peasants

                           and workers control its management, deciding on what to

                           produce through collective decision-making.

                                 

                           Again, in July 1979, Ngugi reported that the students of Riara                                                     

                  Secondary School, Kiambu staged a play about a peasant plantation worker         

             who subsisted on 300 Kenyan Shillings about 150 naira a month. The play was      

              titled, Thi Ino Ihana Atia Andu Aitu (What a World).The staging of the play

             earned the school a raid and the teacher in charge of the production was

             interrogated by the secret police. A. Oko reported that in the western part of

            Nigeria, Hubert Ogunde’s Opera, Yoruba Ronu, (Yoruba People, be on Your

            Guard) was banned from being staged because it criticized an election swindle.    

                                                                                                      

                       A pertinent question is worthy at this point. Why is it that it is only the

            works written in indigenous languages that have been engaging the attention

          of the authorities to the point of proscription and not the ones written in borrowed

          Languages? Indeed, why is it that Petals of Blood is allowed to circulate and

          Ngahika Ndenda (I will Marry When I Want) banned? Or why is Yoruba Ronu

          banned and Festus Iyayi’s Violence allowed to make the rounds? The answer is

          simply that, rather than align with the placid, neo-colonialist glorification, the                     

          proscribed works seek to activate the consciousness of the toiling masses and

          galvanize them to see every wrong  in the way they are being governed.

 

                      The limitation often associated with writing in indigenous language is

          that ‘it reduces’ the writer’s audience sometimes drastically.’ This reason is another

          imperialistic blinker because, if the use of indigenous language would limit the

          readership to the oppressed and the work is meant primarily for them, who

          then is a university trained critic to impose his ‘eggheadic’ sensibility and

          judgment on such work? However, if such work does not have as its content

          materials that are meant for the peasants, the writer can go ahead and present

          such work in the language that meets the standard of his audience.

 

                   Creative works in a developing society should be

          audience-bound in regard with the language in which it is cast. The campaign

          against the use of indigenous language should not be considered at all, if the

          aim of the writer is to better the lot of the hoi polloi by rousing them. For if

          not for the fact that the content of America Their America  is a stark reality

          of the shortcomings of the American society, why was J P Clark forced out

          of the US? Paul Okpokan not only did a term in San Quentin prison but he was

          prohibited from the US. His iniquity: His black sympathies and starring in a film

          titled Bush Man. Obi Egbuna was imprisoned in London; his crime was that ‘he

          sees the Blackman and his revolution in the Biblical image of Christ which he

          appropriated for himself’ in a book titled Destroy This House.

 

                        The argument here is that, if the blacks can comment about the decadence

          and hypocrisy of the white in his indigenous language, thereby effecting the

          consciousness of the white authorities and making them uncomfortable to the point

           that their stay in the white man’s country was prohibited, the black man should

            brace up and do similar thing for his society in his society, using his native  

            language if that is the only weapon to deal ruthlessly with this protracted

            degeneration.

 

In this age of highbrow information technology system, the reliance on the printed characters alone may not be enough to effect the much desired reactions. There are many other devices, able and capable of reinforcing and enhancing the quality of message obtainable from the written medium. The film is a veritable option in this regard. When a message is read and assimilated, its retention in the head and inculcation into the habit system require some intensification. The film is suitably placed to ensure the efficacy of this onerous tendency because of its basic features and susceptibilities. It is sad that the theatre-going inclination and the theatre itself are crumbling in the face of the rampage of the film industry. However, the Kenyan experience is still a practicable venture, which could be replicated to meet local peculiarities of the developing environments. A further insight into the modus operandi of Kamirrithu Community Theatre as recorded by Agye should   demonstrate its relevance to the plight of the masses and the possibility of the content of its message being people-oriented,

 

            Decisions are arrived at through long discussions,

            acceptance of criticism and self-criticisms…. the

            plays were created through democratic channels.

            Contents  for the play were discussed by workers

            and peasants before the two Ngugis—Ngugi wa Thiong’o

            and Ngugi wa Mirii—were asked to write the draft, drawing

            on the discussions. The draft were read to the people, discussed

            and change made. In the end about two hundred villagers took

            part in the production of the first play—I Will Marry When I

            Want. Four hundred people auditioned for the fifty parts of the

            second—Mother Sing for Me.