What Freedom, if any?

While addressing the question of freedom, and the ways in which it is often denied, limited and extorted when it comes to women in different contexts, I will be highlighting certain interesting arguments put forth by Jomo Kenyatta and Frantz Fanon to begin with. Kenyatta explains the process of clitoridectomy and genital circumcision by stating that this practice is one which symbolizes the entire basis of tribal organization, and hence holds paramount importance. Similarly, while referring to the veil, Frantz Fanon states that it is clothes which most directly illustrate the customs and traditions of a specific culture and are thus its most stark representation. He goes on to add that in the same token, it is the white veil that the Algerian woman wears to cover her body which “characterizes Arab society”. It is amusing that the acts that are imposed upon women are attributed such critical importance. This is so because the same practices which make women the repository of a country or regions culture simultaneously take away from them any possibility of making choices or decisions as individuals, or even groups, which may be beneficial to them instead of serving a ‘greater’ purpose in society. The model of society that I am referring to in this case is one which first and foremost, looks after the strategic interests of men, as it has undisputedly been controlled by men.

Fanon says that this white veil is one which has come to assume the “feminine component of society”; alluding to the fact that this veil and the function it serves is what has come to define the Algerian woman. This veil is also described as “uniform” and one that has not traditionally been allowed any variation. The veil, to me, seems like an accurate depiction of what it is like when certain ideals and notions are imposed by an external body, upon a passive force which is not expected to react. This presumption coupled with directed efforts made to assure such passivity is the very reason why the veil can exist as a uniform cloth. One that is not expected to be subject to change as a result of resistance or reaction.

Fanon outlines the ways in which the European’s focused their efforts on the “dehumanized” Algerian woman, making her a focal point in the campaign towards colonizing Algeria’s culture. Emphasis was put on bringing the Algerian woman out of the dark and giving her an active, functional role in Algeria. This new role was one which brought the Algerian woman to the forefront. Now that the Algerian woman was no longer cloaked, the colonizer could completely and thoroughly control her. It seems to me that the Algerian woman was being “saved” from the repression of her indigenous culture only to be subjected to a more modern and ‘civil’ form of objectification and oppression. Fanon sees this conversion in the role of the woman as one which threatened to destroy the fundamental tenants of the culture that the Algerian man believed in. European men hence had now taken on the responsibility of lifting Algerian women out of the darkness which had consumed their lives (behind the veil) and bringing them into the light of what Western civilization stood for. This mainly being movement, mobility and freedom.

However, who does the freedom that these women were ‘granted’ really belong to? In the works of Fanon and Kenyatta I see an apparent struggle between denouncing the seemingly ‘liberal’ values that the West held, in regard to women, only to justify traditionally regressive practices that women had been subjected to. If it is European men or African men who are burdening themselves with the tough responsibility of making decisions regarding the role that women may or may not have the right to assume, can any ounce of the freedom which is attained as a result really belong to the women themselves? The freedom, or the lack of freedom that is argued for and debated about, is not being expressed by the woman herself in either of these passages. Can we then even begin to scratch the surface of the limitations that these women were actually facing during the time of colonialism? If women are not the ones who are negotiating the parameters of the freedom they have or have not been given, can this freedom even be regarded as one which is experienced by them?

Lastly, Fanon states that “it is the white man who creates the Negro, but it is the negro who creates negritude”. While reading these passages, I could not help but wonder, if it is also the white man and the African men who create a particular conception of the Third World woman, what does she create? Or more importantly, what is she allowed to create? I cannot answer the question of what freedom or who’s freedom satisfactorily, but I can confidently say that it is clear whose freedom it is not. It is not the freedom of the Third World, colonized woman that is discussed, debated, or even ever so slightly achieved.