F E M I N I S T A F R I Issue 19 | 2014 A publication of the Websites C A African Gender Institute www.agi.ac.za/journals 1 University of Cape Town www.agi.ac.za 9 P Harry Oppenheimer Institute Building A N Engineering Mall - A University of Cape Town F R I C Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701 A N South Africa I S Tel: +27 21 650 2970 M Fax: +27 21 650 4840 A E-mail: [email protected] N D F E M I N I S M Pan-Africanism and Feminism Cover photograph: Women Demanding the Release of Angela Feminist Africa is a continental gender studies journal Davis from Prison in Somali capital Xamar (Mogadishu), 1972. Photographer unknown. produced by the community of feminist scholars. Source: http://sinbarras.org/2013/03/12/88/ It provides a platform for intellectual and activist research, dialogue and strategy. Feminist Africa attends to the complex and diverse dynamics of creativity and resistance that have emerged in postcolonial Africa, and the manner in which these are shaped by the shifting global geopolitical configurations of power. It is currently based at the African Gender Institute in Cape Town. A full text version of this journal is available on the Feminist Africa website: http://www.feministafrica.org This publication has been printed on Cocoon Offset, which is a 100% recycled product and is one of the most environmentally friendly papers available. Feminist Africa 19 Pan-Africanism and Feminism Issue 19: September 2014 First published in 2014 by the African Gender Institute All Africa House University of Cape Town Private Bag Rondebosch 7701 © in published edition: African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2013 ISSN: 1726-4596 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without permission in writing from the publisher. Published with the support of the African Women’s Development Fund. Typesetting, printing and cover design: COMPRESS.dsl | www.compress.dsl.com Cover photograph: Women Demanding the Release of Angela Davis from Prison in Somali capital Xamar (Mogadishu), 1972. Photographer unknown. Source: http://sinbarras.org/2013/03/12/88/ Distribution: AGI staff Feminist Africa is a scholarly journal accredited by the South African Department of Education. ii | Feminist Africa 19 Editorial policy Editor Feminist Africa is guided by a profound Amina Mama commitment to transforming gender hierarchies in Africa, and seeks to redress injustice and Issue 19 editors inequality in its content and design, and by Amina Mama its open-access and continentally-targeted Hakima Abbas distribution strategy. Feminist Africa targets gender researchers, students, educators, Reviews editor women’s organisations and feminist activists Simidele Dosekun throughout Africa. It works to develop a feminist intellectual community by promoting Copy editors and enhancing African women’s intellectual Anne V. Adams work. To overcome the access and distribution Danai Mupotsa challenges facing conventional academic Simidele Dosekun publications, Feminist Africa deploys a dual dissemination strategy, using the Internet Editorial team as a key tool for knowledge-sharing and Jane Bennett communication, while making hard copies Selina Mudavanhu available to those based at African institutions. Kylie Thomas Two issues are produced per annum, in accordance with themes specified in the calls Editorial advisory group for contributions. The editorial advisory group of Feminist The editorial team can be contacted at Africa consists of scholars and researchers, [email protected] located in different fields in the social sciences and humanities, who offer their expertise Acknowledgements to the development and dissemination of The Feminist Africa team acknowledges Feminist Africa as an innovative African- the intellectual input of the community of focused journal. African feminist scholars and the Editorial Advisory group members are: Advisory Board. Akosua Adamako-Ampofo, Bibi Bakare- We thank the African Women’s Yusuf, Teresa Barnes, Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Development Fund for their financial support Hope Chigudu, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Carole towards production and publication. Boyce Davies, Simidele Dosekun, Amanda Gouws, Pregs Govender, Pumla Dineo Disclaimer Gqola, Shireen Hassim, Desiree Lewis, Zine The views expressed by contributors to Magubane, Takyiwaa Manuh, Helen Moffett, Feminist Africa are not necessarily those Chandra Mohanty, Patricia Mohammed, of the Editors, Editorial Advisory Board, the Patricia McFadden, Ruth Ochieng, Margo African Gender Institute, or our partners. 