Exile in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13684443

Exile in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13684443

Author(s): Exile in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13684443

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Volume 15 | Issue 4 | August 2024

Pages: Exile in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13684443

The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-IV, August 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Failed Post-Independence Unity: Violence, Trauma and Exile in Caryl
Phillips’ A Distant Shore
Koubli NOUANWA
The University of Maroua/Cameroon.
Article History: Submitted-05/07/2024, Revised-13/08/2024, Accepted-28/08/2024, Published-31/08/2024.
Abstract:
Although contentions between and among different communities sharing the same place
and time are a general sociopolitical phenomenon plaguing human society, they are more
endemic and dynamic in the post-independence society. It is the case of Africa which continues
to suffer from the legacies of European colonialist encroachment. Since the imperialist
balkanisation of the African society by the Western superpowers following the provisions of
the Berlin conference, Africa, notwithstanding her independence and the pan-Africanist
discourse held by postcolonial luminaries, is still riven owing to socio-political and economic
instability ignited by identity foreclosure, intertribal and enter-ethnic squabbles and civil wars
and subregional conflicts which bread mass killings, genocides and exile. In A Distant Shore,
Caryl Phillips lays bare such evils blighting Africa. The book captures the failed unity of post-
independence Africa wherein different ethnic communities, sharing the same country or the
same continent hitherto fail to hold peaceful dialogues leading to absolute reconciliation and
rehabilitation of the broken bonds of brotherhood. They cannot be reconciled as one people and
one community, united by ancestry and history. Instead of fostering peace and brotherhood after
centuries of slavery, colonialism and colonisation, many African ethnic communities prefer
ethnic pride to the continental union of Africa. This paper which uses postcolonial theory in the
analyses argues that this failed post-independence unity and its inherent violence not only stakes
the true African spirit of Ubuntu and its inherent communitarian living style but also causes
some of the traumatised victims, the survivals of the fratricidal pogrom to take to other
countries, especially to Europe in search for stability, only to expose their lives to other troubles
prompted by European racism.
Keywords: Failed Independence, Pan-Africanist, Violence, Trauma, Exile, Racism.
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Introduction
In the wake of African independence, Pan-Africanists, in an attempt to transform the
black continent into a great nation and restore Africa’s lost magnificence and continental
grandeur, strove to create bonds of brotherhood and solidarity among all African peoples and
nations. Pan-Africanists were convinced that the union of Africa was the lone way to her true
decolonisation and genuine development. Nkrumah (1963) declares thus:
For we have dedicated ourselves to the attainment of total African freedom. Here is one
bond of unity that allies free Africa with unfree Africa, as well as all those independent
states dedicated to this cause [. . .]. Since our inception, we have raised as a cardinal
policy, the total emancipation of Africa from colonialism in all its forms. To this we
have added the objective of the political union of African states as the securest safeguard
of our hard-won freedom and the soundest foundation for our individual, no less than
our common, economic, social and cultural advancement. (p. xi)
Unfortunately, since the sixties, the reconciliation of Africa is not yet effective. We still
a dislocation of African national psyche (Ngugi 2009), p. 61) orchestrated by neo-colonialist
disruptive forces, selfish and egocentric interests of African leaders engendering intertribal,
national and subregional divisions, fratricidal conflicts and genocidal crimes as was the
infamous case of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994. The fratricide genocide “resulted from the
deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power (Des Forges
1999, p. 1). Thus, in some post-independence African nations like Rwanda, where political
leaders have failed to unify the nation, ethnic groups are politically manipulated into fighting
against one another, engendering fratricidal contentions and genocide. At the macrocosmic
level, the diplomatic, bilateral and multilateral relations among African nations are still warped
by dissensions, stunting the unity and the development of the black world. Such disagreements
“perpetuate the Berlin-based divisions, with the result that even people of the same language,
culture, and history remain citizens of different states. These states, in turn, often erect
insurmountable barriers in the movement of peoples, goods, businesses, and services” (Ngugi
2009, sp. 88). Due to the warring climate wreaking havoc on African nations, the divisive
diplomacy, border conflicts among African countries, Africa is still reduced to a hotbed of
insecurity to be avoided by her children. They are bound to go into exile in search of security.
