Subject: Re: On interracial relationships, or anything
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 10:55:41 GMT

Roger Brown (brownro@erols.com) wrote:

(( cuts ))

: To sum up your points:

: 1) The fundemental society unit is the family, not the individual
: 2) The individual is represented by the head of the family
: 3) The head of the family only is entitled to speak
: 4) The head of a family is a man

: Ergo, the women doesn't get to speak.

How about Hatshepsut, Nzinga, Yaa Asantewaa?
Not only did they get to speak, they ruled.

: Classic sexism. And, might I add, the old model for families the world
: over. Nothing unique to Africa.

The African order is/was different from the European and
Arabic in significant ways.  I mentioned (1) matrilineal
rules of inheritance in Africa, in contrast to Europe and
Arabia, where patrilineal succession and inheritance
obtained; (2) the *constitutional* role of the Queen Mother
in the selection of the king; and (3) the fact that 
female priests outnumber male priests by a large margin,
in contrast to European and Islamic practice where the
"leader of the flock" is a position (still) reserved for males.
Ghana at which I attended a durbar presided over by the
Akwamuhene, the (male) chief of the Akwamu region, the
Queen Mother had a prominent role, and did in fact speak.
She was no shrinking violet, either.  The *fact* is that
Africans sought in their social arrangements to have a
harmonious balance between the sexes.  Wherever there is
a hene (male chief) there is a corresponding hema (female).
Where there is God-the-Father, there is also God-the-Mother.
Quite unlike European Christianity and Islam.  Having said
all that, I do not deny that the role of the chief, also
that of head of household, is traditionally male.  When 
a woman assumes that position, she becomes (constitutionally)
a male, as with the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, and with
Queen Nzinga of the Congo.  Yaa Asantewaa, as Queen Mother
of the Asante, was the one who spoke up in Council and
shamed the men into fighting the British.  She also
served as Regent when the king was kidnapped and exiled
by the British.  The role of the woman in African 
society is *not* "classic sexism".  The constitutional
order, and the habit and custom of the traditional African 
is far different from the European and Islamic order.
I am aware that it has become faddish in modern Western
society to insist that there should be "no difference" 
between male and female roles in society, hence we see
women in combat, women on the police beat, women firefighters,
etc.  Traditional African society would never make such
an elementary mistake.  WHat they sought was not sameness
between the sexes, which is contrary to nature, but balance
and complementarity.  The latter cannot be construed as
sexism in the sense of which the European and Arab are
clearly guilty.

: I frankly think that your Diop/Williams view of Africa to be a
: romantic fantasy, in my humble opinon, that certainly has nothing to
: do with current African reality, and probably little to do with
: historic Africa, either.

If this conclusion is based on your exercise in partial 
logic quoted above, then it is hardly persuasive.
Just another tendentious post from one, who,
I frankly think, would find it impossible ever to jump out 
of his limiting Western frame, and really *see*.

: - Roger

The European worldview is *not* a universal.


	 

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