Negritude, Feminism, and the Quest for Identity: Re-Reading Mariama B's "So Long a Letter"

Author(s): Omofolabo Ajayi

Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3/4, Teaching African Literatures in a Global
Literary Economy (Fall - Winter, 1997), pp. 35-52
Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York
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Negritude,
Feminism,
and the
Quest
for
Identity: Re-Reading
Mariama Ba's So
Lang
a Letter
Omofolabo Ajayi
With her first
novel,
So
Long
a
Letter,
Mariama Ba achieved a
reputation
as a writer who adds a
strong, unique,
and
culturally
relevant feminist
voice to modern African literature. Ba has been
applauded by
feminist
critics for
creating
female characters who are able to
speak
and act
independently
and have
enough
sense of
personal identity
as
they
struggle,
in virtual
isolation,
to overcome the various
injustices
in their
society.
As Irene d 'Almeida
observes,
these women "are
willing
to make
the choices that will make their lives more
wholesome,
no matter what
the
consequences might
be"
(1986, 171).
The two
major
female char-
acters in So
Long
a Letter make
personal, significant
choices when con-
fronted with some inherent
gender-based inequalities
in their
culture,
especially
the
marriage
institution. Ramatou
(Ramatoulaye),
the
pro-
tagonist,
chooses to deal with her
pain
within the cultural
setting,
while
her friend and
confidante, Aissatou,
refuses to
compromise
and
instead creates an
entirely
new
path
for herself. Ramatou's choice
prompts
d'Almeida to
point
out that the
independent
voice Ba
gives
to her female characters is not to be heard
unambiguously.
She char-
acterizes this
phenomenon
as a "malaise" common to African female
writers of Ba's
generation,
and one that
"emerges
from the dilemma
women face in
wanting
to
keep
traditions
while,
at the same
time,
wanting
to
reject
what,
in
society,
ties women down"
(167). Indeed,
the choices of
Ramatou,
who seems to be the author's
mouthpiece,
are
not
liberating enough,
and
given
the
systemic
and
systematic oppres-
sion women
face,
they
seem almost futile.
Nonetheless,
it cannot be denied that even outside the fictional
world,
Ba remains critical to an
understanding
of the limitations
placed
on women in
many
African societies. She
questions
the
way
women have been
depicted traditionally by
male writers who
early
on
dominated the African
literary
scene. Conscious of her role not
only
as a writer but
specifically
as an African woman
writing
within and
against
established
traditions,
Ba writes:
35
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36 Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1997: 3 & 4
The woman writer in Africa has a
special
task. She has to
present
the
position
of women in all its
aspects.
... As women we must work for
our own
future,
we must overthrow the status
quo
which harms us
and we must no
longer
submit to it. ... We no
longer accept
the nos-
talgic praise
to the African Mother
who,
in his
anxiety,
man confuses
with Mother Africa.
("La
Fonction"
1981, 6)
This statement has
profound implications
for
literary
criticism and
theory;
it is a call for a different direction in African literature. In
particular,
it is directed at
Negritude,
a
philosophical concept
noted
for its thematic constructs of "Mother Africa" and an idealized African
womanhood in its
literary quest
for an African
political identity.
Unfortunately,
Ba's
untimely
death at
age fifty-one,
which left the lit-
erary
world with
only
one other
novel,
Scarlet
Song, deprived
African
literary
criticism of a
very powerful
voice.
The critical tone Ba sets in the statement
quoted
above frames
my
reading
of So
Long
A
Letter,
as a
critique
of
Negritude
aesthetics and
gender politics.
Rather than
solely focusing
on the
women,
the criti-
cal attention is turned on the
society
as a whole
including
the
patriar-
chal
system
that structures its cultural aesthetics. Such an
approach
brings
a new
understanding
to the restrictive
yet liberating
voice of
women writers d'Almeida alludes
to;
it also serves as a theoretical basis
for
reading
both African literature and African feminism. This
analy-
sis
begins
with an examination of the
gender politics
of
Negritude
as
a liberation
theory
for African cultures and
peoples,
and demonstrates
that its idealization of the African woman
privileges
male
identity.
Taken to the next
level,
this
paper
features a
two-part analysis
of Ba's
novel,
focusing
on the author's use of female characters to
question
the construction of
Negritude
as a liberation
concept
for all Africans
irrespective
of
gender.
In the first
part,
the character of Ramatou is
revealed as the ultimate
symbol
of Mother
Africa,
thereby validating
Negritude precepts.
The second
part,
however,
argues
that Ramatou
is
actually
a critical construct whose function not
only exposes
the
inherent
shortcomings
of
Negritude
but
actually
subverts the Mother
Africa
image
she
replicates.
In
conclusion,
the
paper
examines the
gender politics
in So
Long
a Letter and its
viability
as a
structuring
crit-
ical
concept
in African
literary
and feminist aesthetics.
Gender Politics and
Identity
in
Negritude
Essentially
a
philosophical concept
in the
struggles against
colonial
imperialism
in
Africa,
Negritude
valorizes black
pride
and
civilization,
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Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1997: 3 & 4 37
emphasizing especially
the
underlying
humanism of African cultures.
Developed
in the
1930s,
it reverberates still in some
literary
and
political
circles
(Echeruo, 1-14; Kesteloot, 51-58)
despite questions
raised about its
representation
of African cultures.
Negritude espe-
cially promotes
a
literary
aesthetics
that,
among
other
things,
con-
structs an idealized
image
of
lafemme
noire,
"the black woman."