They have a predilection for Europe, believed to be economically and judicially sound.
Unhappily, when they take to what they believe is an Eldorado, they fall into another form of
violence, especially racist attacks and murder. Glissant (1989) sums up all this as he underscores
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that post-independence rulers are politicians “who created from a village or tribe huge empires
and all ended up in prison, exile, or dependent” (p. 134). Phillips’A Distant Shore is a depiction
of such violence and its aftermaths, which prove how African independence has failed to unite
and unify Africans divided by imperialist powers.
Divisive Conflicts, Trauma and Instability
Phillips’A Distant Shore recounts the traumatic experience of Gabriel, the protagonist
who originates from Africa, a place ridden by physical violence, fratricidal wars and massacres.
In Africa, there are two tribes which are demographically different: one ethnic group is larger
than the other. The trouble begins when the members of the larger ethnic group start accusing
the members of the smaller ethic group (whose members wheel the economic and the political
affairs of the country) of misgoverning and mismanaging the national heritage. Therefore, the
members of the larger but poorer ethnic group started using seditions, insurrections and mass
killings to reverse the socioeconomic and political norms and gain their share. Gabriel, who
belongs to the smaller ethnic group, recounts:
We were the smaller tribe. We worked hard and we did not harm anybody. We tried to
do what was best for ourselves, and what was good for our young country. We wanted
only to live in peace with our brothers, but it became clear that this was not possible.
My father told me they were jealous of us, for our people ran many businesses; not just
in the capital city, but in our tribal land to the south. We formed the backbone of the
economy, and therefore we had much influence. It was only after one of our people was
elected to the presidency that the real trouble began; the killings. (p. 137)
So, the members of the larger but poorer ethnic group who believe the smaller ethnic
group (whose member is the President of the Republic) robs their economic riches and political
privileges, decide to use the argument of force to become politically and economic powerful.
To this end, the larger ethnic group and the army conspire against the government and foment
a coup in order to oust the President of the Republic from power. The result is the massacre of
the members of the smaller ethnic tribe. The narrator relates that “the army rebelled, and the
government troops spilled out from their barracks and cruised the streets in vehicles with
machine guns pointing out of the windows. They began to drink and kill, and kill and drink”
(p. 137). Gabriel’s father, who is traumatised by such barbarity adds: “Power has not gone to
the heads of these soldiers, it has gone to their bellies. They are fat and fleshy. They do not
know how to fight, only how to kill” (p. 140). Owing to mass killings orchestrated by the larger
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ethnic group and the army, Gabriel’s minority group which is exposed to genocide. Gabriel’s
ethnic group is terrified, lives under permanent fear, in distress and desperation. Gabriel’s father
for example, does not know how to deal with the situation. Since he is psychologically unstable,
he does not care for his physical appearance: he does not mind the dress decorum and his
physical smartness.
As he is strangulated by the socio-political upheaval wreaking havoc on his
environment, he resorts to drinking, neglecting the dressing code. Gabriel witnesses it as
follows: “My father looked directly at me as he spoke, but on his breath I could smell wine.
Father did not know how to cope with this new situation, and there were portions of his cheek
that he had forgotten to shave” (p. 137). In his depression, Gabriel’s father is dishevelled: he
does not care about his physical appearance. He just consumes alcohol to embolden himself to
face the insecurity hitting his tribe. The alcohol intake is the tendency of the traumatised to
personally treat their traumatic state to stand the fear of terror and horror. For Krystal (1995),
they try to block the distress through self-medication (p. 86).
Being on the verge of ethnic extinction, Gabriel’s people “whose blood marks them off
as the nominal enemy” (p. 89) must fight for their stability, at least for the survival of the tribe.
Although cognisant of the fact that his son runs the risk of being killed in this military adventure,
Gabriel’s father feels compelled to sacrifice his firstborn child Gabriel, persuading him to join
the warfront to guarantee the security of the tribe. Gabriel explains: “. . . soon my terrified father
had little choice but to take me to one side” (p. 137). Amidst fear and hopelessness, he tells his
son: “You must go to the south and join our people there. Soon they will kill our president and
their army will take charge. I feel this in my blood. Our one hope will be you men in the south
[. . .]. You must go now. You are my only son and it is my duty to send you to the liberation
army. You will be trained to become a soldier [. . .]. You are my only son and it is my duty to
send you to the liberation army” (p. 140). Unfortunately, Gabriel will not be able to stand the
terror and horror of the war. He witnesses it as follows:
I remained rooted to the spot and watched as Patrick led the men towards the village.
