Not About One Thing: Americanah

Americanah is the new novel written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This award winning author wrote Half of a Yellow Sun. Our book club read that book way back in 2007.

While "Yellow Sun" was situated in Nigeria, this book brings us from Nigeria to the United States, and to the United Kingdom, and back. Through the complicated, interwoven lives we follow in this novel, we encounter multiple, interwoven themes. If they are presented well, human rights issues are complicated, and so are good novels! Just like issues of human rights and women's rights, Americanah is not about "one thing": as Laura Pearson noted in her review, the main character (Ifemelu) in the novel points this out for us in a specific scene in the book. While she is in a beauty salon getting her hair done, Ifemelu is irritated by an attempt at conversation: someone asks her what the novel she was reading was about (groan, it's a novel... it's about a lot of things, how can I possible summarize it for you... is the feeling). Americanah, Pearson notes, is too complicated to summarize, just like Ifemelu's novel: it "covers race, identity, relationships, community, politics, privilege, language, hair, ethnocentrism, migration, intimacy, estrangement, blogging, books and Barack Obama". But it is exciting and challenging to read (a good thing, really!).

So if women's rights are about many things (as well as complicated and interwoven), where are they in this book? Here are a few:

• The novel alludes to the military dictatorships in Nigeria's past, and we encounter the ripple effects of those politics in Ifemelu's Auntie Uju, and her relationship with 'the General'. Auntie Uju's story uncovers the multiple levels of women's participation in politics, and the ways that coups and political unrest can upend everyday women's lives, partly because (all over the world) women's access to legal and civil protection is lacking. When it comes to marriage, common-law relationships, divorce, inheritance, property rights, vulnerability to violence, standards for sexual behavior, this short story illustrates many complications that women must often negotiate from a place of insecurity. Laws are constantly changing, but protections for women lag behind in general and even when it comes to basic human rights such as freedom from violence, when it comes to mistresses, their applicability are still subject to debate.

• In England, Ifemelu's boyfriend from college in Nigeria confronts the dangers of looking for work as an illegal immigrant, including extortion. Ifemelu has her own dangers to confront in that arena in the United States, where her experience is framed by a moment of sexual exploitation: a familiar and disturbing effect of the insecurity inherent in immigrant populations all over the world (especially but not only for women migrants).

• The divisions of race and class that are so strange to Ifemelu, because she is an outsider (to read or listen to an NPR interview with Adichie in the topic of 'learning to be black in the US'), are brought into relief, and presented with ironic and comedic effect in the fictional blog titles of articles that Ifemelu wrote: "Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black."; "Not All Dreadlocked White Guys Are Down."; "Badly Dressed White Middle Managers from Ohio Are Not Always What You Think.";"Understanding America for the Non-American Black: What Do WASPs Aspire To?"; "What Academics Mean by White Privilege, or Yes It Sucks to Be Poor and White but Try Being Poor and Non-White." Although it is not explicit, these observations and the experiences that inspire these observations, are also deeply informed by gender, and specifically by the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. 

There are more threads in this book that we can pull on to explore questions of women's rights, and hopefully we will in our discussion. For a quick introduction to Adichie and Americanah, listen to Adichie in a public discussion about her book at Aloud at the LA Public Library.

However Long the Night... the Dawn will Break

This is a story of one woman's sense of homecoming in a country and culture that is a world away from the one she was born in.

It is a story of the power of patience, compassion, respect, and determination.

It is a story about the will of people everywhere to achieve dignity and happiness for themselves and their community.

It is a story of how to teach, and how to learn, and how effective (yet how difficult) it is to do both.

It is evidence of how we are all embedded in powerful networks that shape our lives, and of how we are all capable of (indeed, responsible for) improving the world we live in.

"I have always believed that if you feel you are on a path that can lead to the well-being of people, the methods  you use to achieve that goal should be respectful, peaceful, and positive... "

The book we are reading for the summer is an uplifting nonfiction book written by Aimee Molloy about Molly Melching, the founder of Tostan. Tostan is a groundbreaking NGO which has shaped education strategies, and development work in Senegal in remarkable ways.Tostan has been identified as an example of "social entrepreneurship", which is a new catch-word in the philanthropic world (although of course the practice of social entrepreneurship is age-old).

