MEMORY, BIAFRA AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONHOOD IN BIYI BANDELE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

The essential place of film in engaging the idea of memory and collective memory is established by the fact of its historical origins and development over the centuries. This, in every sense is connected to the socio-cultural, political as well as economic and aesthetic evolution, influenced and controlled by the reality of the people’s experience. From classical to the contemporary times, film makers have drawn montage-like pictures of their world, in concrete terms as historical films for the world to see. However, through the approaches of Social Interaction and Trauma Theories, Image Analysis and Historical Contextualization, this paper interrogates Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun, an adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s novel of the same title and how it has been deployed as a tool for the construction of collective memory of the Biafra/ Nigerian civil war experience. Data were collated through library research and critical study of related films. The findings therefore, reveal that memory plays cogent roles in the process of reconstruction of history. The film therefore serves as a point of reference for Nigerians to have reminiscence over the negative effects of the war on the people. It is however clear that the agitation by some groups to call for the renegotiation of the country’s unity is meant for the purpose of selfinterest rather than collective. The reconstruction of the memory of agony of the war in the film, if not properly managed could be burdensome to the country, and may degenerate into another internal crisis. Hence, there is the need for any aggrieved party to be cautious in their approaches towards the question of National unity and perceived marginalization.


INTRODUCTION
Memory is an independent process of remembering and forgetting. Depending on the magnitude of the issue, memory can be a burden, when it is not deployed to serve any corrective purpose for the future, when similar situation that occurred in the past presents itself again (Duruji,2009:2).
The above assertion gives credence to the complex relationship between history, memory, and creative writing. History and memory in this case are on the same pedestal, since history is captured by the teller, narrator or author through memory and narrated from the past for the understanding of the present in order to strategize for the future. This shows that memory is germane to the understanding of history and how the historians, creative writers, and filmmakers record it, is a different matter.
The Nigerian film industry has become a global phenomenon that has not only contributed to increase in viewership both at home and abroad but also contributed to the production of historical films. In the words of Haynes (2006) Nollywood films have "begun to explore the issue of Biafra and its legacies since the democratic openings in 1999" (p. 529). Some of the films in question are The Battle of War (2000) and Laraba (2003),in which Nollywood takes up the Biafran themes as ways and means of reflecting on and raising sensitive questions on issues of identity, gender, marginalization, trauma migration, homelessness and many more.
There have, however, been many examples of the attempt at deconstructing, misinterpreting, and altering history to satisfy certain selfish interests with the aim of changing people's memories and influencing their opinions. In addition, it has been argued that literature, film inclusive could be employed to "de-stabilize" memory by proactively opening up issues that are assumed to have been forgotten. This attempt and many others therefore bring about the following questions regarding memory, history and group identity: 1. When does memory become a part of history? 2. How is collective memory formed? 3. How does memory create group identity? 4. How is the past represented in the present?

Social Interaction and Trauma Theories
The analysis of this paper is hinged on the aforementioned theoretical sign posts and approaches (Social Interaction and Trauma Theories). Social Interactionist approach to collective memory is of a unique notion to answering the above questions earlier raised and the conceptual analysis of this paper. Social Interactionism stipulates that memory is generated, modified and acted upon within the actual process of group interaction. Since memory is expected to have a link with the present, it means then that it is not a fixed idea but constructed and negotiated through group interaction.
Supported by Haralambo and Heads (2005), memory is generated through and from the people's interaction with one another "since the action taking proceeds from the process of negotiated meanings that are constructed in the ongoing interaction situation" (p.18). This in addition aligns with Mead's (1982) assertion that "every conception of the past is construed from the standpoint of the new problems of today" (p.353). It is important to emphasize here that social representation is a key aspect of social interactionism, as it explores how citizens construct and interpret issues and major events at a particular period in history, thereby culminating such issue and events into perceived meanings that could generate collective cognition and representation.