Sometime later, I listened to the rapid firing of their weapons and the chorus of
screaming from the villagers. Captain JuJu was right. I did not have the heart for this
savagery. My father had sent me to fight, and I could fight and kill if necessary. But
only if necessary. Now I had little choice but to make my way back to the capital and
warn my family. Everybody knew that these were my men, and it was clear that the
government troops would blame me for this massacre and take bloody revenge on my
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mother and father and two sisters. This was the shameful manner in which we conducted
our war. (p. 148)
The word “shameful” qualifying the intertribal war is a satire the author uses to shame
the government and the warlike population (which use internal war against their brothers and
sisters for their selfish interests) into changing. Phillips condemns such self-destructive
infightings as they lead to Africa’s dismemberment and downfall. It is a shame that war which
should be used against a stranger for the national defence and interest, is instead used against
one’s brothers and sisters which ends up in hecatomb, national and continental chaos.
Consequently, Gabriel who stands for this group loses all his family members to this war, which
insinuates that Gabriel’s tribe has incurred genocide. Gabriel is utterly traumatised as he
helplessly watches his two parents tortured and terrorised to death in front of him. Moreover,
in his presence, his two sisters are raped to death. The narrator says that Jacko “the last to mount
the younger sister. . .” (p. 85). The term “mount” is a zoomorphic term the author uses to
indicate the type of cruel rape undergone by Gabriel’s sister. Through the use of this term, we
understand the animalistic and barbaric acts of violence such as rape and other forms of tortures
incurred by people faced with intertribal and civil war as is the case of Africa described in the
text.
Through his text, Phillips also shows that intertribal war has severe economic
consequences. In the text, the economic situation of the warlike ethnic group gets worse during
the war. Felix, an influential economic member of the larger group has turned poor as a result
of the war. The narrator discloses thereupon: “. . . once upon a time Felix’s store was the place
to come if you wanted any household or electrical item. If Felix did not have it, then it did not
exist in the country, but Gabriel can see that since the onset of the war his former employer’s
stock has been severely depleted” (p. 89). Because of the ongoing war, the economic empire of
Felix, one of the economic pillars of his ethnic community and of the country at large has
shrunk. Felix’s wealth is now “a small bundle of United States dollars” (p. 91). He is a “nervous
man” (p. 91) whose shop contains few items such as “Ill-matching saucepans, metal pails,
batteries, garish neon torches” (p. 89). Felix witnesses it himself saying: “I am not a wealthy
man, Gabriel. I have a wife and child and I know that soon I will lose what is left of this shop”
(p. 91). Felix’s economic downfall proves that the selfish search for tribal glory not only leads
to fratricidal genocide but equally to aggravating the economic condition of the population. It
is thus clear that insurrections, hatred, when motivated by tribalism, cannot lead to stability.
They can only leave young independent nations in ruins.
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As the zone is violence-ridden, the economic diplomacy, importation and exportation
policy, tourism, internal and external investments have slowed down, and Felix’s commerce
does not bloom. In such a country whose chief concern is military equipment and not the well-
being of the population, the masses are unstable, tormented by gunshots, hunger and starvation.
Patrick and his peers, for instance, are “fighting because somebody had given their family a bag
of rice or promised them a car. For over a year they had simply eaten what they were given,
and they had all lost friends” (p. 146). Gabriel who observes the pathetic scene says: “I walked
to the shade of a tree and sat and closed my eyes. When I opened them it was evening” (p. 146).
It is worth noting that Phillips shows in the text the correlation between wars raging in Africa
and the economic crisis: how the former begets the latter. Ayinlola, Adeniyi and Adedeji (n.d.)
write: “There are different dimensions of conflicts, of which armed conflicts have been
identified as one of the major causes of instability with attendant effects on economies. [. . .].
The resulting effects of these armed conflicts have been a drag to the economic growth of many
African countries” (p. 2).
