On Ken Saro-Wiwa
I am thinking of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Today is the 25th anniversary of his execution. Saro-Wiwa was an author and the Nobel Peace Prize nominated campaigner who led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), a nonviolent action group against the exploitation of the Niger Delta by Shell. Oil was discovered in Nigeria in 1958; by 1990, when MOSOP was founded, thousands of oil spills had made Niger Delta one of the most polluted places on earth. To this day, many of the Ogoni people have been left with serious health impacts, unable to access clean drinking water or farm their land.
Under Saro-Wiwa’s leadership, MOSOP campaigned for increased autonomy for the Ogoni people, a fair share of the proceeds of oil extraction and rehabilitation of their land. In 1993, 300,000 people took part in peaceful protests against a new Shell pipeline. Clashes with police saw several Ogoni shot and injured; one man was killed. In the months that followed, conflicts between the Ogoni and other tribal groups flared up, apparently stoked by the government and Shell. Ultimately, Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists were hanged after being found guilty of the incitement to murder of four Ogoni leaders, in a case widely regarded as a sham. (Shell was accused of colluding with the Nigerian Government in the unjust execution of the Ogoni Nine - in 2009, the company agreed a 15.5 million USD out of court settlement).
Before Saro-Wiwa became so deeply involved with activism, he wrote: novels, short stories, poetry and drama, as well as being a TV producer. His early work tended to be satirical, but as time went on he became more and more engaged with social justice and environmental issues, and it is tempting to see his activism as a natural evolution of what he’d explored on the page.
I heard the speech Saro-Wiwa gave at his execution being read by Esther Stanford-Xosei of Stop The Maangamizi on a rainy night a few weeks ago. Writers Rebel, a group of writers in Extinction Rebellion that I belong to, had organised an action on the doorstep of 55 Tufton Street, where the UK’s principal climate change denying ‘think tank’, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, is based. Someone had arrived early and erected two huge tripods, blocking the street to traffic. Hundreds of protestors gathered to listen to artists and writers demand truth on the climate crisis.
We sat there for hours, as night fell and the drizzle soaked into everything. Mark Rylance, George Monbiot, Charlotte Du Cann and others were blistering on how a democracy fails when the power of money can drown out the voices of a nation’s citizens. Zadie Smith put it like this: “we know the outsized, unruly emotions that surround the scientific fact of climate change are fuelled by something far more calculated and external than species shame. They are not organic, natural or unavoidable, but rather feelings manufactured, targeted, organised, and paid for, largely by oil companies and other vested economic interests who are prepared to sacrifice your long-term future for their short-term profit.”
But it is Saro-Wiwa’s words that have clung to me, like so much autumn rain. “We all stand before history,” Stanford-Xosei read from the speech he gave at the very end of his life. “We all stand on trial, for by our actions we have denigrated our country and jeopardized the future of our children. As we subscribe to the sub-normal and accept double standards, as we lie and cheat openly, as we protect injustice and oppression... I predict that the scene here will be played and replayed by generations yet unborn. Some have already cast themselves in the role of villains, some are tragic victims, some still have a chance to redeem themselves. The choice is for each individual.” (You can see the video of the speech being read by Stanford-Xosei here).
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last few years is the political power of art. It’s a well-worn argument in creative circles, repeated every decade or so – can art really change anything? Or are those who write poems or stage dramas wasting the time they could be lobbying MPs, starting petitions and marching on government?
The debate, though, seems academic when confronted with the messy reality of how political change happens in the real world. Saro-Wiwa wasn’t an artist, or an activist. He was both, and those personas fed each other – he was able to lead the resistance to the crimes being committed against his people because he understood how words and images work to capture the imagination and inspire action. And his politics gave his creativity purpose and direction. They were parts of the whole; indeed I wonder if he could have become the activist that he did if he hadn’t first given form to the injustices he saw around him on the page.
We all lead political lives, and to live ethically means to engage with that, to fight with all that we have to shape a better world. That imperative demands not that creative people set aside our pens, instruments and paintbrushes, rather that we bring them to the struggle.
Saro-Wiwa recognised this. A few days before he was killed, he wrote a short story in which the narrator is languishing in prison after being tortured. A ghost, dressed in Nigerian Army uniform, appears in front of him. It is here, it explains, ‘to finish’ him.
The narrator appears unafraid. The ghost, curious, holds off shooting him for a moment, and asks how he can be so undaunted in the face of certain death. “I have what is greater than your weapon”, the narrator explains, and paraphrases Blake – ‘I will not cease my mental fight/ Nor shall my pen sleep in my hand / Till they have built a new Ogoni/ In Niger delta’s wealthy land’. With that, he draws out his pen, and the ghost perishes.
I don’t have an iota of the bravery of Saro-Wiwa, who kept writing, and campaigning, even in the face of certain execution. But I am learning from his example, and learning from the activists I stand with, trying to fortify my heart with stories like his.
That night in Tufton Street ended with fake blood poured over the steps of number 55, ‘LIES’ sprayed in black on the white painted pillars propping up that secretive place. The police who had circled us all evening, listening to the speakers with inscrutable faces, sprung of a sudden into action. Several of my fellow writers were taken away in handcuffs.
It made sense to me that night, in that place where truth is mangled for profit. How much words matter, and how to express something true with thoughtfulness and love is its own end. To live ethically is to fight – and paint, and write, and play, and dance - for change, even when the outcome is uncertain: especially then.
We all stand before history.
Incidentally, if you’d like to keep up to what we’re doing in Writers Rebel, you can find us online and subscribe to our newsletter here. We publish brilliant writing on the climate and ecological emergency every week. Our next event, On the Brink, will take place online on 30th November, with writers and artists including Margaret Atwood, Emma Thompson and Lily Cole speaking out for specific animals facing extinction. You can book online here.