Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

By Sundong Abdul-Korah (Republished from AG Archives; August 2010)

Voltaire’s Candide is a remarkably admirable novel. After encountering tragic horrors Candide and his companion Martin finally arrive in the land of Eldorado where everything that makes life pleasant is available; where citizens do not pray for anything but thank God for providing them abundance. Strangely, the marvelled but welcomed visitors will soon take leave and gleefully return to their old world brimming with punitive oddities and rarities. Perhaps our world is all the richer for having a devil in it who teaches by caining. The drama of everyday life is certainly uncertain; also a murderous excitement that occurs naturally or artificially!

Wherever we may be perching on the globe, the most sorrowful and the most exciting events confront and appease us. Whilst patients are waiting impatiently in crowded and ill-equipped health centres, the veterinary doctor has just finished attending to a pet. Its owner, the bourgeoisie African Health Minister had obediently understudied and thoroughly imbibed the ill-manners and mannerisms of the colonial master and therefore completely severed from all forms of African cultural and moral values. What remains of him is his Blackness for which he often curses God.

In another civilized neighbouring community there’s a party next door to a bereaved home, and the mourners seem to be happier than the celebrants. No doubt artists are encouraged by these events to reproduce or exaggerate natural drama. That’s why we’re seated here tonight before the artificial stage, enjoying our boring drama--- mocking constructs of beauty in our genetically modified modern society.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Miss Africa Beauty Pageant! Shall we give a round of applause to our Beautiful Contestants?” Like the brides of Christ in the temple, they cheer like marvelled Martians on earth. It reminds me of the electrifying chaotic market I used to practice my trade--- where buyers and sellers, musicians, drinkers and drunks, soothsayers, gossipers, womanizers, prostitutes and thieves converged to perpetuate their respective needs and deeds. Sembene must have been right by remarking that the African public is truly noisy.

“Ladies and gentlemen in happy moments, welcome contestant Number Nine, Joyce Jones. She’s made it to the final stage of the competition.” In lucid flow and glaring amorous compulsions, the presenter once more announces to our hearing. She strides in, waving seductively as the audience cheers and jeers, half-risen, arms stretched towards her. The slim, strangely coloured figure with outlandish long woolly hair, mini-skirt and sparkling blouse in rainbow colours, revealing slender legs, skeletal neck, scanty back and virtually invisible ‘calabashes’ on her chest like a male, displays her meagre properties with great enthusiasm. There’s spontaneous cheering-- sufficiently messy. The eyelids of cheap male judges are twitching and shifting as if to make way for the balls to fall over and roll to touch this artificial ‘cassava stick’ which may crumble under the slightest weight of a few tubers of yam. 

“What nonsense….what mockery of African Beauty is this? What criteria are guiding these misguided judges? Don’t they know beauty as enshrined in African Cultural values?”A bitterly betrayed indigene queries. Within minutes our poor cultural man is lifted from his seat by admirers of Jones; his African fabric in the firm clutch of angry hands who try to squeeze out life from the racially-committed flesh."

 “Bush boy, do you think you’re here to celebrate Fire Festival or watch Puberty Initiation Rights? This is an International Beauty Contest for men, not idiots like you! Will you vanish in a minute?” Angry collaborative voices command and condemn. Sadly and suddenly, he is shoved across, and as he lands on heads and backs, this reactionary dose is repeatedly replicated. What a rough counterpart of a distinguished KING—not in a Palanquin but in mid-air, at dangerous speed, as restless as a Christmas balloon at the hands of rural pagan children.

But who are these crude and rude gentlemen at their best? Like Joyce Jones they were born and bred in the most colonized towns of our transformed countries who neither know the whereabouts of their parents nor aware that people have hometowns. Please don’t ask me if they have any idea of African cultural and aesthetic norms. The beggars and madmen in rural streets know better!

At the end of this grave madness our culturally ‘unwashed’ brother’s deep sense and longing for identity painfully wanes. Betrayed, he wonders if he is in the Americas or on African soil. How do we explain this logic of confusion to already confused minds? Has Africa any aesthetic? If there is, how can we validate it?

Kariamu Welsh-Asante, E. Delaney, W. E. Du Bois, Sheik Anta Diop, V. Y. Mudimbe and other black scholars say yes indeed. They not only postulated that all of Africa was heir to great civilizations  and cultures of the past, but also Africans in America retained more of their culture than most western scholars were inclined to accept. Mudimbe estimates that it is probably in the area of aesthetics that Europe has most undermined the self-confidence of Africa. This is so because the determining characteristics of the Euro-Western world-view consist of power, control and destruction. Our late father of the Last Cinema (African), Ousmane Sembene, is by now worried as he lies peacefully  in his tomb wondering if his films didn’t portray enough of Africa’s  iconic beauty and  models such as Faat Kine.

As Molefi Asante eloquently notes, “oppression and exploitation may discolate and disorient but they can never destroy the archaic, ancient, deep structure of the myths and symbols of aesthetic reality.” A repertoire of African visual aesthetics is conspicuous and pervades all ethnics groups throughout the continent; in varyingly common form and largely expressed in female beauty and sexual attractiveness. Of course we find various aesthetics in other art forms – paintings, sculpture, music and libation pouring. However, for the purposes of this article, we shall limit ourselves to beauty.

The beautiful African woman’s charms are usually expressed in many ways. Let’s listen to the lyrics of a song recorded by the contemporary Yoruba musician Ebenezer:

Obey that enumerate attributes a man should look for in a woman
She who has seductive well delineated eyes
She whose neck is spiralled like a snail shell
She who has gaps in both her upper and lower teeth
The red feathers are the pride of the parrot.

The young leaves are the pride of the palm tree.
The white flowers are the pride of the leaves.
The well-swept verandah is the pride of the landlord
The straight tree is the pride of the forest.
The moon and the stars are the pride of the sun.  

It can be deduced from these lyrics that the African aesthetic has nothing to do with colour especially of the light skin but specific molds of the body. Clearly, certain visual or morphological characteristics of female figures such as the elongated, pole-like middle part of the torso are considered an accentuated rendition of a  slender, young bamboo-like waist  which add to a figure's beauty; her eyes should be well-delineated and the neck is highly esteemed when it over folds or spirals. “Anybody who meets beauty and does not look at it will soon be poor,” Ebenezer’s lyrics tease. There’re indeed other aspects of African beauty and the African child is never left alone to guess: Let’s read the following anonymous poem which is often recited by parents to educate their children. 

If a child is beautiful but has no character
He is no more than a wooden doll.
Good character is the beauty of a person.
A woman can be as beautiful as the Egbara.
If she has no character.
She is no more than a wooden doll.
A man may be very handsome
Like a fish in the water
If he has no character
He is no more than a wooden doll.

Obviously African beauty is not merely about physical attractiveness but encompasses good behavour as the poem illustrates. That’s why in peasant communities a lazy woman’s dowry would soon be retrieved from her parents without difficulty because there is enough justification. Why not? Suffering breeds character; character breeds faith, and in the end faith will not disappoint us. Instead it enhances trust and thus brings partners even closer. Whoever does not want to labour or suffer will remain but a permanent sufferer!

Next to be expelled from a marital home is the unfaithful wife for she shall soon bring diseases or corrupt the purity of a reputable lineage. And the whole community will support a husband to shove off a woman whose food will never taste nice in a hungry mouth even if she’s provided a whole elephant.  For the presence of a woman in the kitchen is the beginning and meaning of the aroma of satisfaction. Mischievous men are equally cautioned that a gendered reversal holds perfectly true. Dishonest, lazy and selfish men, as well as wife-beaters and thieves are much respected when they decide to remain decided bachelors forever.

Throughout history, like the many other distortions of African cultural and philosophical thoughts, the concept of African Visual Aesthetics (Beauty) has been flagrantly and maliciously fractured and fragmented largely by the Eurocentric aesthetics. Africans have become humiliating objects of the European icon which acts on us like a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting away at the cultural foundation of our very being. This is partly as a result of the harsh realities of the institution of slavery which sought “the idealization of whiteness’ and thus yielded “this identification with the aggressor” line of reasoning. Albert Einstein asserts that reason is weak for the task it’s supposed to accomplish. But it’s even weaker when surrounded by mediocrity,” Are we not slaves to this wisdom from the genius? Is he not the liberator we’ve been looking for all these years of imposed slavery and cultural imperialism?

"If God ever places his signature on only one race it must be a stolen one!  For it is even sacriligeous to imagine that God, with all his powers and love, would create and endorse monotomy in the face of diversity that makes life even more rewarding. For this reason the Chimpanzee’s beauty and the Guerrilla’s beauty are and should remain separate domains."

Kardiner and Ovesey argue that the acceptance of the white ideal was a “recipe for perpetual self-hatred, frustration, and for tying one’s life to unattainable goals…. He [the African] had to settle for the delusion of whiteness through an affectation of white attributes or those that most closely resembled them.” This also means the destruction of such dominant and admirable native traits as we happily but dangerously thread the enermy’s path.

Undoubtedly the general tendency towards self-alteration among Africans-- the modern-day popularity of body reconstructions --hair altering processes, cosmetic surgery etc belongs to the constellation of consequences produced by European yardstick as has been repeatedly demonstrated. When European-American magazines included black women among their list of women considered “most beautiful,” by magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan, these black women were either of biracial heritage such as Lisa Bonet, Halle Berry, Jasmine Guy, Troy Beyer etc. or had features like keen nose, thin lips, straight or straightened hair that fit the European aesthetic: Examples of this category are Jayne Kennedy, Lena Horne, and Dorothy Dandridge.

Not surprisingly the first Miss America as well as the first runner-up of African descent—Vanessa Williams and Suzette Charles respectively—were both so light complexioned that they were not readily recognized by many as being of African descent.

In casting even in Africa today there’s evidence of strong bias against typically African features such as big bust, nicely shaped buttocks that stand firmly behind; all in favour of biracial, high visibilities, which now represent the most socially desirable. A highly restricted range of African women—those whose physical appearance hints of a strong European influence are preffered.

In his article “The Women Who Stir Men’s Souls,” Rhythm and Business writer, Ohaji Abdallah,  included in his list of the top ten black women men found most appealing Vanessa Williams, model Iman, actress Phylicia Rashad, singer-actress Sheryl Lee Ralph. Note that all these are European-appearing black women.

Ironically, Abdallah’s opening paragraph indicated that “though most won’t admit it, White women spend millions of dollars and huge amounts of time trying to emulate the physical characteristics of Black women, from tanning saloons to body sculpting, broaden their hips and rounding off their derrieres.”

The physical attractiveness of an African girl or woman is circumscribed by the above traits and are   rewarding because they are usually the product of deep and refined thinking which reflect the communal experience of the whole society. The Mende of Sierra Leone emphasize features of ideal female beauty—like a large forehead, abundant hair, and a ringed neck—all these have nothing to do with colour!

Most scholars assert that Africa’s most difficult problem is human: How to release its ‘hidden productive forces. “On the whole its people [Africans] have been degraded by western intervention, from slavery to colonialism and its aftermath, economic exploitation,” David Richardson laments. What we’re witnessing now is blatant cultural imperialism, and it takes not only the sheer foolishness of a lamb but its rare bravery to visit the hungry lion at her home. We should dare ask: Just what is the benefit(s) of this rare grave bravery of ours? To those Africans and diasporic Africans who didn’t hesitate to bleach their skin and reconstruct their natural broad nose to point towards the sun, may it enjoy its burning sensation with each passing minute! How I wish mine was even broader!

“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it,” Fanon contends. If one day Africa strangely finds itself completely cut off from the rest of the world, whom shall we imitate? Shall we go dirging as we dig our graves?

I should think that every society is naturally empowered to survive independently; that’s why our forefathers survived peacefully in their habitat before the aliens arrived years later. They were perhaps happier than many of their progeny today before the great intrusion by Europeans. On seeing the Whiteman for the first time on the shores of Elmina, Ghana (before the formation of Gold Coast), a Chief is quoted to have gravely remarked: “Why are you so white like a devil?”  

It’s recorded that he ordered his subjects to inspect the visitor for he appeared to him like a beast that was likely to possess a tail. Our forefathers were proud of their very being and grateful to their maker. Our revered ancestral chief might have expressed the common feeling of his people.

It’s frightening to hear that women are now starving themselves to the point that their bodies shut down and they stop menstruating—hardly conducive to reproduction. Yet researchers say this evolving bizarre condition is as common as movies. In spite of the inherent dangers “Kate Moss remains the dish du jour and millions of Moss wannabes still struggle to subsist on a diet of Dexatrim and Perrier,” Michelle Cottle cautions. Last November CNN reported of the death of an Israeli model who was weighting less than 60 pounds and died as a result of bad diet--self-afflicted hunger. How outragious it is to learn that human beings are no longer working to earn a decent living!

There have been calls for a critical review of diet patterns of models.As would be expected, in the wake of these modeling disorders and fatalities, some organizations are instigating consumers to boycott products sold by companies that use extremely thin models in their ads. Yet modelling rivers in Africa cheerfully flow in the same disastrous direction.

The rest of the world has displayed its beauty and ugliness. All continents have spoken; and they have virtually nothing new to show the world. “Africa is yet to speak and the World is yearning to receive what it can offer,” Esi Sutherland Addy sternly admonishes. Majority of African scholars including Gyekye assert that the most notable predicament of Africa is the sheer neglect or denigration or subversion of the traditional cultural values of African societies in matters of development and the creation of African modernity. A return to Africa’s cultural past (sankofa as is expressed in Ghana) is essentially essential if we have to march into the future with confidence and hope. The time for Africa to protect and preserve her dark shiny skin and kinky hair is long overdue!

When the real African Queen is approaching, the dying man shall hear the melodies of her beads over the carefully constructed waist. He shall as well hear the rhythm of the beads hanging on her spiraled neck. And what else can he do except to dance! 

When she mounts the stage he will feel her perfect broad nose enough to collect sufficient air for smooth breathing; lips not so thin so that they may contain enough water and food; her chest blessed with nicely molded balls adequate to feed a hungry baby; hips broad enough for a baby to relax comfortably; and her limbs firmly elegant for work and defense.

Here she stands sheathed in the most attractive textile hewn by the rare dexterity of the African designer, adorned with gold ornaments, fitting head gear—here is the African Queen--a walking museum!

And when the indigenous music plays, her hands and feet will keep time with the gongs, her hips with the first drum, her back and shoulders with the second, all shaking and breaking. When the lute loudly cries from the mouth of a professional,  the calabash its coarsely-shrill thrilling sound, all accompanied by rocking ululations, her skills sum up to perfection… meandering neck, flexible bending waist, bouncing back, twisting arms and hitting and stamping feet, all in perfect sync with the spiced acoustics. Bravo Black Queen! 

Under the dazzling African sun, tell me, what’s prudently acceptable? Pure home honey or savage stings of foreign bees? Without any further delay let’s awaken to the common-denominator-like features of the African Queen. Let’s also be guided by a Fang Circumcision Invocation so beautifully qouted by Eugenia Herbert: “Man never dies in the portal of the female, like iron. Like iron and fire!”

korahsun@yahoo.co.uk