EP 4 Bessie Head - Writer and Refugee | Women and Resistance 🌍

This conversation delves into the life and legacy of Bessie Head, exploring her complex identity as a mixed-race individual in South Africa. The discussion highlights her challenging childhood, experiences of rejection, and the impact of her ancestry on her sense of self. It also covers her journey into journalism and literature, where she found her voice and addressed themes of exile, mental health, and resistance. Bessie Head's works continue to resonate with those grappling with issues of identity and belonging. 

In this episode, Aya Fubara Eneli explores the complexities of identity, the resilience of the human spirit amidst oppression, and the quest for peace and understanding in a turbulent world. She reflects on Bessie Head’s journey as a writer without a homeland, the impact of systemic oppression, and the importance of spirituality and storytelling in fostering connection and resistance. Aya challenged listeners to confront internalised oppression and to seek a more generous and just world.

Takeaways

*Bessie Head's life was marked by her complex identity as a mixed-race individual.
*Her birth circumstances shaped her understanding of belonging and identity.
*Childhood experiences of rejection influenced her later life and work.
*Education and literature became her escape from a troubled childhood.
*Teaching in apartheid South Africa was fraught with challenges and limitations.
*Her transition to journalism allowed her to voice her experiences and advocate for change.
*Writing became a means of processing her trauma and exile.
*Her novels reflect her struggles with mental health and identity.
*Bessie Head's work resonates with themes of exile and the search for self.
*Her legacy continues to inspire discussions on race, identity, and resistance. 
*How do you live with it?
*I was both and neither and always in between.
*I admired their integrity, their communal spirit.
*I was a writer with no homeland.
*To understand me is to look in the mirror.
*We must get quiet enough in our spirits to imagine a different way.
*Can we have peace?
*Religion must have no boundaries.
*I was never defeated. I'm still speaking.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Bessie Head's Life and Legacy
05:59 The Complexities of Identity and Ancestry
11:59 Childhood Experiences and Early Rejections
18:03 The Journey into Journalism and Activism
23:55 Literary Achievements and Personal Struggles
30:08 Reflections on Exile and Self-Discovery
30:26 Navigating Anxiety and Uncertainty
31:13 The Complexity of Identity
32:55 Resilience Amidst Oppression
35:02 The Journey to Belonging
36:37 Understanding Through Reflection
38:04 Dismantling Systems of Oppression

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

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Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:02.222)
Greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. And I am your host, Ade Soji Iginla. And with me, as usual, is my sister from another mother, Aya Fubara Eneli Esquire. How are you, sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:22.404)
I am doing wonderfully this evening. Thank you. And you?

Adesoji Iginla (00:27.766)
Yes, I am blessed and hot at the same time. Rather hot in the Queen's country. But, you know, we can't complain. can't complain. So, Bessie Heard. We're going to be looking at the lives and times of Bessie Heard, how she resisted what was around her at the time and what will come to know.

is a continuous crisis of our people, especially in that neck of the woods, South Africa.

So, over to you sister, who is Bessie Heard?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19.908)
only because I need to get to her. I need to get to her.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23.054)
Breathe.

Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:37.326)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:38.852)
I am a woman.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:47.293)
can trace no root.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:53.934)
Clearly I come from somewhere and from some people, but I never knew my people.

I never knew my mother.

or the aristocrat family she came from in South Africa as a white woman.

And I never knew my father or his people.

my father who was described as a stable boy. Boy, the term that white men and women felt was there.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:41.508)
calling their power to always reduce us to an infantile state as black people.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:55.712)
As I said, my mother was a white woman from a very wealthy family.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:03.864)
They owned a stable of horses, race horses. And as far as I know, my father was a black South African.

And my mother had been married and that marriage fell apart and she returned to her family. And in that state of despair, depression as I understand it, she sought love and warmth.

in the arms of a black man.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:46.838)
and I am the evidence of their time together.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:54.03)
her family in finding out this great sin, this great crime committed by their daughter. And so as not to bring shame to the family, committed my mother to a mental institution.

where she lived out the rest of her life and where she died in 1943.

I was born on the sixth day of July 1937.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:32.984)
I could still be living today, but of course I am not. I was born in this mental hospital in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:50.094)
The reason for my peculiar birthplace was race.