Although Phillips’ A Distant Shore tells a fictional story, it is well experienced in the
colonised countries, especially in Africa as is painted in the text. In many African countries,
political leaders in their search for power and riches, use the political tactic of divide and rule,
then blindfold the masses into oppressing and suppressing one another in internal, fratricide
wars. The selfish political leaders transform “the strategy of ethnic division into genocide” (Des
Forges 1999, p. 1). As a matter of illustration, in Rwanda, in 1994, the Hutu (the larger ethnic
group) was set against the Tutsi (the smaller ethnic group). The Hutus were inveigled into
exterminating the Tutsis. The poor Hutus were beguiled into believing that the extermination
of the Tutsis would yield political and economic privileges. Studies reveal that the Hutu
“zealous killers were poor, drawn from a population 86 percent of whom lived in poverty, the
highest percentage in the world” (Uvin as cited in Des Forges 1999, p. 382). Being hopeless,
hanging “out on the streets of Kigali or smaller commercial centers, with little prospect of
obtaining either the land or the jobs needed to marry and raise families” (Uvin as cited in Des
Forges 1999, p. 382, p. 382), the Hutu “believed that the extermination campaign would restore
the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve
their chances of negotiating a favorable peace [. . .] They were the first to kill, rape, rob and
destroy. They attacked Tutsi frequently and until the very end, without doubt or remorse. Many
made their victims suffer horribly and enjoyed doing so” (Des Forges 1999, p. 2), “killing nearly
500,000–800,000 people and leaving 4 million homeless, 2 million of whom fled to nearby
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countries” (Tan 2023, p. 422). Unfortunately, the Rwanda’s civil war did not lead neither to the
Hutu’s economic stability, nor to Rwandan economic progress. Investigations on the aftermath
of this war show that “The stagnation brought on by the war aggravated the poverty of the
region” (Des Forges 1999, p. 453). Thus, Phillips’ painting of these intercommunal or intertribal
conflicts in Africa is realistic since the black continent is still “trapped in a never-ending cycle
of ethnic conflict. The Rwandan genocide, Darfur, northern Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and the
violent aftermath of the controversial Kenyan elections, among other cases, seemingly
substantiate this perception. As grievances accumulate and are defined at the group rather than
individual level, the motivation for reprisals is never ending” (Aaepenugo as cited in Quadri
and Oladejo 2020, p. 123).
If some Africans have the fortitude to remain in their homeland fraught with violence
and immiseration, Gabriel does not have. As already underlined, the survivors of such violence
resort to exile, many of whom migrate to Europe. Such is the case of Gabriel, the lone survivor
of the family. He is bound to leave his gory and immiserated country. He has to look for stability
in immigration in the land of his historical oppressor, Europe.
Exile and Racism
After the killing of all his family members Gabriel takes the resolution of leaving his
homeland, saying: “I did nothing wrong, but I know I have to leave this country” (p. 88). It is
worth observing that the resolution Gabriel takes to leave his homeland is commonplace in the
violence-ridden Africa. Ngugi (1993) testifies thus: I fled into exile from the dictatorial regime
of Daniel Toroitich arap Moi in June 1982, they symbolised the essential East Africa. It was
April 1987, I had just arrived in Dar es Salaam from London via Harare, a guest of Walter
Bgoya, and here I was in the midst of a group dedicated to Happiness. Only two months before,
February, the Kenya police had siezed my novel, Matigari, and I was wondering what they
would do to the author if they knew that he was now just across the border with the Happiness
Club. (p. 159)
Gabriel’s resolution to leave his native country because of its unbearable socio-political
and economic malaise suggests that the colonised world is a place whose people are “forced
into exile through fear of certain death or prison” (Ngugi 1993, p. 105) or economic instability.
