Trees have played an intimate and even dynamic role in the development of human history, especially on the African continent, said Wole Soyinka in a lecture on Monday.
Soyinka, who is from Nigeria, became the first African Nobel laureate when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. His written work tells stories of democracy, government, religion and tensions around tradition and progress.
Soyinka traced the significance of trees in human history, claiming that it is possible that it was under trees that our ancestors discovered a sense of security and community. The other possible option would have been caves.
However, Soyinka claimed that caves are static and removed from the possibility of change. They have long been the residence of “some of the most vicious monsters in stories,” from antiquity to the present day, he said.
Thus, human development must have begun under trees, not inside a cave. Soyinka said that we have integrated the tree into our social consciousness, citing film directors as common users of tree iconography.
According to Soyinka, there are two extreme views towards a tree, particularly in the discussion about reforestation. At one extreme, there are bulldozers which see a tree as an obstacle. On the other side, Soyinka added, there are the fanatics who have to be restrained as they watch the destruction of trees which they claim have become an integral part of who they are.
Soyinka said that slaves were able to escape from the terrors of dehumanization, but that their existence is almost comparable to that of trees. He cited “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, in which the main character has a permanent mark of a tree on her back. The mark of the tree can be seen as “a disfigurement, not only of the body, but of the spirit, one that reminds us that we are … open to being scarred, abused and sown down at will,” Soyinka said.
Soyinka argued that Morrison was able to turn that symbol of weakness into one of salvation. “That is what writers are good at: extracting meaning from incompatibility,” he said.
Soyinka returned to two opposing views on trees. He called bulldozers seekers of an elusive paradise which dispose of the present. “What is our concern when one of us is felled, like a tree?” he asked.
Soyinka discussed an iconic image of the 20th century, a woman who gave birth while stuck in a tree during the Mozambique floods. The image, he said, is a perfect image of the possibility for a resurgence of humanism in the face of destruction in Africa.
Soyinka, to close, explicitly discussed the meaning behind his lecture’s focus on trees. In Africa and outside of Africa, people have suffered because of Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group based in northeastern Nigeria. In April 2014, Boko Haram carried out mass abductions, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the Chibok village.
Through methodical indoctrination and forceful conversion, the suppression of human will has taken place, he said. There is an existing and thriving slave market in Nigeria which primarily sells women. According to Soyinka, numerous “trees” have been embedded in the backs of women that cannot be removed with cosmetic surgery because they run deep within them.
This series of lectures is a part of the Toni Morrison Lectures, a series sponsored by the Department of African American Studies and Princeton University Press.
Titled “In Praise – and Dread – of Trees,” the lecture was the first of a series of three talks that Soyinka will be delivering. The first lecture took place in McCosh 50 at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Soyinka’s following two talks, “Sweet are the Uses of Diversity” and “As It Was in the Beginning,” will be delivered at the same times on April 19 and 20, respectively.
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