EP 2 Hatshepsut - The Forgotten Pharaoh I Women And Resistance 🌍

This conversation, Aya Fubara Eneli and Adesoji Iginla, delves into the life and legacy of Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt's most significant female pharaohs. The discussion covers her rise to power, her reign marked by stability and monumental achievements, and the cultural and political context of her time. It also addresses the erasure of her legacy after her death and the contemporary reflections on her impact on gender and leadership. The conversation emphasises the importance of preserving history and telling our own stories.

Takeaways

*Hatshepsut was a significant female pharaoh in ancient Egypt.
*She ruled for over two decades, marking a golden era for Egypt.
*Her reign was characterised by stability, diplomacy, and monumental architecture.
*Hatshepsut's divine birth and coronation were politically significant.
*She emphasised trade and cultural exchange over military conquest.
*Her architectural achievements include the magnificent mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari.
*Hatshepsut's legacy faced erasure after her death, but she is being rediscovered today.
*The importance of women in leadership roles is highlighted through Hatshepsut's story.
*Contemporary discussions about gender and power can draw lessons from Hatshepsut's reign.
*The need to tell our own stories and preserve history is crucial.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Hatshepsut
02:21 The Names and Titles of Hatshepsut
05:01 Hatshepsut's Role as Pharaoh
07:38 Historical Context of Female Pharaohs
10:12 Hatshepsut's Achievements and Legacy
13:06 The Architectural Marvels of Hatshepsut
15:49 The Spiritual and Cultural Significance of Hatshepsut
18:12 Hatshepsut's Bloodline and Ascension to Power
20:50 The Challenges of Female Leadership in Ancient Egypt
26:34 The Divine Claim to Power
29:26 Propaganda and Public Perception
32:50 Hatshepsut's Divine Birth and Legitimacy
38:14 Hatshepsut's Reign and Achievements
44:02 Cultural Erasure and Historical Narratives
49:17 Personal Relationships and Legacy
51:16 Connecting Past and Present
53:44 The Legacy of Hatshepsut
56:32 Resistance and the Power of Existence
59:07 The Importance of Storytelling and Truth
01:02:26 The Role of Knowledge and Education
01:11:27 Honouring Commitment and Dedication

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.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:03.596)
Yes, greetings, greetings, greetings and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. And first things first, apologies, we were not here last week due to technical hitches and yeah. But we're back and today we are going back 3,000 years. before we do that, I am your host.

I'm Adesaji Ginla and with me my co-host today, my sister from another mother, sister Aya Fubera in Aliexpress. How are you sis?

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:41.132)
I'm doing really well and of course I am not dressed as the person we're going to be speaking about and I think it's important to highlight that because

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:58.208)
This work has kind of taken on its own spirit. And certainly when we first conceptualized it, there was no vision of embodying the woman that we would cover. And that just happened organically, starting with Billie Holiday.

However, I do want to emphasize, and I think I've said this before for those of your viewers who've been very consistent, that there is definitely a spiritual component to this. And sometimes it's very difficult for me to access.

these ancestors. Toni Kate Bambera was one who required me to go to the water, to pour libation, to do a lot of different things before she finally would give me some access. And in the case of the great pharaoh that we will be discussing today, whose tomb and temple I was actually privileged to visit just last week.

She remains an enigma. She was an enigma during her life. She remains an enigma after her death. There are all kinds of books that are still being published about her, some of them with very fantastical ideas and notions. And I simply could not access her.

Adesoji Iginla (02:31.192)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:31.39)
spiritually in the same way and so a little bit of eye makeup but beyond that we will be talking about Hatshepsut in the way that I've been able to access her but not her spirit speaking through me.

Adesoji Iginla (02:48.812)
Okay, that said, how do you pronounce her name by the way?

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:53.078)
Hatshepsut. And of course she actually had many names. Her...

