Half Of A Yellow Sun is a refreshing read based around the time of Nigeria’s devastating civil war that occurred between 1967-1970, killing over one million people.
The younger generation of Nigerians are completely oblivious to the war that occurred, even with their parents having experienced the conflict firsthand.
With evening meals with every family member being compulsory in my household, it was inevitable that my inquisitive siblings and I would question my parents into revealing to us about their childhood. From sharing their childhood stories, they also shared their experience in the bloody war zone.
A key part of Nigeria’s history which has also shaped the nation into what it is today should be put on the history timeline, especially for the minds of young Nigerians.
With many instances of injustice that occurred during the war, people should be educated on what exactly happened and why.
Award winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, based her book Half Of A Yellow Sun around the time of the civil war and she had this to say about the injustices that occurred during the war: “Half Of A Yellow Sun is about injustice, the war itself was an injustice. There are some people who died who should have not died. The things that led to the war were massive injustices, the massacres of the people in the north that the federal government did not address, I mean there are many”.
I then asked her if she believes the impact of the war is still in effect today. She said: “Yes. We have people who are still active in the Biafra movement. There are people who committed crimes who are still public figures in Nigeria. Also the way we were obsessed in Nigeria with state creation. If that hadn’t happened we probably wouldn’t have the everyday craziness of wanting to create a new state.The idea of what we call the geopolitics of Nigeria – so we say we need a president from the north, that very much is rooted in what led to the Biafra war”.
“Even the way land belonged to the Nigerian government was also something that happened after the war. It was a way of disenfranchising people. So the war ends and you say actually nobody owns land and the land belongs to the state government”.
“There are also questions we don’t ask in Nigeria about why things are the way they are. Young people should ask questions, we need to know how did this happen, how did we get here, what was this like 25 years or 50 years ago.”
Chimamanda believes many stories from the war still have not been told. Although her book has contributed to the education of the civil war, she still believes more could be done. There is a war museum that she has visited once but believes “should be much better”.
Just like Chimamanda has said, start asking questions, ask your family, by all means ask google, just try and get more information on the history of your background, You will be surprised at how many amazing stories you will discover.
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