My mother was judged insane.

and committed to this mental hospital while pregnant. Her name was Bessie Emery.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:15.849)
I am Bessie Amelia Head.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:23.116)
I suppose I should be honored that the South African officials, the only honor they bestowed on me was to name me after this unknown, lovely, fragile, unpredictable woman who paid with her life for daring to seek love in the arms of a black man.

and bringing me into the world.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:59.906)
The origins of my birth were to shape so much of the life that I lived.

Adesoji Iginla (06:00.312)
So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:10.478)
Can you imagine?

having no concept of who your people are.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:23.542)
and yet needing to figure out who you are.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:33.132)
looking at my hands even now. I don't know if I have the hands of my black South African grandmother.

or the hands of my white South African father to the extent that we can call him South African.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:01.868)
I was an anomaly to myself, a mystery to myself.

Some may say I inherited my mother's constitution as I battled my own mental health challenges throughout my life.

but to the extent that you.

Find it of value.

to talk with me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:33.996)
and to want to know my thoughts and to read my books.

is a triumph of sorts, I would imagine.

Adesoji Iginla (07:44.27)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:47.702)
I am certain I was not the only one to have such an auspicious.

birth.

I will stop there.

Adesoji Iginla (08:02.296)
Okay, so given the very unusual circumstances, even by the most of humane on

or normals of standards of your birth, what was your childhood like if you can recall any part of it?

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:27.854)
Childhood, what is that?

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:34.658)
when I think of the only child I bore, Howard.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:42.508)
I imagine childhood should be a time of...

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:49.27)
love and nurture and self-discovery.

connection.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:59.822)
I was initially adopted by a white family.

And I suppose as my color came in, they realized that they did not have a white child.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:17.74)
And again, I faced rejection.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:22.776)
One may wonder at what point do we recall who we are and our experiences? Are there things that are imprinted on our memories when we are not yet aware?

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:42.06)
rejected by my birth grandparents, snatched away from my mother made powerless for her sin.

rejected again for being born the wrong color.

Eventually, I was given to a colored family. To understand my story, you have to understand something of South Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (10:17.038)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:18.316)
and the stratification of people.

and the hierarchy.

white people on top, of course, men always at the apex.

and then the colors.

and then the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:41.815)
Utterly.

despised black people.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:51.618)
and then the likes of me who fits.

in none of those worlds.

My foster parents were paid about three pounds a month to take care of me.

But at some point, I believe my foster father passed away and my foster mother was thrown into abject poverty. And at that point, I was moved to an Anglican boarding school in Durban. Durban, of course, named after a white colonizer.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:40.95)
May I digress and ask, why do we still honor these people with these names even today? For that place is still named Durban. Why do we continue to?

Adesoji Iginla (11:55.406)
Well

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:59.246)
give them places of honor.

Adesoji Iginla (12:04.438)
Suppose the simple answer would be the mines are still not decolonized yet. We might believe we've decolonized our spaces, but if as long as names like that are still abound, and that's not the only place it is, it's across the entire face of Africa. In some places, these names, peoples,

events have, you know, sunk their teeth into our very fabric and existence that we now even revere some of these places and places that used to be out of bounds for the lesser amongst us is now occupied by the so-called, for want of a better word, colonizers.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:09.124)
Upon taking me to this Anglican boarding school, may I say I love Christianity.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:23.502)
When I eventually left that missionary, I vowed never to step foot in a church ever again.

Adesoji Iginla (13:34.05)
Why?

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:34.36)
I don't have a problem with God. I have a problem with the people who brought us their religion, who never lived for a minute the religion they professed to believe in, in which they foisted on us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:56.746)
During the breaks, there will be terms and then there will be vacation times, break times when children returned to their homes. I had no home to return to.

and a teacher found me in a fetal position under a bush.

I was dragged to the principal's office.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:25.824)
And the principal then put me in her car and drove me to the magistrate's court.

It was there that I was told quite unceremoniously that my foster parents, my foster mother was not my mother at all. And that I was a product of a white woman gone mad.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:55.33)
That principal, a missionary, took great pleasure in reading from my file. And it is from her that I gleaned the little bits that I know about my beginnings.

Of course, I was always told that I too would eventually...

Go mad. Be as insane as my mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:27.832)
However...