Adesoji Iginla (02:54.711)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:01.686)
Her given name is Hatshepsut. That was the name she was given at birth. And that name stands for foremost of noble women. That was her birth name, Hatshepsut. It's her personal name, emphasizing her nobility and her femininity. And we will talk a little bit more about her lineage, because she comes from a very strong royal lineage.

Adesoji Iginla (03:18.626)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:31.264)
But then she also had a throne name, which was Ma'at Kare, which is Ma'at is the soul of Ra. And so when you study ancient Egypt, Kemet as we call it, very much.

there was no concept of separation of church and state. And so Pharaohs actually got their right to govern from the gods. There had to be that divinity that was a part of it. And so her throne name reflects that she was actually chosen by the gods. And there's a scene in one of the temples that actually shows the god Amun, Amun crowning her.

Adesoji Iginla (03:52.897)
state.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:19.153)
it gives it gives the pharaohs a sense of legitimacy but she also had a horus name which is wasirca way which stands for mighty of cars mighty of souls and it associated her with horus the god of kingship and emphasized her divine strength right and then she also had a nepti name

Adesoji Iginla (04:23.32)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:46.823)
Waj and Put, flourishing of years, which was linked to the protective goddesses of the upper and lower Egypt and symbolized stability and longevity. And we know that she had a very prosperous and peaceful reign. And then she also has a golden Horus name, which is Jaretkow.

divine of appearances and this name stressed the eternal and divine kingship presenting her as both sacred and eternal. So many many names but her birth name her name at birth was Hatshepsut.

Adesoji Iginla (05:36.086)
Okay, before we continue, can you turn up your volume a bit?

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:40.332)
Okay, people can't hear me. Let's see where I do that. Is this louder? No? Let's see. Is that louder? Louder? No? Louder? Louder?

Adesoji Iginla (05:58.552)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (06:02.722)
You're still, you're still, yes, yes. Yeah, it's allowed to a point. I would get feedback from the listeners and viewers.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:04.147)
I'm still faint. Louder now? Is it louder now?

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:18.845)
Okay, let me move closer to the mic. Is it louder now?

Adesoji Iginla (06:23.062)
Okay, you want to try again?

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:25.063)
Louder now? Can you hear me better now?

Adesoji Iginla (06:28.738)
Yeah, it's much more manageable. I would wait for feedback. No, no, no, it's good. I mean, I can hear you maybe because I'm using headphones. Yeah. And so, yeah, exactly. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:31.549)
Still faints?

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:37.129)
the headphones. Okay. Well, let's see what the people say.

Her volume is low. Henry said volume is low. Henry, is the volume louder now?

Yes, okay, we're good. We're good. Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (06:52.63)
OK, yes, thank you. Thank you, Karen.

Okay, so by virtue of the names that you just mentioned earlier, it shows that not only was she divinely crowned, but she was also straddling two lines. Because the various names indicate that she had some presence in the afterlife even before she got there.

and she was also present in the time she was ruling. So whilst you were there, did you notice anything that gave you a notion of what her purpose was specifically as Pharaoh? Because I understand she was regent first. She was regent with... Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:49.932)
She was a co-regent, yes. So I should say that in the sense of the various names, that that was very common for the pharaohs. She fit in right with the tradition of the pharaohs. They had a given name, a birth name, and then they would have a name that they would take on as a consequence of becoming pharaoh and showing.

Adesoji Iginla (08:05.72)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:17.225)
that they have been indeed their reign basically has been ordained by the gods, has been approved of by the gods. And so she fit right in line with what was typical of her time. In fact, some have made the argument that because many of the...

remaining statues and drawings that we have of Hatshepsut showed her in full what is called, some would say male regalia, that perhaps she was trying to erase her femininity. But really what we're saying is male.

is actually just the king regalia or and then king is even the wrong term it's pharaoh and pharaoh does not have it's not gendered now we do know that it was pretty much some would argue an anomaly to have a woman in the place of pharaoh although she was not the first

Adesoji Iginla (09:12.951)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:29.205)
quote unquote, female pharaoh. I'll share a little bit about that. But what we do know is that there was a certain look and regalia that the pharaohs wore and she as pharaoh wore that same regalia. The only pharaoh that kind of veered away from that in...

the busts and the statues that remain is Akhenaten. And he was definitely a renegade of some sorts. You would have to go really, you would have to go on this tour that we went on to get more of a sense, of course, do more of the studies. For those of you who might be in narrative that starts with cake, it's okay, and then narrative.

