Dostoevsky and Africa's Existential Abyss  

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
November 21, 2021

Murv L. K. Gardiner

As we look closely at the interplay of this great Russian novelist's critical thought and Africa's existential abyss, what exactly does the latter mean for Africans in particular and the world as a whole today? And how does Dostoevsky's insight help us in the immediacy of addressing the existential anxiety of a continent that is sitting on an abyss due to the psychological proclivity to destroy our Motherland, Ethiopia by forces of colonialism within and outside that great nation?

In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky depicts divergent perspectives regarding the lingering problem of evil as he calls into question the issue of theodicy (justice of God). But the leitmotiv of his thought springs up from the centrality of the novel in Chapter 5 on "Rebellion", wherein his elucidation and consequential solution to the rebellion by the forces of evil is the reconciliation (primireniye) that is wrought by Jesus of Nazareth. Here in the novel, Dostoevsky extrapolates from the greatest literary text of antiquity, the Hebraic-Christian scripture in driving home his emphasis on reconciliation.

So what does The Brothers Karamazov have to do with Africa's existential abyss? The unnecessary rebellion and war in Ethiopia that has been inflamed by the forces of colonialism, has further situated Africa on the brink of complete annihilation due to deadly terrorist groups that are already in the Horn of Africa like Al-Shabazz. And if some Western nations persist in aiding the disintegration of Ethiopia, there will be insurmountable problems for both Africa and the West because ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and new terrorist groups will enter the game of thanatos in the region. It is only in employing the literary techniques of Dostoevsky in late nineteen century Russia to effect reconciliation in the midst of the rebellion, can Africa be pulled back from the brink of annihilation.

Dostoevsky's depiction of Christ's kissing the Grand Inquisitor for whom the Roman Church and Western institutions and governments became the embodiment of evil and its resultant suffering and persecution, is the direct antithesis of the Judas kiss of deception and betrayal. The story of resistance and rebellion by the Grand Inquisitor, which ends with Christ's determination for reconciliation via His "kiss", prompts Alyosha/defender of the faith to also kiss his brother Ivan, one who is candid and brilliant as he is endowed by the grace of God. Here Dostoevsky employs the literary device of hyperbole to accelerate and accentuate his focus on reconciliation when he depicts Jesus as kissing the Grand Inquisitor, the chief agent of Satan who's presiding over the torturing and killing of innocent children, thus, according to him impunity.

Whereas the Jesus of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew prioritizes the well-being of children and beckons His disciples to fight Satan and his forces in an all-out battle with the weapons of prayer and fasting. (Mark 9:29, Matthew 17:21) Most great thinkers like Augustine, Luther, Marguerite De Navarre, Calvin, and Spurgeon would all agree that to enable his disciples to transcend the existential abyss upon which they were sitting, Jesus took them high upon God's sacred mountain for prayers. It was for their sake and the rest of humanity's sake that He was transfigured on the mountain. And it was for the sake of the disciples, the sake of the child (little boy), and the rest of creation that Jesus effected liberation that day after praying on the mountain before descending to accentuate healing and reconciliation.
Thus, as Africa continues to sit on a very frightening existential abyss amidst the ritualistic killings in Liberia, kidnappings by Boko Haram in Nigeria, senseless military coups in Guinea, Sudan, and Mali, and the destruction of Ethiopia the world best's civilization from a spiritual standpoint, we have come to understand as Jean Calvin underscored in sixteen century Geneva, that "nothing is more at variance with faith than the foolish and irrational desires of our ambitions" (Calvin, 1567). Accordingly, from heaven above, we are compelled to face a potent adversary, who will not yield until the battle has been fought out. In this light, victory is only attainable if our faith is activated by prayer. And as Satan has taken deep root in his forces of evil in modernity, in our Motherland Ethiopia as he did to that little child in antiquity, we must fight and finish "the good fight" (Pauline), with all of our spiritual strength which is attainable only through prayer and fasting.

In "Book VI" of The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky himself poignantly observes:
Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real
freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and
wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's  help, I attain freedom of
spirit and with it spiritual joy.   

