JENDA: A JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND AFRICAN WOMEN STUDIES ISSN: 1530-5686 Issue 8 (2006)

Ismail Bala Garba

Abstract

With the potent weapon of feminism and other eclectic theoretical considerations, Udu Yakubu (2001:152-167) castigates Nigerian women writers—Alkali inclusive— for failing to reconstruct women’s sexuality, in what he calls an overwhelming atmosphere of real freedom and gender equality, while Anthonia Yakubu (1996:115-122) sees Alkali’s women characters, especially, as essentially incomplete. Over the years Alkali fiercely resists being labelled a feminist, seeing it as simply deceptive, while revealing herself as merely a writer, who just happens to write about women. This paper, seeks to re-appraise Alkali’s The Still Born (1984) in the light of this feminist onslaught, and her resistance of it. It concludes, from a reconsideration of feminist theory and how Alkali’s novel is caught in it, that Alkali fails to solve the contradiction raised in the book. The paper as such upholds the feminist critique of the book as failing short of even Alkali’s much-vaunted intention.

Introduction

Kassam (1997) argues that not much has been known about writings in English from northern Nigeria until quite recently. Indeed, very recently as far as the criticism of Nigerian literature in English expression is concerned. The `little` that is known centres on the works of male writers. It follows then that very little is known about female writings, with the possible exception of Zaynab Alkali, who is among the most prominent women writers in northern Nigeria (Amali 1999: 69, Ibrahim 2002:277, Ojinmah and Egya 2005). Alkali’s debut novel aroused a high level of interest and the attendant polemic, not only for its being written out of an essentially female aesthetics and specific cultural experience and the milieu which affects it; but for the simple fact that it was written by a northern Nigerian woman. Alkali’s book was written in a physical, sexual/textual environment, which many would like to consider as a literary vacuum, (especially in terms of literature of English expression). But we should not necessarily assume that a woman’s writing which draws from and emphasises on “female experiences” is solely feminist; for, in the words of Michelle Berret “it is not possible to conceive of a feminist art that could be detached from a shared experience of oppression” (1986:163).

As many other African societies, northern Nigeria is still a highly patriarchal society in which women are somewhat “excluded” from literary and other cultural and political activities; while at the same time there is the popular assumption that women are supposedly the custodians of culture (Adeghe 1995:118; Kassam 1997: 117).

The most pervasive, dominant and even more recognisable voice (as some would say) in the 'cacophony' of African literary practice is that of male writers. And the dominance of male writers results in stereotypical representations of women as either object or metaphor, as mother, wife, mistress, earth goddess or even as whore; suggesting a deliberate bias often upheld by critics that are gender sensitive. But a different, divergent course is that charted by African women’s fiction, based on the assumption that the 'right' treatment of the female subject is best achieved from within the women and delivered in a textuality informed by the writers’ experiences, which is essentially different from that of the real outsiders—the male writers. A note of warning should be sounded here: Arguing for the existence of a distinctively woman literary tradition is not to assume that there is a necessarily homogenous concern that run through the works of African women writers. As this will not stand the test of criticism, say deconstructive for instance, which argues that textuality could not have arisen out of a particular set of interpretative, theoretical and ideological conditions. The treatment of the female subject that African women writers seek to achieve and their scathing, incessant criticism of male-written texts are not, however, tantamount to attempting to uncover and lay bare what a (male-authored) text hides.

Zaynab Alkali and the feminist label

Zaynab Alkali belongs to those African women writers that fervently decry the condition of women (Bhadmus 2005, Egya 2006a, Egya 2006b, and Dakata, 2005a and 2005b). Through their works, these female writers—and there are so many of them now—seek to change women’s position in their societies. They are in tandem with the struggle to affect a meaningful change to the values unjustly attributed to women, and the ways in which they (women) are represented (Sougou 2000:1-3). It is the struggle that is called the feminist project, which involves commitment to issues affecting women and other wider social concerns. It would mean, in the words of Omolara Ogundipe:

Delineating the experience of women as women, telling what it is to be a woman, destroying male stereotypes of women. But many African women writers like to declare that they are not feminist, as if it were a crime to be a feminist. . . . Yet, nothing could be more feminist than the writings of these women writers in their concern for and deep understanding of the experience and fates of women in society (1989:10-11).

However, it should not be assumed that African women writers have control on language, or what Derrida would call “linguistic stability”. A reading, especially a feminist reading, of The Still Born and indeed of any text, of any genre, involves, as it were, an invariable concern with the factors outside the ambience of the text, which may inter-relate with other elements inside the text. This is not a concern, as it may appear to be, with the Leavisite criticism’s imbrication and problematization of socio-historical context, strictly speaking. Zaynab Alkali has always questioned feminism as a viable means, a platform ample enough, to champion women’s cause. In an interview with Quality magazine she remarks that certain women have used this feminist issue to shout themselves hoarse about certain ideas. . . . [They] use the feminist movement to get back at men. So you have this feminist thing which is one big cover where people give their own interpretation to what it is. Up till now, nobody has come up with a definite definition of what feminist movement is. So they are all deceptive (cited in Amali, 1999:72). Having said this, she goes on to deny being out to write a feminist text:

I remember somebody writing me [sic] from London, when I was writing The Still Born, asking me to change the end so that Li doesn’t go back to her husband. I told her that Li is not a feminist, and that as far as I am concerned, I wasn’t creating a feminist character (ibid).

