This is Why You Should Tell Your Story

I, being late to the game as I now often am, watched 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation' last night. It has the usual dearth of women and people of colour that you would expect from a Hollywood blockbuster, but that's not the point of this.

There is a scene in which Ethan Hunt confronts the villain, Lane(?), with a question about how he went from good guy to bad guy. "You killed so many innocent people on orders without asking why, because you believed you were doing it for the right reasons," or something along those lines. There's another scene involving Elsa(?) with a similar question about the rightness or wrongness of the side they were fighting on. In fact, thinking about it now, I just realised that the whole film runs on a theme about the fluidity of 'rightness', depending on who is in control of the narrative.

This Woman is Becoming

This evening my heart is breaking and swelling, all at once, for myself and for women like me. There is a burden that I can't place or name, but it is so, so real. 

I am thinking about self-love of the radical variety, the kind that allows me to strip myself and accept myself, to break down this person that I have been told I must be to be worthy, and to become the woman I will be proud of dying as.

I am thinking about love for my sisters - African women, single mothers, lonely women, women who have tamed their voices so long they don't remember the sound, women carrying trauma because they don't know how to set it down, motherless women, shamed women, lost women. I am thinking about women like me, who are desperate for better because somehow we know there is more. The knowing is in our bones, in our feet, in our song. We know there is more. 

I am thinking about my daughter and the boldness of her spirit, the way her heart breaks for me when she sees my sadness, the way she loves herself so completely that my own sadness can not take away her joy, the generosity with which she heals me with kisses, the streak of defiance that makes her stand up to me - the streak I know I have somewhere but can't always find. I am thinking of her way in this world and the ways in which her identities will shape her and bend her, and I am worrying about the ways it may break her.

I am thinking about the work that we have ahead. There is so much building to be done; it is exhausting that we have to spend all this time tearing down what is already there, what is trying to kill us. When will it be time for rejoicing? When will the load be lighter? When will the leaves of the trees planted by our mothers and our mothers' mothers be lush and abundant enough for us all to sit under their shade?

I am burdened with a grief I don't understand, and a fury too. There is so much building to be done, and yet the people who shore up the systems that must be destroyed before we can build are too numerous to count, too powerful to ignore, too content with the status quo.

A lot of the time I want to scream.

There is not enough of me to go around. And yet, I must find a way to become enough. I must find a way to become this woman who will water the tree and plant fresh seeds and clear a path for our daughters and sisters and mothers to do the rejoicing we have been denied so long.

There is a calling on my spirit tonight. 'Hasten the time, sister. Hasten the time.'

I am not enough, but I will become so.

Gender Justice, Intersectionality and What My Feminism Means to Me

That title is a bit heavy-sounding, I realise (and probably a little misleading, as this post will not be the meaty 5000-word essay a title like that would lead one to expect), but I was having a conversation with my colleagues yesterday, and it helped to solidify a lot of things I've only been aware of peripherally in my own journey as a gender justice advocate.

It was announced that Chimamanda Adichie is in the running for a Grammy this Sunday, thanks to the excerpt of her 'We Should All Be Feminists' speech that Beyonce featured in 'Flawless***', and this news sparked an interesting debate about feminism in the African(?) context.

One of my coworkers insisted that feminism is a 'Western' import and has no real relevance here, implying that African feminists are mindlessly replicating a struggle that has no bearing on our lives. I found that incredibly difficult to stomach, because apart from his ahistorical analysis which 'proved' that African women are not oppressed (on the basis of matrilineal inheritance laws that may or may not apply in some communities and events like the Aba women's riots), he persisted in saying that women in African societies are empowered, despite hearing testimony from the mostly female group about how our lived experiences prove the exact opposite.

It was interesting to see how, despite real people providing real evidence to this intelligent person, he refused to even acknowledge that  he could be wrong. His worldview and intellectual position on a matter which he was not an authority on (based on the absence of either any real research or lived experience) were more important than the actual reality; it was easier, safer, I will even argue, to hold on to the comfortable and familiar delusion of a world where women of African descent are safe and happy, than to engage with the reality as presented by actual women of African descent.

An interaction on twitter yesterday between Rosie O'Donnell and Lauren Chief Elk ran along similar, albeit more violent lines; Lauren asked Rosie to pose critical questions to a guest billed to come on her show, Eve Ensler. Eve is a prominent White feminist whose work has been critiqued over the years by marginalised women; women of color, trans women and female children have been harmed by the erasure and exploitation that characterises Ensler's activism (see a Google search of 'critiques of Eve Ensler' here).

Rosie's response was violent, disproportionate and racist: she dismissed the (legitimate) questions as being a 'cruel attack', used images of herself with Black girls to 'prove' that she was not racist (as if proximity equals respectful engagement), used a racist slur on Lauren, and even said that she and/or Eve Ensler, both of whom are rich, White, cis-gendered women, have 'done more for women of colour than any woman of colour'.

Needless to say, I was genuinely horrified by her behaviour. But as I thought about it, I realised the parallels between her 'rationale' and my colleague's: We all have biases and prejudices that prop up our worldview which determine whose voice we consider valid/valuable, as well as determining which narratives we dismiss whenever they conflict with our constructed perception of reality. It is my theory that the more privilege one has in an oppressive system, the stronger the effect of these biases on one's ability to reason and to adapt one's ideas upon receiving new information.

I used to get angry with people like my colleague and Rosie, but there are way too many of them in the world. Shit gets exhausting, fam. Now I just use this knowledge to check myself. Oppression is rarely a linear thing; there are intersecting sliding scales of oppression and privilege, depending on the context of any interaction within the system.