Although I had no frame of reference to anything beyond myself.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:38.442)
I was an avid reader. My mother had made one request that her money, some of her money be set aside to ensure that I was educated.

The nuns and teachers gave me books. Books became my escape. I would read everything. Dickens, Emily Bronte, African folk tales. In those pages, I found worlds where I could exist, sometimes without shame.

I wanted to be a teacher.

and I managed to qualify at the age of 16.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:30.478)
teaching was noble, it should always be considered a noble profession. But it was also cruel in the townships.

I taught in a place called Clearwood.

and later in Cape Town. But teaching Black children, for that is all I could teach under the laws.

under the apathied regime felt like trying to plant seeds in poisoned soil.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:09.4)
The very fabric of our humanity was constantly being shredded.

How do you learn? How do you grow?

when your very humanity is questioned.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:27.704)
So I walked away from the classroom and I headed to Johannesburg where I found a different voice. I became a journalist. I wrote for the newspaper, the Golden City Post.

How ironic. I suppose maybe from the gold that was being stripped.

Adesoji Iginla (17:49.07)
the

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:54.894)
from our land, land which we no longer owned, land of which we had been dispossessed.

I rode under the shadow of censorship.

I flirted with the Pan-African Congress, talking politics in dusty cafes, and I tried to make sense of a world that told me that I was both too much and not enough all at the same time. My internal conflict.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:34.242)
stayed with me my entire life.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:39.468)
I eventually met a man named Harold. He was a fellow journalist, Harold Het.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:51.556)
had hopes, as many do.

of a beautiful partnership.

A building a home.

of finding a place where I belonged. Some steady ground, some sense of stability, something to anchor me.

We had a son together.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:20.854)
I told you his name was Howard, my boy, my only child. He became the steady presence in a life that even I must admit was marked by chaos. But my marriage did not last.

Adesoji Iginla (19:22.731)
I wrote, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:42.613)
I ultimately divorced.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:47.747)
and

decided to apply to teach in Botswana after some friends of mine had gotten caught up with the South African apathied regime and I had been called to testify. But South Africa would not grant me a visa to go to Botswana. And the only way I could go

was through an exit visa of sorts. other words, I had to renounce my citizenship. But so desperate was I, yes, that I did leave for Botswana, a refugee. And it would take quite a few years before Botswana finally would find it.

Adesoji Iginla (20:20.94)
Your citizenship, which you don't have.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:43.02)
worth their while to grant me citizenship.

Adesoji Iginla (20:52.942)
for those who are not conversant with the landscape, how far is Botswana to South Africa?

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:01.176)
Well, you can tell them because this is an opportunity for us all to learn.

Adesoji Iginla (21:07.682)
So Botswana is literally Canada to the United States. And so you would think people that look like you will be embracing of you as opposed to find a reason to exclude you for some society. That is why that question came up. But you were saying, go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:37.1)
never remarried.

Not because I couldn't.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:45.892)
but because I wouldn't.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:51.086)
for women, whatever their race.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:57.187)
Marriage was supposed to be salvation.

supposed to make an honest person of you.

Adesoji Iginla (22:05.868)
Heh.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:10.382)
supposed to create a sense of security, stability. But I saw it as another cage because the patriarchy.

is truly something to behold.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:26.914)
At a time in my life, I wrote these words.

I am not in need of marriage. I am in need of a deep, pure soul to meet mine.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:48.642)
I never did meet that soul.

Maybe I was the soul I was seeking.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:58.766)
Howard was my family, my anchor. And I raised him alone in an area called Saroie. I have a book by that name. Through drought and darkness, through manic episodes that landed me in an asylum as well. And through literary triumphs, I kept my boy alive.

When I was little, he was often the only reason that I stayed alive.

When I wrote, I wrote not just for the world.

I wrote not just to make sense of myself and my life.

I wrote for him.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:55.31)
Hmm, Saro-Wi. A dusty village with red soil and white skies.

It was there that I began to write in earnest. I'm not quite sure how, given the abject poverty, given my status as a foreigner and a refugee.

Adesoji Iginla (24:16.609)
Neo4j.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:19.618)
I lived in poverty with no electricity, no running water. I grew my own food. And in 1968, I wrote my book, When Rain Clouds Gather.

