Interview with Elnathan John Author(s): Jeanne-Marie Jackson and Nathan Suhr-Sytsma Source: Research in African Literatures, Vol. 48, No. 2, Religion, Secularity, and African Writing (Summer 2017), pp. 89-93 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.48.2.07 Accessed: 29-06-2017 19:36 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Research in African Literatures This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms IN T ERV IE W Interview with Elnathan John JEANNE-MARIE JACKSON AND NATHAN SUHR-SYTSMA ABSTRACT After a contextualizing introduction, the following interview with the Nigerian writer Elnathan John explores the relation of his work to some key themes of this essay cluster: religious belief, social life, and the literary representation thereof. It begins by discussing the reception of John’s novel Born on a Tuesday in light of the differences between Boko Haram as an international phenomenon and the novel’s more regional focus. John then H[SODLQVWKHVLJQLÀFDQFHRIQRUWKHUQ1LJHULDQalmajirai, in particular, to his imagining of both Muslim education and the Nigerian state. The interview FRQFOXGHVZLWKUHÁHFWLRQVRQOLWHUDU\PXOWLOLQJXDOLVPDQGWUDQVODWLRQ OQDWKDQ-RKQEXUVWLQWRWUDQVDWODQWLFYLVLELOLW\ZLWKKLVÀUVWQRYHOBorn on a Tuesday, published in Nigeria by Cassava Republic Press in 2015. Available now in a US edition from the Black Cat imprint of Grove Atlantic, the book has been widely praised for its graphic yet humanizing portrait of religious extremism in northern Nigeria. The main character, Dantala (whose name translates to the novel’s title), is taken in by a man named Sheikh Jamal to be educated DVD6DODÀVWVWXGHQWGLVFLSOHRUalmajiri. Over the course of his religious education, Dantala also learns English, falls in love, and grapples with the jihadist movement gaining steam in his mosque. The developmental structure of the bildungsroman is thus harnessed, in Born on a Tuesday, to a nuanced and multilingual understanding of religious difference among Nigeria’s Muslim population. John himself was educated in Hausa in northwest Nigeria, where he received his law degree from Zaria’s Ahmadu Bello University in 2007. E RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Summer 2017), doi: 10.2979/reseafrilite.48.2.07 This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 90 RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITER ATURES VOLUME 48 NUMBER 2 While Born on a TuesdayLVKLVPRVWH[WHQVLYHZRUNWRGDWH-RKQZDVDÀ[WXUH on the African literature scene long before its publication. He was twice shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (in 2013 and 2015) and gained prominence for his candid and often acerbic commentary on Nigerian politics across both new and traditional media. John’s work is notable for its combination of deadpan social satire and keen attention to violent tragedy as it plays out in individual lives. His treatment of religion is particularly enriched by this contradictory sensibility. In the 2015 Chimurenga Chronic piece “In a Time of Boko Haram,” for example, (which was tellingly categorized by the key terms “Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, and Systems of Governance”) John describes a grotesque Boko Haram bombing in Kaduna from the free-indirect perspective of a young cross-dressing Muslim man named Mansir. Amid “the smashed and burnt-out cars, the crater in the road, the dead bodies, some whole, some in pieces” in the aftermath of the attack, a man standing nearby is shocked only by the fact that Mansir is wearing a dress. As in Born on a Tuesday, John refuses to quarantine a category of “religion” from the adjacent pressures of sexuality, household economics, and individual expression. At the same time, however, he reckons with religion as a discrete and even threatening force to the Nigerian state, thereby holding respect for communities RIIDLWKDQGVNHSWLFLVPWRZDUGWKHLUSROLWLFDOLQÁXHQFHLQSURGXFWLYHWHQVLRQ,Q what follows, we ask John to contextualize Born on a Tuesday within a larger critical conversation about religion and secularity, as well as the demands commonly made of African writing. JEANNE-MARIE JACKSON AND NATHAN SUHR-SYTSMA: Born on a TuesdayDV\RXKDYHSUHYLRXVO\SRLQWHGRXWLVQRWÀUVWDQGIRUHPRVWDQRYHODERXW Boko Haram. It is nonetheless a partial prehistory of that movement, with the novel’s antagonist Malam Abdul-Nur standing in for its real-life founder, Mohammed Yusuf. Obviously, this allows you to paint a more complex picture of Nigeria’s religious landscape than the one to which most international readers have access. :KDWPRUHVSHFLÀFDGYDQWDJHVWKRXJKGRHVWKLVUHIRFXVLQJDIIRUG\RXUQRYHOLQ WHUPVRILWVVFDOH"$UH\RXSHUKDSVHPSKDVL]LQJWKHVLJQLÀFDQFHRIDUHJLRQDOVFDOH of representation, rather than a national or transnational one? In other words, why not just write a more nuanced take on Boko Haram, rather than focus on more obscure local religious movements? ELNATHAN JOHN: Born on a Tuesday is not about Boko Haram. The parallels that may be drawn merely illustrate the fact that the factors which led to the formation of Boko Haram exist in other places in northern Nigeria and that such an extremist group