Despite being an areligious dark-skinned, unwed African mother uninvested in performing femininity and living on the continent (which therefore places me quite low on the 'value' scale in the neo-colonial capitalist patriarchy that holds sway in most 'Third World' regions and in the White supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the West), I still have privilege based on my status as educated, middle-class, cis-gendered, and urban. There are many, many, many struggles that I can not identify with and in many cases am not even aware of, because they are simply not my story.

Yet, the fact that something is not my story does not invalidate that story, nor does it make it untrue. Gender activism in my region is far from being inclusive (I have many theories as to why this is, but this post is way too long already), and the only truly transformative way we can progress in fighting for 'women's rights' (notice how in activist-speak, 'women' generally means straight and cis-gendered females), the only way we can effectively intervene in the issues affecting marginalised groups that are not like those of us privileged to have the education, resources and platforms that enable us to call ourselves activists, is to share our platform, de-center ourselves when we purport to be allies, and amplify the voices of these groups rather than claiming to speak for them.

In summary, it is vital to listen. Even when it is uncomfortable, we must. Even when it challenges our ideas and shifts what we perceive as 'reality', we must. Progress for some marginalised groups is not progress for all (mainstream White feminists and Real Housewives of the Nigerian NGO, I'm looking at you). We must discard the ridiculous notion that oppression is a binary of powerful and not powerful, and that everyone is always and forever either one or the other. And we must leave no oppressed person behind. This is what my feminism, as an African woman, demands.

What does your activism demand?

#BBOG: I Have Too Many Feelings But That's Okay

It has been 267 days since the Chibok girls were taken. Since then, the only ones who have returned home are the ones who escaped on their own. It has been apparent pretty much from day one that the government doesn't care, and now the parents of the girls are looking for help elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram has continued to kidnap, forcefully recruit and terrorise people in Borno state. (See timeline of attacks here). There has been plenty of effort by activists, organisers and the politically-minded to keep the situation in the North-East on our minds, and I have immense respect for Oby Ezekwesili whose unflagging effort has sustained the #BringBackOurGirls campaign all this time. There are also efforts like the Testimonial Archive Project and BBOG Nigeria (their twitter is here) recording stories, providing updates, and keeping the fight alive.

It is easy to feel inadequate in the overall scheme of things, especially in the face of an issue as massive, complex and mind-boggling as the continued, practically unchecked existence of a group like Boko Haram. I have too many feelings about Nigeria and how it continues to fail its citizens, generally and specifically with regard to the BH situation, and so I decided late last year to commit to writing something every month about Borno state, the girls of Chibok, the victims of Boko Haram; that whole situation. It really doesn't feel like much of anything, but I honestly don't know what else I can do besides this. We must keep talking about this. Something has to be done.

This is the tumblr where I will be posting my pieces. I plan to share other relevant work as well, and I will gladly take submissions. I have already put up one poem there (I don't know how to upload audio on Blogger, sorry - I did try to post it here for those who'd rather not have to click over). It's called 'A Mother's Words for the Chibok Girls' and you can probably hear me getting emotional during the reading, but that's because I am emotional about this matter. I have a daughter. I can not imagine what those parents are going through. Reports say that eleven of them have passed on since the kidnapping, and I won't be surprised if they simply couldn't go on hoping. I can't imagine their pain, and I can't imagine them having to feel that way for the rest of their lives. This is why I'm doing this project. I never want to be able to stop my heart from breaking over the horrible things we humans put one another through.

Please spread the word about this project. For those of us unable to wield anything other than the pen, we must hope that it is indeed mightier than the sword in this case.

Peace, love and light to you all.

PS: The words of the poem are below.

#BringBackOurGirls

Is anyone even looking anymore?

What is this thing that we are asking for?

Awa.

Maryam

Rhoda

Rikatu

Esther

Saraya

Magret

Maimuna

You started that trek nine months ago

by now your feet are surely 

too tired

to trace the path

back to safety

and what is that?

How do you catch a word like that

and tuck it into your mouth

when two hundred and sixty-seven repeats 

of a night horrible past comprehending

separate you from it?

Maryamu

Hauwa

Amina

Glory

Moda

Dorcas

Baraya

Comfort

What is it that we are asking for, bring back our girls

as if they were stolen from their beds

to be carried preciously 

by rapers and stealers

religious killers

who want that we but ask politely

please, would you kindly

bring back our girls?

We thought it was a fight we were starting,

We thought everyone knew you were deserving

of your own lives

We thought our voices would sound

a war cry

It was not meant to be a plea

Nor a desperate broken whisper

fading like the memory of 

the sound of your laughter

Fibi

Patient

Rose

Yagana

Naomi

Rahila

Lugina

Filo

Tabitha

Our girls' beds are cold and wet

with the tears of mothers whose arms ache

with the memory of holding them safe

Please, if only for their sake

bring our babies home.

we miss them

we are afraid for them

You mustn’t let murderers keep them

please let us fix them.

Hajara

Lugwa

Kauna

Lydia

Hannatu

Bolomi

Falmata

Mairama

Nine months is a long time -

if you were a bride borne gently into the night

your womb might be empty again

And the child you bore would be

your heart living far enough outside your body

that someone could take her away

just far enough

to keep you and your hope 

faintly alive.

we hope they are alive

we hope they hear us calling out their names,

if only faintly,

We hope their hearts are not as broken 

as their bodies must be

we hope they remember that

there is love waiting for them here

We hope

that someone will #BringBackOurGirls.

Fatima

Nguba

Ruth

Rebecca

Rejoice

Grace

Hadiza

Noami

You were once children whose dreams set your eyes alight

are there any stars left in them?

We are keeping a light on for when you are brought home.