4. Trabajo Final
4.7. Toma de muestras de suelo
According to Boehmer (1995), colonialism is the exploitation of weak peoples by a larger power. It became one of the most profound historical encounters to affect more than half of the globe from the sixteenth century onwards. Beginning with the expansionist tendencies of Europe in the late sixteenth century, colonialism was a process of systematic political, economic, cultural and religious brutalisation (Quayson 2000). Its dominance and exploitation resulted in a complete disintegration of social, political, cultural and economic superstructures in the colonised territories as the subjects were bound to
absolute obedience losing all their rights and autonomy as human beings (Myers 2003).
In political terms, colonialism meant direct control over a country, including the exploitation of its resources and its labour (Spivak 1990). In the case of Africa, before the slave trade, private European companies were already trading with the natives. They had a barter system of trade where goods like gin, wine, salt and spices were brought in from Europe and other parts of the world in exchange for gold, cloth, ivory, timber and palm oil from the Africans (Crowder 1968).
As the businesses got bigger and stronger, the private companies asked for help and protection from their governments to set up protectorates or colonies in Africa, in orderto formalise trading arrangements with the Africans (Jalloh and Skinner 1997). Since the trade of raw materials and resources was good, lucrative and profitable to their respective countries, the trade increased to the exchange of firearms and ammunition, and gradually escalated to the trade of human beings as slaves. The slaves by definition became the properties of the Europeans (Quayson 2000). They were bound to absolute obedience by the dominance of their masters, therefore losing all their rights and autonomy as human beings. Smith (1958) wrote that the introduction of Christianity by missionaries sent by churches was to justify the economic exploitation of the African people.
Africa had its own cultures, values and ways of life before the arrival of Western missionaries and colonialists (Cooper 2005). There were some matriarchal cultures and societies in existence where priestesses were deified because of their contact with the gods, and womenfolk were generally powerful and well respected in their communities (Kuzwayo 1985). There were institutions where women in their own sphere wielded as much power as the men, and played a significant role within their societies. In pre-colonial Sierra Leone, women were appointed as ‘Mammy Queens’ for local administration and they were consulted for their opinions before any decisions concerning their communities were made. These institutions played a great and important role in the lives of the women, portraying their power as mothers, teachers of culture and tradition and at the same time, showing their wisdom and expertise in all affairs (Abraham 1978). The groups portrayed the power of women as a unifying force not only for women themselves but for the society at large. The women respected self reliance and were always at the forefront in generating work to care, feed and look after their families. During colonialism, these women’s organisations lost their vitality and their capacity to mobilise, wield their power and even exact retribution when women were abused (Emenyonu 1987).
The European colonialists were intent on making the Africans as malleable to European desires as possible (Fanon 2001). As Fanon (2001) insisted, they had brought with them a different culture and way of life, Christianity and the
Bible, Western education and the colonial languages. Several women novelists have commented on the intentions and effects of European colonialism. Emecheta (1986, p106) wrote, “It has always been the duty of Europeans to impose their culture on whoever they come in contact with”. The ‘new’ way of life was adopted and the missionaries were embraced by the unsuspecting Africans who were convinced that the new ways were related to a better lifestyle. In Sierra Leone, the colonialist Victorian white families were emulated as models and names were changed to sound more ‘white’ and European, indigenes changed their way of dress and discarded traditional Sierra Leonean and African fabrics and attires. There was also the pressure of the men going out to work while the women then expected to stay home, knit, cook, sew and entertain (Steady 1975).
Subjection to the rules of the colonists has left a far reaching impact on African women. With the view that only men should go out to work and earn, the women are mostly confined to the house and hidden from sight except in the role of fending and fetching for the family and this phenomenon has become second nature to Sierra Leonean men irrespective of religion, race or economic status (Jackson 2004).
Supporting the influx of this new culture, strong willed and assertive African women who were used to farming, community building and decision making were then regarded by their men as similar to nineteenth century European
women who were passive Christian housewives and mothers (Boehmer 1995). Their Victorian ideal was that women were to stay at home and concentrate on child rearing and domestic labour. The British officials and the missionaries had brought with them their own notions of the proper social and economic roles for their wives and partners who were with them (Modupe-Kolawole 1997).
Sierra Leonean women like other African women, especially in rural areas, traditionally owned their own land for farming and for other purposes as they were entitled to certain property and legal rights. Colonialism in the form of greater industrialisation and urbanisation encouraged the African men to control all the land, taking the right away from their women (Mama 1995). The values brought by colonialism encouraged them to believe that certain domains like politics, agriculture, law, the differential spread of education were for men, therefore endorsing the ethos of male superiority. Charles (2007) emphasizes the point that African men bring in traditional tribal laws mixed with colonial Victorian submissiveness for women in order to ensure complete control over the women. This has left little room for Sierra Leonean women, especially the Muslims, to exercise their own individuality and can be seen as a metaphor for patriarchal and colonial domination (Jones and Palmer 1987). There was therefore a failure to recognise women’s knowledge in standard forms of received knowledge. Jones and Jones (1996) wrote that, “As they suffered under the two ‘colonialisms’ of Europe and men, the end of the
European colonial rule did not bring substantive changes to either, as the women continued to suffer disadvantages and discriminations in many facets of their personal lives, and in terms of reduced options accessible to them in their communities” (p53).
In 1947, the formal dissolution of colonial empires started and African countries began to gain their independence. Many Africans must have erroneously thought that it was the end of all conflicts, including culture conflict (Wyse 1991). They were left in a more confused state than ever, in a double bind of collision in deciding what was good and what was wrong in comparison to what they used to know (African culture) and what the colonialists instilled in them (Western culture). Ironically, the emergence of several social groups, including the new sub group of professional Muslim women, may be attributed to the western educational institutions founded by the western missionaries as I noted that all of the women in this group that were interviewed without exception had attended western Christian missionary schools.