Symbolism of Corruption in Ayi kwe Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not yet Born

By Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

Ayi Kwe Armah’s  The Beutyful Ones Are Note Yet Born  is a post-colonial African novel  trying to depict political and social condition following  the departure of the colonial masters. Kwame Nkrumah, Leopard Sendor Senghor, Mabuto Sese Seko,  Jomo Kenyattah, Azikwe and some others are regarded as pan-African nationalists who struggled for the emancipation of African states from the grip of colonialism.  Ironically, the political and economic condition is no better than during colonial days.

The excessive love for materialism is a commonplace among Africans mainly to satisfy the irresistible thirst for power and admiration. The elites have resorted to squandering public funds, and the poor are affected so badly with the quest to imitate the elite’s lifestyle, the effect so strong, making them always feeling guilty and seem to apologize for their poverty. The poor also become like the rulers in every little corner they occupy. As such, bribery and corruption become free-for-all in the struggle for power and relevance in the society.

Plot summary

The Beutyful Ones Are Note Yet Born  is a story of unnamed character considered foolish by the society because he refuses to jump into the bandwagon of corruption. He gets into a car in the morning for the office where certain events happen. The conductor is cheating on the passengers and the driver of the bus. He gets to the office and things, as usual, are not working properly. Public officers do not come to work in time and are using their positions to give and take bribery and corruption.

The unnamed character, the man, who rejects corruption, is badgered by his wife to do what everyone is doing in the society so that her bones can rest. She always refers him to Estella’s life who is a wife to Koomson, a Raliway Minister.  She insists on he should take corruption, or at least approve of it to be part of  a deal that will benefit them both, an arrangement to get some assistance from the Minster who will help her and her mother buy a commercial boat.  But the man refuses to give in and insists on the honest life.

His wife and mother-in-law cast hurtful remarks at him because they see him as a coward who cannot live up to the life everyone is leading. He could not help feeling guilty, and starts to think if his detest for bribe and corruption is also a crime.

In the end, his wife Oyo and his mother-in-law, appeal the Minister and his wife Estella to assist them in getting the boat. They make arrangement to meet the Minister in his mansion for signing to seal the deal. Soon after their visit, a coup occurs in the country that swept the regime the minister serves. A nationwide witch-hunting immediately begins to punish officials who looted public fund in the ousted regime.

The minister runs to the man’s house in extreme fears, sweating profusely and smelling strong odor. He  becomes extremely pitiable that the man’s wife,  Oyo, feels grateful that her husband did not engage in corruption. The Minster has to give up all his prestige and dignity to crawl into the latrine for escape when the soldiers come to arrest him.

The major pre-occupation is how effectively the author portrays corruption in the post-independence Ghanian society characterized by a variety of corrupt practices in every little corner of public life. Ayi Kwe Armah exposes this attitude via the ruling class and their misdemeanor that creates rottenness in the Ghanian society and by extension many African states. Everything foreign, where the rulers exhibit disproportionate crave for materials at the expanse of the masses. Many instances in the novel have demonstrated how people have completely succumbed to corruption through analogy of events and symbolisms that bind the 

society to a shared mindset.

The author uses literary devices such as analogies, symbolisms and allusion densely filed in the actions and behavior of the characters, from those Atlantic caprices in government who subvert services in public institutions to sustain their economic interests, to moral corruption among families and relatives, and to the general materialistic ostentation which becomes pervasive and rooted in the minds of the people. We understand this from the behavior of the conductor,  and from the Timber contractor who attempts to bribe the man and thinks that the man must be joking to reject such offer; as well as  the man’s wife’s repugnant reaction when he has recounted the story to her about what has transpired between him and the Timber contractor in the office.

Symbolism

The first incident in the novel is a symbol of corruption and excessive attitude for display of wealth where even the working class who could not afford their own car develop the desire to impress their fellow countrymen. The cost of articles that one can buy determines the cost of recognition, judgment and admiring glances he will have in the society.  And since a man should be judged and respected by what he is able to steal from public fund and turns it to his personal wealth in contrast to honesty and sincerity, those smart people who have done for themselves, and for their families by signing some papers and knowing what to do in commercial banks and public offices are highly hailed and admired.

Unable to reach to the government offices, the conductor seizes a little opportunity from his little corner to not give passengers change after they pay transport fare when he learns that the passengers only care to look into the conductor’s eyes to see if he acknowledges their importance. They do that to give the impression of being big man. “Yes man, you are Big Man,” the acknowledgement reflects in the eyes of the conductor who will fix an admiring stare in the eyes of a passenger to buy his attention, and would not lower his gaze down the coins in the giver’s hand so as to retain the magic and the profits that come with it. Those few who are lucky to collect their change would be given short of what they supposed to be given and gladly put it in the pocket without looking at it.

