The Aba Women’s Rebellion

by Molly Davies

The Aba Women’s Rebellion in 1929, also known as the Women’s War, marked a significant development in anti-colonial resistance achieved by women in Nigeria. Following a period of restriction upon women’s participation in the political sphere, as well as newly imposed taxes, this nonviolent protest was the first major organisation of peasant women in West Africa and it is seen largely as a prelude to the later nationalist movements in Africa.

The Rebellion saw women in 1910s Agbaja avoid their homes in a month-long protest after suspicions that pregnant women were being murdered by local men, and in 1924 women organised in Calabar to oppose the imposition of a market toll. However, the Aba Women’s Rebellion marked a historically significant point in relations between British colonial proponents and Nigerian communities as the protests resulted in administrative change.

Colonial rule severely changed the position of women in Nigerian societies. Whilst women had previously been involved in local governance and market trad ing, this was radically reduced under Brit ish rule. Colonial authorities instituted a system of indirect rule in the early twentieth century through Warrant Chiefs, introduced by Frederick Lugard as the first colonial governor. Warrant Chiefs were Igbo men appointed by British governors who managed in accordance with the colonial administration, replacing the system of elected Igbo chiefs. Rapidly escalating into an oppressive, corrupt, draco nian rule: any public critics of their directives were imprisoned and insti tutions involving women were side-lined, thus imposing an entirely patriarchal order.

In tandem with these issues were concerns over taxation. Many women in Nigeria were involved with market trade, supplying food to an exponentially growing urban population, and were targeted under a new special tax. Furthermore, tax ordinances from previous years had excluded women, until this was recognised as inadequate for taxing a household and another burden for market women was created. Combined with financial crises after the economic crash, resentment at chiefs and the colonial administration swelled into a challenge against British authority.

The catalyst for the Women’s War was the figurehead Nwanyeruwa, a woman in Oloko, when the new census for taxation was taken. Women had been exempt from these taxes in previous ordinances, but when the appraisal of her house was ordered it became clear this was changing. Nwanyeruwa reported this to women in her community and news spread, resulting in thousands of women across the Bende District travelling to Oloko. In December of 1929, 10,000 women gathered outside the Warrant Chief’s office and demanded his resignation, sparking protests across the region. Nwanyeruwa is distinguished in the history of women’s militancy in Nigeria and the resulting emergence of anti-colonial nationalism. Her approach assisted in inspiring subsequent successful nonviolent protests, though some women were involved in the destruction of the Warrant Chief’s homes. Protests then broke out across the Owerri and Calabar provinces, and included women from Igbo, Ibibio, Andoni, Ogoni, Efil and Ijaw ethnic groups; the vast network between market-women proved crucial for the communication and coordination of women in the protests. Led by the Oloko Trio (Ikkonia, Nwannedia and Nwugo), these protests primarily took the form of ‘sitting on a man’. This was a traditional female Igbo method of publicly shaming men. Designed to inconvenience and draw attention to men committing injustices, women would follow them while singing, dancing or even hitting their walls with pestles. Utilising this traditional practice, women across an area spanning six-thousand square miles transformed it into a powerful tool, challenging British colonial administration and their representatives. The Oloko Trio were known for their ability to de-escalate situations that were becoming riotous, though this did not always succeed; for example, around 55 women were killed by colonial troops in the suppression of the protests by January 1930. On one occasion, two women were shot when the army was brought in after protesters had formed a roadblock and police could not pacify the situation. Over the course of these protests, European factories were looted, prisons attacked, and 10 native courts destroyed.

By January 10th 1930, the protests had been suppressed by colonial troops and collective punishment inquiries were performed. Whilst the first inquiry commission in January was haphazard, the ‘Aba Commission’ in March saw 485 witnesses interviewed over a period of 38 days. Only around 100 of these witnesses were women, the rest were constituted of local Nigerian men and officials in the British colonial administration. Aimed at investigating the causes of the women’s rebellion, the commission recommended punishments for the key players while simultaneously suggesting reforms to the system. This challenge to colonial rule had never been witnessed before in Africa and the resulting changes reflected this. The system of Warrant Chiefs was abolished in 1930, and replaced with court tribunals which incorporated local forms of government and allowed women in the court systems.

The Aba Women’s Rebellion has a long-lasting legacy. Successive women’s movements in Ngwaland in the following decades such as the 1938 Tax Protests and the Oil Mill Protests of the 1940s were inspired and enabled by the 1929 rebellion. Its mobilisation of peasant women in a challenge to colonial authorities was on an unprecedented scale in Africa. It has been remarked that the transformation of a traditional practice for Nigerian women of ‘sitting on men’ into a formidable protest method is particularly significant. It was an important disruption to patriarchal British administration, led by women and using an inherently feminine protest method, which is thus highly symbolic.

