Biafra and the Question of Genocide: Examining the Dimensions of Violence in Heroes and Toads of War

Abstract

SummaryGenocide is often used to describe the Igbo experience during the Biafra/Nigeria civil war, particularly within secessionist discourse. This has become a potent tool in gathering support among the Igbo youths – who did not witness the war and consequently rely on “available” narratives of the war. The classification of the war as a genocide presents certain polemics, some are: the difficulty of casting Biafra as vulnerable and lacking in agency; the framing of the war suffering as a universal Igbo experience; the presentation of Biafra as ethnically homogeneous, and that Biafra stimulated linear solidarity from its inhabitants as a force for absolute good. Employing insights from literature, this study reads the dimensions of violence in selected literary narratives of Biafra against International Criminal Court’s definition of genocide. It concludes that there were events that could be described as cases of war crimes narrated in the texts; but there was no intention to annihilate the Igbo. The texts narrate acts of brutality perpetrated by both belligerents. It finds also, that genocide was used as a tool for mobilizing support for the Biafran cause during the war. It was a propaganda tool to gain the attention of the world and to motivate a fight to the end.