Abstract:
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Virtually wiped off geopolitical maps as long as its ‘intestine’ war was raging, Uganda has been enjoying renewed visibility over the last few years. Both official and independent media prove crucial to the improvement of cultural relations. Documentary filmmaking, a thriving cinema industry and Anglo-American co-productions testify to the attempt to encourage cultural exchange while addressing pressing socio-historical questions. Recently, literature too turned into a wide arena for debate, as young writer Monica Arac de Nyeko was awarded the 2007 Caine Prize.
To explore Giles Foden's novel The Last King of Scotland (1998) alongside with two short stories by Arac de Nyeko, “Strange Fruit” and “Jambula Tree”, shows just to what extent the writers question shared frames of socio-political understanding. If ‘ethnicity’ is still regarded as the main hindrance to the development of peacekeeping processes in many African states, Ugandan conflicts provide thought-provoking counter-narratives. Whereas Foden's politically hard-edged writing focuses on the period that led to the Northern Ugandan wars, Arac de Neyko's stories tackle that issue in a more oblique way.
A committed writer and reporter, Arac de Nyeko often eschews overtly political content. Nevertheless, her self-positioning as an Acholi, Ugandan, East African writer, together with her narrative stress on place and community, turn the local into a sort of threshold to the understanding of human rights. By grafting her stories onto assessed views on ‘things African’, she therefore challenges widespread readings that support a partly fictional and instrumental ethnicization of conflict. |