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Feminist Africa 19 | v Contents Editorial: Feminism and pan-Africanism – by Hakima Abbas and Amina Mama 1 Features African feminism in the 21st Century: A reflection on Uganda’s victories, battles and reversals – by Josephine Ahikire 7 Promise and betrayal: Women fighters and national liberation in Guinea Bissau – by Aliou Ly 24 Reflections on the Sudanese women’s movement – by Amira Osman 43 The first Mrs Garvey and others: Pan-Africanism and feminism in the early 20th Century British colonial Caribbean – by Rhoda Reddock 58 Pan-Africanism, transnational black feminism and the limits of culturalist analyses in African gender discourses – by Carole Boyce Davies 78 Standpoints Being pan-African: A continental research agenda – by Dzodzi Tsikata 94 Unnatural and Un-African: Contesting queer-phobia by Africa’s political leadership – by Kenne Mwikya 98 vi | Feminist Africa 19 Reviews Sojourning for freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism – by Maxine Craig 106 Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure – by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah 109 Queer African Reader – by Danai S. Mupotsa 113 Daughters of the Niger Delta – by Simidele Dosekun 121 Contributors 125 Editorial | 1 Editorial: Feminism and pan-Africanism Hakima Abbas and Amina Mama In May 2013, the African Union (AU) officially celebrated its 50th anniversary, adopting ‘Pan-Africanism and Renaissance’ as their theme. Marked with a lavish gala, the summit brought dignitaries from all over the world, the occasion saw Africa’s Heads of State congratulating themselves on rising Gross Domestic Products (GDPs), visibly excited at the prospects of increased foreign investment. Their enthusiasm contrasts starkly with more sobering realities that belie pan-Africanist visions. Instead of the liberation pursued by generations of Africans, the continent has entered the 21st century with increasing inequalities and social abjection facing the majority of Africa’s peoples, crudely indexed by poor performances on the Millennium Development Goals (2005-2015). Africa’s lack of progress on what might be better referred to as the “Minimal Development Goals,” reveals the unpalatable scenario of an African continent characterised by the extreme social injustices that economists refer to as “growth without development”. The implications for the multiply oppressed majorities of African peoples are dire. What are the conditions that legitimise a development trajectory that sees social injustices and inequalities – among them those based on gender and sexuality – deepen while GDPs grow? How should feminist movements challenge the yawning gap between the pan-African vision for Africa in the millennium, and grim material, social and political realities? How does this gap relate to the contradictions between rhetoric and reality with regard to the liberation of African women? Issues 19 and 20 of Feminist Africa ask: what can a radical pan-African engagement contribute to the transformation of systemic oppressions, including those based on gender, which continue to sustain the under-development of a resource-rich African continent? 2 | Feminist Africa 19 Feminists have a responsibility to critically appraise just what half a century of African liberation from colonialism and institutionalised pan-Africanism has delivered to women. Indeed, feminists ask the same question on behalf of all those African peoples who are not part of the global capitalist elite or their local political and military functionaries. Hard struggles have seen women’s movements achieve modest legal and policy inroads (on paper at least) and gain some (often problematic) forms of visibility, but the overt oppression and exploitation of most women continue. There is a troubling irony in the sudden “discovery” of African women by the AU, multinational corporations and development agencies, half a century after women actively participated in independence struggles and contributed significantly to African liberation movements. However, the terms of this new-found recognition need to be scrutinised. Some such questioning occurred in the parallel civil society sessions convened by Nkosozana Dlamini Zuma, first woman Chair of the AU, who also set up a panel to speak directly to the Heads of State in a novel attempt to be more inclusive. By way of example, this issue of Feminist Africa includes Dzodzi Tsikata’s closing statement to the intellectual debate convened by CODESRIA to generate a pan-African research agenda. In an article revisiting the gender politics of the liberation movement in Guinea Bissau, historian Aliou Ly asks: “Is the recognition, by Africa’s Heads of State, of women as agents and equal partners true or is it just a hoax?” Unfortunately the prevailing neoliberal construction of African women as the capitalist world’s latest “emerging market” is more than a hoax. It places women in particular relation to corporate-led globalisation, within which Africa remains a source of raw materials essential to the functioning of silicon valleys all over the world, while being further captured as a market from which profits can be made. Neoliberal constructions of “gender equality” set up women – most of whom are still impoverished - as fair game for profit-seeking investors interested in them only as fee-paying consumers of privatised public services. Critical perspectives argue that the current GDP data heralds a renewed scramble for the wealth of Africa. There is evidence of massive land and resource grabs jeopardising communal access to land and water, as the interests of industrialised agri-business corporations prevail to secure monopolies through patents, and create new market dependencies among the impoverished.1 Corporate exploitation runs counter to the interests of over a billion African citizens, just as it has since the early encroachments of colonial