Then again, the conductor is cheating on his driver by counting the money and removing the extra profits. The man is watching him begin stuffing the money in his bag, and the man’s stare puts him on the edge and begins to feel guilty. But he later dismisses the inkling that the man is watching him cheat on the bus driver. The conductor acts according to the belief of the society and feels that everyman is also a man himself, because that is the nature of everyone in the society to have a “skin and fat with stomach and throat that needed be served.”

So, he calmly slips his hand into his pocket and produces a packet of Embassy cigarette to bribe the man. The man’s eyes continue to stare at the conductor. So the conductor, being a symbolic character standing for the entire society and its behavior, thinks the man is not really fighting corruption but will simply not accept small bribe. He goes ahead to offer a big offer. “You see we can share,” he said to the man. But the man is not really watching the conductor. He is sleeping and only his blank gaze is directed at him. Here, we can understand the role of the sleeping man as a symbol of dormancy of anti-corruption forces in the Ghanian society, and the behavior of the conductor alludes to the fact of how the society views corruption, and how people accept and condone it.

There is also symbolism of the rotting behavior of attaching more value to riches against human beings. We have seen this incident in the narrative when the conductor humiliates the man after he finds out his status as a mere ordinary citizen and asks the man to get out of the bus. The driver “collected his full force and aimed the blob far out in front of him”. The man felt the spray on his back and again sees the driver unremorsed,  “preparing his throat and mouth for one more effort.”  Similar incident of denigrating humanity occurs when Koomson, the State Minister, calls his houseboy and forgets all about him until he is reminded that he has left a fellow human being standing in reverential fear.

There is also another symbolic picture that alludes to the fact that corruption has come to stay in the Ghanian society. The old commercial buildings owned by the colonial masters, the UTC, the GNTC, the UAC, and the French CFAO. The shops have been there all the time as far back as the period the man could remember. Yet the GNTC which is regarded as the new is not new at all because it is nothing “but the name  that has only changed with the independence.”  The coming of the sons of the land into power is not really a change, it is only change of names because it’s only money changing hands. The system that the African criticized vehemently is the same they practiced when they come to power, “how completely the new thing took after old.”

Government will come up with impressive policies to get rid of the “uncleanliness” in the society but such policies are more or less the process of maintaining the uncleanliness in the society because in the end they are never implemented despite the money spent on them. The Africans that came to power only reflected the old system of the colonial masters . “All men live like the old.” “Our party men. After their reign is over, there will be no difference all over.” They live in a way that is more painful than the Whiteman has always lived.

It appears that all shouting against the whitemen is not a hate, it is love twisted. Everyone wants to be nearer to the whitemen. Those clamor for independence is at best merely a means of ruling the masses on behalf of the ex-colonial masters, deceiving the poor to have “faith in us, we know the whiteman and his ways.  Plan R, Plan X and Plan Z” will all end in vain.  Nobody desires evil, but when a man has a power he finds the evil useful.  

Corruption and bribery have become widespread and the people have become part of it in an alarming rate. For example, the man is left stunned by the behavior of the timber contractor who openly attempts to bribe him to secure favors in the railway office. The man refuses to cooperate and the contractor is so humorously surprised why the man will refuse to do what everyone is doing. “My friend, all joke aside. I’m not a child, my friend if you work in the same office you can eat from the bowl.”  When the man refuses to accept the bribe again, the contractor insists he should,  alluding him to the pratice trending in the society. “Alright, alright. But you also know that everybody prospers from the work he does.” This is what everybody believes to be right and what everyone is doing in the little corner of his office and one cannot be working in an office and can’t eat from its bowl. It is hypocrisy. Chichidodoooo!

Effort to break the circles of corruption always ends in futility as the society comes to identify with it not with a stigma. If you don’t openly join the corrupt circles who actually constitute the majority, you are a fool and the entire society will spit at you. That leaves one scratching head questioning if a person who rejects bribe is not actually a criminal for not partaking in the trendy of the society. Instead of the man lodging complaints about the business man’s attitude, now the timber contractor has lodged complaints of “why do you treat me this way?” and in another place “why are you making things so difficult for me?” - as if the man has committed a grave sin for not aiding the process of corruption. 

