The 4 Set Of People In Soyinka’s Fascist Universe

TEMITOPE AJAYI

 

We should not forget that Professor Wole Soyinka addressed four sets of people in his essay on fascism, in which he stomped on perennially melancholic OBIdients for resorting to what he described as “missives of violence” against dissenting voices.

With his ogunian temper, WS directed his anger at the so-called young people, who seem to be serving life sentences inside their own echo chambers, persuaded they are wiser, better and smarter than their forebears.

Soyinka branded them the “confused generation”, a description that is difficult to quibble with.

Another tribe that appeared in Soyinka’s gunsight and got shot at is the one he called “social media border patrols.” These are the people who want to dictate what people write, what they should write about, how to write it and most probably (my addition), how a piece of music should make you feel.

WS didn’t forget the ‘virtue vigilantes’, who are morality police seeking to weaponise electoral choices people make. This tribe assumes a kind of moral superiority for the political choices they make over those of other citizens, who excercised their own right to choose.

The last group is the ‘rookie activitists’. These are the ones who think political activism and agitation started in Nigeria with the advent of social media post-2015 elections and its intolerant cancel culture.