Finding a Voice

In making a claim for women's agency within the academy, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz writes, “those feminist authors who most successfully argue from a personal point of view are typically making a simultaneous claim that their lives are revealing about some larger, if not universal, truths.” Her examples are principally women of color, and she goes on to argue that “feminism, then, has opened up the space for the personal voice in scholarship; it has also pushed white feminists, in particular, to get beyond focusing on asserted similarities between women, to change our courses and our research to reflect the diversity of women's experiences.” Chilla Bulbeck, for example, suggests that “Feminists who resist orientalism … wish to put the means of recourse into the hands of women, but not white women. We seek to abjure dichotomies that divide ‘us’ and ‘them’ into incommensurable categories; we wish to avoid maternalism and speaking ‘for’ other women,” because to do so would confirm a stereotype of them as simply passive victims.

At the same time, in important anthologies, like Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader and Teresa de Lauretis's Feminist Studies, Critical Studies, the special demands made by readers of autobiographies written by women are laid bare and, in many cases, offered as examples not only of an unequal playing field but also, perhaps more productively, as occasions for a redefinition of the genre. Writing in 1986, Nancy K. Miller asks, “On what grounds can we remodel the relations of a female subject to the social text?” and she responds that “future feminist intervention requires an ironic manipulation of the semiotics of performance and production.” In this chapter, I would like to suggest that such “manipulation” can take unexpected and challenging forms when enacted by an African woman who has migrated from her community of birth, and that the challenge is not only to men. Such hermeneutical conundrums move beyond issues of gender to those of race and class, especially when the autobiographer is not a Westerner, and when she is writing about the country of her birth but doing so beyond the borders of that country.

In his well-received Desiring Arabs (2007), Joseph A. Massad extends the argument made by his mentor, Edward Said, in Orientalism (1978) that documents how orientalist writing was dehumanising and racist – an analysis of colonial discourse that postcolonial theorists have extended far beyond the Arab world. But Massad also broadens Michel Foucault's history of sexuality to demonstrate how colonial systems helped (mis)shape internalised conceptions of sexuality throughout the postcolonial world. He presents a wide array of Arabic writing from the nineteenth century to show the changes in the understanding of sexual practice that were influenced by European values, and in the process criticises the West for what amounts to a system of bait-and-switch: imposing Victorian standards on what had been stereotyped by them as the licentious Orient, and then in our time amassing their cultural troops to condemn what they now view as a sexually backward postcolony that needs ‘civilising’ yet again. Rayyan Al-Shawaf summarises Massad's approach as follows (and one might reasonably substitute the word ‘African’ for ‘Arab’ in this description, as I will argue in what follows):

Many others who are interested in postcolonial theory as it intersects with gender analysis can appreciate Massad's sensitivities (see, for example, Hawley Postcolonial, Queer and Postcolonial and Queer Theories) without agreeing with his politics, particularly in the arena of LGBTQ futures in Africa.

Chantal Zabus begins her interesting study by noting that she hopes to do for Sub-Saharan Africa what Jarrod Hayes, in Queer Nations (2000), did for the Maghreb: that is, to demonstrate that ‘the African Continent has always been more queer than generally acknowledged’ (1). Her study attempts this task in six broadly historical chapters.

In the first, ‘Anthropological Wormholes: From Pederasts to Female Husbands’, Zabus provides ‘cautionary tales around the instabilities and at times the inappropriateness of terminology around Sub-Saharan African same-sex relations’ (16). Although expressions and phrases describing same-sex activities appear in at least 50 Sub-Saharan African languages, these are not procrustean in their designations; and although imported words like ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘queer’, are employed, they ‘come with a hurtling conglomerate of indigenous and other designations and their corollary practices’ (16). Zabus further notes that ‘the imported words are not always understood or are construed differently’ (16), so that non-Africans must tread cautiously when encountering terms that they might consider comfortingly accessible. Naming a thing does not make it so, and Zabus exposes ‘discourse-as-event’ while showing that ‘relationships such as those between female husbands and their partners and between boy-wives and their boss-boys in various Sub-Saharan African societies reach back to ancestral nexuses prior to the European colonization of Africa’ (50) – before, as Marc Epprecht argues, ‘Europeans introduced homophobia, not homosexuality, to Africa’ (20).