Therefore, Gabriel goes to Felix, his friend and former employer, to beg for money. As Felix
undergoes economic downfall, he cannot give Gabriel enough money. To help salvage the
situation, he is doomed to assault Felix and snatch the little money he has in store for the
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survival of his family. He then “picks up the rusting metal clock that hangs behind the door and
he brings down its full weight onto the head of Felix. His friend lets out a stunned cry, but it is
the noise of Felix’s body as it hits the wall and then buckles to the floor that alarms Gabriel. He
tries not to look at his former employer as he quickly steps over him and then through the door
which leads to the stairs. (p. 91). The criminal act of Gabriel is indicative of the fact that trauma
and economic malaise can turn an individual into a criminal. As Gabriel is so miserable that he
cannot afford the wherewithal for his migration to Europe, and as Felix has become poor
(because of the economic crisis caused by the socio-political upheaval) and cannot give Gabriel
enough money to migrate to Europe, Gabriel decides to commit this inhuman act.
On his way to England, Gabriel notices that he is not the only wretched, paupers leaving
Africa. Around him, “he can see others in the tent who either lie on the cots or sit cross-legged
on the floor” (p. 123). All these poor individuals have left their world ridden by violence,
poverty and economic crisis for Europe, presented to them as the faultless world where
economic prosperity awaits all foreigners, unaware that in Europe, another trauma and
economic instability awaits them. Lamming (2003) elaborates on some of the reasons behind
the exile of the colonised to Europe as follows: “We are made to feel a sense of exile by our
inadequacy and our irrelevance of function in a society whose past we can’t alter, and whose
future is always beyond us. Idleness can easily guide us into accepting this as a condition.
Sooner or later, in silence or with rhetoric, we sign a contract whose epitaph reads: To be an
exile is to be alive” (p. 12). Lamming’s quotation applies Gabriel and his travel companions,
namely Amma and Bight: they leave their violence-ridden place for England where they believe
they will be safe and happily live. Amma goes to Europe because her in-laws rejected her (after
violent people had killed her husband and raped her). She goes Europe to bury her trauma and
restart a new life (p. 130). As for Bright, he wants to forget his country where he incurred
unbearable conditions in prison. Bright offers his testimony in these terms:
In our country they put me in prison and did terrible things to me to try to make me talk.
If it was not for a cousin who brought me money so I could pay the guards and eat, I
would not be here. I got dysentery from the one chamber pot that fifty of us were forced
to share. I got lice from the damp mattress on the floor. The half-cooked rice in palm oil
soothed my pain, but it made me very sick. I know we have all been afflicted, but I, this
man, cannot go back ever. I hate it. I want to forget Africa and those people. I am an
Englishman now. I am English and nobody will stop me from going home. Not you, not
these people, nobody.” (p. 134).
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For this African who is infatuated with England, it is only there that he will be respected.
Picturing himself as an Englishman, he reasons: “Only the white man respects us, for we do not
respect ourselves. If you cut my heart open you will find it stamped with the word ‘England.’ I
speak the language, therefore I am going to England to claim my house and my stipend” (p.
134). The obsession the colonised subjects have with England is rooted in the colonial discourse
which presented it as “The bastion of human civilization. England in the textbooks of Empire
was a warm and welcoming land of freedom” (Fondo 2014, pp. 64-65). Unfortunately, the
colonial discourse does not fall in line with reality; the London of textbooks is not the London
individually experienced. In reality, it is instead a racist land where Blacks like Gabriel are
unwelcome, tortured and eliminated. When Gabriel reaches England, he is rather welcome by
racism which not only aggravates his traumatic state but destroys the expectation he had of
England.
As he painstakingly reaches England, he chances upon an abandoned house informing
him that Great Britain is not as paradisiac as he has always thought. Second, an English man
accuses him of raping his daughter called Denise. Third, Denise’s father savagely beats him,
the English police convict and lead him to prison officials for imprisonment as proves this
narration: “He has done nothing wrong. They simply fell asleep, that is all. They slept. In the
morning, the girl’s father led the police to the house, where he first attacked his daughter, and
then began to beat Gabriel with a metal pipe until the police pulled him off. The procedure at
the police station was swift and disrespectful. Gabriel was photographed, fingerprinted, then
charged and told that he could make one phone call before being transferred to the local prison”
(p. 188).
Once in prison, Gabriel is given the wildest form of torture, amidst name-callings, thirst
hunger and ill-treatments. When, out of pain, hunger and thirst, Gabriel shouts for mercy, his
white prison co-detainees answer him: “Shut your mouth, scums [. . .]. Drink your own piss.