Dark,
beautiful,
regal,
and
unspoiled,
she is canonized in one of
Leopold
Sedar
Senghor's poems,
"Femme noire"
(1984, 16),
written as a
praise
song
to the
beauty
and "naturalness" of the African woman. The arche-
typal femme
noire becomes an
enduring symbol
in a
recurring
double
motif in
Negritude
creative
writings.
On the one
hand,
she is
equated
with mother
earth,
nature at its
purest
without the interference of
human cultures.
Symbolically,
"mother earth"
represents
the
geo-
graphical body
of the African continent: Mother
Africa,
free of
contaminating European
colonization. On the other
hand,
the
femme
noire is contrasted with the
colonizing European
cultures character-
ized as
unnatural,
exploitative,
and
highly
mechanized. Thus
doubly
coded,
it is no wonder
that,
as Mariama Ba so
aptly
observes,
the arche-
typal
African
woman,
a
mother,
is conflated with the
symbolic
Mother
Africa.
Mariama Ba's comments add to the
growing
and
relatively
recent
feminist criticism of
Negritude, especially
its Mother Africa
imagery.
Traditional criticism of
Negritude
has been more
culture-based,
focus-
ing
on the
misrepresentation
and romanticization of African tradi-
tions.1
Senghor,
whose name has become
synonymous
with
Negritude,
is
frequently challenged
as to the
accuracy
and
validity
of his defini-
tion and
representation
of ancient African civilizations in his works.
Conceding
that
"Senghor's theory
of
Negritude
is not
really
a factual
and scientific demonstration of African
personality
and social
organi-
zation,
but rather a
personal interpretation,"
Abiola
Irele,
one of the
more
sympathetic
critics of
Negritude,
concludes,
"an element of
speculation
enters into his ideas"
(1965, 520). However,
none of these
early
critics calls into
question
the
overly
idealist
representation
of the
African woman whom
Negritude places
at the core of its
analysis
of
African traditions.
Apparently
there is no reason
to,
since
Negritude
is
fundamentally
inscribed
in,
and conforms
to,
the
patriarchal
struc-
tures of African societies. Feminist
criticism, however,
focuses on
gen-
der as basic to the
much-debated,
unrealistic cultural
analyses
of
Negritude
and
exposes
its
misrepresentation
of women.
Undoubtedly, by constructing
the
archetypal
African woman as
"mother,"
Negritude
honors and reveres African womanhood
and,
in
fact,
accurately represents
the valued
position
a mother
occupies
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38 Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1 997: 3 & 4
generally
in African cultures.2 The sentiment
expressed
in the Yoruba
iya
ni wura
(mother
is
gold)
is a
significant
form of
mother-apprecia-
tion that exists
variously
in other African cultures.
However,
when con-
fused with Mother
Africa,
the African mother ends
up being
a voiceless
and defenseless
object
of whom
everyone
takes
advantage.
Such is the
fate of Nnu
Ego,
the
misguided
heroine Buchi Emecheta creates to
make the
point
in her
highly
satirical
novel,
The
Joys of
Motherhood.
Instead of
reaping
the
joys
of motherhood as tradition has led her to
believe she
will,
all she harvests is bountiful sorrow and
neglect
from
the
highly
successful children she had
literally
sacrificed herself and
her
sanity
to
give
birth to and raise. Miriam
Tlali,
another African
female
novelist,
unequivocally
states
during
a 1982 interview
that,
"it
is a
problem
when men want to call
you
Mother Africa and
put you
on
a
pedestal,
because then
they
want
you
to
stay
there forever without
asking your opinion
-
and
[they
are]
unhappy
if
you
want to come
down as an
equal
human
being!" (qtd.
in
Schipper
1987, 49).
As a
sym-
bol,
Mother Africa can be a
positive
ideal,3
but in its reincarnation as
the African
mother/ woman,
it is a
grotesque
distortion of what it is
supposed
to idealize.
Ultimately,
the African woman becomes no more
than a
stereotypical
cardboardlike
figure.
She can
be,
and has
been,
flipped
with too much ease
by
her creators from the revered mother
figure
in the "unrealistic"
Negritude writing
to the detested and humil-
iated whore in some
presumably
more "realistic" African literature
(Davies 1986, 3;
Ogundipe-Leslie
1990, 58).
It is no coincidence that
Negritude originates
and manifests itself
most
strongly
in the
Francophone
countries.4 The assimilation
policy
of the French colonial administration that
gives
the colonial
subject,
especially
the
male,
an exclusive education in French culture and
scholarship,
with the
promise
of French
citizenship,
leaves the
Francophone subject
in an
ambiguous
and
compromised position.
Inscribed within French
imperialism,
the
implied supremacy
of French
citizenship
and the
designated inferiority
of the colonized's
original
citizenship
cannot be missed.5
By
the time the "chosen" African
goes
through
the
process
of
becoming
"French,"
/^has become convinced
of the worthlessness of his native culture. When
Senghor
writes a
praise
poem
for those
(Africans)
"who have never invented
anything"
and
privileges
emotion over the
reasoning ability
of Africans in Ce
que
Vhomme
noirapporte
(1939, 292-314),
it is much more than "an element
of
speculation,"
as Irele
suggests.
At
best,
it is indicative of a funda-
mental alienation of the
poet
from the
actuality
of his culture and the
thoroughness
of the assimilation
policy,
or what V. Y Mudimbe calls
the "Western ratio"
(1988, 93ff).