In essence social representation within social interaction theory emphasizes collective thought pattern and system of a particular group of people on events and issues that have direct influence on their existence as a group. This view is supported by Moscovici (1988) when he asserts that social representation: concerns the contents of everyday thinking and the stock of ideas that give coherence to our religious beliefs , political ideas and the connections we create as spontaneously as we breathe. They make it possible for us to classify persons and objects, to compare and explain behaviours and to objectify them as part of our social setting. (p. 214) To this end, scholars like Hobsbawn and Ranger (1983) have added an important dimension by bringing together accounts of the deliberate fabrication of the past through memory tools like emblems, museums, monuments, literary texts and films to serve as symbolic and physical markings to enhance and support a new mental construction of the past within the concept of social representation. However, Trauma theory stipulates a reaction to an event or happening that is terrible and painful in which the victim cannot adequately comprehend into his or her normal experiences. These experiences could be in the form of war, natural disaster, abuse of any form, confinement and physical violence. Terr (1992) gives a broad explanation of trauma by asserting that Trauma "occurs when a sudden, unexpected, overwhelming intense emotional blow or a series of blows assault the person from outside. Traumatic events are external, but they quickly become incorporated into the mind" (p.8).
The process of becoming incorporated into the mind implies that the traumatic experience has been stored in the memory of the victim and this is what Joseph LeDoux (1996) refers to as "emotional memory" because "it is difficult and impossible to erase" (p.66). The traumatic experience which leads to "emotional memory" is always difficult to be captured in words hence it is rather captured through such forms like images, pain and sensational feelings like touch, taste and smell. With this in mind, this paper engages how film can be employed as a memory tool for collective action.

The Complexities of Memory, Narrative and History
There is the need to explore the idea that gives meaning to the term "collective memory" and its concept that is formed through the constructed ideas that a group of people or community members have with each other in which the effectiveness is produced through a shared and stable mnemonic representation. The ideology of collective memory is rooted in Durkheim's (1965) notion of "collective consciousness" which stresses the notion of "recollections of a shared past that are retained by members of a group, large or small that experienced it" (p.362). Collective Memory, here, becomes an on-going process that is transferred through generations within different levels of interaction. The essence therefore is to remind the group of what they owe to the past and to be able to form their next line of action in the process of actual remembering. In the word of Poole (2002), the group needs "to conceive memory not merely in cognitive terms" (p. 85), but in what Nietzsche (1983) refers to as "memory of the will"(1). This means that collective memory at times could be emotionally intense when it is seriously engaged in. Suffice to say that collective memory appears as a symbolic discourse whose negotiation can be re-created by the echo of the past as it is configured in the present and in relation to what could happen in the future. Its symbolic exigencies could at times open up a more interactive relationship between the two memory spaces (then and now), to create a positive or negative image of the past into the present.
A good example of re-capturing memory through film could be seen in Raoul Peck's Sometimes in April (2004) which focuses on the Rwandan genocide and civil war of 1994. The film displays a reconnection of the past through the plot structure which explores the difference in ideological belief of two brothers, Augustine Muganza, played by Idris Elba and his brother Honore played by Oris. The two brothers are from the Hutu ethnic group, one out of the three major ethnic groups in the country (Hutu, Tutsi and Twa). While Augustine is a captain in the country's military and a strong believer in the people's unity, Honore is a separatist and a radio and television broadcaster who uses his position to broadcast hate speech against the Tutsi. Depicted through multiple narrative techniques like Voice-Over, flashback and map, the film recaptures a vivid picture of agony that characterized the war as the Hutus attacked the Tutsis despite the fact that they speak the same language and share the same cultural backgrounds.
