ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the vicious circle of political atrocities in Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Wizard of the Crow (2006). The chapter shows how Ngugi mediates political atrocities in dictatorial societies through a regime’s loyalists and indicates that those who bear the brunt of a regime’s atrocities are ironically devotees and not necessarily rebels. Espousing Michael Humphrey’s (2002) theorization of political violence, the chapter reads Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow as a serious indictment on the dangers of absolute power in society as demonstrated by the Ruler’s and sycophants’ bizarre bodily metamorphosis in order to continue to mete out violence on innocent victims. Paradoxically, as this chapter shows, those whom the regime expects to perpetrate torture on the rebels are undergoing self-torture within and amongst themselves so as not only to remain in the good graces of the dictator but also to evade the punitive measures that can be meted out against them in case they are thought of as disparaging the Ruler. The chapter concludes by showing that political violence renders victims and perpetrators unsafe, the agents of violence being more unsafe than the victims.