Thus, with immediacy today, Jesus beckons the African Union, all Ethiopians from all sides of the conflict, all Ethiopianists, and every branch of humanity to the sacred mountains of Ethiopia to pray. For the world cannot afford a fragmented Ethiopia with all of its rich heritage. Civilization began there. The redemption of the world began there. From the east of Eden, the Almighty placed an angel with a flaming sword to guard the first family, despite their expulsion, to the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:4) That tree finds its redemptive role on the other side of the Abay/Blue Nile of 80% composition of the Nile with its leaves bearing fruits for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22: 1-3) Moreover, all major ethnic groups like the Amhara, Oromo, Afar, Gurage, Tigrayans, Somalis, Sidama, Gumuz, Hadiya, Agaw, Berta, Surma, Argobba, Neur, Daasanach, and Harari have significant roles to play in the preservation of historical kingdoms in Lalibela, Axum, and Gondar.

From his pen in "Book V" of The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky via Ivan challenges all sides to the Ethiopian conflict and the rest of us to ask introspectively, "Is there a being who has the right and power to forgive despite the injustices attributed to the other side?" And the answer, which finds its resonance rooted scripturally and in consonance with Alyosha is, Yes there is a being. And He died for all. With all Ethiopians seeing themselves as one, is the meaning of true reconciliation and true liberation.

            Thomas Jefferson once said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. And that his justice does not sleep forever" (Jefferson, 1781). If even Jefferson could go through introspection regarding his country, then so must we.  I tremble for my country, my continent, and humanity because as a people if we sow complacency in the face of the moral degeneracy of some Western media and countries in their efforts of distorting and obliterating the image of a legitimate government in Ethiopia, we will surely reap disasters upon ourselves.

In one of his best literary arts, The Possessed (Be'sy) Dostoevsky says, "If you want to conquer the whole world, conquer yourself" (Dostoevsky, 1872). There in that particular community, demonic forces took complete control of the town with rampant murders occurring that were attributable to the pervasive political and moral nihilism in mid-nineteen century Russia. Commensurately, according to FrontPage Africa, "Gory killings in homes have become rampant in Monrovia" (Johnson, 2021). With almost everybody afraid including a former Vice-President of Liberia, there is no doubt, demons have completely overtaken the country. Yet, paradoxically, the criminal mind has no proclivity of conquering him or herself as a positive trajectory to conquering the world. They insist on justifying themselves in their ingrained narcissism. Justifying their gruesome killings to poor economic conditions, these murderers have completely surrendered their souls to Satan. How can anybody rationalize killing other human beings in order to support their family?  Like the nihilism which overflowed mid-nineteen century Russian society, the moral nihilism is overtaking twenty-first-century Liberian society despite the existence of Christian and Islamic institutions.        
       
In his magnum opus Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky's main character Raskolnikov,  was preoccupied with rationalizing the moral basis of his deviant behavior without any clue to the psychological basis that includes consciousness, which is awareness of oneself and the environment.  In Raskolnikov, we see one for whom the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders in its 5th Edition (DSM 5) classifies as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). An NPD is anyone who has an inflated sense of self-importance. She/he requires excessive admiration from others. They lack empathy and are obsessed with fantasies of power. In psychologically bursting his bubble, Porfiry Petrovich the lead detective, tells Raskolnikov the murderer, "You have long needed a change of air...Be the sun and all will see you" (Dostoevsky, 1867). Here Dostoevsky employs the allegory of the sun to signal his focus which is, complete alienation within one's own abyss of anxiety and despair. For in Russia then and in Liberia now, how can delirious criminals who are captives in their delusion become an illumination of the good (sun)? But Dostoevsky's world is a world of redemption. And that redemption is wrought by accountability and suffering. In the language of Plato, Dostoevsky's world is a "world of becoming" (Symposium, 385).

Is Dostoevsky on target when he echoes Plato in averring that "through love, men make their way through the world of becoming to the world of being?" The murderer says to his beloved Sonia in chapter 4, "I couldn't bear my burden and I have come to throw it on another; you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch? " And wanting to be like Napoleon, and worshipping Napoleon the tyrannical conqueror of France, Raskolnikov asked, "What if Napoleon had to be in my place,... would he have murdered the old pawnbroker too to get money from her" (Dostoevsky, 1867)?