Although Senghor's objective
is to
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Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 & 4 39
vindicate Africa's
compassion
and its
people-centered
cultures,
his
work
unmistakably
echoes the colonialist's
denigration
of African civ-
ilization to
justify colonizing
and
exploiting
the
people
and their
resources. It is within this haze of schism and assimilation that
Negritude
constructs its
image
of an idealized African woman and the
archetypal
Mother Africa.
If in the realm of
symbolism
the woman becomes Mother
Africa,
what then is the man? While the mother is indeed a
powerful figure
in
many
African
cultures,
what
position
is
envisaged
for the man in a
patriarchal
social
system? Incapable
of
motherhood,
men need
another
equally powerful symbol.6
The
biological implication
of the
symbolic
Mother Africa defines the man as a child and
puts
him in a
lower social
hierarchy,
because as the
younger
one,
the "son" must
respect
and defer to "mother"
authority.7
For the
man,
such a
place-
ment contradicts the
implicit gender hierarchy
of
Negritude
and its
patriarchal
construct.
Fortunately,
the confusion with the
symbolic
Mother
Africa,
the violated victim of colonial
imperialism,
also iden-
tifies the African woman as weak and
helpless.
This
imagery signifies
a more
appropriate
and
enabling identity
for the African
man;
he
emerges
as the soldier
liberating
Mother Africa from her violators.
Although
not as
widely
referenced as his "Femme
noire,
"
Senghor's
"A
l'Appel
de la race de Saba"
clearly spells
out the
symbolic
con-
struction of not
just
the woman but of both sexes in
Negritude
aes-
thetics. Written in
response
to Mussolini's invasion of
Ethiopia
in
1936,
the
poem presents
the African man as the soldier
liberating
Mother
Africa.8 Each stanza
begins
with
"Mere,
sois benie"
(Mother,
be
blessed)
-
an invocation of
blessing
on the African continent at her moment of
distress. The
poem
calls on African men to liberate not
just Ethiopia
but Mother Africa from the invasion. Thus
emerges
the total
gender
construct of the African
identity quest
in
Negritude literary
aesthetics:
the male as the
"liberating
soldier,"
and the female as "Mother Africa."9
Having negotiated successfully
both the African
indigenous
and the
alien
colonial,
imperial
worlds,
the African male
emerges
as the natu-
ral
spokesperson
for the new times
unfolding
in his culture. He
becomes the referential "I" of
power
who names others. He is a soldier
of the
liberating army
and his
newly acquired knowledge
is
reconfig-
ured as
Negritude,
the
weapon
to free the continent.
By
contrast,
the
woman who has been
marginalized
from the assimilation
process by
the French colonial
patriarchy
is without the resources to free
herself,
but she becomes the
rallying
force
motivating
her male
compatriot
into
action,
"a
Vappel
de la race. "She is a motivational force constructed
not in the active tense but in the
passive.
"Mother,
be blessed": she
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40 Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1 997: 3&4
receives the
blessing,
she does not
give
it;
she is
defended,
she does
not defend herself. In the
Negritude
construct,
she is the antidote to
colonialism and what it stands
for,
domination and the destruction of
African cultural values.
Therefore,
she must be
kept
"natural" and
pro-
tected from
foreign
contamination so the culture and the
identity
of
Africa remain intact.
Paradoxically,
the
required
"naturalness" of the
archetypal
African
woman does not
imply
that she should be
totally ignorant
of the
impurities
of the world and the
unsavory
side of life
represented by
European
culture and colonization. For like Mother
Africa,
her colo-
nized
symbolic equation,
the African woman would have also been
exposed
to the
corrupting
influence of the
foreign powers.
However,
she
may
know of
it,
understand
it,
but must not become it.
Although
she,
like the
man,
would find
Western-style
education the surest channel
toward this new
way
of
knowing
in a
strange
world,
it is a
weapon
she
must not
acknowledge
or take
advantage
of. As the eternal Mother
Africa/African mother,
the
duty
of the
Negritude
woman is to
preserve
the homestead intact for the return of the
culturally
famished soul of
the man who is
away,
alone in
Europe, assimilating
the mechanisms of
the colonial culture. It is the
only way
she can be "blessed."
Analysis
of So
Long
a Letter as a
Critique
of
Negritude
Within such
politics
of
gender identity,
what kind of culture is the
woman
being
asked to
protect?
Is it the one inscribed
by
the "natural"
patriarchy
of African cultures or the
"corrupting" (colonizing) European
patriarchy
or,
in
fact,
both combined in what has been termed "dou-
ble
patriarchy" (Ajayi
1993, 162).
How indeed does she fit into and
negotiate
each
type
of
patriarchy? Importantly,
who
really
is this arche-
typal
African woman who must be
dignified
and
knowing
but uncor-
rupted
or uninfluenced
by
her
knowledge?
In So
Long
a
Letter,
such a
woman and culture seem to
exist,
not to validate the basis of their exis-
tence in
Negritude
as it first
appears
but to
question
and subvert it.
"Mother
Africa
"
in So
Long
a Letter
Ramatou,
the
protagonist
in the novel So
Long
a Letter1" is a middle-
aged,
middle-class woman whom we encounter as she reaches a deci-
sive crossroads in her life.