The common understanding is that if a man seems to be difficult in your way, it is because the bribe you offer is so mean, “I know ten is nothing. So my friend what do you drink?” The timber contractor and the conductor offered a big share to the man in two different incidents. Probably, this is what everyone will do if he comes to be in their shoes. One more example is that although the man does not make any effort to challenge the conductor, his staring on the conductor can be seen as a weak opposition against the overwhelming trend which further shows the ineffectiveness of the few anti-graft forces against  the enormous number of people with interest in the status quo.

The enormity of people’ belief in corruption is so threatening that people see honesty as a social vice. Or so, avoiding it is like a foolishness or suicide in which a thirsty man in a desert will avoid an offer of cool water. When the man refuses to accept the money to facilitate the process of Amankwa’s timber business, the business man asks in astonishment and surprise, “why not, why not” eyeing him a look that no sane man will behave the way the man is behaving. In fact when someone like the man rejects bribery, he changes position with society for one will be seen as a bad and those who offer it as upright because one’s refusal to do what everyone is doing, and taking what everyone is taking and giving is deviation to the societal norms.  So since everyone is taking and giving bribes, when people like the man refuses to give or take, behaving this way  will actually make them never to be thought alright.

One generic perception of the society towards corruption is perhaps those who refuse it are only pretending at the moment. We have seen this in the thought and attitude of the timber contractor. When the man rejects the bribe on several occasions, he says “don’t be annoyed. I was not tricking you.” The man should feel free to collect the offer; the giver is not a police in plainclothes coming to allure him into a crime. Now, corruption has taken to the elaborate position in the society.  

In addition, closer to home is the man’s wife’s frank view who gets frustrated by her husband’s behavior. She is disgusted and feels that maybe her husband likes this crawling he thinks is life while she is tired of it. She will like to have someone who will drive her somewhere in a car like other women of public officials. She insists her husband should not cut himself from the boat business that the Railway Minister will help because the benefit is for all of them. She simply calls the man “Chichidodoooo” when he sticks to his honesty; a metaphor to “a bird that hates excrement with all its souls but feeds on maggots that grow in the lavatory.”  

Her reason is that just moments ago her husband shakes Estella’s hand, the wife of Koomson the  Railway Minster, and admires her perfume. “So, when you shake hands with the rich, is their perfume not staying with you?”  But the man reasons with her that their source of income might be dubious. Yet the woman says this is not her concerns, “We don’t care. Why pretend?” the man’s wife, Oyo is lecturing him on the benefits of corruption. “Everybody is swimming toward what he wants. Who wants to remain on the beach asking the wind,” to push him. You help yourself or else one will remain economically dry.

And since everybody should prosper from his job, then nobody cares how people amass their wealth, the only question is to make sure you own the riches. “It is nice. It is clean. , the life Estella is leading.”  But the man believes that  kind of cleanliness has more rottenness in it because in the end Koomson has to escape through latrine to avoid the long arm of the law.

He refuses to do what everyone is doing and she calls him Chichidodoooo. The man could not help feeling guilty and reveals what his wife told him to the Teacher when he told her about the incident with the timber contractor. “I told her what happened at work today. A man came to me with a bribe.” And the Teacher also accuses him of not taking the gift of the office when he says, “a murderer that you are, you let it go.” And the Teacher also has no pity for him.  “Expect no forgiveness from your family,”   and goes on to offer him a piece of advice “there are ways and ways, you the husband will have to find these ways.”

Since there are many ways and ways, if one remains a poor it is his fault for at least the society offers an alternative stating that one can prospers from his job. One must resort to such ways, a short cut for quick and easy way for wealth.  If one chooses to remain poor he must have to struggle to offer apology to the society by killing themselves for a decent accommodation to people from high class such as Koomson, the State Minster, when he visits the man’s house.

The man begins to think if the problem is not really from him that he chooses to be honest. Yes, he cannot face his wife and say the luxurious cars are bad and then back to the children and tell them international school is also bad.  What makes the man guilty is not anything immoral but his honesty. And what the society is telling him is to be like them, the corrupt, the living dead, urging him to answer their call and throw away that thing in him that makes him looked horrible by the society.

Finally, from the foregoing description of events taking place in the novel, it can be aptly put that the action and behavior of the characters in their melee for amassing wealth and power, represent the rot and decay that consume the society. The bus incident, the heap of rubbish in the streets, the decaying infrastructure and the decayed wooden stairs in the ministry, the commonplace bribery and corruption are symbolic reasons for the collapse of infrastructure and public institutions, supported by the hands and fingers of the corrupt civil servants and their family and relatives.

(@abubakarsulai13)