Things fall apart

Abstract

At the beginning of their Comment, Charles Obonyo and colleagues (April 19, p 1319)1Obonyo C Omondi D Mwinzi P Public-health crisis after the election violence in Kenya.Lancet. 2008; 371: 1319-1321Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar quote the following: “When the centre cannot hold, things fall apart”, attributing it to Chinua Achebe. Achebe did, indeed, use those words in his novel Things Fall Apart, but the original author was W B Yeats in his poem The Second Coming.Noting the original author is not a literary quibble. Achebe carefully chose the phrase because the context of Yeats' poem is the horror of being colonised, semi-enslaved, impoverished, and deracinated. Achebe himself rightly attributed the quote. The Ireland of Yeats suffered as did colonised Africa. The present conditions in many African countries are a direct consequence of that colonisation and of new forms of it through the globalised economy and African governments that prioritise national economy over microeconomy and cultural preservation.Ireland required decades of independence to heal from British rule. The healing was not complete, as indicated by Ireland's use of the English language. Africa might require longer because of the neocolonialism by both western governments and international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Of course, public health, public order, education, and many other aspects of life reflect past and present colonialism. In particular, power relationships between the population sectors suffer distortion. The conditions described by Obonyo and colleagues quintessentially reflect the postcolonial/neocolonial context.The policy and opinions in this letter are mine only and do not necessarily reflect those of the Consumers Union. I declare that I have no conflict of interest. At the beginning of their Comment, Charles Obonyo and colleagues (April 19, p 1319)1Obonyo C Omondi D Mwinzi P Public-health crisis after the election violence in Kenya.Lancet. 2008; 371: 1319-1321Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar quote the following: “When the centre cannot hold, things fall apart”, attributing it to Chinua Achebe. Achebe did, indeed, use those words in his novel Things Fall Apart, but the original author was W B Yeats in his poem The Second Coming. Noting the original author is not a literary quibble. Achebe carefully chose the phrase because the context of Yeats' poem is the horror of being colonised, semi-enslaved, impoverished, and deracinated. Achebe himself rightly attributed the quote. The Ireland of Yeats suffered as did colonised Africa. The present conditions in many African countries are a direct consequence of that colonisation and of new forms of it through the globalised economy and African governments that prioritise national economy over microeconomy and cultural preservation. Ireland required decades of independence to heal from British rule. The healing was not complete, as indicated by Ireland's use of the English language. Africa might require longer because of the neocolonialism by both western governments and international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Of course, public health, public order, education, and many other aspects of life reflect past and present colonialism. In particular, power relationships between the population sectors suffer distortion. The conditions described by Obonyo and colleagues quintessentially reflect the postcolonial/neocolonial context. The policy and opinions in this letter are mine only and do not necessarily reflect those of the Consumers Union. I declare that I have no conflict of interest.