Recently
widowed,
Ramatou is confronted
with,
and
agrees
to
participate
in,
one of most intrusive and stressful
demands her culture makes on a woman. As
required,
she observes
the
obligatory forty-day mourning period
in confinement and
performs
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Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 &f 4 41
the mirasse for
Modou,
her deceased husband. The
mirasse,
a Koranic
injunction, "requires
that a dead
person
be
stripped
of his most inti-
mate
secrets;
thus is
exposed
to others what was
carefully
concealed"
(9). Ramatou,
as a devout "Muslim wife" is determined to
explore
the
meaning
of the mirasse to its fullest extent. But a Muslim is also a
human
being
with
feelings;
thus while
writing
Aissatou,
her
friend,
intending only
to inform her of her recent
widowhood,
Ramatou trans-
forms the letter into a
lengthy
examination of her dreams and tribu-
lations. She
literarily opens
her heart and
pours
out her
pain. Through
the
expanded
letter she also extends the boundaries of the mirasse
beyond
its
implied religious scope
to the social
aspect
of the deceased's
life
and,
by
extension,
all those he touched in his lifetime. The
expanded
mirasse11 becomes a means of
stripping
bare her own life and review-
ing
her status as a woman in her
society.
Not
only
does it
provide
the
"cultural framework" for
revealing
the secrets of Modou's
life,
as
Mbye
Cham
argues
(1987, 90-92),
all of
Senegalese
culture is
subjected
to
a
thorough
and critical
soul-searching
examination.
Resourceful,
inspiring, intelligent,
educated, devoted,
beautiful in
her
dignity,
and
silent,
Ramatou cuts the
perfect picture
of
lafemme
noire. Of the various female characters that
populate
the
novel,
she
especially appears
to
uphold
the ideal
image
of Mother Africa. Once
an
independent
free thinker
who,
as a
young girl,
defied restrictive tra-
ditions,
Ramatou matures into an adult life of
compromises.
She tells
her
daughter,
who is about to confront her brother's teacher over
some
injustice:
"Life is an eternal
compromise"
(72).
She learns to
"choose" from what is
expected
of her in the
very
traditions she sets
out as a
teenager
to
challenge. Gradually
she sacrifices her own inter-
ests to become the
signifier
of the
aspirations
of
Modou,
her
husband,
and continues to do so even after his death as she carries out
faithfully
the
required
rites. Thus
despite
her obvious
early exposure
to the
Negritude-signified "impurities"
via
Western-style
education,
Ramatou
still
emerges
"blessed."
Modou sets the
expected
tone for his fiancee while
they
are
engaged.
He writes to Ramatou from France: "You are
my protecting
black
angel.
Would I could
quickly
find
you,
if
only
to hold
your
hand
tightly
so I
may forget hunger
and thirst and loneliness"
(14)
. The tone
of the letter is evocative of
Senghor's
famous
poem
"Femme noire":
Nude
woman,
black woman
I
sing of your fleeting beauty,
a
form
that I
affix
in the Eternal
Before jealous Destiny
reduces
you
to ashes
To
feed
the roots
of life.
Like the
archetypal Negritude
woman,
Ramatou remains homebound
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42 Women 's Studies
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to Mother
Africa,
the source of
inspiration
to Modou
studying
to be a
lawyer
in France. He is the "soldier" who will liberate his "Mother
Africa." True
enough,
he returns to
fight
the
exploitation
of workers
in his
country.
At this
point,
one
pauses
to wonder whom
really
the sol-
dier is
being
asked to liberate since the labor force is male and those
being routinely neglected
are women. He liberates Mother Africa
but not the African mother. No less committed to the same
cause,
Ramatou is
supportive
and endeavors to be the
perfect
nurturer who
provides
a stable home base for her husband and a house
open
to an
endless stream of in-laws. In addition to
working
full time as a
teacher,
she
gives
birth to twelve children
(not
counting
two
miscarriages)
in
a
space
of
twenty-five years!
Notwithstanding
such
exemplary
devotion,
Modou still desires and
does take a second
wife, Binetou,
who is the friend and
age-mate
of his
and Ramatou's
daughter,
Daba. Still in the role of the
perfect Negritude
wife,
Ramatou
accepts
that Islam allows a man to have
up
to four wives.
She receives the news of Modou's
marriage
with a
smiling
face and
keeps
silent,
maintaining
a
dignified
exterior
although
she is
raging
inside. In the
end,
and
obviously flouting
the Islamic
injunction
that
all the wives must be treated
equally,
Modou abandons Ramatou and
their children to set
up
a
separate
home with his
young
wife.
Later,
knowing
full well that the
mourning period
"is a
period
dreaded
by
every Senegalese
woman"
(4),
Ramatou
agrees
to observe the rituals
for a man who has treated her
callously
and
betrayed everything they
once shared. In this
respect
she almost
surpasses
her
symbolic
coun-
terpart:
a "Mother Africa" that remains intact
externally
in its
geo-
graphic entity
while
internally being arbitrarily
carved
up by European
colonialists
during
the famous "scramble for
Africa,"
its natural and
human resources
being exploited
to the maximum. Ramatou's
capac-
ity
for
suffering
almost borders on
masochism,
but to her it
represents
a sense of
duty
and
responsibility:
"I
hope
to
carry
out
my
duties
fully.
My
heart concurs with the demands of
religion.
Reared since child-
hood on their strict
precepts,
I
expect
not to fail"
(8).
The
good
African
woman,
Ramatou also strives to be the
perfect
Muslim wife and
unquestioningly
submits to the
religion's
form of
patriarchy.
Yet,
this
same
woman,
in the
prime
of her
youth,
could not wait to
get
"out of
the
bog
tradition,
superstition,
and custom"
(15).