The techniques are deployed as a way of re-capturing the memory of the war. This approach, according to Rwafa, (2010) recaptures the memory of "a country that experienced a devastating genocide in which nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a space of three months by Hutu extremists"(85). To authenticate the story line, the characters in the film are local actors and actresses while the crews are also from Rwanda. In this sense, the people are able to tell their own story. With this, Rwarfa, asserts again that this style gives: the Rwandans a sense of ownership of the film, and of the stories that reflect their experiences in the genocide. … the narrative unfolds by flashing back in time to show a visual image of how Tutsi kings were installed to leadership positions by European colonizers (p.85).
is important to emphasize that there is a strong connection between memory and narrative, as each is used to enhance the production of the other. The affinity between the two seems to suggest why literary writers and filmmakers are often sensitive to recreating events of the past in International Review of Humanities Studies www.irhs.ui.ac.id, e-ISSN: 2477-6866, p-ISSN: 2527-9416 Vol. 5, No.2, July 2020, pp. 650-662 their works. Narrative in the form of literature, like film, has the social roles it plays through the shaping of our sense of the group we belong to, to how it forms a key aspect in the construction of our identity. It helps in making remembrance possible through a representation that aids people's art of recollection and as such, narrative is not only meant to produce memory but to produce what Astrid and Rigney (2006) refer to as "mimesis of cultural memory" (p.114). However, the conflation of the concepts of narrative (literature) and history remains problematic as scholars and critics alike have discussed and prosecuted them from diverse points of views. Some of the questions that arise from these arguments and counter arguments are as follow: can history be accessed as reality? Is history an objective fact? From whose side is the historian telling his/her story?
In response to the first question, Dilek (2009) affirms that "the past through the clues it left and by methodological process can be interpreted/constructed differently by historians" (666). This then implies that no history is absolutely real. The historian will one way or the other make addition or otherwise in the process of constructing the "history." While for the second and third questions, it is assumed that historians are not objective in presenting their story. The story must be told from a point of view and if that is the case, what happens to the other side is deliberately left untold? This is why writers appropriate history to favor a particular group while silencing the other and its past. Perhaps, the most succinct conclusion here is the fact that all historical narratives rely on certain ideological points of view. And from the foregoing, it is clear that there is a symbiotic relationship between history and narrative; through narrative, history is remembered and reconstructed and narrative and history are inextricably tied to the analysis of the present.

Negotiating the Past: Biafra and the Civil War
An excursion into the various conflicts that have occurred within the entity called Nigeria since its amalgamation in 1914 till date shows that they are rooted in political issues that revolved around religious and ethnic-regional boundaries. The effort at resolving this crisis has resulted in the agitation that led to the question of the country's nationhood. The question is fundamental as most of the major ethnic groups in the country have at one time or the other accused the other groups of marginalisation. Till date, the means of resolving this crisis has remained elusive. Scholars in the fields of Development Studies have at different occasions discussed these questions that bother on nationhood. Abutudu (2010) describes it as the "on-going debate, fuelled by societal dynamics acting as constant reminders that at inception, the people make up the country were not consulted and did not extend mandate for the creation of an entity called Nigeria" (p.29). However, Momoh (2002) expounds that the question of nationhood is nothing but the "(un)evenness in the distribution of, or access to power and economy in the context of deliverables and what advantage co-ethnics or a fraction take of one another in the process," (p.2). Momoh's question of nationhood is hinged on the interrogation of the uneven distribution of the nation's wealth by those at the helm of affair. Citing the origin of the question of Nationhood in Nigeria, Osaghie (2002)  The origins of the national question lie, ... in the forced lumping together of the diverse groups by the British colonialists and the subsequent attempts, after independence, to force so-called national unity while keeping intact or in fact accentuating the extant inequalities and contradictions that have historically militated against peaceful coexistence (p.220).
This paper however opines that the issue of the question of nationhood is hinged on the issues and problems around socio-economic imbalance, ethnicity, marginalisation, resources control and constitutionalism. The way things are, this question will continue to re-surface due to the fact that at the inception, the country was set up due to the amalgamation of 1914, where due consultation was not made with the various ethnic groups that were brought under the enclave "Nigeria". The foundation is faulty, as it goes against the idea of nationhood which is the process of having a strong believe? in one's nationality.
