Realistic Threats Versus Communal Order: A Study of Inter-Ethnic African Xenophobia in Blessie Head’s Maru

Abstract

This study is an analysis of intra-African bigotry and mutual segregation in Head’s prose narrative Maru. It examines imaginary but sensible threats which occur among various tribal clusters. With its setting pitched on a rural Botswana culture of Dilepe village, the novel describes the historic degradation of the subjugated Masarwa (San) ethnic masses by the foremost and domineering Tswana tribal clusters. Initiated through a close reading of the novel, the objectives of this text-based and analytical study include probing into how the artist blends the fear-ridden but absolute discriminatory attitudes of the village masses against the fair democratic and creative life-styles of progressive characters like Moleka and Maru. The study employs the Integrated Threat Theory (ITT) in scrutinising the actions and life of Margaret Cadmore, an educated Masarwa woman. A South African exile who fled from the obnoxious laws of Apartheid regime and came to live and work in the xenophobic rural Botswana village, the novel probes into how her life and actions pressured the conventional socio-political order of the village. Being aw-are of the danger posed by her presence to their cultural purity as well as their special, well-established systemic privileges, power dynamics and class boundaries, the local leaders unleash on her their most horrible spate of intolerance. The reading concludes that Maru is a reflective condemnation of tribalism, affirming that genuine human liberty entails an elimination of communal prejudice and embracing a real collective identity.