MARIAMA BÂ’S UNE SI LONGUE LETTRE: FEMINISM AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN SENEGAL

Leila Branfoot (OHS)

Une Si Longue Lettre (So Long A Letter) tells the tale of two women, set straddling the end of the French colonial era and early Senegalese independence. The novel is a snapshot of this West African nation in the 20th century, struggling with national identity, and within that, the role of women. Through Ramatoulaye and Aissatou’s stories, Mariama Bâ decries traditional patriarchal structures and promotes women in society, whilst questioning the nature of future female progress. Thus, we are given glimpses of revolution: past and future feminism in Senegal.

Mariama Bâ considered her “sacred mission” as a female writer was to strike out “at the archaic practices, traditions and customs that are not a real part of our precious cultural heritage.” (SLL: 1) Therefore, a major element of Une Si Longue Lettre as feminist fiction is its outspoken criticism of patriarchal institutions. The novel is narrated by widow Ramatoulaye as a letter to her friend Aissatou who lives in America. During a period of seclusion called a mirasse, a WolofIslamic tradition of mourning (Ojo, 2015) for her late husband Modou, Ramatoulaye reflects on the two womens’ marriages. Both disintegrated due to their husbands’ decision to practice the Islamic tradition of polygyny: taking on additional wives. Throughout, Ramatoulaye unflinchingly exposes the psychological damage of this practice on women, lamenting the “betrayal” (SLL: 10) of Modou by marrying Binetou, her daughter’s school friend: “In loving someone else, he burned his past, both morally and materially. He dared to commit such an act of disavowal.” (SLL: 42) Ramatoulaye’s experience demonstrates that polygyny results in “divided attention, lack of love, and sorrows for all parties involved.” (Ojo, 2015: 18) - even the new, favoured wives suffer. For example, Binetou is forced out of education for an unwanted marriage to Modou, her “sugar daddy” (SLL: 36), due to her parents’ social aspirations; she is “a lamb slaughtered on the altar of affluence.” (SLL: 40). The Senegalese institution of marriage evidently makes women vulnerable to financial insecurity - Ramatoulaye is forced to hand over all her possessions to her family-in-law in another funeral rite - but also to the cruel whims of men, who justify their actions with “God’s intentions’’ (SLL: 38), yet seem motivated ultimately by lust and greed. Ramatoulaye looks, disgusted, upon men’s inconstancy , where “a woman draws from the passing years the force of her devotion, despite the ageing of her companion, a man, on the other hand, restricts his field of tenderness. His egoistic eye looks over his partner’s shoulder.” (SLL: 42) So whilst Ramatoulaye is seen to be a devout Muslim, with references to prayer and God interspersed through the novel, she rejects religious tradition where it is used to oppress women and serve selfish ends.

Yet Bâ’s novel should not be read as a disparaging judgement of Senegalese society, being in fact a celebration of Senegal’s distinct culture and the role of its women. Far from images of women passively suffering, it has an empowering sentiment, expressed through the ways that Ramatoulaye and Aissatou exercise strength and independence in response to their husbands’ abandonment. Aissatou refuses to “bend [her] head” and “yield” (SLL: 32), daring to divorce Mawdo and study in order to move to America for a job in the Senegalese embassy. Unlike Aissatou, Ramatoulaye’s life choices do not “rattle the system” (Ajayi, 1997: 43), yet her decision to remain and focus herself on her children, “dealing with her pain within the cultural setting” (Ajayi, 1997: 35), perhaps contains the novel’s greatest statement of empowerment. Some critics characterise her choices as “compromises” (Ajayi, 1997: 48) stemming from “internalised stereotypes” (Almeida cited in Ajayi, 1997: 42), however, Ramatoulaye never allows herself to be “consumed by the trappings of tradition” (Kamara, 2001: 219); a self-professed “rebel” (SLL: 64). She rejects Modou’s sexual advances after his second marriage, and, when faced with proposals of remarriage, she refuses to engage in polygamy, telling one suitor: “I shall never be the one to complete your collection.” (SLL: 60). She gains her driver’s license, is forward-looking in her parenting of her daughters and promotes education and female representation in politics. Simultaneously, she is wary of the threat that progress for women through Westernization could pose to SenegaleseIslamic values, dismayed by women smoking, drinking and having casual sex, wondering “Does it mean that one can’t have modernism without a lowering of moral standards?” (SLL: 81). D’Almeida claims this exemplifies the female “malaise” emerging from the dilemma between tradition and supposed modernity (D’Almeida, cited in Ajayi, 1997: 35), but I would argue that it is simply that Ramatoulaye refuses to value each of her multiple identities of African, Muslim and feminist any less than each other. Ramatoulaye’s determination and sense of duty to her family and country demonstrates “a feminism which combines the quest for African identity with personal independence; a responsible individualism committed to a responsive collectivity.” (Ajayi, 1997: 48).

Instead of escaping to seek Western ideals of liberation like Aissatou, Ramatoulaye remains to combat the oppression of women in situ. Mariama Bâ rejected the label “feminist”, due to its links to Western principles which she felt were not applicable to Senegal

(Ogundipe-Leslie cited in Habib Latha, 2001: 23), only just beginning to free itself from French colonial influences. Bâ did, however, strongly believe in forms of feminism manifesting themselves within the framework of African culture. She said: “As women, we must work for our own future, we must overthrow the status quo which harms us and we must no longer submit to it.” (Habib Latha, 2001: 24).

Mariama Bâ provides the reader with something of a political manifesto. Rather than be judged from a modern Western standpoint, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou’s choices and attitudes must be viewed in the context of their time and culture, in order to recognise that Bâ’s vision of a uniquely African feminism was revolutionary. Bâ’s ideas were highly influential for Senegal’s national identity, shaping attitudes surrounding women and tradition, and this legacy lives on - she remains one of the country’s most celebrated writers.

Bibliography

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Bâ, M. (2008). So Long A Letter. 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Creevey, L. (1991). The Impact of Islam on Women in Senegal. The Journal of Developing Areas, 25(3), [online], 347-368. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/4191991?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3 A9465a2be292b60c718e61d75f723d97d&seq=1#pa ge_scan_tab_contents [accessed 09/04/21]

Habib Latha, R. (2001). Feminisms in an African Context: Mariama Bâ’s So Long A Letter. African Feminisms, 50(1), [online], 23-40. Available at: https:// www.jstor.org/stable/4066403?seq=1 [accessed 09/04/21]

Kamara, G. (2001). The Feminist Struggle in the Senegalese Novel: Mariama Bâ and Sembene Ousmane. Journal of Black Studies, 32(2), [online], 212-228. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/3180961?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents [accessed 09/04/21]

Ojo, P. (2015). The Socio-Cultural and Economic Dimensions of Islam in Mariama Bâ’s So Long A Letter. Journal of Foreign Languages, Cultures and Civilisations, 3(1), [online], 15-20. Available at: http:// jflcc.com/journals/jflcc/Vol_3_No_1_June_2015/3. pdf [accessed 09/04/21]