Essay: The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born unfolds in a post-colonial Ghana grappling with what it means to be independent. The account is unforgiving. Author Ayi Kwei Armah describes a state mired in corruption that teeters on the edge of a military coup. Delving deep into Ghana, it questions the source of the rot within its government, and watches a country try to deal with its recent, revolutionary history and its subsequent, ostensible failure on a national stage. Armah’s characters entrench colonial divisions by upholding a corrupt regime, adopting corruption and filth as the new normal of their country. The future for Ghana looks bleak.
The novel borders on crude, and yet Armah’s description of bodily fluids and garbage is never unwarranted. Rather it illustrates the reality of a state in a crisis without the tools to clean it up. In one scene, Armah describes the pollution, saying, “Sometimes it is understandable that people spit so much, when all around decaying things push inward and mix all the body’s juices with the taste of rot. Sometimes it is understandable, the doomed attempt to purify the self by adding to the disease outside.” It this quote Armah points to the paradox of post-colonial Ghana. Ghanans felt like they were faced with a choice: they could either save themselves or save their society. In Armah’s book, those who looked to keep themselves clean—spitting on the rest of their countrymen—prevail.
But despite the ugliness of Armah’s Ghana, his novel speaks to nuances in post-colonial society that most histories and texts about Africa do not account for. Indeed, compared with a more simplistic novel like Ousmane Sembène’s God’s Bits of Wood, which narrates the process of decolonization, Armah paints a grim picture of post-colonialism. This picture is realistically harrowing, but it still leaves room for the potential for radical transformation in Ghana after the exit of the colonial government. The Teacher of the unnamed main character says that the precolonial state were years when Ghanans “were ready for big and beautiful things” and that “the promise was so beautiful.” He continues, “Even those who were too young to understand it all knew that at last something good was being born. It was there. We were not deceived about that.” Armah’s novel grapples with the complexities of postcolonial African states and gives a narrative that extends beyond the afro-pessimistic dichotomy of failure or success. Rather, he concedes that post-colonial Ghana was deeply troubled, tracing its roots to colonization, and ultimately revealing how Nkrumah’s Ghana became a new iteration of colonialism by inheriting its institutions and relationships of patronage. This narrative is troubling, but it is not without hope, as Armah simultaneously exhibits how one man can undertake the work of subverting the rotten premises of postcolonial institutions.
In The Beautyful Ones, Armah uses the example of Ghana to probe history’s assumptions around independence, and the association between decolonization and African progress. Ghana’s independence in particular was associated with a hopeful, more prosperous Africa. On March 6, 1967, the day of Ghana’s independence, a British newspaper called the newly free capital of Accra “the happiest place on earth.” Indeed, Ghana’s economy boomed at the moment of its independence. Not only was cocoa—the crop in which Ghana’s plantations had specialized—booming, but per capita income had become respectable, and the government had begun plans for industrialization. Intellectually, too, the international community endowed Ghana with a spirit of optimism. In the late 1950s, many African Americans moved to or visited Ghana to do what they saw as their part in the “initial investment in Africa.” W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou all spent time in the country to try to turn Ghana’s independence into a moment of full pan-African consciousness.
This consciousness had been building for a while. Ousmane Sembène’s novel God’s Bits of Wood reveal how the process of decolonization started on the ground, but helped sponsor an overarching goal of pan-African Unity. The strikers in the book allude to the support their cause receives from other colonies and soldiers, illustrating how the imagined unity across the continent was used to bring down the colonial state. Pan-Africanism sentiment grew as the world became more globally intertwined through the world wars, and was embraced both in the colonies and abroad. In the United States, for example, pan-Africanism brought people to the streets for rice riots in Harlem in the 1930s. They protested for Ethiopian sovereignty—a struggle they considered part of a global struggle for the African race. Prominent political leaders promoted the idea that African unity could liberate the continent from the colonial arm.
In Sembene’s novel, pan-Africanism is not only theoretical, but also carried out in practice through the strike. The railway workers break away from a model of patronage traditionally used in the colonial state. They instead adopt a united goal of equality, fighting for fair treatment and social justice. Sembene’s characters, like many who shared the dream of pan-Africanism, saw a better world on the other side of colonialism. Says Fa Keita in the novel, this world will be one in which ““you will never again be forced to bow down before anyone, but also . . . no one shall be forced to bow down before you.” This optimism extended across the continent, and particularly to the Ghana at its moment of independence.
The leader of the independence movement, Kwama Nkrumah, took power as Prime Minister and the guardian of this optimism at this moment of hope. He immediately looked to take Ghana into the modern age, and saw infrastructure development as the means through which to develop the economy. Ghanan farmers could not fully capitalize on their production cocoa, the crop most produced, because they had to export it to Switzerland and England for it to become the more valuable good of chocolate. After the second World War, many colonial governments encouraged their African colonies to develop in order to become more prosperous and wealthy. Modernity and development was associated with success, and African leaders inherited these ideas even after the colonial governments left. Thus when Nkrumah took over in 1957, he saw the development of infrastructure as the best hope to bring Ghana into a modern age. He embarked on a plan to dig a deep water port in the city of Tema, creating a dam for hydroelectricity and remaking the society there in the image of an idealized modern Africa. With nationalized power, Ghana could move fully into the modern era.