Even in our Liberian magnum opus Murder in the Cassava Patch by Bai T. Moore, evil cannot be rationalized. The reality of indentured servitude and its consequential hardship cannot justify evil. Unlike Dostoevsky's murderer Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment who kills two people, Bai T. Moore's murderer Gortokai is assisted in killing Tene his foster sister, at least psychologically, by a cluster of murderers. The first killer responsible for the crime is Tene's father Joma, who sells his own daughter for all the material gifts including the labor that his foster son brings to the family. Tene's sister Kema, the rest of the family, and the witch doctor are all killers that are driven by greed and extreme selfishness. By the way, does this sound like present-day Liberia?
Moreover, as a child, as a little girl at age 13, Tene is incapable of reciprocating romantic love to her brother Gortokai. That is completely incestuous given the fact Tene is in the adolescence stage of psychosocial development, while her brother /child molester is in the young adult stage of development. Most importantly, Bai T. Moore's murderer in the Cassava Patch is a malingerer-murderer. We know this because he undergoes self-mutilation in order to get some attention from Tene. But temporarily, it only works on the surface as she is responding to someone whom she perceives as her big brother in need of care.   
      
Like the Biblical Job, Dostoevsky endured suffering and was redeemed by it. According to his second wife Anna, when Dostoevsky saw the montage, Christ Taken Down from the Cross in Basel, Switzerland, he actually trembled. He may have acquainted himself with the thought of that great Tragedian Aeschylus when he says, "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the grace of God" (Agamemnon, 458 BC). Moreover, Dostoevsky was acquainted with two men of sorrows, Job the forerunner of Christ, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows. He furthered learned through suffering, that man as a noble savage (Rousseau), must himself be able "to tame his savageness even in fear and despair in order to make tranquil the place of this world" (Aeschylus, 458 BC).      
   
In his The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Dostoevsky asserted,
I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just
this faith of mine that they laughed at. But how can I stop believing it? I have seen the truth - it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the
living image of it has filled my soul forever. (Dostoevsky, 1877)     

Conclusion
As James Lowell articulated, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good and evil side" (Lowell, 1845). In reality, we are dwelling on an existential abyss, an abyss that not all of us can see and grasp with eagle's eyes and eagle's talons (Nietzschean) respectively. Because of this, the world seems frightening for many people. Nevertheless, the legacies of our intellectual and spiritual fathers and mothers especially, Sabat, Queen of Sheba, Maryam (St. Mary), Emperor Menelik II, King Mane Massaquoi of Sierra Leone who helped to stop the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and signed the Treaty, thereby abolishing it, Hilary Teague, author of Liberia's Declaration of Independence, and Edward Wilmot Blyden, Liberia's premier educator challenge us to keep the faith.

Notwithstanding, "truth is forever on the scaffold, and wrong forever on the throne," as that anti-slavery intellect from Harvard asserted, "yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, Stands God (Egziabeher) within the shadow keeping watch over His own" (Lowell, 1845).
Reference  
Aeschylus. (458 BCE). Agamemnon, Athens:Greece 
Calvin, John. (1567). Exegesis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Grand Rapids: Michigan, Baker House and William B. Erdman's Publishers   
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. (1879). The Brothers Karamazov, Russia
_______, _______. (1866). Crime and Punishment, Russia
_______,_______. (1872). The Possessed, Russia
_______,_______. (1877). The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Russia
Jefferson, Thomas. (1781). Notes on the State of Virginia, Charlottesville: Virginia
Johnson, Obediah. (2021). Liberia: Gory Killings in Homes Becoming Rampant in Monrovia,
Monrovia: Liberia, FrontPage Africa
Lowell, James Russell. (1845). The Present Crisis, Cambridge: Massachusetts
Moore, Bai T. (1968). Murder in the Cassava Patch, Monrovia: Liberia, Ducor Publishing  House 
Plato. (375 BC & 1968). The Republic, Greece and Paris: Basic Books, Ed by Allan Bloom

 * As an Ethiopianist, Professor Dr. Murv Gardiner attended the Conference on Ethiopian Studies at Mekele University, Mekele, Ethiopia three years ago. He was a close friend of the late Patriarch (Pope) Abune Paulos of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, who wrote prolifically on Filsata: The Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Both men met at Princeton, New Jersey. Professor Murv can be reached for comments at murvgardiner94@gmail.com