It was the story of an exiled South African in a Botswana village. It was my story fictionalized.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:50.636)
and some parts of the world began to take notice.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:59.138)
Then of course I wrote my book, Maru.

and another book, A Question of Power.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:10.244)
That book.

It nearly destroyed me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:21.464)
You know what effort it takes?

to stitch yourself together.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:31.726)
with no one claiming you. Always reminded of your outsider status.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:43.438)
For all my eloquence and my mastery of language, I cannot begin to convey to you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:56.504)
the heaviness of my existence.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:03.754)
Wherever I went, there I was.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:11.14)
A Question of Power was perhaps my most personal book and my most painful.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:20.406)
Elizabeth the protagonist. She was me.

A woman broken by exile?

by mental illness, by spiritual torment. What is it about this religion imposed on us?

Adesoji Iginla (26:39.502)
and

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:42.542)
that tells us about a loving, benevolent God. But the carriers of that religion, those who would teach us the religion.

wear anything but.

benevolent. I think generosity of spirit, of mind, of body, of soul, that has to be our aim as a people.

Adesoji Iginla (27:10.467)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:13.986)
the characters who haunted the protagonist in that book.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:21.09)
were my own. They were my voices, my fears, my demons.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:33.23)
going to bed, waking up, looking for the simplicity in life. my God, I just wanted a simple life. I needed routine, I needed discipline.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:46.336)
out there in nature. You know what I loved about about about Botswana?

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:59.449)
was even as it was being impacted by the same colonizers who had claimed every inch of South Africa and imposed their will on every human being in South Africa, wherever we were. In Botswana, there were some islands, some areas where we could.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:24.374)
aspire to own ourselves.

aspire to eke out a living without the breath.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:36.002)
and hatred of white people constantly on the base of our necks.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:50.616)
But writing that book, A Question of Power, it also saved me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:58.688)
It turns my would-be madness into some meaning.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:08.59)
People say I wrote about exile, a physical exile, but it was so much more than that. Many of you may not have experienced a physical exile, although too many in the world have. You know, I once wrote about Miriam Makeba and her ability, her gift, how she would sing and pour her heart and soul into these lyrics that in anybody else's mouth.

Adesoji Iginla (29:23.907)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:38.584)
would just be words. But with her, you felt a stirring. She understood exile. She understood the pain of it. For me, it was not just the physical exile. It was about spiritual exile. What it means to be caught off from your people, your past, your sense of self. And there too many black people across the world who understand this.

Adesoji Iginla (30:08.824)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:10.072)
Who am I? Who are my people? What makes me respond to things?

unconsciously, subconsciously.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:26.094)
What is this tension, this ever existing anxiety?

And how do you live with it? How do you find joy in love? How do you embrace life in this place of perpetual uncertainty?

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:48.812)
I wrote about being mixed race. What the hell is that? In a world that demanded binaries.

Adesoji Iginla (30:58.741)
at all.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:59.02)
I was both and neither and always in between. My hair.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:13.622)
Later I turned to stories of Botswana, the collector of treasures, Sarawi, the village of the rain wind.

I was moved by the ordinary people. People who just wanted to live.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:31.608)
I was moved by their quiet strength, but I was always also infuriated by the willingness of black people, of black men in particular.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:47.118)
to accept their oppression.

the constant humiliation to turn around and internalize.

that hatred, that sense of inferiority that had been projected on them, and to do the same to one another.

But I admired the quiet dignity of the ordinary people.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:17.046)
those who were constantly

in this dance with nature.

trying to live, finding reasons to make love and procreate in the midst of so much pain and poverty and hunger.

I admired their integrity, their communal spirit, and in my writing, I wanted to honor them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:55.956)
stateless for years.

No passport, no nation. Again, unclaimed, unworthy to be claimed by person or state.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:21.39)
And the world never learns. These oppressors never learn.

calling on a God with their heartless, hollowed out hearts.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:38.382)
today.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:43.084)
in a place called Gaza.

mangled bodies.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:53.666)
Bombs going off.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:02.904)
ripping apart the fabric of human beings.

On the inside, not just what we see externally. Have you ever seen a child die of malnutrition?