The second chapter, ‘The Text that Dare not Speak its Name: Forging Male Colonial Intimacies’, tries with some success to imply an implicit shifting (emerging) of agency in colonised subjects through same-sex relations with the European, unequal though it basically remained. She notes that ‘in the second half of the nineteenth century, a true cult developed [in European writing] around brotherly companionship and the overall buddiness of mateship’ (53). She briefly notes Roger Casement's Black Diaries (not fully available till 1997), but focuses principally on Julien Viaud (aka Pierre Loti) and his notion of ‘situational homosexuality’ (61), and Henry Morton Stanley's My Kalulu, Prince, King and Slave: A Story of Central Africa (1873), suggesting Stanley's bisexuality. Along the way, Zabus demonstrates ‘the gradual shift [in European writing] from a discourse about the ‘act’ of sodomy to ‘the homosexual’, from a rhetoric of ‘vice’ to the identity politics of same-sex behaviour’ (65).

These two volumes are conceived as companion pieces, composed of essays written by African scholars and others, and seeking to fill what the editors conceive to have been a gap in the study of a nexus of subjects that has received very little academic attention: homosexuality, politics, and public religion (especially Christianity). They hope the high percentage of African scholars contributing essays will counter the observation from some Africans that the whole subject is part of a Western-driven agenda. Chitando and van Klinken see homosexuality as an issue of human rights and public health. They acknowledge, on the one hand, studies by Murray and Roscoe (1998), Epprecht (2004), and Morgan and Wieringa (2005) that show how long-standing African toleration of same-sex intimacies have not necessarily completely correlated to Western designations, and on the other hand, note studies by Ekine and Abbas (2013), Snadfort et al. (2015), and Tamale (2011) that demonstrate how, in recent times, ‘Western discourses and concepts of homosexuality, LGBTI identities and queer politics have been introduced to African contexts, and to a considerable extent have been adopted by local sexual minority communities and activists’ (Public 9). They leave it to individual authors to enter this debate as they see fit, while agreeing with Sylvia Tamale that there is little point in reinventing the wheel if there are Western concepts or names that, with some tweaking, will do well enough as conversational starting points.

The Public Religion volume explores Christian (mostly Pentecostal), Islamic, and Rastafari contexts. The editors suggest that traditional African religions have contributed less directly to the politics of homosexuality. The first section, ‘The Politicisation of Homosexuality’, examines that topic by looking at case studies from Uganda and Nigeria, and their new legislation, focusing on Pentecostalism in Uganda and the joint mobilisation of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria to work against homosexuality. Another chapter in this section looks at Egypt, where recent fatwas encourage the growth in attacks on homosexuals. A chapter deals with Zimbabwe and Mugabe's use of religious fervour to bolster his political standing. A chapter on Kenya records how Muslims overlook ‘the traditions of same-sex sexuality in coastal Muslim communities’ (11) possibly because they consider themselves marginalised from Christian-dominated politics in the country.

In 1992 HilaryKilpatrick remarked that ‘twenty years ago the Arabic novelwas regarded as practically synonymous with the Egyptiannovel’ (‘The Egyptian Novel from Zaynab to 1980’: 223).Though novel production had by 1992 become firmly rooted inmost Arab countries the ‘relatively longer history of thegenre’ in Egypt ‘enable[d] its different stages ofdevelopment to be distinguished and studied more easily thanis the case in countries where it has had a life of only twoor three decades’. Judging from several recent novels, a newstage in that development is taking place. The DemocracySpring, or ‘the Arab Spring’, that stretched roughly fromDecember 2010 to mid-2012 and seemed to cross many bordersalmost at the same time has unsurprisingly become apersistent focus for Egyptian novelists, and they areoffering the most cohesive set of responses to thatstartling turn in contemporary Arab history. Their creativespectrum of reflections on the initial hopes and ultimatedisillusionment range from ongoing defiance and hope, to aresigned acceptance, echoing Alphonse Karr's infamous quip:‘plus ça change, plus c'est la mêmechose’. Formalistically this range of responseshas expressed itself in self-deprecating wit, demonstrablein Nael Eltoukhy's Women of Karantina;surrealist abstraction and universalist imagery in BasmaAbdel Aziz's The Queue; a despairingdystopic vision of a relentlessly brutal future in MohammedRabie's Otared; and a personalphilosophical reflection on the nature of change and stasis,in Yasmine El Rashidi's Chronicle of a LastSummer. Only when such very different works areread together can one appreciate the complex psychologicalupheaval that is very much alive in Egyptian – and Arabic –society. For these writers, time itself becomes a centralcharacter, suggesting authors who seek in their craft anominal agency over a series of traumas that remain beyondpersonal control. El Rashidi is most traditional, creating aprotagonist writing as a memoirist who remembers herchildhood and traces her history up to the present.