Adesoji Iginla (10:12.183)
I do not care.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:18.237)
if you join Nubia, starting with the K, not Nubia, the people that I was with just a few days ago, which is a whole other story which we'll now go into today.

There is Dr. Bady, Dr. Mario Bady, who is, I would say, one of the leading Egyptologists across the world, certainly in the United States, teaches a weekly metanetra course. Some people call it the hieroglyphics. And you can definitely get more into that. But in terms of Hatshepsut, there had been another female pharaoh.

Adesoji Iginla (10:48.526)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:54.793)
Merenith in the first dynasty. So this was 3000 BCE, BCE being before the common era. Some say that she likely ruled as a regent for her son, Den, but was buried with full royal honors at Abydos, which we also got to visit. And her name appears on King List suggesting that she was recognized as a pharaoh.

Adesoji Iginla (11:16.802)
visit. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:23.947)
Another pharaoh who was female from the 12th dynasty was Sobekne Feru. And this was the first woman fully confirmed to rule Egypt as pharaoh in her own right, not as a co-regent. She took the throne after the death of her brother. And I believe her brother's name, if I'm not mistaken, her brother's name was

Adesoji Iginla (11:38.974)
right okay okay

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:51.788)
Amenemhat IV, when there was no male heir, and she ruled for about three to four years. And then we have Hatshepsut in the 18th dynasty. And then we have Nefertiti also in the 18th dynasty, although that's debated as well. However, it's important as we in the 21st century try to put our modern lens on what happened 3,000 years ago.

It's important to note that even though

there were few quote unquote female pharaohs that women actually ran Egypt for a significant amount of time, either as co-regents or as the mothers of the next, you know, the king who was a minor or something of that nature, and that they played a very significant role in

Adesoji Iginla (12:48.621)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:53.757)
the goings on, if you will, and the politics and the governance of Egypt. And so in this book, Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh written by Joyce Tildesley, this is like her third edition, but she actually goes through in earlier editions the fact that women in Egypt,

had significantly more rights or were treated as co-equals in a way that women in modern times in the West still have not attained. So for example, we are talking today about Hatshepsut who reigned 1473 through 1458 BCE, right?

Adesoji Iginla (13:30.178)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (13:46.584)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:47.756)
And here we are in 2025 in the United States of America where I reside right now. And a woman has never become president of this country. So, you know, when people want to put lenses on things or to critique a time or place of people.

you almost want to remind them to turn that lens on themselves and to understand that the issue shouldn't really be how many female pharaohs existed in ancient Egypt. It's the fact that up to today, you all haven't even seen fit to be able to elect.

Adesoji Iginla (14:14.83)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:33.885)
of female president in the United States of America. So just wanted to put that. Yes, and I see, so this is gonna be a little different from how we've done our presentation in the past. I'll probably be responding more to people in the chat because I'm not embodying the spirit of anybody. I'm just gonna be sharing information. But Karen in the chat definitely visited these sites two years ago. We were roommates on that trip.

Adesoji Iginla (15:00.245)
OK.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:02.275)
And her temple, which I will tell you more about, is simply magnificent. It is. It was carved out of a rock.

It's in the cliffs. It is carved into a mountain. It's carved out of a mountain. And it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's something that you have to behold.

Adesoji Iginla (15:21.868)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (15:28.024)
So maybe wrong comparison, comparison all the same. Would that be like Mao Zedong?

