A Play of Giants by Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka’s A Play of Giants is a blistering satire that dissects the grotesque nature of power, the complicity of international interests, and the intellectual rationalizations of tyranny. Set within the Bugaran Embassy to the United Nations in New York, the play features a quartet of African dictators modeled on real-life figures as they navigate diplomatic tensions, internal dissent, and their own megalomania while posing for a monumental sculpture intended for the UN building.

The Protagonists: The “Supermen” of Africa

The play’s central figures are four African heads of state, each representing a specific brand of 20th-century despotism. Soyinka explicitly identifies their real-life counterparts in his introductory notes:

• Field-Marshal Kamini: Modeled on Idi Amin of Uganda. He is the central “Hero of Heroes,” a physically imposing, semi-literate, and psychopathic leader who maintains power through raw brutality and a “common man” persona.
• Emperor Kasco: Based on Jean-Baptiste Bokassa of the Central African Republic. He is depicted as a “dwarfish creature” who parodies Kamini’s military aesthetic but adds a cloak of imperial purple, reflecting his obsession with Napoleonic grandeur.
• Benefacio Gunema: Modeled on Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. A tall, thin man in immaculate tails, he is the philosopher of “voodoo power,” believing in a mystical, absolute control over the souls of his subjects.
• General Barra Tuboum: Based on Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (Congo Kinshasa). He is characterized by his “authentic” African attire a striped animal skin outfit and his reliance on a private, terrifying elite force known as the “striped leopards”.

The Setting and the “Art” of Dictatorship

The action takes place in a lounge converted into a studio within the Bugaran Embassy. The play opens with a tableau: the dictators are seated on “throne-like chairs” atop a stone stairway, posing for a Sculptor who is creating a life-size group sculpture of them. This sculpture serves as a physical manifestation of their desire for immortality and their demand for a “commanding” presence in the international community.

Accompanying them is Gudrum, a repulsive Scandinavian journalist who is writing a hagiography titled The Black Giant at Play. She serves as the voice of the Western apologist, dismissing reports of the leaders’ atrocities as the “disgusting libel” of failed subversives and homosexuals who are “terrified of virility”.

The Philosophy of Absolute Power

As the leaders pose, they engage in a “serious” discussion regarding the nature of power. Gunema argues that beyond politics lies a “rare space” of pure existence power for its own sake. He likens his control to voodoo, a “tranquil, extendido” force that dominates the soul of the nation. Kasco, meanwhile, looks to the French Revolution, praising the “indivisible” power of Robespierre while warning that power is debased when shared with the “riff-raff”.

Kamini’s approach is more direct: he treats subversives as “bandits” and insists the only treatment for dissent is to make the offender “smell his mother’s cunt” a recurring phrase denoting total humiliation and death. He prides himself on being a “jovial family man” and a “big uncle” to his people, while simultaneously maintaining a “Task Force” to liquidate any hint of opposition.

Economic Realities: The World Bank Conflict

The first major disruption to the sitting involves the Chairman of the Bugara Central Bank. Kamini has brought the entire national bank with him to New York to ensure no one “steals money behind my back”. The Chairman arrives with bad news: the World Bank has refused a direct cash loan, offering only to fund specific projects that they would supervise.

Kamini is outraged, viewing the refusal as a “dirty capitalist plot” and “economic sabotage”. When the Chairman attempts to explain the economic reality that the Bugaran currency is virtually worthless and needs backing Kamini accuses him of treason. He hauls the Chairman to the embassy’s toilet, ordering a Task Force Special to dunk the Chairman’s head in the bowl and flush it repeatedly. Kamini declares that since the Chairman called the currency “shit paper,” he should “drink some shit water” until he learns respect.

The Intellectual Apologists: Professor Batey

A significant portion of the play critiques the role of the intelligentsia in sustaining tyranny. This is embodied by Professor Batey, an African-American academic and sociologist who is writing a book titled The Black Giant at Work. Batey is a fervent defender of Kamini, attributing all of Bugara’s problems to “neo-colonial conspiracy” and “multi-national conglomerates”.