Nkrumah’s plan was costly. The dam, which created the largest man made lake to date, took over 4% of Ghana’s total land area and displaced tens of thousands of people from their homes. Moreover, it cost $69 billion, forcing Ghana’s government to both borrow heavily from other countries and offer large tax breaks to the Bolta Aluminum Company that would benefit from the electricity that Ghana looked to provide. These policies caused a dip in Nkrumah’s popularity, and ultimately, did not really work. The river did not provide enough water to give enough electricity for the whole country; only the Bolta Aluminum Company got regular power. Ghana remained a country with irregular electricity, indebted to other parties, unable to modernize.
Although Nkrumah’s development plan ultimately backfired, its origins reveal the optimism originally associated with the post-colonial state. Nkrumah’s attempts to modernize Tema were based in the goal of true political independence, which could only come by transforming Ghana into an economically sustainable state. The infrastructure let behind by British colonialism was largely built for exporting goods to other countries for the benefit of the empire. Self sustainability, Nkrumah thought, required a broad overhaul of all the institutions of colonialism and the creation of those that were strictly Ghanan. In that spirit, he not only began construction on a dam in Tema, but also leveled the city and rebuilt it on a linear grid with concrete houses. Nkrumah used this transformation as an announcement to the world that Ghana was moving into the future. The project in Tema was a project to reimagine what it meant to be Ghanan. 
 This re-imagination turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. As Armah’s book reveals, in the wake of this failed development project, the Ghanan government became more corrupt—reliant on a system of redistribution and patronage. Ghana’s independent, once hailed as the great hope for pan-Africanism, became a “gate keeper state” in which people jockeyed for power within the party infrastructure, trading favors and bribes for power. But in trying to make Ghana a stronger, modern nation, Nkrumah only siphoned off the power to the government. The state soon controlled all of the limited resources and power within the country. As the country’s economy began to fail, Ghanans had to work within the confines of the government—now just a weak inheritor of the legacy of colonialism—to help themselves.
In Armah’s book, Koomsom best exhibits this type of Ghanan citizen. He does what is best for himself politically and personally, navigating a corrupt political system with ease. He lives a successful, modern life—the kind of life the Nkumah originally dreamed of for all Ghanans. The main character, “the man,” watches his childhood schoolmate Koomsom with a mix of disdain, pity, and jealousy. “The man’s” wife, Oya, on the other hand, lusts for Koomsom, wishing her husband could behave similarly. Koomsom becomes an example of a successful Ghanan citizen in the context of an irreparably corrupt state. This state does not protect its citizens. Rather, it serves the individual that works within its confines, upholding the institution by reinforcing its power. Koomsom represents that figure.
Conversely “the man” struggles to advance his standing within the government. Unlike Koomsom, who takes bribes without a second thought, “the man” tries to remain honest. But in this post-colonial state, this innocence makes him guilty. He is unable to advance the standing of his family without taking the bribes and favors. His wife and mother-in-law urge him to play the “national game” of corruption, but he refuses, suffering alone to hold onto his ethics. But he receives to recognition for his moral uprightness. In this society, ethical concerns seem to not be valued. Corruption persists even after the military coup at the end of the novel. Although Koomsoom is left powerless, daily life continues on as it had before. Just as at it opened, the novel closes with a bus driver bribing a police officer “without waiting to be asked for it.” Indeed, the players of the game changed, but the institutions that prop up corruption seem not to have.
Through this lens, Armah makes a broader point about the post-colonial state. Ghana’s experience, although distinct from others across the continent, was not entirely unique. The absence of colonialism mandated what Achille Mbembe calls “political improvisation,” filling a power vacuum independently while still relying on the structures of the oppressive regime. This form of power, as Armah’s novel reveals, can take a turn toward the obscene. In the post colony the obscenity can become “one of the modalities of power… but also one of the areas in which subordinates reaffirm or subvert that power.” Armah’s novel mostly reveals actors who reaffirm the power of the obscene. But “the man,” Armah’s unnamed hero, quietly subverts the postcolonial regime, rejecting to corrupt his own sense of morality. Through “the man”, Armah’s narrative shines some hope onto the postcolonial nightmare.
Thus, despite the temptation to fall into an afro-pessimistic narrative, as many commentators have about Ghana, Armah probes deeper into the moral consequences of Nkrumah’s state. The party leaders in The Beautyful Ones originally set out optimistically on Nkrumah’s mission to create a better, modern Ghana after independence. Ultimately, though, their actions within the state caused them to subvert their long-term goal for their own advancement. As Teacher says, “I saw men tear down the veils behind which the truth had been hidden. But then the same men, when they have power in their hands at last, began to find the veils useful.” These veils, shreds of institutional power left behind by colonialism, persisted into independent Ghana, and, “they made many more.” Through this lens we can see how the party leaders that Armah describes become no different from the elite that ruled Ghana under colonial rule.
