Blog 4 – Whither (the fight for) Freedom?

Contemporary questions around the veil discuss whether that is a reflection of her suppression or of her autonomy, and how the veil is a backward religious symbol, perpetuating dangerous notions of patriarchy and religious oppression. These ideas were also present as the French attempted to extend their cultural and political domination over colonized Algeria. Fanon highlights how the attempts by the colonized to suppress the local veiling tradition, made the colonized more intransigent in this regard. This brings to doubt the utility that the freedom struggle could bring to the women, and the level of emancipation it could truly have for them. Under colonization, the women of Algeria were trapped between two extremes, none of which truly constituted freedom. For one could assume that the French cared less for their empowerment, and intended more to employ those women as a means upending Algerian culture.  French attempts at forcing the unveiling of women, whether through direct or indirect means, were precisely that: they deprived the women of their own agency to choose a particular lifestyle for themselves.  Rather, it brought them into the unsolicited gaze of the French man such as the employer who wished to see the results of the program of cultural imposition.

What then is our definition of freedom? Were the women who then abandoned the veil to enter into European territory free from the previous cultural imposition of the veil? Given that they were only permitted to unveil themselves for the liberation struggle, one is doubtful if this constituted actual freedom. They once again had to chain themselves to the struggle mainly lead by men, who laid stronger claims to the struggle because they spent years in imprisonment. Were they equal partners in achieving this freedom or was their feminine identity used as a prop and a vehicle?

A similar dilemma is brought to the fore in Kenyatta’s piece where he defends the practice of Female Genital Mutilation as imperative to their local cultural identity. The Kenyan people eventually obtained freedom, but the continuing prevalence of FGM reflects how the women of Kenya remained subservient to cultural practices that were reinforced by those leading the liberation struggle. What further deprived them of their agency in both cases was the fact that the burden of preserving their entire cultural heritage seemed to be placed squarely on the shoulders of their women. This had long-lasting impacts as even after liberation, culture remained at the forefront of postcolonial political discourse, particularly as a means of drawing attention away from the tangible problems on the ground. Women were forced to limit their choices to that, which in the eyes of the patriarchy, did not undermine their cultural struggle.   This suggests that the struggle in and of itself was inhibiting and damaged women’s agency. Even as they clamoured for freedom for the country, freedom for the woman was nowhere to be seen.