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:37.512)
Mount Rushmore would be like me playing with plasticine or play-doh compared to what these people did, right? No, there's no comparison. You know, it's like the US and the Washington DC capital, they have what they call an obelisk, which is not the name that the ancient Egyptians called it. It was a techno, but the Tekken, but.

The one in Washington DC is comprised of, you know, like multiple stones and things that they've put together to create that obelisk of that technique. But in, for Hatshepsut, in the work that she did, and she still has one of the, she has the tallest surviving, I'll call it obelisk for the sake of our listeners, in Egypt and across the world. It's over a hundred feet tall. It's carved from one single stone.

Adesoji Iginla (16:34.252)
stone. Wow.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:35.433)
Yes, so we actually visited the quarry where the obelisks were carved out of the ground and it's amazing without all these so-called modern technology. The technology they used using the sycamore tree where you make a hole and then you put a piece of sycamore wood in and then you pour water.

Adesoji Iginla (16:58.733)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:01.781)
The wood absorbs the water and expands and then lifts. It's simply, and you talk about sustainable technology, insane. But anyway, hers is carved from one single slab. And we got to learn more about how these, the...

Oblisquare were queried because they had one that they had already done significant work on and then there was a crack in it.

Adesoji Iginla (17:34.574)
I was about to ask that question, what happens when you make mistakes?

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:38.056)
you abandon it and you start all over again because they did not mishmash things. It had to be one one intact piece. Yes. But that's just to share a little bit about the technology and the vision of ancient chemites, if you will, and in this part of

Adesoji Iginla (17:47.224)
Peace.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:05.237)
Hatshepsut's rule, but her temple to talk about Mount Rushmore in the same sentence is completely, no, you cannot at all. It would be again, like a little child just learning how to play with crayons and can't even hold it right compared to like a master artist, what they were able to.

Adesoji Iginla (18:14.412)
Okay. Point taken, point taken.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:31.871)
do and with what the tools back then to create entire temples with rooms with designs that allowed based on when the sun rises and sets on specific days for that sun to hit directly on the face of a pharaoh.

Adesoji Iginla (18:49.336)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:00.591)
or for the star to shine directly through a particular hole once every hundred years, or even understanding the whole quote unquote milky way and the astronomy as we know it now. And you know, when people talk about, what are you? Are you Capricorn? Are you Sagittarius? All of that, these ancestors of ours had already figured out.

and it's something to behold. So let me stop there and answer more specifically the questions that you raise.

Adesoji Iginla (19:40.174)
So in the chat, OK, I mean, you've taken Karen's thoughts. So people are just retorting that, yes, I can laugh with regards to you calling the work of Mark Rushmore akin to someone playing with plasticine. Yes, don't.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:06.155)
absolutely no comparison what our ancestors were able to do and that it has endured in the way that it has some buried under sea, some buried under...

sand and vandalized in the way that it was vandalized and tomb robbers and the Coptic Church and the Arabs and all the different people who came in to try to deface it, to try and erase history. And certainly when we talk about Hatshepsut, we can talk about the different theories behind why she perhaps was erased or there was an attempt to erase her

Adesoji Iginla (20:32.651)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:48.509)
from history for thousands of years. She's only now really being rediscovered. So I should say this, Hatshepsut was definitely, again, and this is using our modern day language, born a princess, if you will. Her father was...

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:11.539)
Her father, her grandfather were all part of the royal lineage. I will go more into detail with that. She married her half brother who was Pharaoh. He died very young. They had a daughter together, but not a son, but she was the royal wife. However, the Pharaoh had other lesser wives, if you will, and concubines. so...

an heir was born to him by quote unquote a lesser wife. And that became, that was almost the second and he was an infant when his father died. Some say infant, some say toddler. And so she became co-regent with him, but then eventually became full out Pharaoh herself. And then of course, after her death, he taught most the second.

