Who is the African woman?
Western ideological constructs vs.
Traditional social behavior paradigms
Traditional
values are the concrete foundation that dynasties are built upon. These values
are made up of bio-social-behavioral-shifts that reinforce the traditional
morals and ethics that have often times created the tragedies that each of the
various authors have presented. The questions that have arisen from the
literature we are examining are simple in the tonality yet difficult and
challenging to fully answer. Questions are the foundation of finding an answer
or at minimum creating the outlet of discussion.
Who is the
African Woman? Who does the African women represent? What is considered
beautiful for the African woman? When does the African Woman have a voice in
the larger community of the African? When is the voice of the African woman
heard amongst other African women? Is the African woman still a Woman in the
presence of a Man? Does a Man assist in the beauty that is the African Woman?
Where is the African Woman taken on her journey of feminism and spirituality?
On the surface
the role that a woman plays in all of these works of literature is finite.
However with greater inspection, the role of the African woman is filled with non-rhetorical dilemmas, that each of
these women has had to answer when tragedy struck. The tragedy in and of itself
in the case of ‘Lawino’[1]the protagonist for tradition in Okot p’
Bitek’s “Songs of Lawino”; is not one that is laid out so
simple. Her voice of femininity rings true with her plea for her husband to see
her through the eyes he once had,
“ You admired my sister’s
Colourful
ten-stringed lion beads;
My
mother threaded them
And
arranged them with care.
You
trembled
When
you saw the tattoos
On
my breasts
And
the tattoos below my belly button;
Lawino shows her husband that
prior to his “education”, he was aroused and attracted to the things that were
of tradition. The tattoos, the bangles, and the hand-made pieces of jewelry:
The small items that are the glue, which attach her to her
bio-social-behavioral paradigms.
She goes on to further describe what is considered beautiful in terms of
a true ‘Acoli’ woman:
“I am a true Acoli
I am not a half-caste
I am not a slave girl;”
This is important for the
reader, to know that “Lawino” is not just some random woman; she is a woman who
is of that place, of that earth. Okot p’ Bitek, does a wonderful job in
explaining the separation of the slave girl: one who was forced to change their
traditional values as a direct result of being ‘up rooted’ and the placement of
the traditional African woman who is not influenced by western society, she
goes on to say:
[…] “You once saw me
You saw my hairstyle
And you admired, it
And the boys loved it.”
[…] “My mother taught me
Acoli hair fashions;
Which fits the kind
Of hair of the Acoli,
And the occasion.”
[…]”A black woman’s hair
Is thick and curly;
The imagery is strong here; it
dispels the concept of savageness. You can see the same degree of radiance in
the African woman in Mariama Bâ’s “
So long a letter”,[5] here ‘Ramatoulaye’ the story’s leading
character gives such an honest description of her husband new bride: “ a
bit shy, frail, made noticeably uncomfortable by our style of life. But she was
really beautiful in this her adolescent period, in her faded but clean clothes!
Her beauty shone, pure. Her shapely contours could not but be noticed.”[6] With this passage Bâ, divulges the complexities of
‘Ramatoulaye’ as well as the shining attraction of the new wife ‘Binetou’ with
out diminishing either characters, demeanor.
African
women, have so many different chambers of beauty it is a daunting task to
capture it all in the fold of a great novel. Sembene Ousmane executes this task
with a precision I have not encountered in other contemporary African writings.
“Gods Bits of Wood”;
expresses the beautiful struggle of ‘Woman’ during a time in Senegal that was
less than pleasant. Predominantly Muslim and extremely close net: The men of
Thiès decide to strike to improve their families living conditions. It is not
until the conditions start to worsen do the women take upon themselves the
responsibility of advocating on behalf of the men. Women who in a society have
no voice with out a man’s approval. An approval at this point in the novel they
were not seeking. These women were seeking something greater than the mere
approval of man. They were creating their conversation, to be heard, building a
platform for their voices!