The Circle of Reason

The Story

When he is eight, “Alu” comes to sleepy Lalpukur from Calcutta to live with his uncle Balaram and aunt Toru-debi. He had been given his nickname by his phrenologist uncle, since his large head looked something like a potato and portended an interesting future – at least, so his uncle thought. His parents had recently died in a car accident. Even though Balaram and his brother had been long-estranged, Balaram and Toru-debi decide to take in Alu and raise him, since they had no children of their own. Alu soon displays an amazing ability to pick up various languages. Yet, in one of the many paradoxes that run through the novel, he rarely speaks at all. When at fourteen the boy stops attending school, Balaram, the supposed scientist, surprises everyone by encouraging the boy to take up weaving. Alu begins by taking lessons from Shombhu-Debnath, a master weaver. Alu seems a gifted child, just as Balaram had predicted: not only is he good at languages (that he doesn't use), but now he also surpasses his teacher in weaving.

The Circle of Reason

• Considering the book's title, how might reason be seen as a central topic in the book? What are its strengths and appeal in today's world, and its limitations as portrayed in the novel? Circularity also plays a large thematic role, contrasted to Bhudeb Roy's strict linear logic. Which appears to be more powerful? More helpful?

• How is chance a factor in the plot? Does it have “significance,” or is it merely serendipity?

• How does traditional Indian literature play a part in the book? How does Ghosh use connotations from this earlier writing to enhance his themes?

• Demonstrate the use of magic realism in the book. How helpful would you say these devices are in support of Ghosh's themes? How would you compare them to Salman Rushdie's writing, or to any of the Central and South American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez who frequently use similar techniques?

• Is Jyoti Das a necessary character?

• How would you characterise the portrayal of women in this book?

• Discuss the clash of traditional and modern value systems in the book.

• Does the direction of the flight/quest – westward – have any implications for the theme of this book? What is being sought by the various characters? How successful is each in this quest?

• Is the book hopeful? Humanistic?

• Does the book show evidence of being a first novel?

In An Antique Land

The Story

Ghosh begins his account in Lataifa, the little Egyptian village where he stationed himself as an Oxford University graduate student in anthropology. Doctor Aly Issa; a professor at the University of Alexandria, has brought Ghosh to the home of Abu-'Ali, and it is there that he rents a room during his stay in Egypt. Ghosh does not especially relish living there, since Abu-'Ali, in his mid-fifties, is a somewhat overbearing small-businessman. In fact, Ghosh describes him as “profoundly unlovable” (23), but recognises him as someone who prompts a rather fearful respect from the villagers. After a while, Dr. Issa arranges for Ghosh to move out of Lataifa to Nashawy, a larger town.

Another of the major players in the village is Shaikh Musa, also in his mid-fifties, who runs a government-subsidised shop for retailing essential commodities at controlled prices. Ahmed and Jabir are his sons; Sakkina, their age, is Shaikh Musa's second wife (as Ghosh awkwardly discovers). She is the daughter of Ustaz (“teacher”) Mustapha; and is Abu-'Ali's great grand-niece. The names begin to proliferate; and the reader begins to experience the disorientation that must have been Ghosh's, as well. As things develop, Mustapha – and a good many other people – seems to be interested in converting Ghosh to Islam.

If the first quote reminds us of the joy Amitav Ghosh takes in telling his interlocking stories; the second striking quote underscores the sense of vocation that he brings to the task. We must note, first of all, that writing is a career he chose after, or in the course of, an academic career as a trained anthropologist with a doctorate from a good school. If his novels and essays show strong evidence of that anthropological training – in their careful observation of their characters, surroundings, and history; their implied comparative sweep of cultures and eras; their implied philosophical investigation of what it means to be a human being – they just as strongly show the novelist's delight in narrative, in character development, in themes and symbols and the other stylistic devices that might seem extraneous to strict academic investigation. In short, Ghosh ties his wagon to imagination, and especially to stories. The second quote, though, forcefully suggests that he retains the anthropologist's dedication to “remembering” stories that otherwise slip from consciousness and from recorded history.