could have emerged elsewhere under different circumstances. The mix of a radical religious ideology, local economic and social injustices, an unhealthy fusion of religion and politics, and a ready supply of foot soldiers due to poverty and deprivation exist and have existed for a while in many parts of northern Nigeria. While Boko Haram itself has peculiarities worthy of analyzing, the real story is that of the persons who inhabit and move through the space that is northern Nigeria almost anonymously. It is a story of the human beings who get lost in big stories of insurgencies or humanitarian disasters and in the politics WKDWJLYHVELUWKWRWKHP,WLVVLJQLÀFDQWWKDWP\QRYHOLVVHWLQWKH1RUWKZHVWZLWK QRVSHFLÀFPHQWLRQRI%RNR+DUDP,VRXJKWLQVSLWHRIWKHVOLSSHU\VORSHIURP realism to ethnography, to preserve Born on a TuesdayDVDZRUNRIÀFWLRQDQGWR This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms JEANNE-M ARIE JACKSON AND NATHAN SUHR-SY TSM A 91 KDYHP\FKDUDFWHUVGLVFXVVHGDVKXPDQEHLQJVDQGQRWDVPHUHSDZQVLQDFRQÁLFW that sadly still affects parts of northeastern Nigeria. J-MJ AND NS-S: Born on a Tuesday details a diverse range of real Islamic movements within and beyond northern Nigeria: Dariqa, Izala, and Shia, as well as, per \RXUDQVZHUDERYHWKHÀFWLRQDOIRFDOPRYHPHQWVRIWKHQDUUDWLYH+DTLTL\DQG Mujahideen. The military is, however, violently (and perhaps willfully) blind to many of these distinctions. Academic critics of secularism often point to the intolerance and violence of the state toward various religious communities. What kind of culpability might the state bear for the rise of extremist movements in Nigeria? EJ: Extremist religious movements emerge from broader religious movements, and religion has become more important in secular life and politics with the increasing dysfunctionality of the Nigerian state. Religious connections are stronger and more useful than any structure the Nigerian state provides, leading to the GHLÀFDWLRQ RI UHOLJLRXV OHDGHUV ZKRVH FDSDFLW\ IRU FRQWURO RI WKHLU DGKHUHQWV LV unusually high. Widespread injustices make self-help popular, and often only the weak and those who cannot threaten the state with some form of violence suffer. This is fertile ground for extremist movements, of which Nigeria has had its fair share. Often, by the time the security forces get involved, it only exacerbates the situation, often because this is only an attempt to impose a monopoly of violence, not an attempt to broker peace. $JDLQEHFDXVH1LJHULDLVVHFXODULQQDPHRQO\UHOLJLRXVJURXSVDUHDVLQÁXential as any political group. Thus, the intolerance toward certain religious groups is merely an intolerance by more dominant religious groups. A case in point is the recent multiple massacres of mostly unarmed Shiites—a Muslim religious group widely disliked by most other Muslim groups. The killings (by both security forces and, occasionally, civilians) do not attract outrage in Nigeria because of the status of the Shiites as an unpopular minority (and worse, because of their connection to Iran in a country with strong religious ties to Saudi Arabia). J-MJ AND NS-S: Though the general perception of the almajirai is that they are uneducated “street children,” with Dantala you take the word’s literal meaning, “students,” very seriously. And yet his steadily increasing literacy and relationship with Sheikh Jamal, who emphasizes the importance of education, both occur outside of a school environment. What can we take from this in terms of what models of learnedness might be available in northern Nigeria, beyond that of a secular, state-administered education? Is “religious” versus “secular” even the right sort of standard, here, to distinguish among the types of learning you depict? How else might we discuss the relation among the different sorts of literacies that Dantala develops, from Qur’anic, to literary, to literal or linguistic? EJ: All almajirai receive education in at least some parts of Arabic and the Qur’an. The fact that they also often engage in street begging doesn’t diminish their education. In my novel I make the distinction between street children and almajirai very early on when Dantala, an almajiri, leaves the school and joins the street JDQJLQWKHDUHD7KHHQWLUHÀUVWFKDSWHULVSDUWLDOO\SUHPLVHGRQWKLVLPSRUWDQW distinction: not all who beg—who are on the streets (becoming easy tools for politicians) —are almajirai: many are young men who have never had any form of education, at all. This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 92 RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITER ATURES VOLUME 48 NUMBER 2 Mentorship happens for a few long after their formal years of being almajirai, especially for those exceptional students whom the teachers may want to retain and groom. Some become proper “disciples” (the actual meaning of almajirai), following the teacher and developing to a point where they can branch out on their own. The almajiri system of education, as with most systems in Nigeria, has suffered considerable decline, and these types of mentorships are not as common as they used to be. With almost all types of formal learning, a lot of development happens outside