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:23.288)
Have you seen a child with their last breath suckling on dried out breasts of a mother who can no longer even shed a tear because she has no tears left in her emaciated body?

Adesoji Iginla (34:36.43)
of

Adesoji Iginla (34:55.35)
in the midst of plenty by the way.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:02.052)
I was a writer with no homeland.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:09.528)
And then the award started to come.

and little bit of money.

running water.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:23.14)
Then there were fellowships, invitations to speak. I remained cautious.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:35.66)
My application for citizenship denied. I never bothered to apply again. And then one day.

I was granted citizenship. I guess I had finally done enough in the world to be claimed. Botswana needed to claim me as their own, as this author, this writer.

It was then that I was able to travel.

attend conferences and speak. The literary world supposedly admired me, but how can you admire really what you don't understand? Nor do you really want to understand because to understand would be to accept a condemnation that is all of your own.

Adesoji Iginla (36:21.547)
Understand, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:37.252)
to understand me.

is to look in the mirror and question how you can sit.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:50.466)
gorged with plenty.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:55.48)
while so many innocent lives were slaughtered for your progress, for your success.

Can you imagine?

of people who create the circumstances of your life turning around as you cling to whatever life you can spin.

Can you imagine them turning around, sitting in their lofty seats to proclaim you as difficult?

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:41.143)
And yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:44.95)
I will wear that as a cloak, a badge of honor. Yes, I am proud.

of that which they like to call me. If I had philosophy,

Adesoji Iginla (38:00.418)
difficult.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:04.534)
It would be that we must let people grow. What would have happened to Africa had we not been interrupted?

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:18.626)
How miserable would be these colonizers had they not found a people and a land?

and like parasites, they preyed on us, sucked the very living essence out of us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:45.25)
With everything in me, I abhor systems that crush the spirits. Apothet, patriarchy, colonialism, neocolonialism, they're damn religion.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:06.516)
All of it must be dismantled. And if you are listening to the sound of my voice and you have been seduced, sucked into their way of life and thinking, unable to conceive of a world different from their systems and their hierarchy.

pity you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:30.336)
We must get quiet enough in our spirits to imagine a different way. Something African leaders seem not to be able to do. Independence? What independence? How do you take on the mannerisms, the systems, the structures of the very people who came to destroy you?

who despised everything about who you were. Let me tell you about our people, the people I came to know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:02.242)
The injustices that you see in Africa today could not have existed in the ways that we used to live. We're not the Bavarians. I believe in freedom, not just political freedom, but in the freedom of the mind of the soul. how I searched for a place of peace, just peace. Can we have peace?

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:37.252)
Can the so-called illegal immigrants in the United States just have peace? Can Gaza have peace? Can my brothers and sisters, my little children, grandchildren in Congo, can they have peace? Can we have peace in Liberia? Can we have peace? Can we have peace across the world?

But these systems, they are designed to crush and to make us conform.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:11.01)
And so we find ways of escape. Some of us literally go mad. Some of us drown ourselves in alcohol, in food, in sex.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:27.062)
I was drawn to mysticism. was drawn to African spiritual traditions. I was drawn to Hinduism, Eastern thoughts.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:39.384)
but not their damn Christianity. I trusted no dogma.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:47.682)
At one point I wrote these words, religion must have no boundaries. It should be as wide as the sky. We don't need religion, actually. That was the wrong term. I should have talked about that spirituality of a connection that you know you have with God.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:07.448)
God whom I see as generous and it's that generosity of spirit that we must reclaim.

That is how I have tried to live, searching, questioning.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:24.194)
seeking peace with myself and with my fellow human beings and with all of nature.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:36.836)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:44.62)
I did not live a long life.

but I suppose I made my life count. In fact, I'm convinced that I did.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:59.556)
In 1986, my body gave out.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:06.966)
Years of struggle. The physical struggle being the least of it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:18.626)
Those years have taken their toll.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:24.438)
I died of hepatitis on April 17th, 1986.

I was 48 years old.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:43.79)
But through all my travails, through the peculiar state of my birth and life, I was never defeated.

I'm still speaking. I'm still fighting.

I'm still dreaming of a world where a girl born across the color line.

a girl born wherever in the world and in whatever way she shows up.

can grow up whole.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:26.358)
I am Bessie Het. Bessie Het.

