OUSSEINA ALIDOU

A "CINDERELLA" TALE IN THE HAUSA MUSLIM WOMEN'S IMAGINATION

AN IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE of Hausa oral literature, as of Afro-Islamic and other African oral literatures in general, is improvisation. The tale exists only when it is narrated/performed, and with virtually every new narration it assumes a new life in response to the artist’s interpretation of the new situation —time, location, setting, mood, and material conditions—within which it is contextualized. This essay looks at how Islam has impacted a recent narration of “The Story of the Orphan who Marries the Prince of Masar”—a “wicked stepmother” tale akin to the one popularly known as “Cinderella” in the West. This takes place at a time of increasing Islamic resurgence and a growing participation of women in redefining Islam in the Hausa culture of West Africa.

Elsewhere I have argued that in general Hausa women’s voices have been marginalized as a result of both the local culture and colonial patriarchy. Of course, a tiny minority of women of upper and middle class households did manage to contribute to the public sphere, especially in the field of Islamic knowledge and literary production. The cultural and political activism and literary works of the daughters of Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, the Islamic founder and leader of Sokoto Caliphate, for example, of which Nana Asma’u’s legacy remains one of the most remarkable, are already well documented. In general, however, traditional (Islamic) colonial and postcolonial educational structures combined to disempower women. In this process, Islamic knowledge—still primarily under the control of men—was continuously deployed to construct an ideology that justified the silencing of women, especially in the public sphere.

However, the wind of democratization that swept the continent in the 1990s, calling for pluralistic rights of social constituents—for example, Christians and ethnic minorities—in the Niger republic, created room for women to seek Islamic knowledge on their own terms (even if still within patriarchal space) as a means of reaching a new understanding of women’s rights within Islam and Islamic societies. Ever since, women have seized the political space of liberalization to assert their own knowledge of Islam, to contribute to the socio-cultural and political reshaping of the nation, and to engage in the discourse of defining a “Nigerien” Muslim identity by providing a woman’s perspective. This development has become particularly noticeable in the media, both print and electronic.

Nigerien women’s persistence in inscribing their voices in the public space, as the analysis of the radio storytelling of this version of “The Wicked Stepmother” will show, is a significant indication of their resistance against patriarchal forces which had long controlled symbolic meaning—be it of a religious, cultural or political nature—in the nation. Their reconfiguring of this ancient tale, with its cross-cultural thematic resonance, demonstrates their willingness to use their knowledge of religion and agency to subvert the oppressive patriarchal elements that silence them. Furthermore, through their presence in the media and their appropriation of cultural fields of meanings such as religion and folklore, Nigerien women are creatively participating in the construction of a more gender-balanced democratic order. This effort by women to resituate their voices in the public sphere in which meaning (including self-definition) is constructed is a trend that is sweeping across many cultures of the Muslim world, in part as a result of the forces of globalization, especially its technological dimension. Thus, radio, for example, has become both a tool and a site for women to engage their societies and the world with their narratives.