The contested subscription to feminism or not will not inhabit a feminist reading of Alkali’s text, even in the face of the argument popularised by the critic Ian Watt (2001) that in a feminist text there is no correspondence, in other words no relationship, between the text and reality, (the social environment) which it imitates or writes about and is based upon. Alkali may not be attracted to feminism as she always claims, but she is afflicted by what is referred to as “female affiliation” used to identify the problem which women writers face when they write. Whether to identify themselves with a male or female tradition of writing; if there is the acceptance of the existence of such a tradition. Therefore, a reading of The Still Born would employ the term “feminism” as simply a frame of reference of reading used in order to avoid reading the text as male authored.

One could perhaps give the simple definition that Alkali demands as simply that the tradition of women’s writing is one of feminist writing, as Mary Eagleton would argue. But it is commonplace that not all women’s writing is synonymous with feminist inspired/centred writing; because, according Rosalind Coward, feminism is nothing more than a turn: a cusp of political interest which may or may not be embraced by all women writers. But she is quick to point that “feminism can never be the product of identity of women’s experiences and interests—there is no such unity” (1980:63).

This does not mean relying here on the author’s intention; rather, the idea is to raise questions through an examination of the authorial intention. And this is for the simple fact that books imbued with the most definitive, laudable motives can turn out to be utterly unconvincing; while those from writers with no known inclination to feminism can be read and prove to be fertile ground for feminist criticism. For, in the last analysis, books, which are centred, on women do not in themselves became feminist texts just because they are prized open with feminist theory. It is precisely the readers/critics reading of them that makes the event, the “frame of reference”, rather than the specificity of the work feminist.

Alkali’s “Stillborning”

The Still Born (like Alkali’s other works such as The Virtuous Woman [1986], The Descendants [2005], or even the short stories collection, Cobwebs and Other Stories [1997]) is preoccupied with the plight of women in a society where their only means of survival—physical and emotional—is to attain considerable level of education and economic independence. The whirlwind of interlocking conflicts in the novel is represented through the portrayals of the main characters. Li, by far the most important of the characters, symbolises the need for change in women’s lives in northern Nigeria where they happened to be. Her spirit of changing the status quo leads her into bitter encounters with the more conservative, uncompromising elements strongly embodied in both her father and grandfather.

True to type, Li’s father, Baba, wishes to confine his daughter to the safety of their home, and restricts her spirit of adventure. This, in turn portrays her vivacity towards freedom and the shedding off of the yoke of tradition, while her grand father is the very epitome of all the traditions that Li tries to scuttle. As such, a battle line is drawn which does not, in any way, mean that Li is merely opposing tradition and therefore her parents. Far from that: Li is only resisting and rebelling against it; against some of the traditions that are in conflict with her quest for freedom. For modes of resistance in literature, ăla Keshia Nicole Abraham is ambiguous: it means different things to different people, leading into different actions, and strategies each of which is developed in a given socio-historical context (1999:8). And it is in this that Alkali excels in her attempt to underscore this quest for freedom by women, especially by those of a generation ever keen and eager to achieve a decent measure of recognition that comes with freedom, be it social or political. This is seen in the interlocked “stories” of the book: each of which is episodic, and each having Li’s life in its different level of experience as its focal point, which in turn portends to what Kassam calls “the complex threads of societal relationships” (1997:120).

Therefore at a certain level, the novel is also the story of an unnamed village, (that though apparently situated in north-eastern Nigeria, could pass off as any village in the country). As a village girl, Li dreams of the city as palliative of her confrontation with her parents; because Li sees her village as an embodiment of her father’s tyrannical rule (Abodunrin 1990: 45). It is, according to Li “worse than a prison” (p.3). For the city represents an idea worth attaining to, a paradise:

She was dreaming of a paradise called the 'city'. A place where she would have an easy life, free from slimy calabashes and evil-smelling goats. She looked down at her coarse hands and feet. One of these days she would be a different woman with painted nails and silky shining hair (pp. 55).

Living in the city is synonymous with being free from the various restrictions of tradition and the drudgery of rural life. Li wishes also to be economically independent, (“she was going to be a successful Grade 1 teacher” [pp. 55]); a thing that appears far-fetched as it is seemingly impossible, given the social institutions in the village. This hankering for the city could, as it were, could be linked to the need for transformation. And as Okereke (1996) argues the woman’s transformation is triggered by a utopian look at a society. In most feminist works, the woman creates this utopianism through which she transform into rebel against her society (Opara, 1990).