Tostan's work started with Molly Melching's interest in Africa, and specifically in Senegal; and with African language, specifically Wolof, the language that approximately eighty percent of people in Senegal speak.

Molly's work in Senegal began with literacy (still a big problem) and children's education. When she started her work in Senegal, there were no children's books in native languages, only in French. These books were written for French children, not for Senegalese children -- so not only were children being asked to learn to read in their second language instead of their first, these kids were also presented with stories that had nothing to do with their actual lives... but rather, about the Paris metro for example! Not much motivation there!

While working on literacy issues, Molly was confronted with the challenges that Senegalese children faced in even being healthy enough to get a basic education. Many children do not make it past five years of age in Senegal, and for many that do, malnutrition and related conditions along with challenges of rural communities with limited access to services and reliable infrastructure make education an uphill battle. From literacy, Molly expanded her focus to literacy and health education in local languages. (If you are interested in this, check out the work of NGO Room to Read, headquartered in San Francisco but active all over the world in children's literacy, girls' education, libraries and book publishing).

She initially thought she would educate women about early childhood health and development: how to take care of their babies and young children. But she discovered (by asking the women themselves) that women really wanted to learn about their own health, because they felt that they did not know enough to keep themselves healthy and were therefore struggling to care for their children and extended families. This shift to women's health education then moved Molly toward human rights education and leadership skill development as well as project management training.Then, women started learning and sharing these really cool lessons and skills, and the entire community wanted in!

Tostan is known for having a local, community defined, community driven approach.

If you are not sure that you would like to buy the book, you can get a good feel for the book by reading this exerpt. You can also watch Molly tell the story of Tostan as a facilitator of "positive disruption" in video:



The book has received some great publicity, as in a PBS NewsHour interview,  Melinda Gates reviewed the book; just this year, Molly Melching was named on of the 150 "Women who Shake the World" by Newsweek and the Daily Beast. She was on KPCC's Crawford Family Forum, recently as well.

The New York Times has a great compilation page on the practice of cutting.

So to complete this post, we will explore some basic terms, concepts and approaches that are key to understanding Tostan's approach and provide some social and cultural background.

Why FGC, not FGM?

FGM (female genital mutilation) is an older--but also common--term used to describe the practice of removing some part of a girl's external genitals. The preferred term is female genital cutting (FGC). the term FGC is more neutral, and descriptive. Depending on the community, the practice is called many things: the 'tradition', or circumcision for example. Most women who practice FGC are not participating in the practice with the intent of mutilation, and many do not experience it that way. Rather, it is done out of love with the intention of making a girl socially acceptable, and even more beautiful. Many women all over the world are willing to undergo dangerous and painful practices for these very goals. Molly describes in the book how powerful the social pull of these practices can be, when she finds out her own daughter felt betrayed by her mother for not cutting her. The Orchid Project has a great FAQ page if you would like to read more.

FGC and Islam

While FGC is often thought to be (and even enforced in the name of) religion, the practice is not mandated by Islamic law, and it is not an Islamic practice. In fact, one of the most successful strategies in helping to change this practice is to find religious leaders who are trusted by their communities and can spread the word that FGC is not mandated by Islam. Human Rights Watch's work in Iraqi Kurdistan is a good example of this, and parallels the work of Tostan in Senegal in this regard. There is some resistance here, however:

Knowledge is not Enough

Many women know that FGC is dangerous. The pain that it can cause to mothers (and fathers) as well as daughters is wrenching. Many attempt to circumvent the practice in order to protect their daughters; they put it off, they lie and say that they have already had it done. Molly Melching illustrates very well in her book, though, that better knowledge about how and why FGC is harmful is not enough. As with any social practice, dialogue and the mobilization of men and women together in the pursuit of their shared interest in human rights and well-being is the best and most hopeful way to change harmful social practices.

Harmful Practices are not evidence of Maliciousness 



FGC is practiced everywhere, including in the USA

FGC is a practice that is practiced by many people all across the world. This includes the United States, where there are various advocacy approaches and Europe. More than this, FGC is only one practice in a matrix of harmful and/or body altering social practices based on gender inequality that many cultures maintain. For more scholarly reading on this topic, try Transcultural Bodies, Pretty Modern.

A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution

From peaceful protests to civil war, the conflict in Syria has been in the news and on the agendas of diplomats since the protests began in March of 2011.

In the recent past, Syria was a stable authoritarian state, with a long history of quiet repression of citizens and incredibly rich heritage, but not a country familiar with violence or chaos in the streets.

At this point in the conflict, Syria is turning into a world-class humanitarian crisis, with refugees crossing the borders into neighboring countries- particularly Turkey and Lebanon.

For a quick overview of the main actors and issues, see this summary by the CBC.It covers Bashar al-Assad and the Assad family, the opposition and FSA, key governments such as the USA, Russia, Iraq and Turkey, and key international organizations such as the United Nations.

The book we are reading is from time in the conflict when it turned increasingly violent. Yazbek, a well known novelist in Syria, and a member of the Alawite minority in Syria, was already something of a rebellious woman at the time of the uprisings. She was divorced, and a professional woman who had made a life for herself and her daughter. While she bravely resisted the regime's atempts to control and then silence her voice, and she finally escaped Syria with her life, she did not escape unscathed, and her experience of the rising tide of repression, rebellion, and violence is shaped by the fact that she is a woman, a mother, a daughter. It is not a pretty story and it is not in a gentle voice that we hear her story, but it is a perspective and a voice that we need to hear in order to really understand the images we see in the news, the numbers we see reported, the political wrangling we hear.

Mali, Peace Corps, Friendship

Mali is a landlocked country, with very low human development (see graph) and gender equity indicators (bottom twenty). If you want a tangible illustration, look at literacy rates (Male: 27%; Female: 12%, report from the NYT)

But as important as these indicators are, they do not tell the whole story.

The history of Mali extends far into the rich inheritances of ancient empires, the modern history of Mali is shaped by French colonialism (until 1960), rebellions and military dictatorships, and transition to democracy but in the context of domestic insurgency and repression (the Tuareg).

Known for their music, the Tuareg are a key element of the politics of Mali and the region. The most recent military coup was fed by arms that came into the country from the 2011 Libyan civil war (something that Human Rights Watch warned about), and in support of separatist Tuareg groups. Saharan al-Qaeda factions took this opportunity to take over the Tuareg area of Mali, however (and there seems to have been some level of cooperation between some Tuareg and some Islamic al-Qaeda style groups). At the same time, in a kind of cultural diplomacy, the rock band Tinariwen has been on a world tour, winning a Grammy and notice from global media. The band directly confronts the tensions and costs of both violent and non-violent rebellion: a few members of the band have been stuck in refugee camps, unable to join in the band's most recent tour. Women as symbol of a people and as active participants in their struggles are clear in some of the band's songs.

In the news recently, Mali has been at center of the now familiar global concern with Islamic militants and terrorism. There is a great interactive backgrounder by the Guardian. The French have stepped in, but want to hand off the responsibility of the intervention to a UN entity soon. In this high-politics context, the issues of women's health and everyday life are often submerged. The closest we may get is perhaps the argument that political stability, governmental accountability and economic development are the only core issues that could resolve conflicts like the one in Mali. Feminist scholars have long argued that this is a mistake.

This is why we decided to read this book- perhaps on the surface an odd choice for a group that wants to get some background on a country that is in the middle of an international intervention and coup. But this story is a story of another version of interaction (also with problems and challenges). It is the story of the friendship between a young Peace Corps volunteer and a local woman who is the midwife as well as the only trained source of infant medical care for the town. Monique and the Mango Rains is a story of the strength and resourcefulness of one Malian woman, and the story of the work that she did with very little support. Many Malian women are actively working for change, and it seems important to keep this in mind in the midst of the talk of insurgencies, military force, and negotiations: women can and do have a stake in these issues at all levels.

Another woman who has spoken out in Mali is the artist Moussoulou; I leave you with a sampling of her music (thanks to Patricia, for curating all of the Malian music in this post).

On the Ojibwe Reservation, Violence and a search for Justice

Louise Erdrich's new novel, The Round House, is a NYT bestseller and a National Book Award Winner.

The book is narrated by a man, and is in some ways his own coming of age story -- so perhaps an odd choice for a book club focused on women's human rights.