the classroom, in jobs that apply such education to practical situations. Secular education in Nigeria has itself become worse with every passing year, and there has been no real attempt to mainstream almajiri education. In Dantala’s case, the demands of secular administration in the Islamic movement where he serves as deputy fast tracks his development and makes the knowledge he gets inside and outside the mosque not just useful but necessary. I would be reluctant to pitch the different literacies against each other or weigh them against each other. Colonialism and eventually globalization has meant that it is impossible to escape the effects of secular education on the development of Islamic education, which has been made almost redundant in a country ZKLFKLVE\GHÀQLWLRQVHFXODUDQGKDV(QJOLVKDVLWVRQO\RIÀFLDOODQJXDJH J-MJ AND NS-S: Literary critics regularly react against reading African literature as “anthropology.” Yet by staging Dantala’s encounter with Baba of Karo (published as an anthropological account in 1954), you present him thinking about himself as an anthropological informant with a story to tell. Does it matter to you whether UHDGHUVWKLQNDERXW\RXUQRYHODVDVRUWRIÀFWLRQDOHWKQRJUDSK\PRUHWKDQDZRUN of aesthetic craft? EJ: Dantala’s encounter with Baba of Karo marks a certain level of awarenesss and engagement with human behavior and development (in a way that might interest DQDQWKURSRORJLVW LQKLVHYROXWLRQDVDWKLQNHU(YHQÀFWLRQDERXWDQWKURSRORJ\ LVÀFWLRQDQGZKLOH,FDQQRWVWRSSHRSOHIURPUHDGLQJP\QRYHOLQDQ\SDUWLFXODU way, this distinction is important. It is true that once I had chosen the subject, I risked it being read as some sort of ethnography. But isn’t all realism destined to EHDWVRPHSRLQWRULQVRPHZD\UHDGDVHWKQRJUDSK\",DPZULWLQJDERXWÀFWLRQDO events, but also about a reality that I consider very important and in danger of remaining in the shadows of two-minute news items about insurgent attacks. So no, my novel is not merely about aesthetic craft. The craft, important as it is, is a means to an end in this novel. The end is an understanding of my characters and their world. J-MJ AND NS-S:7KHXVHRIWKHWHUP´$OODKµUDWKHUWKDQ´*RGµOHGXVWRUHÁHFW on translation, which is also a concern of Dantala as he learns English, e.g., “Words turn into something else when they change from Hausa to English and back” (85). How do you approach the challenge of rendering multilingual environments in your writing? To what extent do you think about your writing as an act of translation, linguistic and/or cultural? EJ: Born on a Tuesday is an act of translation on a few levels. As a multilingual and multicultural space, Nigeria demands constant translation if one is to understand words, actions, and reactions. Any writing that intends to faithfully capture Nigeria thus has to be on some level a work of translation, whether intracultural This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms JEANNE-M ARIE JACKSON AND NATHAN SUHR-SY TSM A 93 or intercultural. Some concepts and words, however, remain impervious to translation and must retain their true form if they are going to retain their meaning. “Allah” is one such word. To replace “Allah” with “God” would be to strip it of the sound, context, and history that give it its meaning and texture. Writing as translation requires knowledge of what must be translated and what cannot be translated, as well as ways of faithfully transporting meaning and context from one language and culture to another. J-MJ AND NS-S: Can you speak to how religion as a theme unites different aspects of your career as a writer? In particular, how does Nigeria’s intermingling of state and religious political actors help or challenge you as you negotiate between your roles as a “traditional” novelist and new-media satirist? EJ: It is impossible to tell the story of Nigeria without telling the story of religion and how it affects the development of the state and the relationship between its different power brokers, on the one hand, and the relationship between the state and the citizens, on the other. As a satirist this provides ready material as I try to engage with the actions of the powerful, who play twin roles as both political and moral authorities (they often have to back the latter with connections to faith and public acts of worship). This situation also provides insight into motives and posturing among a population whose only solace, in a terribly mismanaged country, is often faith and the support systems provided by organized religion. As a novelist, this insight is crucial as one tells stories of the human beings behind actions that sometimes beggar belief; human beings caught in contradictions of faith and hypocrisy, self-preservation and brotherhood, hope and hopelessness. WORKS CITED John, Elnathan. Born on a Tuesday: A Novel. Black Cat, 2015. ———. “In a Time of Boko Haram.” Chimurenga Chronic, 19 Mar. 2015, chimurenga chronic.co.za/in-a-time-of-boko-haram/ Smith, M. F. Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa. Faber, 1954. This content downloaded from 128.220.159.5 on Thu, 29 Jun 2017 19:36:05 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms