WOMEN AS VICTIMS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN THE NIGER DELTA
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Background to the Study
Literature is a carrier and reflector of society which captures the life and essence of a people’s existence in totality. Terry Eagleton in Literary Theory: An Introduction posits that “literature is concrete rather than abstract, displays life in all its rich variousness and rejects barren conceptual enquiry for the feel and taste of what it is to be alive” (196).The Literature of a given society illustrates lucidly the composition of that particular society in relation to their culture, history and experiences. Arts in its diverse forms is used to capture the realities of human experiences, and these experiences can only thrive within an environment. Abalogu Onukaogu and Ezechi Onyerionwu in 21st Century Literature confirms, thus: “no meaningful or serious literary creation can ever achieve credibility and authenticity if it discountenances the environment”(55). Undoubtedly, the environment shapes the content and texture of the literature. No work of art achieves credibility if it is extricated from the environment that produced it. The environment indeed plays a significant role in the lives of humans. One can also appreciate the issues of environmental concerns as forming the centre point of present day global writing. The environment, which involves man, the air space, land and water, is seen as a world or system with unified elements that are interdependent. A.C. Emeribe in his article “Environmental Management and Protection in Budgeting” asserts that “the environment is that which gives physical sustenance and affords man the opportunity for intellectual, spiritual and social growth…the natural and manmade are essential for his wellbeing and enjoyment of basic human rights” (208).This explains the reason why the 19th century Romantic poets yearned for nature. Passion for nature, a yearning for the past and freedom of imagination were three impulses of the Romantic Movement. Poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Gordon Byron upheld the Romantic Movement which consist in its attitude to nature. For Wordsworth and his contemporaries, nature was not mere physical loveliness, but something deeper. As such, these poets worshipped their environment, because they 2 saw in all natural objects the indwelling of the Supreme Being. The Romantic poets discovered that nature is a healer and a teacher. In Wordsworth’s words as quoted in R.D. Trivedi: “One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral and of good, than all the sages can” (331). A clean environment was, for Nature Poets, an exclusive concern. For them, it translated to religion, thus making it a goal to convert humanity into this new religion. Theirs is an advocacy for simplicity, love for one’s neighbour and faith in divine providence. James Ewah states it clearly in his essay, “Ecodrama and Conservation Policy” that “man and nature depend on each other for ecological balance and optimum survival” (293). In essence, the environment aids man’s growth at all existential levels and generally constitute the foundation upon which his enjoyment of basic human rights is built. In traditional African societies, humanity’s sustenance basically was from plants and animals. Mankind also held aspects of nature sacred; the forests for instance were basically the home of ancestors, the rivers and streams, a coven for men’s potency and women’s fertility. This brief explanation inspires what Cherryll Glotfelty calls, “the relationship between human culture and the environment” (xv). Earlier in the 20th century however, the renowned English historian, Arnold Tonybee noted the dangers human activities posed on the biosphere. Expressing his fear over an environmental disaster, Tonybee in Love Glen, warns that humanity now has the “capacity to make the biosphere inhabitable and will, in fact, produce this suicidal result within a forseeable period of time if humans do not now take prompt and vigorous concerted action to check the pollution and despoliation that are being inflicted upon the biosphere by shortsighted human greed”(25).Undoubtedly, the devastating blows constantly thrown at the natural environment by humanity’s sense of capitalist industrialism and consumerism steadily but unfortunately accounts for the disappearance of the non human world. Mankind’s inordinate exploitation of natural resources continues to make human existence precarious. Niyi Osundare in his Eye of the Earth therefore voices out: What we have now is a remembered landscape, echoes of an Eden long departed, when the rain forests were terrifyingly green…Left mostly now are echoes whispered in the stubborn ears of memory.
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