But the core of the book is a violent attack on the young man's mother, an attack in which the attacker remains out of reach and the woman and her family confront the personal cost of violence against women. As we have read elsewhere, rape is not a "women's issue" (it's a human issue) and it is not a "third-world issue": it is a global issue that has long-reaching cost to men and women, to communities and economies, and to governments.

In case readers would like to consider how widespread or current this issue is, HRW just released preliminary information on a report they have been working on in Canada. Violence against native women there, as is also often the case in the USA, has not been taken seriously. We may have a better idea of why after having read the book, but from the HRW article, we know that there are disproportionately high numbers of indigenous missing and murdered women and girls in Canada, and that their numbers are not even being tracked now due to budget cuts.

We should have the opportunity to confront some really challenging questions about the intersections of race, gender, culture and violence in the US through this book, following up on our readings about juvenile justice, integration in the southern US, and modern underage prostitution.

The Unfinished Revolution

The Unfinished Revolution is an HRW book, through-and-through.

Editor Minky Worden is HRW Director of Global Initiatives; it is impeccably researched and founded in historical and global perspectives; some of the chapters are written by amazing HRW researchers and we have seen the results of their work in the form of HRW briefings, reports, and press releases; there is an incredible collection of HRW photographs; and the book is a collection of some of the most influential voices speaking on the cutting-edge issues in the area of women's human rights.

We will be reading this book in two sections in November and December.

In the 1980s, the Guerrilla Girls (an anonymous feminist punk protest group) put posters with statements like "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" on the sides public busses; they have used shocking and humorous imagry to challenge and unsettle. They protest sexism, racism and corruption--particularly in the art world and in visual culture, but also more broadly. They are still active.

The Pussy Riot group, founded in 2011, consisted of about 12 members, who protected their identity by wearing brightly colored clothing and balaclavas during public performances; they modeled some of their protest strategy and their identification with superheroes after the Guerilla Girls. The superhero theme comfortably travels accross cultural borders, and supporters held "superhero flash mobs", performances and protests organized on facebook and elsewhere, after members of the band were arrested by Russian authorities. Their superhero identity has clearly been adopted as girl-empowering in the US and western Europe; big-name musicians, local artists, and even politicians have joined the global outcry. A German town even nominated the band for the Luther Prize, in honor of the Martin Luther, the man who protested the linkages between Catholic Church and state, leading to the Protestant Revolution.

Reactions inside Russia are far more mixed. In fact, there is strong resistance to the idea that western style feminism is even needed in Russia; the group's song was more than a song about girl-power: it took on the Russian Orthodox Church, social conservatism, and the growing linkages between church and state. Everything about the band is confrontational, squarely in the punk-protest tradition.

These kinds of protests bring up questions about how to approach problems in society, how to advocate for change. People disagree about the distance between aspirations and what "really" can be attained; they disagree about how to fight for that change. The choice of confrontational protest like that of Pussy Riot illustrated this tension for our group: there is an ongoing challenge for feminists and for human rights advocates who must dance the line between integrating into the system (in order to advocate change) and being ghettoized (and therefore shut out of mainstream political discourse). To integrate into the system, groups have to be in for the long-haul; they must be able to stay on-message; they must find ways to re-define the terms of the game. Protest movements like Pussy Riot are not taking this kind of strategy, but they might help jump-start certain issues from the outside. And they might just end up being absorbed or ghettoized.

Human Rights Watch was there for the verdict that sent two members of the band to prison and released on on probation. Particularly disturbing and important for those concerned with the future of feminist thought and political action are the conclusions of the Russian courts in this case:

"The judge also argued that feminism, ultimately, was at the core of the “religious hatred” charge. “Feminism is not a violation of the law and is not a crime,” the verdict stated. “Although feminism is not a religious precept, its proponents cross the line into the spheres of decency, morals, family relations.”(HRW October 2012)

In other words, instead of ignoring Pussy Riot's feminist claims, the court decided to redefine feminism as a hate-based, anti-religion ideology. This allowed the court to redefine the Pussy Riot protest as hate crime, and not political protest, which would be protected under free speech laws. In doing so, the judge put feminist thought ("ideology") in the same category as hate groups that attack people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language. This is a dangerous and troubling redefinition of hate crime, and in spite of the obvious theoretical and practical idiocy of the claim, the strategy is potentially devastating.