Bussy head.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:44.462)
How many of you bear names?

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:50.894)
that you have tried to make your own, but you wonder.

what you would have been called.

Adesoji Iginla (45:00.694)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:07.722)
if you could trace the veins of your existence.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:22.116)
am a writer. I am a mother. I am an exile. I am a dreamer.

My story is mine.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:37.314)
and despite.

all of the machinations of evil people.

who still exist on exalted thrones, still inflicting their evil.

their unresolved demons and others.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:59.562)
I live on and I encourage you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:07.598)
to read my books.

NOT.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:17.314)
because I would think myself so.

amazing but for the lessons that I believe they hold.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:34.968)
I wrote in my preface to Witchcraft, I like a repetition of everyday events, the weather, the sunrise, or going to the spot every day. It's interesting what you can find when you pay attention. Depending on whether that spot is hallowed ground.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:57.302)
I believe you spoke with Wangari Matai and she talked about the stories her mother had told her and the tree and the sacredness of that ground which having been defiled affected everything around it including their water source. I am most unhappy in unholy places.

Adesoji Iginla (47:15.564)
ever. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:24.676)
Do you find yourself struggling to find your way? Perhaps you are in an unhappy place, in an unholy place.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:37.718)
So while knowing my ideal and the simplicity of my own needs, I continually lived with a shattering sense of anxiety that human beings are unfortunately set down in unholy places. And South Africa, the place of my birth, I swear it has to be the unholiest of all places.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:14.03)
For those of you seeking power, a word of caution.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:21.752)
I perceived the ease with which one could become evil and I associated evil in my mind with the acquisition of power.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:35.576)
How many of us get into positions of some influence, of some power?

and turn evil.

Adesoji Iginla (48:48.428)
Hm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:50.776)
Be careful what you see.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:01.22)
So I share with you some of my books.

pictures that were taken.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:11.662)
when I found a reason to smile and even when I didn't have a reason, I smiled anyway.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:22.477)
A woman alone.

Adesoji Iginla (49:25.352)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:30.21)
When rain clouds gather, I suppose you may have some of my writings as well.

Adesoji Iginla (49:35.246)
Yeah. Question of power.

Adesoji Iginla (49:44.48)
woman alone and is one she did with on go give a few go

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:53.22)
Ngoogie. And that is to show you that I may be an ancestor but not that old because Ngoogie still walks the face of this earth. Some of your parents might be the same age, yes, to stir the heart.

Adesoji Iginla (50:04.78)
The F. Yeah, just that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:13.792)
Others have included my short stories and anthologies. This is one Africa South contemporary writings and I am one of many writers.

whose stories were compiled in this book. My books, my writings.

are an invitation to deep thought, to critical thinking, to an examination of your own life, to an examination of the structures into which you were born, which ones you've embraced and which ones you may have.

Adesoji Iginla (50:47.406)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:04.024)
that you may be warring against.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:12.482)
I would love to be in conversation with you about my books, about my writings, about my thoughts.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:24.676)
I hope that they will be an invitation, a calling, a stirring of your heart.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:34.286)
to be a part of a movement to bring back generosity, to let it grow, to fight the evil that seems to be claiming the earth unabated.

Adesoji Iginla (51:56.652)
You also made a forecast in A Woman Alone and Indulge Me. You said, racialists in the South of the US are making their last stand. The hardcore of African-dom in South Africa will also make its last stand. And I think it's happening, actually. Come to think of it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:24.878)
right now. I understand that the madman that the Americans chose

Adesoji Iginla (52:26.242)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:33.942)
Went off on a public ranting today against a president who I cannot for the life of me understand why he would even go to meet with the madman in the first place. But pray tell what transpired today.

Adesoji Iginla (52:37.1)
Yes, did.

Adesoji Iginla (52:54.438)
So he was shown a couple of the president of South Africa that was he was shown a couple of doctored videos. So it seems the administration never gets tired of using this doctor documents station to make their case. But suffice to say, you know, it was a was theater. But beyond that, it just shows as

you said in one of your forecasts that they would make a last stand and another good doctor that we know would often say they're gonna break it and they are breaking it so

We're here for it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:42.34)
Let me say this to all of you. And I'm going to read from my book, A Woman Alone.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:55.074)
We all love our comfortable grooves and somehow feel safe in patterns of living that have been imposed upon us, even though these patterns are unjust. Think of where you work, think of where you live. Think of the opulence that you may enjoy, even when just the stones throw away.