Isn’t that what you lot do in the jungle? [. . .] You fucking animal. I don’t know why they bother
to feed you” (pp.95-96). Furthermore, the prison official bothers himself to give him some poor-
quality food because “the noise of Gabriel’s demands becomes too loud for him to concentrate
properly. Gabriel closes his eyes and tries to ignore his thirst, but after a few minutes he hears
the door to his cell being opened and he turns his head and sees the night warder holding a metal
tray of food. The man puts the tray down, and as he does so he spills some of the weak tea out
of the plastic cup” (p. 96). Owing to these evil treatments, Gabriel cries and screams in pain.
Instead of being calmed with kind attention and affection, he is tied to his bed and injected with
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some weird medical substance. The narrator reveals: “Gabriel continues to kick and wrestle,
but they easily lift their malnourished patient onto the bottom bunk and the warder reaches into
his pocket and pulls out four strips of rubber. He passes two to the doctor, and they begin to
strap Gabriel to the frame of the bed [. . .] Gabriel squirms as the needle comes closer to his
arm, and then he flinches as it breaks his skin” (p. 83). The sentence “it breaks his skin” is
synaesthesia which expresses the deepest, unusual pain Gabriel feels as the racist doctor injects
him: if Phillips applies the verb “breaks” to the skin (which is not supposed to break), it suggests
the indescribable pain and agony of non-white immigrants in the hands of racists. The suffering
is so deep that the unbreakable human being is bound to break like bones. Had it not for the
generous intervention of Katherine, a British female lawyer who connects him to Stuart Lewis,
a British man in charge of immigration affairs, Gabriel would have died in prison. Even though
he is set free, Gabriel remains imprisoned in poverty, being in a country wherein blackness is a
curse, a deterrence to economic upliftment.
As Gabriel starts breathing the air of freedom, he meets Jimmy, a white man who, having
seen him as a poor wanderer, employs him. He gives him some newspapers to sell in streets.
Unfortunately, “none of the passers-by seem in the slightest bit curious and none of them will
meet his eyes. And then, after nearly one whole hour of enduring people looking through him
as though he did not exist, Gabriel decides that he will find his new friend and regretfully return
the magazines” (p. 173). Through this racist act, Phillips brings into view the invisibility the
Others of Europe in the European metropolis. Despite “the numerous contributions Black
people have made to Europe and the world” (Hastings 2014, p. 19), their vast number in Europe:
“there are an estimated 15-20 million people of African descent living in Europe” (Longhi 2022,
p. 224), “either as working immigrants or people who established for generations, like the
children and grand-children from the ex-colonies” (Longhi 2022, p. 224), Europeans do not
recognise their full personhood, do not give them any chance to economically prosper due to
the erasure of their existence by society and the European mainstream media at large. They are
considered nonexistent, “especially in the broadcasting system, the name and the looks of a
black or brown anchorman or anchorwoman. Seldom we see journalists and media
professionals who are visible, vocal or who have leading roles in the newsrooms, those who
have power in the production of content, and therefore in the way media influence society”
(Longhi 2022, p. 225).
Being invisible through the commercial activity, Gabriel drops it and struggles to go the
northern part of London. Gabriel changes his name to Solomon on security grounds. It is where
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he believes he will grasp more economic opportunities. Although Gabriel changes his name to
Solomon and meets Mike, a lorry driver who introduces him to the Andersons who warmly
offer him hospitality, shelter him, struggle to find him official papers of permanent residence
and, best of all, offer him their house (upon moving back to their house in Scotland) and Mike’s
car (after Mike’s deadly accident), Gabriel/Solomon ends up in a gutter after a tragic racist
assault.
Before the ultimate attack, Gabriel/Solomon starts receiving racist letters from unknown
individuals. Gabriel/Solomon recounts:
There are now seven letters, including the one with the razor blades. Last night
somebody introduced dog mess through my letterbox. They must have employed a small
shovel, for it lay curled in a neat pile. When I awoke this morning, the sight of it caused
my stomach to move and I rushed to the bathroom. These people are unwell, for decent
people do not conduct themselves in this way. Writing to me with their filth is one thing,
but this is savage. They regard me as their enemy, this much I understand, but their
behaviour is unclean (pp. 299-300).