Between 1960 and 1970, a series of political unrests occurred that escalated into a civil war that lasted for three years. The war has been referred to by scholars like Achebe, Clark, Ike and Atofarati as the "Biafra war" or the "Nigeria/Biafra war". It claimed an estimated casualty of about three million people outside the "un-estimated" number of resources that went into its prosecution. Many factors have been suggested by political analysts as the causes of the war but Atofarati (1990)  In the course of the war, both groups adopted different strategies in fighting and by April 1969, after which several peace conferences towards cease-fire have failed, the Federal government cut the supply of food to the Eastern region. The insufficient distribution of food led to starvation, which resulted in malnutrition that weakened the Biafran soldiers. Coupled with the reduction in arm supply from foreign allies, the Biafran military witnessed a gradual collapse. The situation was so critical and chaotic that the self-acclaimed Head of State of Biafra, Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu had to hand over to the second-in-command, Gen. Phillip Effiong and "fled into exile with his immediate family members". On January 14th, 1970, Maj. Gen. Effiong surrendered to the Federal government and officially declared the demise of Biafra. An excerpt from his surrender speech that is germane to this discourse and captured by Atofarati (2009) goes thus: Fellow Countrymen, ... Throughout history, injured people have had to resort to arms in their self-defence where peaceful negotiations have failed. We are no exception. We took up arms because of the sense of insecurity generated in our people by the events of 1966. We have fought in defence of that cause. I am now convinced that a stop must be put to the bloodshed which is going on as a result of the war. I am also convinced that the suffering of our people must be brought to an end. Our people are now disillusioned and THOSE ELEMENTS OF THE OLD REGIME WHO HAVE MADE NEGOTIATIONS AND RECONCILIATION IMPOSSIBLE HAVE VOLUNTARILY REMOVED THEMSELVES FROM OUR MIDST. I have therefore instructed an orderly disengagement of the troops. I urge on Gen. Gowon, in the name of humanity, to order his troops to pause while an armistice is negotiated in order to avoid mass suffering caused by the movement of population. We have always believed that our differences with Nigeria should be settled by peaceful negotiation. A delegation of our people is therefore ready to meet the representatives of Nigerian government anywhere to negotiate a peaceful settlement on the basis of OAU resolution (p.2). (Emphasis ours).
A close reading of the above reveals that the speech is laden with traumatic experience as witnessed by the victims of the war. Hence, it could invoke a sense of collective memory on the people and facilitate a reconstruction of the agonies and the gory details of the war. Of importance, are the highlighted lines in the excerpt: who are these elements of the old regime mentioned by Gen. Effiong? Is it Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Col Odumegwu Ojukwu, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo or Gen. Effiong himself? To answer the questions, however, it is clear that the elements could not have been Gen. Gowon or Gen. Obasanjo because they were with the Federal Troop from which the Biafran army broke away. It is clear then, that these elements must have been either of the remaining two or any other within the Biafran government that were not mentioned. This also shows that there must have been internal crisis within the top echelon of the Biafran army, which weakened the government and this might be one of the reasons why Gen. Ojukwu had to flee into self-exile with his "immediate family." Fifty two years after the war, its memory still lingers on and conjures up vivid collective pictures of horror, starvation and diseases experienced by the victims, both nationally and internationally. While in its process of collective memory, the war reinvented what Ngwu et al. (2003) refer to as "paroxysm of grief that accompanies the recall of the over three million men, women and children that lost their lives to the war". This then shows how collective memory could bring about double jeopardy of experience of "then" and remembering of "now" (141).

Memory, Biafra and the Question of Nationhood in Biyi Bandele's Half of a Yellow Sun
The film, an adaptation of Chinamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is a historiophoty? of the Biafran war and a socio-political exploration of the effects of the war on the entire Nigeria and most especially the Igbo ethnic group that was directly affected by the war. The film opens with the footages of Queen Elizabeth I during the celebration of Nigeria's independence in 1960 while its narrative centers on the principal characters, Odenigbo (the revolutionary lecturer), Olanna, (Odenigbo's wife), Ugwu, (the house boy), Kainene, (Olanna's twin sister) and Richard, (Kainene's British husband and an Anthropologist, who is in Nigeria? on ethnographic research). Olanna and Kainene are twin sisters who are back from the United Kingdom to take up their father's business, but Olanna decides to be in the academia teaching Sociology with her radical husband Odenigbo, also a lecturer in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Kainene takes over their fathers businesses in Port Harcourt and Enugu while Olanna moves down to Nsukka to meet Odenigbo at the University campus.
