The voice of conscience

For decades he was the scourge of successive Nigerian despots. Now aged 72, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka tells Maya Jaggi how 'repetitions of history' - most recently the atrocities in Darfur - continue to haunt his life and work

Tracing the abuses to a vestigial legacy of the Arab slave trade that pre-dated transatlantic slavery, and likening the Darfur cause to anti-apartheid, when "non-Africans felt aggrieved by the assault heaped on humanity", Soyinka says: "This can't go on. Over 2 million refugees, and still raids by Janjaweed, backed by the Sudanese government military, with the war spilling into neighbouring countries." Instead of public indictments and sanctions with teeth, "people make token resolutions. It's yet another failure. I don't understand how this can be happening in the 21st century." Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>