NewAfricanWoman Issue 49 - Flipbook - Page 28
WOMEN in HISTORY | FEATURE
We salute Empress Uelete Rufael of Ethiopia,
1724, Queen Mother Ndlovukazi Nandi of the
Zulu Kingdom of South Africa (1815-1827),
and Mbuya Nehanda of Zimbabwe, who are
increasingly becoming a distant memory in our
modern history, yet helped shape it.
To this day, the words of Ghana’s queen Yaa
Asantewa of the Ashanti in 1900 still imbue
her with indescribable courage. “If you men
of Ashanti will not go forward, then we will.
We women will. We, the women, will. I will call
upon my fellow women. We will fight the white
men until the last of us falls on the battlefields,”
she told a battalion of reluctant men during a
battle for freedom from British occupation.
Although she was eventually exiled to the
Seychelles, she was able to inspire the Asante
army to fight for the protection of their land
and the Asante kingdom prevailed, so that,
even today, it is one of the most diverse and
rich ethnic groups in West Africa.
Although they rarely receive the same
accolade, all these women worked side by side
with men in liberating Africa from colonialism
and its offshoots. It is widely accepted that
Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP),
for example, substantially benefited from the
grassroots support of a broad-based nationalist
women’s movement.
ADMIRABLE RESISTANCE
In Nigeria, illustrious women like Funmilayo
Ransome-Kuti were key players in
pre-independence politics. Ransome-Kuti
(mother of the late singer and political
activist Fela Kuti), through Nigeria’s Abeokuta
Women’s Union, was a vibrant feminist,
whose admirable resistance to colonial rule
and imperialism made an impact on feminist
movements in many parts of Europe and
America. She was described by many as the
doyenne of female rights in Nigeria and was
regarded as “The Lioness of Africa”. Due to her
relentless campaign for women’s rights, in 1947
she led a campaign against arbitrary taxation
of women, which forced the then Egba King,
Oba Ademola II, to abdicate.
28 l New African Woman l March 2023
According to Cheryl Johnson-Odim and Nina
Emma, authors of For Women and the Nation,
Ransome-Kuti “fought for suffrage and equal
rights for her countrywomen long before the
second wave of the women’s movement in the
United States. Her involvement in international
women’s organisations led her to travel the
world in the period following World War II.
She championed the causes of the poor and
downtrodden of both sexes as she joined the
anticolonial movement fighting for Nigeria’s
independence.”
SOLE OPPOSITION TO APARTHEID
Back in southern Africa, Helen Suzman takes
pride of place among the few white liberals
who devoted their lives to the fight against
apartheid, for human rights and the rule of
law in South Africa. For over 30 years during
apartheid, Suzman used her privilege in
parliament to challenge the country’s unjust
political system and was often the sole
opposition to apartheid from within the whiteonly parliament. Although she represented an
affluent white constituency, she saw herself
as an “honorary ombudsman for all those
people who have no vote and no Member of
Parliament.”
Although we still live in a very patriarchal
continent where these contributions and
sacrifices do not receive their full value, these
stories prove that the efforts and victories of
black women in history are laden with rich and
inspirational courage from formidable women.
It is important therefore, to salute and
highlight past achievements by these African
heroines to help promote the empowerment
of women today. Africa has a deep well of
inspirational women in its history, and as such,
no celebration of our women’s day or month, is
complete without acknowledging the immense
legacy of Africa’s heroines who laid the
foundation and left their mark for the current
generation of women leaders build on.
To sum up our celebration of historic heroines,
McFadden rightly concludes: “As black women;
in our strengths, we have survived wars,