The Ideology of the Illiterate: A Marxist Reading of Okot p’ Bitek’s ‘Song of Lawino’ and Abdul Rahman Alabnudi’s ‘The Letters of Heraji Elgot’

This paper studies how the illiterate view different beliefs via a process that depends mostly on observing, experiencing and practicing. The study also focuses on how the illiterate characters use their indigenous ideology as a touchstone for judging new beliefs and changes occurring in their society. The role of both poets as committed writers who propagate the ideology they believe in and who help in reshaping the reader’s consciousness is also illustrated. A comparison between the different cultures and ideologies affecting the illiterate characters is given by the researcher to illustrate the process through which the consciousness of the illiterate is being reformed. The role of certain institutions and their agents in proliferating particular beliefs in a given society is also highlighted. The paper then proceeds to analyze two specific poems with reference to the ‘ideology of the illiterate’: the Ugandan Song of Lawino (1966) and the Egyptian The Letters of Heraji Elgot (1969), by Okot p’ Bitek (1931-1982) and Abdul Rahman Alabnudi (1939- ) respectively. In these two poems, illiterate characters are portrayed and the different ideologies they experience are highlighted. Both p’ Bitek and Alabnudi show how the illiterate characters view these ideologies and judge them according to their mother or indigenous ideology, culture or collective consciousness. Marxist literary school with special reference to Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser, has been chosen as a framework of reference for the analysis. Certain terms like ideology, ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ (ISAs), ‘Organic’ and ‘Traditional’ intellectuals are used in the attempt to study the ideology of the illiterate.