Whither freedom? (میں نہیں مانتی)

دیپ جس کا محلّات ہی میں جلے
چند لوگوں کی خوشیوں کو لے کر چلے
وہ جو ساۓ میں ہر مصلحت كے پلے
ایسے دستور کو، صبح بے نور کو
  میں نہیں مانتی، میں نہیں جانتی

He whose light shines only in palaces

Who seeks only to please the few

Who moves in the shadow of compromise

Such a debased tradition, such a dark dawn

I do not know, I will not own

In the middle of the twentieth century, as the wave of decolonisation swept Africa, one country after the other was gaining (or being granted?) independence.
Freedom, at last. 

The question is freedom for whom? 

Freedom, for men like Kenyatta, the proud sons of the African soil, no doubt. The image of Kenyatta, in traditional African attire and wielding a spear is a remarkable encapsulation of this freedom. For it was men like him that replaced the white sahebs (or Uncle Toms, as Malcolm X would say) in Africa. As Africans, self-rule was, indeed, their right.
Kenyatta strongly believed in this. When the missionaries attacked the traditional Gikuyu custom of clitoridectomy, his response was fiery and fast. He deemed this custom as the very essence of the Gikuyu society and culture. It was this tradition that marked both time and tribe for the Gikuyu peoples. Freedom, it is true, does not only mean a change of flags. Freedom must include the right to exercise one’s culture and identity. FGM, according to Kenyatta, was a part of the Gikuyu identity. As free men, they must not be forced to bow down (through schools and laws) into acceptance of the European definition and limits of tradition. The whites, ignorant of the symbolism and importance of the custom, passed off the practice as barbaric and inhumane. “It is unintelligent to discuss the emotional attitudes of either side, or to take violent sides in the question, without understanding the reasons why the educated, intelligent Gikuyu still cling to this custom,” according to Kenyatta. He believed it was the men’s right to judge what constituted as culture.
This was freedom, for them.

Behind every successful man, they say, is a woman.

This aphorism stood true in the case of decolonisation everywhere, including Africa. For it was only behind men like Kenyatta, that one could find the African woman. Similarly, Gikuyu women neither gained, nor were granted independence. They still remained in the shadows of those who had achieved the right to self-rule, and who forgot to delegate it further. Kenya, like the rest of Africa, was handed over from a white patriarch to a black one. Free men, like Kenyatta, refused to bow down to the laws of the whites. However, Gikuyu, even “educated and intelligent” women were forced to accept the laws of the men. In the eloquent and emotional defence of FGM by Kenyatta, we do not see the women’s perspective. The women, who were made through go this practice, were not given the right of self-determination. From having a white patriarch decide what was best for them, they now had a black, native patriarch dictating which cultural norm was to be their identity. Thus, whereas for an African custom, “the African is in the best position properly to discuss and disclose the psychological background of tribal customs”, unfortunately, the same logic was not applicable to the customs practiced on the bodies of women. And whereas Kenyatta and other men were free from the rule of the colonisers; African women were once again subjugated to the rule of African men.
Whither freedom?

(Poem by Habib Jalib)