Sir Fatty,
Since you know the reason for the delay, I will not waste any more of your
time. With the energy you have put into this issue, I am withdrawing my
statement of sending you into exile for one more time .But I will have to tell
you that I have gone beyond this level of Afro centrism in dealing with
African history. I would rather lent my ears to Lalo Kebba Drammeh to a more
reasoning narration of our common history than wasting my time in confronting
white racism on such an issue. Secondly I will not start from where you took
off, since this will mean to defend the distortions of some of the things I
said earlier. History is the work of life human beings and the condition of
our mothers and sisters for over 400 years is a fact of real life and not that
of an African Queen who existed from or before BC.Prince Charles is not the
head of the royal family in Great Britain, it is still the Queen, to call this
a triumphant in the empowering of Women will be a nonsense, this you will have
no problem of agreeing with me.
This is the very reason why when we talk of "historical perspective"
we are not talking of records of history in an empirical manner, which you
have been very busy doing, what we meant was the dialectical development of
the mass movement itself, in another word, the subjective and the objective
development of the movement from one stage to another, through, among other
things, contradictions. You did not seem to understand this and this has been
the main problem of your response to my last piece and before you realise it,
you wasted much of your time in diving into contradictions.
Precisely, because when I did try to explain that the resistant of Gambian
women from male/Society oppression have moved from just composing songs and
story telling (an unorganised form of resistant) to a more concrete thing, as
they are now (With the many women organisation) you take this to be a
stagnation of women struggle. For more that 400 years of our history, we have
never had an organised women organisation as we have today.
Again, when you even attack white racism in recording the history of Africa
you end up doing the same, I will tell you why later. You told us to take heed
to the word "Universal", to be very frank, I was reading through with much
patient, with a mind that you will start to understand what I was trying to
say, but you started talking of Karl Marx, which I found very irrelevant to
the discussion, not only that you distorted the meaning of the "Universal" but
the whole idea of Marx in the Man/Woman relationship. Marx never saw only to
the European society as the basis of his analysis of the primitive form of
human relationship and listen;
"…it was not only, the populist, Mikhailovsky, who tried to attribute to Marx
the marking of "The Historical Tendency of capitalist Accumulation" into
universal for all human development. As we showed, Marx had written a very
sharp critique of Mekhailovsky's article. Post-Marx Marxists, however,
continue to express similar views to Mikhalovsky's and to base themselves on
the Editions of Volume 1 of Capital" WLDR (RD)
Did you see your self here? And further down in your article one will find you
confusing the ideas of Marx to that of Engel, most likely because you don't
know of the existents of Marx's view on the question of the matricahecal
societies as presented in his many unknown material as the "ethnological
notebooks". Engels work on "The origin of the Family" was based on the the
works of Morgan and it was on the basis of this work that he made his
conclution, Even though Marx believed that "Ancient Societies" was a great
work, his conclusion on the study of this work differ from that of the author
and even Engel's don't find it necessary to go in to details here but just to
show that you are wrong to insist that Marx works was euro-centrist and or
made his conclusions to be "Universal".
My challenge to you would be on the basis of the fact that the down fall
of the Martichal societies that existed in some of the African societies was
not brought to end by only external forces. You see Sir, when we are
discussing Anta Jobe, we should do it with the understanding that his work was
one based against the racist explanation of the development of African
history. Without such an understanding we will be misusing the work of this
great thinker. But when one differ in ideas with this great thinker, it will
not even be on this assertion that;
" Matriarchy must not be confused with the reign of the African Amazons or
that of the Gorgons.Those legendary regimes in which women allegedly dominated
man were characterized by a technique intended to debase the male…." TAOC
(p145)
But on the very facts he presented as the "matriarchal proper". Because, among
other things, historical facts tells us also that even in " matriarchal
proper" societies, there were evidences that shows that limitations existed,
he (Jobe) never insisted that Matriarchal societies that existed in certain
African societies by then were unique, so even where as Marx insisted that the
Iroquois women did enjoy more freedom than women in the civilised world, he
wasted no time in putting forward the limitations involved in these societies,
he wrote;
"…. The women allowed expressing their wishes and opinions through an orator
of their own selections. Decision given by the council. Unanimity was a
fundamental law of its action among the Iroquois…." RLWMMP (p182)
But where do we go from here. If Anta Jobe insists that the position of the
women in the Matriarchal system was due to their economic power, in my
opinion, it should be logical that there were limitation, which might have
been the bases for the contradictions that existed in those societies, but no
this is what he wrote;
"The matriarchal system proper is characterised by the collaboration and
harmonious flowering of both sexes, and by a certain prominence of women in
society, due originally to the economic conditions, but accepted and even
defended by men" TOC (p145)
I beg to disagree with this great thinker, if we have women, and in their
large numbers too, defending a semi feudal, capitalistic, fascist oppression
of Gambian women and society, I see no reason why it should not happen in any
other form of society that is not based on the equality of men both in terms
of economic, social and political.