Thirty years
later
and constructed as Mother
Africa,
she is the
guardian
of these same
traditions. It is even
likely
that Ramatou has become more than sim-
ply
a
"guardian"
and "has internalized a number of
stereotypes
about
women and women's behaviour"
(d'Almeida 1986, 167)
. As a colonized
African,
a
woman,
and a faithful adherent of the Islamic
religion,
she
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Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1 997: 3 &4 43
has had more than her share of domination. It will not be
surprising
in the least if her dreams and sense of self have fizzled under the
patri-
archy
that
simultaneously
informs her
religion
and
culture,
as well as
the
colonizing European
culture.
Ramatou is
very introspective.
With the
exception
of her friend to
whom the "so
long
letter" is addressed
(but
may
not be
mailed),
no
one else knows the basis of her choices or if she is
making any
choices
at all. It is
particularly troubling
that her
options
are after the
fact,
rein-
forcing
the
impression, especially
to other women in the
society,
that
there is
really
no
way
out.
Compared
to
Aissatou,
whose actions leave
no doubt that she
rejects
the status
quo
and demands a new
order,
Ramatou
reacts;
she does not initiate action.
Although
she identifies
and
analyzes
the source and forms of her
oppression,
she does not
make choices that rattle the
system.
Her choices are
compromised.
The
question
is,
could she have done
otherwise,
fully knowing
that
both her culture and
religion
condone
polygamous marriages
for men
and that
Negritude,
in
spite
of its liberation
rhetorics,
does not address
gender-based oppressions?
Viewed
against
this
background,
the
very
nature of her
compromises
becomes the basis for
reexamining
the
"Mother Africa"
symbolism.
Subverting
"Mother
Africa
"
Ramatou's letter- mirasse
begins
with a
striking
introduction to a world
of women. Besides the fact that she is a woman
writing
to another
woman about her
experience
as a
woman,
Ramatou is located in a
female-defined
space.
She is surrounded
by
women
-
her
sister,
her
female
in-laws,
her
young
co-wife,
and her co-wife's mother. On the
surface,
it is a
heartwarming picture
of
solidarity,
for
they
are assem-
bled in
apparent support
of their "sister" in her bereavement. But in
the manner of the
mirasse,
Ramatou
strips
bare this
facade,
revealing
an
unsightly
female
space
full of
petty
and vicious
bickering
and
exploitation
of women
by
women. She
goes beyond
the surface and
reveals that the female-defined
space
is
actually
structured and con-
trolled
by
the
patriarchy,
which even exercises its
authority
from the
grave.
The women are
gathered
not
simply
to mourn a loved male rel-
ative but to exercise and submit to
power
on his behalf. On one side
are the female relatives of the deceased
patriarch,
the
female patriarchs
responsible
for
preparing
his widows for the
obligatory mourning
period;12
on the other are the
widows,
flanked
by
their female relatives.
The
mourning period
is not a
pleasant
moment for
any Senegalese
woman,
because
"beyond
her
possessions
she
gives up
her
personality,
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44 Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 & 4
her
dignity, becoming
a
thing
in the service of the man who has mar-
ried her"
(4).
Thus we have a
broad,
sweeping
introduction to
Senegalese society
and
specifically
to the fate that awaits its female
folks.
Compared
with Mother
Africa,
whose
image
is invoked as the
inspirational
focus in the march towards
democracy,
the
Senegalese
woman stands on
shaky ground.
Through
the semblance of
acquiring
some
authority
for
themselves,
women
actually
exercise
crippling power
over other women. In
effect,
they help
to sustain the
patriarchy
in
power
and further reinforce their
marginalized
status. It is in this sense that
patriarchy
controls women
without
seeming
to. On
many
occasions men are not even
directly
involved in the
day-to-day operation
of the
patriarchy
and the
marginalization
of women. For
example, Aunty
Nabou treats
Aissatou,
her
daughter-in-law, contemptuously
and
subsequently destroys
Aissatou's
marriage
because she does not
belong
to the feudal elite.
Meanwhile,
although Aunty
Nabou herself is a member of the
ruling
elite,
highly intelligent
and with
strong leadership qualities, being
a
woman,
she cannot rule. Such
injustice
does not deter her from main-
taining
the
purity
of the line even if it means
destroying
the
happiness
of another woman. She feels
powerless
and
disgraced
when her son
chooses his wife from a low-caste
goldsmith family.
Ramatou sums
up
Aunty
Nabou 's
feelings:
"what an insult to
her,
before her former co-
wives"
(17). Significantly, Aunty
Nabou's "shame" is not because the
men of her caste will think less of her but because other women will
stand in
judgment
of her.
Although
her other children are
"properly"
married,
they
are
girls
and therefore cannot
give
her the status of a
royal
female
patriarch
that she so much desires.
Aunty
Nabou's
royal
authority
can
only
be
effectively
and
legitimately
exercised if her son
marries
"properly";
that
is,
from within the
royal
line. After
all,
as an
upper-caste
woman,
she
already
has
power
over lower-caste men and
women
and,
since she cannot exercise
power
over
upper-caste
mem-
bers as a
group,
the next best candidates are
upper-caste
women mar-
ried into her
family.
The motivation for
power
is not so different when
Lady-Mother-in-law encourages
her
daughter,
Binetou,
to abandon her
education in order to access a
higher
socioeconomic status
quickly
via
marriage
to Modou. In the
process,
she
destroys
another woman's
(Ramatou's)
home and claims to
happiness.
She also
jeopardizes
her
daughter's
chances of
becoming financially independent
in her
own
right
and
deprives
her of the
ability
to combine forces with her
generation
in the
struggle
for women's
rights
and
autonomy
in the
culture.