Topmost the third, I'm sorry, became, her stepson became the Pharaoh. But she ruled for more than two decades, 21 years actually, and it is a time that is considered part of the golden era of Egypt.

Adesoji Iginla (22:26.402)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:27.723)
because these were decades of peace, of prosperity, and of monumental achievement. She did so much to build within Egypt itself. Many of her predecessors and then those who came after her.

Adesoji Iginla (22:44.427)
after her.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:44.989)
It was about conquest, it was about securing the borders, a lot of military warfare, if you will. And I guess there might be a lesson here just in terms of the importance of women leading as well. As someone who recently, I just got back from Nubia and Aswan and we visited Cairo and Luxor and studying.

much of what we're going to be talking about today. What continuously struck me was

the feats of our ancestors, but the focus on conquest and on creating these monuments to themselves and to their gods, if you will, and wondering what would have happened if, and there may be some Egyptian historians who will disagree with me, but what would have happened if more.

of the focus had been on building up the people. So there was definitely a very clear hierarchy in Egypt. had the royal family, then you had their advisors, the noblemen and women, if you will. And then you had some other learned people, the scribes, you had the skilled workers, and then you had all the other people. But there was definitely a hierarchy that was in place. And I think

Adesoji Iginla (23:53.814)
in society.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:15.347)
and Ayi Kwaima would make this argument that these very rigid hierarchies made us more susceptible to what eventually happened across Africa in terms of ama-afa, what some people call the slave trade. But to understand Hatshepsut, we need to understand her royal bloodline. So the 18th dynasty began with Amos I.

Adesoji Iginla (24:17.25)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (24:30.488)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:45.329)
around 1550 BCE. He expelled the foreign invaders, he reunified Egypt, he ushered in what was considered the new kingdom, and his queen was Amos Nefertari. She was very much revered and later on deified actually, and together they were the founding ancestors of Hatshepsut's dynasty.

Their son Amenhotep I followed on the throne. He is remembered as both a builder and a warrior, but he left no male heirs. And he's often counted as Hatshepsut's grandfather. So this wasn't just, I'm married to the pharaoh and now I'm going to be pharaoh-like. This woman had

Adesoji Iginla (25:33.118)
Mmm.

dude.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:41.796)
sat at the feet, had lived the life, had understood the entire history and culture. She was very learned herself, right? And so after his death, so after the death of Amenhotep I,

Adesoji Iginla (25:52.024)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:00.192)
His throne passed to Thotmos I, a skilled general who became pharaoh and then he married Queen Amos. So all of these pharaohs, if they weren't in the direct lineage, would then marry a woman who was in the direct lineage because the idea was you had to have this royal bloodline, right? And that is a sense of your legitimacy to the throne.

Adesoji Iginla (26:13.954)
They had, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:25.771)
And again, referencing Ayi Kwa Mai, if you go back to his book, 2000 Seasons, the question is what happens when people are ascending to these positions of leadership but don't have the character or haven't really developed the skills, right? Yes. So from this union of Tatmos One and Queen Amos,

Adesoji Iginla (26:30.894)
of seasons.

Adesoji Iginla (26:42.808)
Yeah, what happened in the season would happen.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:53.995)
Hatshepsut was born in 15, they say about 1507 BCE. So she was not just another royal child because she was the daughter of the great royal wife, the highest ranking queen. That made her claim to the dynastic lineage far stronger than her half brothers, right?

So here is this general who's become Pharaoh. He's married the queen who has the actual royal lineage. Their children have more of the legitimacy of the royal line than any other woman that he marries who is not or sleeps with who is not of that royal lineage and then they have a child, right? So.

Adesoji Iginla (27:29.92)
the message as opposed to her.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:42.406)
He did have children, heirs born to secondary wives, but she was the one who was born to the great royal wife. Well, when her father died, as was the custom back then, Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II. And this was a common practice back then to keep the royal bloodlines consolidated. We can argue whether that was the best.