Solomon who has become a permanent English resident and “the night-watchman for
the Stoneleigh estate” (p. 56) does not believe he can still be subject to racist attacks from the
people he guards in the night, whose sick people he volunteers to carry to hospital with his car
can be the ones writing him such racist letters. The racist lobbies who have sent secret letters
are Paul and his partners in crime, Dale and Gordon. The latter send Carla, Paul’s girlfriend to
call the negro to help them push their car which has broken down. Once Gabriel/Solomon is
out, they mortally attack him. Carla recounts this to Dorothy, Salomon’s disconsolate lover in
these terms: “Paul and his mates, Dale and Gordon. I knocked on the black guy’s door and
asked him to give us a hand pushing Paul’s van as it wouldn’t start. He was okay about it, but
when he came out they jumped him and tied him up (p. 54). As if tying him up is not enough,
the racist scums “drove him down to the canal, then out towards the quarry. They just wanted
to have some fun, but when they opened the back of the van to let him out, he went nuts [. . .].
He’d undone the ropes and he started to attack them like a madman. It was scary, and he was
shouting and carrying on, and then he had a go at Paul. The others grabbed him and then Paul
bricked him” (p. 54). And all Paul’s friends “started to brick him, but it didn’t take long before
he wasn’t moving no more” (p. 54). The racist scene is so horrific that Carla, the eyewitness,
takes fright. She carries on, saying: “Miss, I was scared. I didn’t know what to do, but Paul said
it was self-defence and they’d be okay. But the others didn’t want to know, so they decided to
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push him in to make it look like an accident” (p. 54). The term “self-defence” is ironically used
to arouse the attention of the reader on the racist reasons for which Whites eliminate black
people like Gabriel. As Paul, Dale and Gordon have masqueraded the crime as an accident, the
there are no police investigations launched to identify Gabriel/Solomon’s murders.
From the above, Gabriel/Solomon is a victim of the imperialist apparatus nourished by
the criminal diplomacy the Western world has with the colonised world. Gabriel/Solomon
would not have migrated to Europe, would have migrated to another country out of Europe if
his country had not been colonised by Europe and educated into viewing Europe as the centre
of the Universe, endowed with fantastic economic opportunities. His migration to Europe and
his tragic end should are the consequences and continuity of Western imperialism. Said (1993)
states in this regard: “Imperialism did not end, did not suddenly become “past,” once
decolonization had set in motion the dismantling of the classical empires. A legacy of
connections still binds countries like Algeria and India to France and Britain respectively” (p.
282). For the scholar, contemporary migratory flux from the colonised areas to the European
imperial cities are explained against the backdrop of European imperialism. He further argues:
“A vast new population of Muslims, Africans, and West Indians from former colonial territories
now resides in metropolitan Europe; even Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia today must deal
with these dislocations, which are to a large degree the result of imperialism. . .” (p. 282).
Conclusion
The above analyses point to the never-ending divisive forces, violence and trauma
raising havoc on post-independence Africa, which obligate her populations to look for stability
in Europe. Unfortunately, this dreamt Eldorado not only proves “a distant shore” to their
stability but also another place of instability, awash with racism. Phillips’ A Distant Shore, in
laying bare the intertribal wars leading to hecatomb, economic malaise, trauma and exile,
proves that “Problems resulting from the cynical parcelling-out of Africa still remain, and can
only be settled by continental union” (Nkrumah 1963, p. 7). Phillips’ denunciation of Africa’s
disunity and its corollaries is simultaneously a call on African leaders to revisit their failed
policy of a free and sovereign Africa. Although “colonialism fostered inter-ethnic
consciousness as multiple opposing cultures were welded into a collective identity such as
postcolonial African nation states ‘Rwanda, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Kenya etc.” (Quadri and
Oladejo 2020, p. 123), Africa which has more than six decades of independence, which is no
more a place where an arrogant European King can obtain “permission to form the Belgian
settlements into a ‘Congo Free State’ under his personal suzerainty” (Nkrumah 1963, p. 7),
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must rise above the spectre of implosion and division, put paid to the demons of internal
division, strengthen her internal diplomacy, and encourage sub-regional dialogues and
fraternity. The conjugation of these brotherly actions will pave the way to her continental and
international grandeur.

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