Abdicating in The Song of Lawino

By: lecturer Sameerah Atshan Al Fayyadh

Merriam Webster (2018) defines Abdicating as follows: 1- To abdicate means: to renounce a throne, high office dignity, or function e.g.: The king was forced to abdicate. 2- To cast off: discard . abdicate a responsibility. It is the act of abdicating; the renunciation of a high office, dignity, or trust, by its holder; commonly the voluntary renunciation of sovereign power, authority, (Webster Dictionary 2018). On the other hand, the Cambridge Dictionary defines abdicate as: 1- If a king or a queen abdicates, he or she makes a formal statement that he or 

she no longer wants to be king or queen. 2- To stop controlling or managing something that you are in charge of, she abdicated all responsibility for project. The origin of the word comes dates back to Mid-16th century from Latin abdicate.’ renounced ‘ from the verb abdicate, from ab-awayfrom ‘+dicate ‘declare ‘ (Oxford Dictionary). 

Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societies (such as pre-Meiji Restoration Japan), abdication was a regular event, and helped maintain stability during political succession. 

Historically, abdications have either occurred by force (where the regent was forced to abdicate on pain of death or other severe consequences) or voluntarily. Some rulers are ruled to have abdicated in absentia, vacating the physical throne and thus their position of power, although these judgments were generally pronounced by successors with vested interest in seeing the throne abdicated, and often without or despite the direct input of the abdicating monarch. It is worth mentioning that it is part of speech acts). 

Abdicating has many senses and many interpretations, but it has other senses like: abdicating responsibility. It is defined as: failure to do what is required by duty or responsibility. In relationships, it can take on many forms: unwillingness for contributing to, or making decisions; not taking on a fair share of duties; and not taking responsibility for ones’ own actions (Silvers, 2014). According to Wilson (1999: 15), “Abdicating responsibility denotes a cognitive decision, an acknowledgment that the individual choose not to assume any moral, financial, social or other obligation in how he or she treats a victim “. This study attempts to clarify the senses of abdicating in Okot P ‘Bitek’s SONG OF LAWENO. How he has abdicated his morals, principles, religion and even his wife for the sake of another woman fascinated by the colonizer’s modernity. 

   One of the major themes in Okot p’ Bitek’s Song of Lawino is that of tradition versus modernization, the loss of culture at the expense of progress. We see this in the two characters Lawino and Ocol. Ocol has a very derogatory view of Africans and their culture believing that it holds back the people. Lawino is of another mind and tries to show Ocol all that is good in their culture. The two clash literally, physically, and philosophically to present this theme.

In this epic, the poet presents the heated conflict between modern civilization and old tradition. (Mulirio , 2007 :1) . Okot is surely not weeping for the primitive, savage past culture, but he is concerned with portraying the positive values of African traditions. Again he cares for some common changes that took place as a result for western colonization of Africa, (Wanambisi , 1981: 27). Okot’s whole career as poet, singer…. has been concerned with the problem of making tradition meaningful to modernity and avoiding Western solutions to African problems, (Ezuma, 1975). The narrow- minded husband has abdicated the traditions, the norms, the food, and even the names of his children. He believes that they are old and not modern. He abdicates his loyal wife. 

In this epic, the poet revolts against such loose ties with ones believes and morals.

From: 

Al Mamoory, S. & AlFayyadh, S. (2018). A Pragmatic Study of Abdicating. Journal of Education and Practice.  Vol.9, No.26, 2018. ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper)   ISSN 2222-288X (Online).