Interweaving
the
personal
crises of her characters with the
political,
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Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3&4 45
Ba asks whether the
struggles
for
independence
should not be
applied
to all facets of
life,
private
and
public,
domestic and
political.
The
recurring slogan
for these women's
struggles
for
equality
seems to be
"the
political
is
personal,"
unlike the Western feminist
slogan,
"the
per-
sonal is
political."
In the self- and
nation-revealing
mirasse,
Ramatou
recalls how her formative
years
have been
grounded
in democratic
ideals. In her school
days,
she and her circle of friends were deter-
mined to create a better future in which
they
would not be
prisoners
to blind
superstitions.
As the
country
stands
poised
to throw off the
shackles of colonial
domination,
the
young
idealists,
along
with the
men of their
generation,
are
eager
to
apply
the
general concepts
of
democracy
to both their
private
and
public
actions. Ramatou over-
comes traditions and her mother's
objections
to
marry
Modou,
a
strug-
gling
student,
rather than
Dieng
whom her mother
prefers. Dieng
fits
the traditional
image
of a serious and mature suitor much better: He
duly approaches
the
marriage proposal through
Ramatou's
parents
and,
already
established in his
profession,
seems
ready
to assume the
responsibilities
of
raising
a
family.
Mowdo,
a
prince,
deals a mortal blow
to feudal
oppression by marrying
Aissatou from the
virtually segregated
caste of
ude,
the smith
profession.
Similar ideals are
pursued
in the
characters'
professional
lives. As a
lawyer,
Modou commits himself to
fighting
the cause of workers and refuses to take a
better-paying job.
Even the conservative
Dieng gets
bitten later
by
the
bug
of idealism and
abandons his lucrative medical
practice
to become
actively
involved in
the
political
administration of the
newly independent country.
Unfortunately,
these
promising
democratic manifestations are short-
lived and do not have the
opportunity
to attain full
maturity.
It seems
the
fledging
democratic nationalism is
reconfigured midway
to
exclude
gender democracy
and become
repressively patriarchal.
Too
many
of the men
dominating
the
public/political sphere
are
guilty
of
perpetuating oppression
in their
private
lives. While Modou
fights
the
cause of
oppressed
workers and tries to raise the consciousness of this
group,
he remains insensitive to the needs of his wife and children.
He
shamelessly exploits
the
poverty
of Binetou's
family
and the naivete
of a
young girl
dazzled
by power
and wealth to boost his
ego.
A
sym-
pathetic
Ramatou describes Binetou as "a lamb
slaughtered
on the
altar of affluence"
(39).
A
champion
of the
underdog
(men
in the
labor
force),
Modou
enjoys patriarchal perks
from the
underprivileged
female class. His
polygamous marriage
to Binetou is
justified
on the
grounds
that it is sanctioned both
by
Islamic
religious
and
Senegalese
cultural
practices.
It is within his
capacity
as a
patriarch
that he can
mortgage
the house that both he and Ramatou
paid
for without her
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46 Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 & 4
knowledge.
Would Ramatou have been able to do the same without
the consent of her husband?
Absolutely
not. Under a
barrage
of feu-
dal, colonial,
and Islamic
laws,
women have no such
rights.
Even the
adopted
French civil code that aims to
protect
the wife from the cul-
turally
and
religiously
sanctioned extended
family's
claim to a
couple's
property grants
the husband the ultimate
guardianship
to their
joint
property
(Lewis 1977, 179).
In fact it is the same French
patriarchy
that facilitates Modou's second
marriage
when it
provides
him with
the
opportunity
of the French educational
system
denied Binetou's
parents.
Meanwhile,
Dieng,
who claims to be
working
toward
equal oppor-
tunities for women at the
government
level
(in
the National
Assembly)
,
sees no contradiction in
asking
the widowed Ramatou to
be his second wife. He is
unwilling
to
accept
the
platonic friendship
she offers him. It is all or
nothing,
he insists. In a dramatic case of
regression,
Mowdo
capitulates
to the feudalistic ideals of his mother
and breaks
up
his
marriage
to Aissatou when he marries the
upper-
caste
girl
his mother
grooms
for him.
If,
as he
suggests,
men
lapse
into
such
regressions
because of their
nature,
does it mean women do not
have
feelings?
Or is it that men are less human on account of their
inability
to control their "animal" nature and
obey
the laws
they
have
set
up? Perhaps
a more
appropriate question
to ask
is,
in whose inter-
ests are the laws enacted?
Just
as the Mother Africa
concept
elevates women but
only
as a
process by
which men become
self-realized,
the women of So
Long
a
Letter exercise
power
on men's behalf.
Ultimately,
these women find
themselves
constantly undermining
themselves and each other in
order to access the most minimal forms of
power.
With women
being
repeatedly
limited and
limiting
themselves to
positions
of
powerless-
ness,
what kind of
independence
can
they,
as Mother
Africa,
inspire
in a
newly independent
nation? To
begin
to fulfill her role even under
this
problematic
construct,
a mother
figure
needs some measure of
self-respect
and self-confidence.
Unfortunately,
the state that sanc-
tions and
promotes
this
symbolism
fails to
guarantee citizenship rights
for women. Situated within this
context,
Ramatou becomes the sub-
versive
counterpart
of her
model,
Mother
Africa/African
mother. This
subversive construct raises
questions
about
gender hierarchy
and the
oppression
of women that the
original
model never
thought
of ask-
ing
-
and in the
process proposes
a different aesthetics of nationalist
identity.