In order to realise her dreams; Li marries her fiancée, Habu Adams, who, later in the novel betrays her by abandoning her in the village, only to marry another wife. Li’s version of freedom, as say, against that of her parents, is severely affected when in her further attempts at self-realisation she moves in with her husband to the city; who in turn prefers a “city wife” by maltreating her. She (Li) returns home on hearing the news of her father’s illness, and finds him dead. But the pain of her failed marriage—and that of her friend, Faku—appears far greater than the loss of her father. The same affliction affects both of them; their quest for freedom leads them into a cul-de-sac of suffering and disappointment. Li realises that she even fares better than her friend when she “had felt much colder and lonely, but here was someone who, “she sensed, felt much colder and lonelier” (pp. 79). Li reaches a critical point in her life, a turning point when her search for freedom assumes a firmer determination, fuelled by a newfound spirit of self-reliance.

It is this spirit of self-reliance that enables Li to successfully complete her studies and forgets her so-called marriage to Habu, despite his botched entreaties to woo her back. This represents a height of achievement: the culmination of her dreams. Alkali tacitly underscores Li’s independence by her refusal to go back to her matrimonial home. But she is careful not to blame the sacred institution of marriage, which may not be inherently 'bad' and problematic, yet seems so in the ways in which its practitioners, especially men like Habu Adams conduct it. Habu Adams then is less successful than Li, perhaps as a punishment: the much-anticipated nemesis for maltreating her, as a result of which he “becomes a salesman instead of a doctor” (pp. 57).

With her education, economic independence and the death of her father, Li is ironically successful which enables her to assume a position of leadership in the family by becoming “the man of the house”. It is a position that is ambivalent as Kassam argues: “The ambivalence of this act of 'social acceptance' is obvious, for Li has been re-generated and accommodated officially as a man, neutralized as a rebellious and exceptional woman” (1997:121).

The ambivalence is heightened when Li realises further that there is an emotional void in her life despite her so-called success:

Li ought to have felt fulfilled, but instead she felt empty. It wasn’t just the emptiness of bereavement, but an emptiness that went beyond that. For ten years she had struggled towards certain goals. Now, having accomplished these goals, she wished there was something else to struggle for. For that was the only way life could be meaningful (pp. 102).

This meaning is nothing more than her former husband, Habu Adams, for Li finds out “that the bond that had tied her to [him] . . . was not ruptured” (pp. 104-5), especially with Shuwa, her daughter, now 10 years old. Therefore she returns to the city and seeks to revive her marriage on an equal term. Following the involvement of her husband in an accident, Li returns with the intention of helping Habu regain “the will to live.”. Her intention presupposes a complete divorce from the romantic illusion she once had of a fulfilled life with her husband; now helping him and demonstrating her capacity for achievement in the face of cultural restrictions and economic dependence that comes with marriage.

Wiser, determined and undefeated in the end, though not unstigmatized, Li is revealed in the words of Koraye as a “model of the heroic and truly liberated woman” (1989:50). But this seeming happy ending, as Koraye wants us to believe, does not hold in the face of Alkali’s failure to fully resolve the contradictions of Li’s action. The contradictions, as feminists would want us to agree, arise because Alkali’s book is a personal book, which as Patricia Bell-Scott cautions “is being/has always been a dangerous activity, because it allows [Alkali] the freedom to define everything on [her] own terms” (1994: 18, original italics). Therefore, one is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to accept Li’s astute re-definition of the status quo. A feminist reading may tend to see it as probably a deliberate “subversion or self-silencing of assertive womanhood” (Kassam 1997: 121), which is not synonymous with the imposition of a single linear meaning on the book, unlike in Alkali’s other novel The Virtuous Woman (1987), which is even more positive in its depiction and resolution of the women’s condition.

Conclusion

A combination of misfortune, (the failure of Li’s marriage; the death of her father), and hard work, (completion of her studies) contributes to Li’s success. Her idea of stuffing the ensuing hollowness in her life is to go back to her husband; thereby vitiating her newly found freedom and vanquishing the spirit of self-realisation. Since marriage, at least in northern Nigeria as in the milieu of the text, presupposes the fulfilment and recognition of certain cultural conditions on the wife to be imposed by the husband, Li has not come to learn any thing despite her experience and her rebelling. In other words, this paper argues that Li’s suffering comes to nought despite her apparent achievements. Just like Omolola Ladele opines, at the most critical moment of her life when she etches into maturity, Li bungles, “at that point of emotional liberation, at the moment of triumph; Li prevaricates out of mere sentimentality and all her achievements indeed become STILL BORN” (1988:330, original emphasis). Perhaps it could be said that in the process of presenting themselves in their fiction, African women writers end up representing themselves, because of the assumption of difference between the representer and the represented as Alkali shows here.

Li, who Alkali wants us to believe is just a woman who is not a feminist, is, in the last analysis, a woman who fails to either make meaning of her womanhood, or understand what is happening round her. Therefore like this paper tries to show, and as Anthonia Yakubu would say Li’s life is “incomplete.”

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Citation Format:

Ismail Bala Garba. “’Of Real Freedom and Gender Equality’: A Re-Appraisal of Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn” JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: Issue 8, 2006.

Copyright © 2006 Africa Resource Center, Inc.