”If we leave our gods and follow your god,” asked another man, “who will protect us from the anger of our neglected gods and ancestors?”

“Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm,” replied the white man. “They are pieces of wood and stone.”

When this was interpreted to the men of Mbanta they broke into derisive laughter.

—Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Continuing my occasional series, “Random Thoughts About Random Books,” I want to say a few things about Things Fall Apart, by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, which I recently reread. This slim, sparely written book is so many things — a story of a family crushed under the weight of a father’s sins, a history of upheaval and subjugation in colonial Africa, a tragedy reminiscent of the Greek classics that speaks of the consequences of pride, a tale of violent conflict between sexes, classes, communities, and cultures. I can’t hope to do justice to its brilliance with the few words I have here. But I want to focus on one particular strand of Achebe’s masterpiece: what happens after new ways usurp the old, and those older traditions — and the communities they hold together — fall apart.

It’s a topic that’s been on my mind lately, now that this country’s perennial unease about change has found its way into the headlines yet again. This time, it has taken the form of theories of “intelligent design” and other efforts to salvage religious doctrine from the onslaught of Darwin’s theories. In Achebe’s novel it is the Christianity of the European masters that viciously clears away the vital undergrowth of indigenous tradition. Today it is science that is burning away dominant Christian beliefs — or, at very least, threatening to do so. (Fortunately for those who love doctrine, today’s defenders of the faith are much better organized than the villagers in Achebe’s novel.)

Things Fall Apart focuses on the story of Okonkwo, a determined and industrious man living in an Igbo community in what is now Nigeria. Bitter at the memory of his late father, who lacked ambition and died heavily in debt, Okonkwo has long dreamed of achieving wealth and status in his village and raising his sons to be strong, tradition-minded men. But Okonkwo’s hopes collide with the transformations that are taking place throughout Africa. Christian missionaries establish a presence in the village and turn young and old against the old ways. British imperial functionaries impose their own customs, beliefs, and laws, and brutally suppress dissent.

Part of the beauty of Achebe’s novel is that he does not come out on the side of the old or the new. While Things Fall Apart was written as a necessary corrective to simplistic, condescending depictions of Africans in European literature (it takes its title from the much-quoted poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats that prophesized the destruction of Western European civilization by rising hordes of “uncivilized” peoples), Achebe does not depict the Christian missionaries, or the doctrines they preach, as evil. In fact, his portrait of Christianity is quite sympathetic at times. We see courageous Christians standing up to aspects of Igbo traditional life that are unjust and unethical. Twins are left to die in the forest because they are believed to be cursed. Men are taught to be stern, even cruel, with their (multiple) wives. The society’s lowest caste — the Igbo version of India’s “untouchables” — are kept at a distance from the so-called “free-born.” Those men and women who convert to Christianity in Okonkwo’s village choose to reject these unjust beliefs among their people, and Achebe acknowledges their bravery. He also spends much time in his novel depicting the plight of those harmed by the whim of superstition and custom — including, most tragically, one of Okonkwo’s adopted sons.

But Achebe also shows us how the death of tradition becomes the death of a community. The old ways were unjust, irrational, impractical — but they gave men like Okonkwo a sense of purpose, a bond of kinship, and a foundation on which to build their society. As the fabric of tradition unravels, so does the community. “I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship,” one of the village elders says at one point in the book. “You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter’s dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan.”

I’ll continue this discussion of the book in my post on Saturday.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen