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 Dr Azaveli Feza Lwaitama,
As we commemorate Women’s Day, it is important to reflect on the big picture which is that African women suffer two oppressions. They suffer as women, but they also suffer as part of an oppressed people, who, in centuries past and not so past, have been enslaved and, at one point, were shipped off in chains to be landed on plantations that their slave masters had stolen from yet other indigenous peoples of so-called newly discovered lands.
This fate befell these African peoples because they were caught unawares. The low levels of development of their productive forces were taken advantage of by foreign visitors who were unscrupulous.
These visitors, however, had fairly high material prowess, in terms of the means of production and destruction. It was also a point in the his/herstory of the peoples of Africa when practices smacking of chauvinism across clan and gender divisions had been allowed to run amok.
This may have contributed to the weakening of social solidarity across clan and gender lines, resulting in various forms of internal disunity, thus rendering them incapable of defending their birthrights against foreign invasions.
These African peoples were pitted against the material and moral strength of those who had then just been newly united around Euro-centric or Arabo-centric national identities. These were national identities which were also given a moral boost by being able to present themselves as agents of moral uprightness reflecting on fairly common religious identities scripted around Christian or Muslim sacred texts and beliefs.
No wonder, when the military and spiritual forces of those who had fairly strong national and religious identities, coupled with the possession of guns and cannons, were pitted against the forces of those who had not then developed fairly strong national and religious identities, coupled with their puny possessions of bows, arrows and spears, those with strong national and religious identities, with cannons and guns, almost walked over those who did not then have these physical and spiritual assets.
This was an unequal battle pitting those with the steam engine and the printing press against those with bare muscles and, granted, wise storytellers. Africans were simply defeated and they had to regroup and start all over again. From then on, both African men and African women became slaves.
Later on, under colonialism and neo-colonialism, the suffering was made more subtle – one was still a slave but one was encouraged to feel to be free.
It has taken time for Africans to recognise their continued enslavement and seek to regroup.But the internal disunity on clan and gender lines continues to place obstacles in the struggle to unify all the progressive forces with a stake in the true liberation of Africa.
The underlying reason for the persistence of internal disunity among African peoples is the continuation of age-old and new forms of chauvinism and egotism expressed at clan and gender levels. In many African communities such chauvinism has not withered away merely because of the commonly experienced colonial and neo-colonial oppression.
On the contrary, one continues to observe many instances of acts of oppression and humiliation meted out against African women by African men, both on the African continent and in the Diaspora. Many of these African men rationalise their male chauvinism by claiming to be observing African traditions and customs.
Africa’s true liberation crucially lies in successfully struggling against this male chauvinism masquerading as the defence of African traditions and customs. The earlier phase of African liberation struggles saw how women played a critical role in building unity across clans, so-called tribes and even races.
The his/herstory of Tanganyika and later Tanzania may have been the worse off for it if it had not been for the steadfast patriotic/matriotic contributions to the building of national unity by women fighters, such as the late Bibi Titi Mohamed, the late Lucy Lameck and the late Sofia Kawawa.
As Tanzania approaches the forthcoming elections, critical thinking suggests that special seats for women must be abolished while at the same time making sure that parliamentary constituencies are not increased in order to achieve the proposed 50 per cent target of seats held by women in the next Parliament. Rather, all political parties must be obliged to nominate women candidates to compete with each other in the existing constituencies.
Chauvinist male voters must in this case be confronted with the prospect of only choosing from a list female competitors in 50 per cent of the constituencies. Such constituencies, with only female candidates to choose from, will thereafter rotate every five or ten years.
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