Batey dismisses reports of human rights violations as “diversionary scarecrows” and “imperialist propaganda”. He is so blinded by his ideological “dream” of African liberation that he ignores the reality of the “desaparecidos” and the brutalization of the populace. Even when confronted with the fact that Kamini’s own cabinet has fled the country, Batey suggests contacting Interpol to arrest the “thieves” who have “misguided” the leader.

Paranoia and the “James Bond” Defections

The dictators’ “Giants” status is constantly undermined by the reality of their fragility. The Bugaran Ambassador enters in a state of terror to report that the entire ministerial delegation has defected. The ministers used a tape recorder to play back their voices in the committee room while they escaped through a lavatory window into a cleaners’ passage.

Kamini is humiliated by the “James Bond” tricks of his subordinates, screaming that they are “common thieves” who have “embezzled money”. His response is to order his Task Force to attack their villages and families back home, asserting that “the guilt extends beyond the grave”.

The Sculptor as Victim and Witness

The Sculptor becomes a focal point of Kamini’s mounting paranoia. When the Sculptor explains that a single statue cannot be finished in a day due to the technical requirements of casting, Kamini interprets this as an insult to his intelligence. He accuses the “white Makongo carver” of calling him stupid.

Suspecting the Sculptor is a spy for British Intelligence (MI5) or Madame Tussaud’s, Kamini has his guards beat the man severely. The Sculptor later appears “swathed in bandages from head to toe,” mummified and unable to speak, yet forced to continue working under the threat of further “accidents” or execution.

The International Game: Russia vs. USA

The play brilliantly satirizes the Cold War dynamics of the era. Representatives from both the Soviet Union and the United States arrive at the embassy to court Kamini, each claiming to be his true “fraternal” supporter.

The Russian Delegates provide a hilarious display of double-speak. Speaking in Russian (which Batey translates), the First Russian calls Kamini a “buffoon” and a “cretin,” while the Second Russian translates these as “illustrious leader” and “courageous hero”. The Russians offer a “Babushka doll” as a cynical gift, which Batey recognizes as an insult, leading to a confrontation.

The Russians eventually admit their pragmatism: they know Kamini is a “common butcher,” but they sustained him to fill the vacuum left by the British and Americans because his presence coincided with their interests. The US Delegates are equally opportunistic, promising to ignore any “rebels” as long as their own founding father, George Washington, is given an “appropriate” place alongside Kamini’s statue.

The Climax: The Coup and the Hostage Crisis

The final act begins with the revelation of a coup d’etat in Bugara. The Ambassador and most of the staff have fled, and the embassy is cut off. Kamini, rather than fleeing, declares the embassy to be “sovereign Bugaran soil” and takes everyone present the UN Secretary-General, the Russian and American delegates, and Professor Batey as hostages.

He orders his Task Force to booby-trap the building and positions a rocket launcher in the toilet window, pointed directly at the UN building. He demands that the UN recognize him as “President for Life” and that the World Bank deliver the loan in cash, or he will “reduce the United Nations to rubble”.

Conclusion: The “Boom Boom” Finale

As the play concludes, a crowd of Bugaran refugees gathers outside, chanting “Out, out, out, Kamini!” and calling him a “butcher” and “cannibal”. In his final act of delusion, Kamini believes the people have risen to defend him. When the crowd begins throwing objects at the windows, Kamini bellows the order: “Fire! Shoot! Shoot!”.

The play ends with the sounds of machine guns and rocket launchers opening up on the crowd and the city, a final, violent manifestation of the “Hero of Heroes” choosing to preside over a necropolis rather than relinquish the “booty of power”.

Key Thematic Observations from the book:

• The Complicity of Silence: Soyinka argues that the “willed ignorance” of politicians and intellectuals allowed monsters like Amin to thrive.
• The Inversion of Values: The play demonstrates how “power calls to power,” leading even brilliant men to rationalize the “crudest barbarities” in the name of “success”.
• The Erasure of the Elite: The dictatorships in the play (and in reality) result in the destruction of the nation’s “cream of professionals” and the brutalization of normal sensibilities.
• The “Monkey and the Booty”: Soyinka uses the folk tale of the monkey who will not unclench its fist to save itself as a metaphor for the dictator’s suicidal grip on power.