Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 21 Issue 4

Defining culture, Ojaide further maintains that: Culture is a form of adornment to humanity. It is the culmination of a people’s or group’s way of life with their beliefs, lifestyle, and manner of dealing with their human condition and practical realities. There is thus one common humanity – we are born, grow old, and eventually die – but we have a diversity of cultures as each group of people has rites of passage that differ from place to place and people to people (11). Contributing to the discourse, Achebe (1975) in his seminal paper, The Novelist as a Teacher assertively states that: African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; that their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth, and value, and beauty, that they had poetry and, above all, they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African people all but lost during the colonial period, and it is this they must now regain. The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer’s duty is to help them regain it by showing them, in human terms, what happened to them, what they lost (157). The above reference succinctly reveals that, for Achebe, the writer is part of his society, and also a leader who should stir the course. Soyinka (1988:20) corroborates this view when he posits that African Art and artists must be critical guides to the society. He states that “The artist has always functioned in African society as the record of the mores and experiences of his society and as the voice of vision in his own time.” This means that the artist is a chronicler; recording experiences and, at the same time, championing the aspirations of his society. Pointedly, African countries like Nigeria that gain independence since the 1960’s for about sixty years are still under the clutches of the super powers with new concepts and terminologies like post-colonialism, post- independence, neo-colonialism, the Common Wealth of nations and now globalization, modernization, digitalization etc and each directly or indirectly connected to the western power. According to Agofure (2016:237), “The effects of colonization are still prevalent in Nigeria today.” The movie Jenifa, for instance, as this critic laments “reveals the prevalent desire to mimic western culture at all cost, this has manifested in alienation in various forms in the Nigerian social space.” Indisputably, Hausa culture and values as evident in the novels of Kamal have undergone (and are still undergoing) a lot of changes as characters like Sadiq in Fire in My Backyard (2004), Ashiru in Silence and a Smile (2005), Hajjo Gano in Hausa Girl (2010) and Asabe in Life Afresh (2012) very much prefer Western cultural values to the Hausa values. Likewise, the velocity of the abandonment of the dark skin in preference to the white by Habi and Jiniya in the novel under examination places Hausa/African culture on a weak pedestal facing serious challenge as they want to be more white than the White people. From this view point, the novel – Somewhere Somehow , in consonance with Irele’s (1973:10) stance, scrutinises the “social and psychological conflicts created by the incursion of the White man and his culture into the hitherto self- contained world of African society, and the disarray in the African consciousness that followed.” Hence, it is the task of writers such as Kamal to actively play their role in the transformation of their societies as James (1986:8) writes, “The primary tasks of writers in the Third World have involved the retrieval of cultural dignity and an imaginative mediation between old and new to reconstruct and affirm cultural values.” Thus, each writer, according to Usman (2006:18), “is at liberty to state his vision of what he/she thinks an ideal society should look like or be”. This explains that writers do not only expose the problems of the society but also propound solutions to them. In addition to that, Sylvester (2016) argued, inter-alia, about the thrust of literature that: Literature plays a powerful role in the socio-cultural practices of which the writer is rooted. It is the writer’s responsibility to be awake to the happenings around him and serve as a cultural ambassador. The conscionable writer will no doubt create awareness sensitizing and advocating cultural issues, the environment and other values being subsumed in the name of modernity. A good population of African writers have gone through some enculturation of western traditional modes and are in a position to creatively buy and sell mixed values that enhance integrity, pride and human development. This is where self-criticism matters to the writer to show how culture advances social, political and economic challenges of the country they inhabit (29-30). In essence, literature is so much part of our everyday life, and the indispensable role it plays in moral and cultural crusade in the society cannot simply be jettisoned. Commenting on the utilitarian functions of literature and the contributions of literary artists in the society, Abdullahi (2012) in a paper titled, “Cultural and Religious Consternation in Northern Nigerian Literature: Reading Aliyu Kamal’s Hausa Girl” buttresses that: Literature mirrors the cultural norms, values, institutions and history, as well the entire socio-political and economic life of its society, including its system of belief. It is then the task of writers in every community to propagate and preserve the culture of their people in their writing. Coupled with that, they also write to criticize the misrepresentation of their culture by others and denounce the moral decadence that poses a threat to the society (249). Obviously, Kamal’s effort as a creative writer and social commentator singled him out as someone concerned with ethical and moral consciousness, cultural identity and attitudinal change in most of his works. According to Buba (2013:7) “Aliyu Kamal is a Kano-based writer whose literary works border on critical examinations and re-examinations of the values © 2021 Global Journals Volume XXI Issue IV Version I 64 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 Literature, Modernity and Cultural Atavism in Aliyu Kamal’s Somewhere Somehow