Every evening, Odenigbo's friends and colleagues from the University converge in his house to drink and engage in intellectual discussion while his house boy, Ugwu serves drinks. Things are expected to be going on smoothly between Odenigbo and Olanna when Mama, Odenigbo's mother, brings in another wife in the name of Amala for Odenigbo from the village. Mama is not in support of Odenigbo marrying Olanna because Olanna is a British bred and does not know the tradition of the Igbo. In fact while confronting Olanna, she said: I hear you did not suck your mother's breast, please go and tell who sent you that you did not see my son… He will not marry an abnormal woman… After a while, the issues are settled and things get in control, though Odenigbo impregnates Amala, and in anger and retaliation Olanna had sex with Richard, her twin sister's husband. Things move on smoothly until unfortunately, political unrests in terms of coup and counter coup set in. These eventually degenerate into a bloody civil war between the Igbo ethnic group led by Col. www.irhs.ui.ac.id, e-ISSN: 2477-6866, p-ISSN: 2527-9416 Vol. 5, No.2, July 2020, pp. 650-662

International Review of Humanities Studies
Odumegwu Ojukwu and the Federal government of Nigeria, led by Gen. Gowon. Through filmic representation, the director is able to give a graphic depiction of the war as it affects the common people through the roles of Odenigbo, Olanna, Ugwu, Kainene and Richard. For instance, very germane to the storyline are the confusion at the wedding scene where Odenigbo's friend, Okeoma, is bombed and the killing of Uncle Mbaese and his wife through mob attack in Kano. The unrest and pandemonium of the war caused everyone running up and down for safety. This prompts Odenigbo and Olanna to leave the University campus and move back to Aba, an assumed safe haven from the war. Ugwu is conscripted into the Biafra army while Kainene goes out and never returned home till the end of the film. These pictorial representations recaptured in the film give vividness to the gory experience and memory of the war, especially in the minds of those that witnessed it. In the end, the Biafran soldiers surrendered, but before this, Col. Ojukwu informs his people that he's going to solicit for foreign support to win the war: In accordance with my own frequent affirmations that I would personally go anywhere to secure peace and security for my people, I am now travelling out of Biafra to explore with our friends all these proposals further and fully… I am always serving the interest of my people.
This was not entirely true because he actually went to seek political asylum in Ivory Coast and never returned to the country until 1980; ten years after his people had surrendered to the Nigerian government. As stated earlier, the political unrest prompted by political cultural/ethnic differences between the major ethnic groups and the Kano pogrom of 1965, where about 3000 easterners were killed prompted the civil war and all of these were reflected in the film. The use of archival footages of General Odumegwu Ojukwu is to enhance the reality of the film in its actual setting. In fact, one of the footages in the film reveals an interview with Col. Ojukwu, the Military Governor of Eastern region, lamenting about the number of the Igbo people that died in the Kano riot: I can't give you the total figures but this I know that the May 28 th rioting did in fact take toll of some 3300 easterners in the North. I know that on the first night of the rioting in Zaria alone, there were 670, in Kano definitely over one thousand to one thousand five hundred.
The film also reflects on how thousands of Igbo suffered and how many of them were rounded up and killed in other regions. Though, the film has been criticized and condemned by critics like Chike Ofili, Derica Shield and others based on the fact that it fails to depict the agony of the war, as it directly affects the Igbo. In fact, Ofili (2014) gives a total condemnation of the film in terms of filmic adaptation like "misplaced representation" of pictures, "wrong casting" for some characters like Ugwu, wrong pronunciation of some Igbo words and "unclear storyline" (p.2). All of these have been described as a "filmic failure" on the part of the director and the editor (p.2). Ofili further comments on the reaction of the audience and laments that " the audience left the theatre almost untouched, without tears and sighs and their heads still held on high rather than succumb to their chest and grief" (p.1) However, Ofili misses the point here: that the film is Bandele's narrative and not Chimamanda's novel. This is because, according to Adeoti (2010), an adaptation does not really have to be "sheepishly" faithful to the original work, since each of the works is an original in its own right (p.18). That the film version of the novel may have altered the narrative in the novel, thus not being a truthful representation of the original text does not remove its own originality. As Ademakinwa (2014) points out, the person adapting is a creative hand in "the process of recreating a story and in another form as a dramaturge, he repairs and reconstructs an already written work to suit the present condition or the targeted issue pertinent or in vogue" (p.133).