Scientific decision biological decision to be made but it was something that was done nonetheless Together they had one daughter Nefer Rure who would be raised to hold one of the most powerful religious offices in Egypt, but she was not male

Adesoji Iginla (28:15.138)
That's

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:33.749)
Tudmose II apparently was weakly and sickly, that is what they are saying from exhuming and examining his mummified body. It is said that he died in either his late 20s or early 30s, leaving behind only one male heir, who was Tudmose III, a toddler not born of Hatshepsut, but of another wife, Iset.

So the line of succession was shaky, the heir was a child and the throne was now vulnerable. And into this fragile opening, you will, stepped in Hatshepsut. But what she did as all the other pharaohs had done before her as well is she didn't just rely on her bloodline. And I'm sure

Adesoji Iginla (29:15.393)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:27.327)
that she was obviously aware that most of the pharaohs had been male and that there would be some people who would challenge her legitimacy. Looking through the chat now to see what people are saying, just to see if it ties in with what I'm saying now. Okay, we'll keep on.

Adesoji Iginla (29:33.048)
No.

Adesoji Iginla (29:37.24)
will push back. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:53.516)
Karen says the hierarchy and the concentration and hoarding of power through lineage was their society's greatest flaw weakness. I would say it was definitely part of it.

Adesoji Iginla (30:03.47)
Karen May says she was on the bus two years ago and took some pictures. And probably this session would help bring some clarity to those photos.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:15.787)
Absolutely. So Hatshepsut didn't just rely on her royal bloodline. She made her claim divine and she understood that this was important just as the pharaohs before her had done. Because if a pharaoh has to be crowned by, has to, if their reign has to be approved up by the gods,

then you want to make sure that you present that information to the people. As I walked through the temples, I'm a very beginning reader of Medanature and trying to take in.

And of course a lot of it has been destroyed, but there's a lot that you can still decipher trying to take in all of the inscriptions and the drawings on the temple walls. What struck me is that these writings were in a sense the propaganda of their time. So today we have social media, we have the news media, we have

books and we have newspapers and things of that nature. And what way would politicians get their word out? They would do interviews or there would be opinion pieces or things of that nature. Well, back then, you would stake your claim in the form of propaganda. And there might be people who come for me for this, was through the metanetra that you wrote.

Adesoji Iginla (31:31.199)
art, that's itself.

That's use.

Adesoji Iginla (31:56.302)
the glyphs.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:57.568)
You told your story, you told the story you wanted the people to know. You told the story between you and the priests. You told the story that you basically wrote yourself the way that you wanted to be perceived. Even in terms of how you presented in the drawings, in the statues and so on, you determined what that would look like, right?

Adesoji Iginla (32:22.286)
So wasn't essentially a public record, it was more or less just a PR campaign on the, you know, self-promotion.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:29.931)
we can definitely call it that because there because again there was a very limited number of people who wrote and read.

Adesoji Iginla (32:41.366)
even though they had scribes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:43.529)
Yes, so the scribes weren't the vast majority of the people. You had a limited number of people who were the scribes. You had a limited number of people, the elite, who were educated and literate in that sense. And so then you would also have all of these drawings that would tell a story. So you see the story of, you see the drawing of the god Amun crowning Hatshepsut.

Adesoji Iginla (32:51.862)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (33:03.928)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:13.117)
And whether I can read Medanetra or not as a peasant back then, I see that and I see that she has been ordained by the gods, if you will. I know what the gods look like. Now understand that these temples that commoners like me are now trapezing through and I would say actually disrespecting, we're not open to the average

Adesoji Iginla (33:26.894)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:42.588)
the average people of ancient Kemet. They were places where the priests and those who served the priests entered into and did incense and so on and so forth. And then they were outer courts where during festival periods, the commoners could come.

and leave their offerings and make their prayers. But they did not enter into the Holy of Holies. That was for the priests themselves. You know, just like if you would think of the Vatican today.

Adesoji Iginla (34:10.638)
Okay, okay.

Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:20.575)
The average Catholic is not just walking in through whatever and going into the crevices of the Vatican. There are courtyards and places for the masses. And then there are places that those who have attained a certain yes are able to enter into, right? So if that is a comparison that helps people.

Adesoji Iginla (34:31.928)
Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (34:37.112)
there.

Adesoji Iginla (34:41.475)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (34:47.392)
understand.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:47.531)
You can understand it out. Think of the White House, if you will, or 10 Downing Street, or any of these places. Everybody doesn't have access to everything. So, like I said, so at her mortuary temple that is at Der El Bari, and this is the part, this is the temple that was carved out of a mountain. I don't see, see, like.

You see it, you see that first of all, these people must have been in very great shape. Now, all of these temples that we visited are now in areas that are considered deserts, but back then, the Nile before the dam was built and all that.

Actually, they traveled by boat to these places but the staircases alone leading to some of these temples I mean we were huffing and puffing and Some people didn't make it up, you know, it was course it was scorching hot. but to think of the the level of excellence the ingenuity and that

Adesoji Iginla (36:00.92)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:04.927)
These places were carved in such a way that there are multiple rooms, multiple statues. They had a way of design where from the outside, the ceilings are higher and the floor is lower. And as you go in, the ceiling comes like the, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (36:25.93)
Almost like a closure. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:28.347)
And so when you're in the holy of holies and you look out It's this panoramic view. It's it's it's it's beyond anything that I can actually explain with words so for anybody who has the resources because It's not inexpensive by my budget. Anyway, If you can make that trip next year, it's always the first two weeks of august

Adesoji Iginla (36:45.742)
Yeah, it's a pretty penny.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:56.415)
to go with Dr. Beatty and Dr. Carr.

Absolutely amazing. But let's get back to Hatshepsut here. So we see the remarkable story that is inscribed in her temple. In one of them, the god Amun takes the form of her father, Thotmos one, and enters the chamber of her mother, Queen Amos, while her mother is pregnant about to give birth. The god...

Gnu who is the potter of creation then fashions Hatshepsut's body on his will. And the gods then proclaim that she will rule Egypt as Pharaoh. So obviously you as a peasant or even the priest, the scribes, whatever, you see this and the message is she didn't just wake up and say, I'm going to be Pharaoh.

Adesoji Iginla (37:56.814)
She's the chosen one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:57.172)
This is something, yes, and was chosen at birth. The creator himself molded her and we see that scene and her father asked God, Amun basically saying she is going to be Pharaoh. So there's that divinity as well. And this was not merely myth. It was political theology. Again, as I said earlier, there's no separation of church and state.

By embedding her divine birth in stone, Hatshepsut was not just declaring her. And again, words that the English language fills. I wanna say her rulership instead of her kingship. But she was not just saying, hey, this is human ambition. I saw an opening and I stepped in.

She was basically saying this is the will of the gods themselves. And for anyone who is religious or spiritual, when the gods speak, who are you to counteract the gods, right? So it gives this different level of legitimacy, if you will. So when Thotmose II died around 1479 BCE, Hatshepsut, the royal wife, became regent for the young Thotmose III.

First, she ruled in her name, but gradually her image and titles shifted. And so I gave you a list earlier of the different titles that she had. So when she is now known as Ma'at Karoo, this is not, I am ruling as a co-regent, which again, women had done quite a bit in the history of, Ma'at Karoo had done quite a lot in the history of Egypt.

Adesoji Iginla (39:38.03)
previously.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:44.896)
but now it's I am ruling in my own power. So by 1473 BCE, she had taken what was at that point considered an unprecedented step of crowning herself pharaoh. Now again, this is not something that like.