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Women s Studies
Quarterly
1997: 3 & 4 47
Conclusion: A Nationalist Feminist Aesthetics
The novel So
Long
a Letter
performs
a
thorough
mirasse on
Negritude,
stripping
bare its romantic notion of African cultures and women's
position
and
identity
in them. Given the
significance, prominence,
and
longevity
of
Negritude among
other liberation theories seeded in anti-
imperialist struggles,
this is not an
easy
task.
Being
a woman-identified
construct makes the novel
suspect;
it is assumed that since feminist aes-
thetics
questions
their
structuring patriarchy,
the novel must be
against
national liberation movements.
Furthermore,
the novel's feminist
per-
spectives
links it with the
agenda
of Western women and makes the
writer
guilty by
association. Femi
Ojo-Ade's
criticism of the novel is
pointedly representative
of this kind of
thinking:
The
[women]
writers that we have studied dwell too much
upon
the
malady
of male
chauvinism,
a
phenomenon
that,
in its most famous
aspect,
is no less a Western
way
than the notions of feminism
espoused by
some female writers.
Blackness,
Africanness ... is almost
foreign
to others who have let the
questions
of male domination
blind them to the
necessary solidarity
between man and woman.
(76)
No
doubt,
Ramatou and Aissatou wonder about the
solidarity
between
themselves and their
respective
husbands. In addition to
giving
the
women the
ability
to choose the course of their own
lives,
So
Long
a
Letter indicts the
society
that leaves them with a
string
of
compromises
that are
very
much to their own detriment. Thus Ba is able to
capture
accurately
the dilemma
facing contemporary
African women
caught
in a
society
straddled between a tenacious
past
and an indeterminate
present,
a
society absolutely
uncertain about the role it wants to ascribe
to its womenfolk.
Ba
castigates
the
Negritude
ideal of womanhood
by creating
its twin-
image
in the character of Ramatou but then situates her in a
multiple
context where she is forced to reexamine herself and
question
her
actions as she faces different circumstances and has to interact with
other women and
men,
especially Negritude
men. In other
words,
the
generic
African woman becomes a real
person capable
of
action,
thought,
and emotion. She is no
longer
a one-dimensional cardboard
character. Ba's "African woman" is
specific,
not
archetypal;
nor is her
situation
generic.
She situates her characters
variously
in the com-
plexities
that
shape
their
experiences,
inform their
actions,
and define
their individual identities. Ba demonstrates that there is no
single
or
formulaic model of African womanhood. As a
counterpoint
to the
compromising
Ramatou,
there is the radical
Aissatou;
Daba's confidence
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48 Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 &4
is contrasted with Binetou's
insecurity; Aunty
Nabou's
marriage
schemes are
juxtaposed
with
Lady-Mother-in-law's;
and there are dif-
ferent
types
of female
patriarchs.
Even the men are
variously depicted,
from the
liberation-promising
"soldiers" who fall
by
the
wayside
to the
older warriors
trying
to find
meaning
in a
fast-changing
world
-
from
the
opportunistic
Tasmir to the
quietly dignified
Aissatou's father.
Ramatou's feminist
gestures
are full of
compromises
even within the
system
that
oppresses
her and other women. Ba herself is aware of the
problematics
of Ramatou's
compromises
within a
global
context of
feminism and
briefly explores
a more radical version
through
the
actions of the absent Aissatou. It is
significant
that Ramatou is aware
of international feminism and
important
that she still holds
dialogue
with the
uncompromising
Aissatou. Aware of the limitations of her
course of
action,
Ramatou concedes: "I know the field of our
gains
is
unstable,
the retention of
conquests;
social constraints are ever-
present,
and male
egoism persists. My
reflections determine
my
atti-
tude to the
problems
of life"
(88)
. She makes the
point
that aside from
the
basic,
common
objectives
of feminism to end the
oppression, pow-
erlessness,
and
patriarchal exploitation
of
women,
each feminism must
identify,
define,
and
adopt strategies
of resistance within its cultural
confines.
By revisioning
the
Negritude
female,
Ba articulates a feminist aes-
thetics that is rooted in the
protagonist's
cultural
experience.
As a sub-
versive construct of the
original,
Ramatou is able to raise issues that
still resonate with the fundamentals of the
Negritude concept,
the
issues of a
people's identity,
and the
dignity
of a
people's
freedom and
rights.
However,
by centering
these
questions specifically
on a female
identity
and on the construction of
womanhood,
Ba offers a feminist
aesthetics which
exposes
a serious flaw in the
Negritude politics
of lib-
eration and delivers a
pungent
criticism of the undemocratic ideals
the mother
symbolism
embodies. Ramatou's
quest
for
gender equal-
ity,
fulfillment,
and
happiness
are
integrated
within the structures of
her
society.
So
Long
a Letter advocates feminism without
dismissing
the
specificity
of the African
experience
or the different
aspects
that con-
stitute a
people's
culture. It is a feminism that combines the
quest
for
African
identity
with
personal independence,
a
responsible
individu-
alism committed to a
responsive collectivity.
It
supports
self-fulfillment
but not
self-centeredness;
celebrates
motherhood,
but not as the
flag
of
identity.
Whatever
compromises
this
type
of feminism makes with
its base
culture,
it demands that it be
responsive
to the
changes taking
place
in the world around it. It calls for the
empowerment
of and
equal
opportunities
for women.
Importantly,
this feminism contends that
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Women 's Studies
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1 997: 3 & 4 49
since men and women make
up society,
feminist concerns should be
integrated
within nationalist constructions.
