Counter-Hegemonic Madness and the Dialectical Development of Resistance Movements in Imbolo Mbue's How Beautiful We Were.

How Beautiful We Were (Book); Imperialism; Neocolonialism; Social justice; Social change; Dialectic

This essay explores counter-hegemonic madness as resistance strategy against European colonialism, American imperialism, and neocolonialism in Imbolo Mbue’s ecocritical novel, How Beautiful We Were. Mbue plunges the reader in the middle of what La Marr Jurelle Bruce terms “psychosocial” madness, havoc perpetuated by an African dictator, His Excellency, who is also a stooge of an American oil company called Pexton. The plot unfolds in the village of Kosawa, located in an unnamed, fictional African country. Mbue’s characters put a timer on the West’s impunity, attacking it by any means necessary, thus inspiring an honestly brutal discussion about the difficult and often-times deadly routes to the beauty of true freedom. How Beautiful We Were begins with disruptive psychosocial madness at an individual level, an intervention eventually undercut by a transition to a collective, albeit elitist resistant movement which privileges both negotiated and violent solutions. The individualistic resistance movement toward social change, led by Konga, the “village madman,” lays the foundation for a nationwide popular struggle toward social justice led by a woman, Thula, who is predictably discounted as “fickle” and unwomanly by the patriarchal community that sabotages her important interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]