If you think that it will take a man to wait for an European or and Arab
invader to resist against the economic dominance of women in a any given
society at any given time of history then you must be seriously mistaking.
But let us move to your other points. You wrote;
"You have also stated that you are of the "opinion that Lang Binta Samateh is
not significant to the status of women." If that is the case, why are we
discussing the historical contribution of women in The Gambia or Africa
today? It is just like saying that an African name is not significant to an
African or black person named Benjamin or Yousupha. Or saying that there is
no significance for us to speak and write in our language. The significance
of this statement is a manifestation of how disempowered African women are
today. It is very significant with regard to the historical contribution of
women in African societies. Take note of it because the historical reasons
will be shown later"
I will not take you seriously on this point. Had you known the time I have
spent in collecting typical Gambian names through this forum you would have
had another conclution. What I have said was that and still mean to say is,
Lang Binta Fatty has been used and still in use for the purpose of
identification and not necessary that it is a remnant of the past Matriarchal
society. We leaved in a society where men do get married to more than one
woman and being a patrichal society one father could be the "father" of all
the children in the clan or the family. That is to say, you become
automatically the father also of the children of your brother and both you and
your brother could have a child with the same name in the same house or
compound, to identify these children, they do refer to the mother and not you
the farther. What relation has this to women liberation or given a child a
Gambian name or a written African language's have given you another examples
which sounds more logic in tracing the matrimonial linage system in our
society, the Wulli example. Wassa only two people in my family are constantly
referred to through the name of my mother, but not the rest of us. Do you know
the reason? I believed that the reason is, these two people have a name that
is very, very common within the Samateh clan in Badibu and these two names
are; Kebba and Samateh-Nding.Should I explain more?
See here you go again, listen to your self;
"Finally, before moving further, I would like to point out that your theories
on this issue is too shallow and simplistic. One thing you failed to realize
is that human history is a catalogue of unequal developments and for that
matter; societies did not emerged uniformly to follow the same pattern of
development. There were fundamental differences in structures, worldviews or
philosophy and production relations among others. What therefore happened in
one human patch or society in a remote corner of the world, does not
necessarily mean that it was a universal reality and applicable to all other
human societies. This idea of universality came into force as a result of
European conquest and cultural hegemony over non- European societies. Take
note of universality, I shall come back to it. Now let's go back to the main
issue and discuss the historical contribution of African women and the
evolution of male oppression in Africa."
It would have been interesting for you to state where in my article did I
refer to world history as one and the same. But I can see your confusion here
too, are you talking of individual States, societies or empires or are you
talking of Africa as a country, this is what racist historian do, unless your
"Universal" is misinterpreted here. But see what you wrote;
"The
Queen at the time, Cleopatra, committed suicide rather than betray Africans
to the Roman invaders.
The worldview of Africans from the classical period to the era
of the Arab and European interventions of the 7th century AD onwards into
Africa was centered on the sacredness of the woman, as manifested in
production relations. This worldview enhanced the internal dynamic and
independent development of African societies."
Egypt/Ethiopia becomes Africa and Rome becomes Rome and not Europe, who is now
treating African past and reality as an entity. I can sense an Afro centrist
way of dealing with African past and reality, which should now be a thing of
the past and I have reach the same conclusion as Fanon did for more than 40
years ago. To even believe that because we had a "Queen" in Egpt/Ethopia with
so much power angered European/Aran chauvinist to invade the continent is a
falsification of history. There were times when advanced and evil
empires/States/Societies exist side by side in the continent, if racist White
historian wasted much of their time in talking about the evil
societies/States/Societies that existed in the Continent and refused to see
the wonderful human development that were taking place in other
societies/States/Societies in the continent, should not give us the liberty to
use the same method because this will not be in the interest of the struggle
we are involved in or whish to involve in, but systematically forced us to be
on the defensive, we have no time for this. Why should even a white racist you
read your piece should not be of the notion that African history, culture and
people are of the same?
Afro centrism is narrow nationalism, it could be understood under certain
circumstances, more so in the racist environment some of us are surrounded
with, but it could never solve our need for a theory of liberation, you can
end up glorifying even the oppressor or that which is oppressive
unconsciously. With the 4000 years of historical narration you have made here,
the only Africa that existed in your piece is the continent that has been
oppressed and destroyed by only Arab and White intruders until after
independence, this is not serious.
In conclution, the struggle for the empowering of Women, is not the same as a
struggle for a Martriarchal society, not even your Matriarchal African society
you presented in your piece, the empowering of Women should lead to the
uprooting of the semi feudal, chavinist and capitalist society we are living
under today, to a new form of human relationship without any form of
oppression or exploitation and equality between all.
For Freedom
Saiks
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