These women of
all lifestyles take to marching, and the most unlikely of person is at the helm
of their moral support. ‘Penda’, who was known to have “gone off with a man and stayed
with him for several days”[7],
her bio-social-behavior was not one befitting a heroin. With the help of the other
women who surrounded her, she was able to gain their voices and proclaim: “Yes- we will go to Dakar to hear
what these toubabs have to say, and let them see if we are concubines!” [8]
The courage she took on
placed her in a category all her own. She was able to help the women place
aside their differences and march into every city, with their heads held high. “ The
women had not stopped singing. As soon as one group allowed the refrain to die,
another picked it up, and new verses were born at the hazard of chance and
inspiration.”[9] That was
Penda, an encouragement and pious inspiration, she helped them keep the songs
in their hearts “ they must go on”[10],
and her grass roots organization was the crux of their motivation to make it to
the capital city.
There is
evidence of this same type of beauty that the African woman possesses in Chinua
Achebe’ “Things fall apart”:
‘Ezinma’ the second wife to ‘Okonkwo’ a man of prominence in the village of
Ummofia, is lunged into a tragedies that create a bride of absolution between
her and Okonkwo. Priest of ‘Agbala Chielo’ took Ezinma’s only daughter ‘Ekwefi’
in the midst of the night. The
night events pull on the instinct that is innately maternal. Ezinma: didn’t not
seek her husbands approval and ran after Chielo, who was in possession of her
child. This brief glimpse into the
world of the African woman threw the eyes of Achebe not only show you the great
lengths that a mother, is willing to go through to preserve the beauty that is
her child. It shows how much power Ezinma has over Okonkwo, especially his
reaction to finding Ezinma gone and how he comes to the rescue of his second
wife.
The African
woman, from what I have gathered here is not a ‘savage’ as often depicted or a
concubine; she is a woman of status, education, wisdom and a beauty that cannot
truly be defined by the English language. These characters as they are
presented show the multidimensional depths of the Woman that is African. You
can see this same kind of reverence in Naguib Mahfouz’s “Wedding Song”[11].
The story line is a little twisted. Mahfouz is writing about a playwright,
writing about his life from the perspective of being the stories only
protagonist.
The characters
as they tell the same story over an over tell the story from their own prospective.
The beauty that is this woman starts to unveil it self here when the playwright
Tariq’s mother starts to reveal her portion of her story to you the reader
through the muse of the “theatre”.
Halima, Tariq’s mother: gives you a voice of Women’s wisdom and control.
She does so by not revealing all the secrets of her “secret” life to her young
son. She tires her best to shield him from the world as she has experienced it.
This is the
voice of the protective mother. She tries to hide all emotional turmoil from
her son. However, what she does not realize until after she is released from
jail, her son was well aware of all of her “transgressions”. He is able to hold on to all the
experiences he has had gowning up in a home where, his father was an addict of
opium and his mother was the Madame of a brothel. Or so he assumed. Mahfouz
does a wonderful job of keeping the reader in search of the next set of images
as he reveals bits and pieces of the world that is Halima al-Kabsh.
That same
secretive approach to the voice that is woman is taken in “Ways of Dying”; Zakes Mda paints an array of colorful and
smelly imagines of human beauty and the perception of beauty. Unlike the other books we have read where the voice changes
it’s tone as well as who is speaking. In ways of dying the voice of the
community, I believe takes on a ‘motherly’ tone, as if a woman is reprimanding
her child. Through out all of the experiences “Toloki” [a professional mourner]
has, as he often times does throughout the course of the novel reverts back to
the ways of his childhood for a better understanding of what ever his present
situation. He especially does this once he cross paths with his ‘home girl’ “Noria”. The stories he
tells to capture her every essence is, just right so that the reader has a
clear vision of what kind of Woman “Noria” has become.
From the onset
of “Noria’s” introduction, we learn that she is a “prostitute”. Mda does not
allow you to have a biased opinion of “Noria”. The impression Mda leaves you
with is of “Noria” in her innocense.
He leaves you with the beautiful glee of her childhood. “There she is, Noria, in a rubble of charred
household effects, next to her burnt down shack. A lonely figure. Tall and
gracious. Sharp features. Smooth, pitch-black complexion-what in the village we
called poppy-seed beauty.”[12]
She is standing in the middle-of the pentacle- that is her life and yet,
“Toloki” observes her in attractiveness. He does not take away her beauty from
her turmoil. He in this moment makes her more human a ‘ Concrete Rose’ fragile
yet sturdy.
He goes on to
comment about her clothing, as if she has not changed from when she was just a
young child. At this point in the novel you are unaware of all the trauma she
has gone through, however you get the sense that she has life experience and
that she is ready to explore a different side of life. Her movements now have a
trepidation about them that calls on her wisdom of experience, so she begins to
move slowly-showing her world-to a man who does not walk among the living.