Was the war of independence a liberating experience for Algerian women?

Trigger warning: sexual assault.

By Sarah Hamdani

From Hussein Dey’s surrender on the 5th of July 1830 until its independence in 1962, Algeria belonged to the French Empire. Though the main recognised constituents of its war of independence were indeed men, to gloss over the efforts of women during this fight would be to ignore the torture they had endured to see their country free once again. However, to focus on the women and their experiences of liberation is to witness once again that, for millennia, women have been viewed as the unequivocal spoils of war – ready to satiate perverted sexual desires. One is left wondering how far this war of independence can be said to have liberated Algerian women if it simultaneously oppressed them too.

Before discussing whether this war was indeed a liberating experience, it would perhaps be useful to clearly define what it means ‘to liberate’. The Oxford English Dictionary sets out three main definitions, which all seem to agree on the idea that ‘to liberate’ is synonymous with ‘to free from an obstacle’. The first definition means ‘to set free (someone or something confined or in servitude)’, i.e., to liberate someone from prison; the second means ‘to free (esp. women) from restrictive or discriminatory social conventions and attitudes’; the third definition, which applies to Algeria as a whole, defines the word as meaning ‘to free (a region or its people) from an oppressor or occupying force.’

During French colonial rule, women were subjected to many restrictions and suffered many oppressive moments. In keeping with their values of secularism, France banned the wearing of the hijab and any displays of religion, which arguably may have led in turn to the over-sexualisation of Algerian women. Taking inspiration from Delacroix’s ‘Women of Algiers’ (1833) which depicts essentially shirtless women, Picasso’s ‘Les Femmes d’Alger’ (1954) epitomises this depiction of Algerian women as sexualised ‘exotic’ creatures who serve to satisfy the West’s libidinal fantasies. However, after gaining independence, the second meaning of ‘to liberate’ comes into play, as women were free from secularism and sexualisation.

Nevertheless, this sexualisation, coupled with the restriction of religion and the lack of education, arguably encouraged women to fight for independence with the FLN (National Liberation Front) in 1954. Using female resistance fighters was not a novel idea, with the French themselves using women like Cécile Rol-Tanguy to aid in the WWII resistance efforts against German occupation by hiding weapons in their children’s prams. In this sense, the war of independence was indeed a freeing experience as it allowed women to take something which had previously been used to suppress them (their gender) and use it to their advantage to bring the French to their knees, thus once again demonstrating the second definition of ‘to liberate’.

With an estimated 11,000 women fighting in the war, it is no surprise that some women made a name for themselves as resistance fighters, with the likes of Zohra Drif being considered to this day as a hero of the war. Drif’s most famous exploit is perhaps the Milk Bar Café bombing in 1956. Responsible for the death of three women and the injuries of multiple adults and c hildren, Drif’s actions are classed as one of the main events of the war of independence. Though Drif was imprisoned in 1957 and liberated in the first definition of the word by Charles de Gaulle in 1962 after Algerian independence, her time in prison could be classed as freeing in that she went on to become a member of the Algerian Council of the Nation. Here she fought for an amicable relationship between France and Algeria, claiming that the war of independence was not against the French public, but rather against colonial rule.

However, as inspiring as Drif’s story is, it is only one experience amongst those of other female resistance fighters who were not as fortunate as Drif in coming out of the war relatively unscathed. Louisette Ighilahriz, much like Drif, joined the FLN and smuggled weapons throughout Algiers. Captured in September 1957, Ighilariz was kept completely naked for the entirety of her prison sentence, facing sexual violation and torture in the most egregious manner by French commandants in a bid to make her reveal vital information about the FLN. Upon her release, Ighilariz was convinced by her family to withhold her story of the violation that she had endured, for fear she would bring the family into disrepute. She initially acquiesced, though in 2001 she released her memoir ‘Algérienne’ which detailed her experiences during prison, including rape and torture. Consequently, though she was liberated in the first meaning of the word, Ighilariz was in fact further oppressed after the war of independence.

Ultimately, the answer to the question at hand is far more ambivalent than one would wish. Though all citizens were liberated in the third sense of the word (being freed from an oppressor), some, like Ighilariz, had experienced moments which oppressed them further, and so they were not fully ‘liberated’ in the second meaning of the word (being freed from social constraints). As a whole, it ostensibly seems as though the war of independence was perhaps a liberating experience for women like Drif, although when one focuses on individual testimonies, it becomes evident how much of Algeria’s post-colonial foundations are built on the traumatic and oppressive experiences of women.