Significantly,
Ramatou's
last words are:
I remain
persuaded
of the inevitable and
necessary complementarity
of man and woman. . . . The nation is made
up
of all the
families,
rich and
poor,
united or
separated,
aware or unaware. The success
of a nation therefore
depends inevitably
on the
family. (88-89)
NOTES
1. For
example,
none of the numerous
Negritude
critics cited in Rand
Bishop's African
Literature,
African
Critics
(1988)
thought
there was
any-
thing
"unrealistic" about
Negritude
's
representation
of women. Needless
to
say,
all the critics are men and there is no evidence that there was a
female critic
during
the
period (1947-1966)
that
Bishop's study
covered.
2. Several African male writers
especially
ascribe
primal positions
of honor
to their mothers in their
autobiographies
or in
barely disguised
autobio-
graphical
works.
Examples
include Camara
Laye's
The Black Child and
Ezekiel
Mphahlele's
Down Second Avenue.
3. For a
positive,
if
restrictive,
delineation of motherhood as a critical
para-
meter in African
literature,
see Wilfred
Cartey's Whispers from
a Continent
(1969)
. Kenneth Little's The
Sociology of
Urban Women's
Image
in
African
Literature
(1980)
offers a
copious sampling
of the more
negative images
of women in African literature.
4. Its
founding
fathers,
Aime
Cesaire,
Leon
Damas,
and
Leopold
Sedar
Senghor
are all from
Francophone
countries in the Caribbean Islands
and West Africa. Most followers of the
Negritude
school are also from
Francophone
countries.
Senghor,
from
Senegal
in West
Africa,
popular-
ized
Negritude
a
great
deal both as a creative aesthetic and
political phi-
losophy
when he became the
president
of his
country.
5.
By
contrast,
the British colonial
policy
of "indirect rule" makes no such
offer of
citizenship.
This difference in colonial administration
policies
between the
Francophone
and the
Anglophone
is most
likely responsible
for the
poor reception Negritude got
in
Anglophone
countries. It
may
be
argued
that the indirect rule
policy
allowed the
Anglophones
to remain
somewhat more in touch with their cultures than their
Francophone
counterparts.
This is not to
say,
however,
that the
Negritude concept
remains
rigidly
locked within the former colonial divide.
Negritude
has
several vocal
Anglophone supporters
as well as
Francophone
detractors.
6. In his
study, Sory
Camara
(1976, 51-55)
discusses how the ancient Mande
patriarchy
solved this
biological
limitation
through
a cultural institution
called
fadenya
and
by using
social
systems
such as
hunting,
circumcision,
and
polygamy
to
symbolize
male motherhood.
7. It is common
practice
for the child to defer to the
authority
of the
parent
irrespective
of
gender.
In
my gender
research in West Africa in
particular,
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50 Women 's Studies
Quarterly
1 997: 3 & 4
"age hierarchy" frequently supersedes
the male
supremacy
of
"gender
hierarchy.
"
8. In addition to
referring
to the African
continent,
according
to Irele the same
phrase
invokes the
poet's
mother
(1977, 107).
See also
Sylvia Washington
Ba,
The
Concept ofNegritude
in the Poems
of Leopold
Sedar
Senghor (1973)
and
Christopher
Miller's
analysis
of
Senghor's
"Femme noire" in Theories
of
the
Africans
(1990, 258).
9. The two
images correspond,
of
course,
to some of the actual sexual divi-
sion of labor in most cultures
(in
fact this
mother/soldier
division is sus-
piciously
close to the
image
of the
knight
in
shining
armor
going
to the
rescue of the damsel in distress in Western
literature). However,
the colo-
nial condition redefines and intensifies the African situation. For exam-
ple,
the colonial demand for African male labor meant African women
had to assume a number of
traditionally
male
responsibilities (see
Courville
1994, 37;
Ake
1981, 45-63),
but the
patriarchal hierarchy
denied
them
any corresponding authority.
In the context
ofNegritude
aesthet-
ics,
the artistic
metaphor
becomes even more
rigid
than it is in real life.
10. Mariama
Ba,
So
Long
a
Letter,
translated
by Modupe
Bode-Thomas
(
1981
)
.
Subsequent quotations
will be made from this edition.
11. In his
article,
"Contemporary Society
and the Female
Imagination," Mbye
Cham offers an additional dimension to the
significance
of the
mirasse,
which he
says
is "the notion of inheritance laid out in the
chapter
on
women in the
Holy Qur'an."
This view
obviously
embraces a civic dimen-
sion of the mirasse.
12. The term "female
patriarchs" applies
to women who exercise
patriarchal
rights
and
privileges
over women married to their male relations.
Although
in their own husbands'
families,
they
have to submit to the
patriarchal
privileges
of their husbands' female relatives. Tsitsi
Dangarembga
uses
this term in her novel Nervous Conditions. Other terms used are the
Igbo's
"daughters
of the land" and the Yoruba's
playful
oho
mi,
"my
husband."
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Omofolabo Ajayi
is associate
professor
at the
University of
Kansas, Lawrence,
Kansas. She has a
joint appointment
in the
department of
theater and
film
and
in the women's studies
program.
Her research and
publications focus
on liter-
ature and theater in
Africa
and the
African diaspora
with
emphasis
on women 's
writing.
A
choreographer,
she has also
published
articles on that
subject
and
has a book
forthcoming
on Yoruba dance.
Copyright
1997
by Omofolabo Ajayi.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions