Literary Feminism in Africa and its Diaspora: Women Writers, Feminism and Globalization.

Sokhna Benga (Senegal) 2008 was full of many thanks for the privilege of invitation got to the United States to present a speech for the first time in English.
According to her, the notion of globalization is not a new idea in and for Africa. The previous one had as its consequences: slavery, colonialism in economic, social, cultural, political points of view. And for the dominating people, the Africa of Independence "is a continent of diseases and misery which needs the new form of globalization brought by the occidental world, the rich world". This globalization is, for them, a process that we cannot escape. I have some ideas about this new form of globalization.

It's not a process which creates the civilisation de l'Universel,  in the expression of the famous Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, where all cultures have their own place without being eaten by a dominating one, where there is the existence of unity in diversity, where cultural diversity is not a dream.
It's a new means of new colonialism, a new form of domination. This globalization they present to us is a cadeau empoisonné, a poisonous gift. I think so. It's a capitalist globalization, a new colonialism of our ideas, our culture, the disappearing of ourselves in a foreign culture dominating all the others without respect. That what I see happening around me! When I see young Senegalese people putting on American clothes or Nigerians wearing foreign clothes meant for wet season in the climax of heat!, walking like American boys, having the manners of these boys they see on TV and gangsters or "rapsters" and we all call these globalization?, I'm afraid,
we are in a world of contradictions. A world where, all the time, we have to justify to one another "why I am black African woman writer". Because it's a challenge to be first black, second a woman, and third a female writer, and in the end, an African: a part of the old Africa - the forgotten continent without culture, without thought, which only knows dance and songs, diseases (AIDS in particular), misery, wars, genocide - the forgotten one because this suits some people. It's the same image Europe gave to Africa four centuries ago to explain and justify slavery and colonialism and other forms of domination which Mama Africa has known and continues to know today.
After, I ask myself another question: As we cannot escape this process, how can I survive this new cultural, economic, social form of terrorism? The only way, I think, is the struggle, the fight against this. I think that our culture, our cultural diversity, our pen is our arms.
I want that you - I'm talking about people thinking in their sense of superiority - learn my clothing, my literature, my land like I know your clothing, your music, your literature, your land.
I don't want to disappear in a global civilization which doesn't respect my specificities. I want to see that the others understand me. Things don't and can't continue to go on on one side, only one side. For Africa, things about globalization go too fast. We need to bring our contribution. In Africa, a large part of population can't develop their ideas because they don't overpass the subsistence level.
I see the evolution of globalization. I'm afraid that, in few years, the population of Africa will become the clone of American population without having the equivalent financial means. Globalization will be disaster because it will create disparities Africa will never overcome.
We have a challenge summarized around four concepts: STRUGGLE - RESISTANCE - FREEDOM - HEART.
AND WHEN THE DAY COMES the fight will be won. You'll have to avoid the mistake men have made: keeping a large part of the world, the female part, under oppression, instead of making them a partner of the first order. The world needs our sensibility to survive globalization. Thank you for your attention.


by Sokhna Benga (Senegal) 2008