She begins to
teach “Toloki” how to live. Her ‘voice’ of beauty (the voice of being heard) is told through the moments she shares
with “Toloki”, one who is considered an outsider. “Toloki” asks himself: Is it
so hard to be an outsider? He goes on to further the conversation to a greater
depth. He causes you to think do you get more accomplished when you are on the
outside looking in? Do you still get to hold onto your beauty about you when
you have no “place” in society? Is there the possibility of moving into a
different direction of understanding when you see the beauty that is the larger
community? Is the voice of the woman, not as important as you fight for the
survival of a nation? Is your identity so important when you are fighting the
authorities for the voice of the community? This orgullo[13] is one
that helps you remove your self from all of this complex conversation-as you
begin to look at: “Sizwe Banzi” and the death that occurs for him.
“Sizwe
Banzi is dead”[14] is a play that takes place in a
photographers shop, in apartheid South Africa. The stage is set with the
minimal amounts of props. Just enough to get the point across, and keep you the
audience member focused on the words and acts of the two players. These two men
explore the concepts of identity, oppression, and how that oppression plays out
in their day-to-day lives. What Sizwe must learn is to find the beauty in being
able to start over, to start fresh. He has to learn not to feel oppressed by
the oppressive system that is apartheid South Africa with the reclaiming of his
dignity with the newfound identity. Sizwe must find his voice, and his own
beauty.
Ironically, beauty is not only woman.
Traditionally when you think of beauty you think of Woman. We do not think of
beauty in the body of a man. Sizwe explores this concept of what beauty is and
is not when he talks about not losing his family, his name, and his access to
the things of the past that were familiar. Beauty is the dance that these two
powers-the governing powers of the nation and the voice of the
community-constantly dance. Often times this tips the balance of yin and yang,
the constant tosses between the two
biological differences that are Man and Woman. Once Sizwe takes on his new
personality, he has to find new ways to move through society, he must to find
new ways to stay out of the eye of the government. A daunting task, as he says,
for a black man to stay out of trouble with the police.
The police seem
to be everywhere, and they enforce justice as they see fit. The deciding
control groups known as the Police-who are there to keep in ‘Law & Order’-try to follow out
orders from the controlling government with out consequence to how these order
affect/effect the community that they reside in, and live there lives as well.
This is one novel that I have examined as if it
is my home that needs to be rebuilt, this is done in accordance with how the
author opens the novel with stating this could be anywhere at any point. “Matigari”
goes to “rebuild my home”[15]
girded with the belt of peace. He goes in search of the beauty that is the
consciousness that is the heartbeat of my homeland and the love that is shared
amongst our people. This is how we‘re introduced to this mystical presence
known as “Matigari”. A force of reckoning that truly has the interest of the
greater community in mind. This is evident in how he walks the earth, and how
he responds, to the everyday human oppression that he has been fighting with
Settler Williams. “Matigari” walks right into the ugly face that
is the government, once he realizes that the country that he has been trying to
save is in dire turmoil. By the time he reaches “Guthera”, he knows that the
fight for his home will not be as simple as he thought it would be. She is a
Woman who has fallen victim to her circumstances by walking the streets for her
meals. The correlation that is made in this moment is that of “Mary Magdalene” [16],
the “prostitute” that was allowed to wash the feet of Jesus. Jesus stood up and respected Mary. He
did so with out condition. The same way “Matigari” does for “Guthera”.
He sees the
beauty that is in her that goes far beyond the physical. “What a beautiful woman, thought Matigari; a woman with teeth that
gleam white like milk, a mass of hair so black and soft, as if it always
treated with the purest of oils. Yes, a woman who is neither too short nor too
tall; neither too fat nor too thin. So well built that her clothes fit her as
though she were created in them!”[17]
In this moment, he takes her in, her wisdom, her truth, her understanding,
and most importantly her voice. I cannot profess that we as humans make
concrete decision in a flash that have so much control over our movements with
out understanding the core insights of another person. That is the difference with
“Matigari”, he stood for that voice as well as the voice of indecision, he
stood for the voice of choice.