Much of the reason for these similarities is that even after the end of colonial rule, post colonial societies remained dependent on the patronage relationships that had defined colonialism. Over the course of the 1960s, the Nkrumah, a “big man” in African politics, became the embodiment of Ghana. No longer was it possible to distinguish the state from Nkrumah. The state became less about modernization and rather one man who carried with him the nationalist aspirations of the people. Lower-level government officials, then, were not interested in advancing agendas or government initiatives. They only got more power and recognition by advancing their standing with the big man—Nkrumah. Koomson is one of these mens. Says the Teacher, “He lives in a way that is far more painful to see than the way the white men have always lived here. . . . There is no difference… at all between the white men and their apes, the lawyers and the merchants, and now the apes of the apes, our Party men.” Party men like Koomson inherited the corruption of colonialism, and it soon plagued all of Ghana’s government.
But in The Beautiful Ones, Armah asks if idealized hopes of an independent Ghana really vanished with the end of colonialism. He first questions this by probing what is behind the actions of the Party men. At first glance, they seem self-interested—looking to gain more personal power and prestige. But this ignores the nuance of how Ghanans perceived power and internalized self worth. During colonial rule, Africans had to value relationships with white settlers over others, because that was where power came from. In the absence of these white men, Ghanans filled the power void with men of their own. On the surface, these men seemed free from the binds of a colonial regime, but perhaps they were not so autonomous as they may have seemed. The Teacher relates the actions of Party men in Nkomah’s regime to their previous relationships with white men, saying that they haven’t changed substantially. He says, “That is all anyone here ever struggles for: to be nearer the white man. All the shouting against the white men was not hate. It was love. Twisted, but love all the same. Just look around you and you will see it even now. Especially now.” Here, Armah complicates the reasons behind the rise of the independent African state.
Retracing the origins of this relationship to the colonial era, one can see how the post-colonial era became so complicated. God’s Bits of Wood, for example, portrays complicated relationships with colonial actors. The novel mostly sides with the workers who have been exploited by French colonists for decades. Like most Ghanans The Beautyful Ones, the Senegalese rail workers here are mistreated and living in poverty. The French colonial government drains the workers and their country’s resources, and as a result, the rail workers stand up for themselves. They want independence from the French colonial regime, and they organize to do just that.
However, there are elements of the novel that reveal that the struggle against colonialism was not so cut and dry. There were elements of collaboration between the colonists and the Senagales people, and at times even idealization of their lifestyle. For example, N’Deye Touti, a stylish young woman associated with the strikers, is obsessed with French culture, wanting to adopt mannerisms and style of the colonists who subjugate her. She too joins the revolution, but does not reject fully the culture of the French. In this act, we see how the legacy of colonialism was both external, such as Armah’s examples working within the corrupt government institutions, but also internal.
There were also workers who resisted against the very idea of the strike. Sensing that the process of decolonization could bring more hardship than it could be worth, one farmer pleads with the strikers. He asks: “Do you think the trains belong to you? They don’t—no more than they did to your fathers—but you decide to stop working, just like that, without thinking about other people. And yet you workmen, of all people, should be satisfied with what you have. You don’t have to worry about drought or rain or taxes, and you don’t have any expenses. Why should you prevent these farmers from going where they want to go?” This quote reveals another layer of complication of the process of independence. Not all Africans united under the cause of independence. Indeed, Sembène’s narrative reveals how many Africans foresaw the impending hardships that would come with decolonization.
Despite these nuances, God’s Bits of Wood tells the story of how an African working class united under the cause of decolonization. Sembène’s novel tells a likable and fairly familiar story of the underdog. The rail workers in the novel win their fight; the French promise them fairer treatment and the Senegalese pave the way for a full independence movement. The novel showcases how African workers took control in the fight against colonization, and genuinely invested in the cause of independence. This is a hopeful story, in line with history’s ideas about time allowing for progress within institutions and countries. But as The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born reveals, this story is much more complicated than a brief reading of God’s Bits of Woods may provide. The legacy of colonialism is complicated, dirty, and temptingly pessimistic.
Armah’s novel closes similarly to how it opens. The corruption persists, and “the man” returns home to his wife, with whom he has a torturous relationship. Throughout the narrative, “the man” struggles to win his wife’s respect. A product of the postcolonial state, Oyo does not value her husband’s steadfast ethics for the majority of the book. But after the coup, we see a change. Armah writes, “In Oyo’s eyes there was now real gratitude. Perhaps for the first time in their married life the man could believe that she was glad to have him the way be was.” This glimmer of hope in the relationship extends to broader hope in the postcolonial state. “The man” resists the obscenity associated with power in his state while still trying to succeed in his world. Despite the reality that in his lifetime corruption with persist and he will never substantively advance his position, he perseveres, convincing only his wife of the worth of his ethics. This individual act paves the way for the eponymous “beautyful ones” who have not yet lived. The man subverts the institutionalization of corruption by refusing to adopt it. Thus, Armah’s Ghana has a glimmer of hope: showing how the remnants of colonial authority can be shed when Ghanans refuse to internalize the rotten core of the institution’s power.