The film has thus become an instrument for the construction of collective memory by recollecting the past with the aid of visual aesthetics and elements like images or pictorial narration, point of view, metaphors, symbols and many more to shape and sharpen audiences' view of the past. The visual action of the film, through Bandele's directorial approach opens up the memory of horror of the war and through the graphic-aesthetic of time and space, and the continuous interplay of sight, sound and motion, the film transports the audience into memory lane of remembrance. An instance is the visual scenes of bomb blast by the Nigerian soldiers and the massacre of Odenigbo's friend.
One could ask at this juncture, what purposes does the film serve under the current sociopolitical dispensation in this country? The film serves the purpose of re-invoking the people's memory as a channel of caution and to raise the consciousness on the adverse effects of war on humanity. It serves as a way of taking the people back memory lane to reflect on the agonies of the people (Biafrans and Nigerians) and what they went through during the war years.This is against the backdrop of current agitation by some elements within the country to break away from Nigerian nation. The agitation could lead to bloodshed as well as fragmentation of the nation as it could prompt other ethnic groups to break away. The agitation might not be in good faith and might be a tool in the hands of some disgruntled elements to destabilize the nation.
Again, the civil war has been registered in the faculty of human as well as the national memory; hence it has become a burden to Nigeria as a whole, thus, if current agitation is not well managed, it could escalate and constitute serious national crisis. It is in line with this that Major General Isido Edet invoked the civil war memory in Ajah (2015) that although Nigeria had a civil war, in some areas some people are yet to overcome the consequences. And for people to …start talking about the dismemberment of the country is the most unfortunate thing at this point in time in our country. The gory situations of the war cannot be easily forgotten and the perpetual scar will always remain in the minds of the people for a long time. In fact, those that witnessed the war among the Igbo might not wish for the repetition of such event."(34) The consequence of such agitation according to Ajah (2015), may not even be favorable to Nigeria because if Nigeria should break, "…the consequence is that it will not only disintegrate into two but many republics as other groups like the Niger-Delta group, the Middle-Belt group and many more will want to emerge as republics."(34)

CONCLUSION
It is germane to conclude in this paper that film production has become a powerful tool and an avenue for the reconstruction of collective memory. This is why many film producers have been engaging it in the renegotiation of the past. The essence of this is to create a means of remembering the past to meet with the present as a means of planning for the future. Collective Memory is dialectically important to the continuous existence of every society. It helps in the preservation and transfer of both the abstract and concrete artifacts that help in perpetuating the existence of such a society. All of these eventually help in the formation of social and cultural entity of the society. The history of oppression, humiliation, victimization, trauma and any other form of experiences that are etched by filmic or other literary narratives as collective memory could either attenuate or sharpen the people's active or passive resistance. When the people involved are emotionally charged, the memory of the past becomes vividly present which could result in them taking actions that could be interpreted in several ways. Eyerman (2004) argues that collective memory is located "not inside the heads of individual actors but rather within the discourse of people talking together about the past". The process of "talking together about the past" informs their next line of action either positively or otherwise (p.46). Through the prisms of Social interactionist approach and Trauma Theory, this paper concludes that, Biyi Bandele's Film, Half of a Yellow Sun is primarily used as a cautionary tool, to call for the renegotiation of Nigeria's unity and to call on the campaigners for the country's division such as the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) coordinated by Palph Uwazuruike and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu to adopt appropriate strategies and legal means to marshal their negotiation. It should be a peaceful approach and not a violent one that could result in tribal or ethnic crisis. There is also the need for understanding the differences existing among the peoples and also respect one another in the process of having a united nation.