“Guthera” had
absolutely no clue about whom she was approaching in the bar! To her he seemed
as an old man. Speaking to him as she had with ever other patron; she tried to
entice “Matigari” to give up his morals, to give into the temptation of taking
away from her beauty; she failed. However, it was “Matigari”, that in turn gave
her something to live for, something to call hers, that was more than putting
food on her table. He in the stroke of making others aware of the beauty that
was ‘Guthera’ gave her back her beauty. He gave her hope, and dignity. He took her out of her misery so to
speak. He helped her to begin to travel down the road to ‘her home’.
One of the
themes in the novel that rings with such a profound truth is “Too
much fear breads misery in the land” [18],“Matigari”
witnesses this misery and fear in the land at every corner. It Is not until he
gets to the ‘voice’ of the community, the older community that he learns that
he needs to go in search of a new understandings of the things that are upside
down in our home land. That voice
tells him “ Go! Go to the wise men, those who know how to read the stars”[19],
and in the same breathe-this woman the older voice of the community- send him
off with the thought of her sweeping the country that has accumulated so much
dirty.
This dirt is
indicative of the box that we as society have placed the Woman in, we have told
the woman that she has no voice, or beauty unless, it is given by the man, or
men who are in charge. We have tainted her perception of beauty. Moreover, it
is we as a community/nation that must change this perception. The question
still looms: Who is the African Woman? I can say the African Woman is a woman
that is made of a moral fiber that has stretched generations. Whom she
represents is in her consistent nature to place her community on a pedestal of
inclusion. The voice that the African Woman has is a resounding voice of
patience, wrapped inside the healing milk of mother’s bosom. Her beauty does
not rest solely on the shoulder of her male counter part. It heals all the
misconceptions, she opens the hearts of the closed, it allows! The Journey of
the African Woman is a journey that is still in the process of taking on a new
shape. A journey that is beginning to slowly but surely cultivate the many
voices, that makes up the trinity that is the African Woman! Her mental,
physical and spiritual self has started to reclaim all that was taken from her.
She is now calling out to all African women to stand and have their voices be
heard!
[1] “Songs of
Lawino” -Okot p’ Bitek- - Reader Dale Byam Brooklyn College Spring 2008
[2] “Songs of
Lawino”-Okot p’ Bitek- - Reader Dale Byam Brooklyn College Spring 2008 page 48
[3] “Songs of
Lawino”- Okot p’ Bitek- - Reader Dale Byam Brooklyn College Spring 2008 page 48
[4] “Songs of
Lawino”- Okot p’ Bitek- - Reader Dale Byam Brooklyn College Spring 2008 page 51
[5] “So long a
letter”-Mariama Ba, Heinemann African Writers Series-1980
[6] “So long a
letter”-Mariama Ba, Heinemann African Writers Series-1980 Chapter 13 page 35
[7] “God’s bits of Wood”- Sembene
Ousmane-Heinemann African writer series-1960, Page 138
[8] “God’s bits
of Wood”- Sembene Ousmane-Heinemann African writer series-1960,
Page 187
[9] “God’s bits of Wood”- Sembene
Ousmane-Heinemann African writer series-1960, Page 192
[10] “God’s bits of Wood”- Sembene
Ousmane-Heinemann African writer series-1960, Page 194
[11] “Wedding
Song”- Naguib Mahfouz: The American University in Cairo press-1984
[12] “Ways of
Dying”- Zakes Mda Oxford University Press Southern Africa- 1995
[13]
Orgullo-Spanish for pride of: Not just pride it is a sense of accomplishment.
[14] “Sizwe
Banzi is dead”-Athol Fugard, 1972
[15]“Matigari”-Ngugi
wa Thiong’o- African World Press, Inc.-1998 page 4
[16] Mary
Magdalene, a follower of Jesus. She is a known as one out of which Jesus has
cast “seven demons”. She followed Jesus the rest of his life & may have
stood at the foot of the cross when he was crucified. (John 19:25) The apostle
Luke gives her name at the head, of a list of women of Galilee (Luke 8:2) It is
important to mention that she is noted as the first person, man or woman to see
Jesus once he was resurrected. (John 20).
[17]
“Matigari”-Ngugi wa Thiong’o- African World Press, Inc.-1998 page 9
[18]
“Matigari”-Ngugi wa Thiong’o- African World Press, Inc.-1998 page 73
[19]
“Matigari”-Ngugi wa Thiong’o- African World Press, Inc.-1998 page 73
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