Whither Freedom, Whose Freedom

Whither Freedom 

Whither Freedom, Whose Freedom? In the war of colonialism, it is the black woman who becomes the battleground for the contest between the white man and the black man. When disputing whether a certain practice is ‘barbaric’ or the ‘essence’ of a particular cultural identity, the voice of the woman, on whom the practice is conducted, is simply absent. What then, is freedom? Is freedom what the white man promises -  taking off the burqa, ending of cliterosectomy, banning of suttee? Or is freedom what the native man promises to protect - the essence of Islam signified by the burqa, the sense and order of Gikuyu life surrounding the practice of cliterosectomy or the sanctity of Hindu marriage embodied in suttee? We cannot know this because women have been deprived of the agency to decide the practices that they endorse and those they feel oppressed by, as the equation is gravely complicated due to the tug of war between two men trying to be the saviors of women and culture, such as when there was a "gentlemen's agreement" on the question of the practice of female circumcision among the Gikuyu. Whither freedom, when there is no freedom to decide what freedom really means? 

What is freedom, then, for those who are trying to liberate themselves from the colonial reigns? They yearn for the freedom to exercise cultural autonomy and the ability to decide for themselves what their practices mean and signify in their lives rather than an external entity declaring them as “barbarous” and “inhumane”. As Jomo Kenyatta expresses, “the African is in the best position properly to discuss and disclose the psychological background of tribal customs, such as irua, etc., and he should be given the opportunity to acquire the scientific training which will enable him to do so”. Thus, we see that Kenyatta criticizes the basis of and critique from the Western colonizers who use the white man’s gaze to criticize the custom of female circumcision, that is a pyschologically engrained and culturally-rooted phenomena that gives order and meaning to the lives of the Gikuyu people, including aspects of religion, morality, cosmology, family, etc. As is clearly articulated in Kenyatta’s piece, “the abolition of the surgical element in this custom means to the Gikuyu the abolition of the whole institution, regarded as the conditio sine qua non of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion, and morality”. 

But the question then is, is this really freedom and is this what cultural autonomy is supposed to look like? When Kenyatta writes an entire piece defending and explaining the custom of cliterodectomy among the Gukuyu, he grips further tightly onto culture that, in essence, is supposed to be dynamic, open to innovation, creativity and mobility. This solidifies, and, in a way, immobilizes and fossilizes the custom of female circumcision and attaches an importance and significance to a custom that may otherwise have not been that integral to defining the lives of the Gikuyu people as it then becomes. Thus, even if in a way Kenyatta is able to revive a vital cultural norm, the question remains: does it really help emancipate the Gikuyu if it alters the essence of culture as being an ever-changing and ever-evolving phenomenon? It ties the colonized in a paradox - defending their cultural practices make them even more tied to what the colonizers accuse them of being - stuck in ‘irrationality’ and inability to innovate. It also creates a twisted dilemma for the women in these societies where they cannot decide whether emancipation means siding with the colonizer and his ways, or if it means being further bound in structures and practices that may actually be oppressive towards them.