Adesoji Iginla (54:08.268)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:20.928)
or scrolling on your devices, you see that there are far too many suffering a different fate.

A time of change is a time of upheaval that disrupts the status quo. To what extent will you hold on to your comfort and your status quo?

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:47.83)
A time of change is also a time when violent passions rampage and terrifying acts of repression are perpetrated by those who wish to resist this change. What we are seeing right now, yes, are the dying gasps of people who know.

better than maybe those of us who are still being oppressed by them, that they are indeed dying.

Adesoji Iginla (55:18.818)
You

Adesoji Iginla (55:23.758)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:27.0)
We must resist. You must resist.

with whatever tool you have at your hand.

You must resist.

Adesoji Iginla (55:44.579)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (55:49.454)
Speaking of resistance, the resistance continues next week with Rebecca Lee Crumpler.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:58.904)
Ha!

Adesoji Iginla (56:00.432)
And,

It's important to continue this conversation because we have loads and loads of women to come, each with their own individual way of resisting oppression, imperialism, racism, patriarchy and what have you. And we don't just do this because we choose to, but it's because lessons have to be learnt.

Some of the problems with the world we exist in today is because oftentimes we've not learned from the past. What is transpiring currently in the United States has gone on before, but because we fail to connect the dots, we don't see it happening. So again,

Women and Resistance, it's...

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:00.932)
There is so much, if I may. And for those of you who have been listening and who have been sharing and hopefully thinking through this, paying attention to all the ways that women have resisted. And to our men, paying attention to the impact of patriarchy.

on our quest for freedom.

Adesoji Iginla (57:31.79)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:36.874)
Aya Fubara Eneli (57:40.952)
You know, one of the things I observed in Botswana was the breakdown of the family.

Of course, we saw that in South Africa, where men were extracted and sent to mines and to plantations. And mothers sometimes even would give birth and then leave their children with their grandmothers so that they could go and serve as servants in the townships. And that fabric of the family becomes frayed.

during my years in Botswana.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:24.662)
It was commonplace for men to have this sense of superiority.

Imposing.

restrictions and repressing the voices and the minds and the spirits and souls of their women folk. And yet, choosing not to carry the very necessary load of raising those children.

Adesoji Iginla (58:56.12)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:58.406)
of being present.

How do we effectively liberate ourselves if we even talk just about, to the extent that we can talk about race, Black people, African people, when one half is also wedded to the idea of the repression of the other half?

We cannot fight ourselves and win.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:36.588)
We have so many fronts in terms of this repression that we must examine and be willing to confront. And I know this will not garner me many admirers, but we must look at the role of religion and how it has conquered our minds. And I write about this extensively in my work. We must look at the role of imperialism. We must look at white supremacy. We must look at patriarchy.

We must look at tribalism.

How can I as an African be in another African nation and be nationless? Are we not one people? Did we not come from one source?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:30.86)
We must confront the education that has been imposed on us because that education.

has propelled us to walk willingly into these prisons of mind, body, and spirit, and to even reinforce them. We have much work to do.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:02.87)
Yes, we have much work to do and that work continues next week when we look at the lives of Rebecca Lee Crumpler. Again, if this is your first time here, do like, share, subscribe, do all the regular stuff. And if it's a return for you again, read up on those books.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:03.502)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:32.972)
books of the people that we've talked about and you can never go wrong especially with yes Bessie Head I mean if you don't do anything this summer read a question of power

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:54.456)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:55.832)
But do get yourself a box of tissues while you're doing that because it's a...

It's a deep read and it's not one to be taken lightly. But then again, like the experience of all the women we've dealt with here, it's a continuation of what the dexterity of the women's spirit shows us. How they refuse to be broken. That in itself is resistance.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:31.798)
And in the words of another writer, Maya Angelou, and still I write.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:36.64)
still I rise. Still I rise. Yes. So, until we rise again next week. Again, from me, good night, sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:48.388)
Good night.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:50.065)
and

Stay, stay woke.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:57.058)
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:57.879)
Yes.

Good night.