Actually, I'm not gonna mention his name because he does not warrant in any way the little Shitty prince that he is he does not work a big part of this conversation But you don't just stand up and say I'm going to be Pharaoh There's a whole system in place that she would have had to ensure For her to now be crowned as Pharaoh

and as I said she adopted the throne name Ma'at Kare meaning truth is the soul of Ra. She appeared in the regalia of the Pharaoh, the crown, the kilt, the crook, the flail, and even the false beard. So much so that some crazy writers are now saying she was a transvestite. Again, again just

Adesoji Iginla (40:52.739)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:56.649)
You know, let me tell you how stupid that would be. That would be like, I typically wear dress, but when I decide to run a marathon, I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And someone now interpreting that and saying, well, she must've wanted to be a transvestite. It was the regalia of the time. And she dressed in that way. Now there are also statues showing her.

Adesoji Iginla (41:20.536)
time yet.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:25.395)
with the more feminine face, showing her with her breasts, showing her with, as our young people would say today, a snatched waist. When she was younger. And then there's certainly a lot of statues showing her.

in the manner that pharaohs were always shown. Though all those pharaohs didn't have chiseled washboard abs and all of that as we see it, but that was how they were presented and that is also how she presented most of the time. But the whole argument being put forth by some people now to say she was a transvestite or she did not want to be feminine,

Adesoji Iginla (41:44.078)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:08.905)
I believe that there's other information and literature and statues and all of that to show that that is a reach. But again, people are going to write whatever they need to write to get their PhDs and to stay relevant and sell books and so on and so forth.

So from about for about six years from 1970 sorry 19 no 1479 to 1473 BCE she ruled as co-regent and then for the next 15 years from 1473 to 1458 she reigned as pharaoh in her own right. This made her one of the longest ruling female monarchs.

Adesoji Iginla (42:29.23)
14.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:47.187)
of the ancient world. I would argue it probably ranks her as one of the longest female Mornex period. I mean, I know that Queen Elizabeth stayed forever in a day, but the second, sorry. But again, just putting this in context.

Adesoji Iginla (42:55.402)
Logos 7

Adesoji Iginla (43:02.616)
The second. The second.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:10.579)
And unlike Queen Elizabeth II, where it was mostly ceremonial, Hatshepsut was actually the ruler. It wasn't just ceremonial, right? So her reign is marked not by endless war, but by stability, diplomacy, and prosperity.

Adesoji Iginla (43:13.388)
The second.

Adesoji Iginla (43:20.309)
Ruler, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:32.688)
Now, some would argue, okay, but towards the end of her reign, by the time Thutmose III came in, he did have to now go back to war and all of that. But even he very quickly also tried to build on the prosperity of some of the building works that she did in Egypt. And if you're ever able to visit the Temple of Karnak, that is where...

had taken the obelisk that I was telling you that's 100 feet tall, that is where it resides. There are others that were destroyed, but you can see the very ambitious building projects that she put in place. So one of the main expeditions that she's very well known for, and this is depicted in her temple.

is the expedition to Punt, P-U-N-T. Around her ninth year as Pharaoh, she launched this famous expedition. People are saying Punt is likely in the Horn of Africa.

And the reliefs at this temple of hers show Egyptian ships laden with gold, ivory, ebony, baboons, leopard skins, myrrh trees uprooted and brought back to Egyptian soil. Myrrh and frankincense were very important to the Egyptians because they used them to make incense, and the incense was heavily used by the priesthood in

all the temples and there were temples, a lot of temples, a lot of temples in Egypt. Many of them are undersea now. Many of them we probably are not even aware of. It was more than just exotic luxury for her at the time. Incense, like I said, was sacred for temple rituals to Amun. And by securing this incense or the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:36.306)
raw material for the incense, Hatshitsut was able to link Egypt's prosperity directly to divine worship. So you can imagine if this is, let's again, trying to bring it back to things that people can relate to. If you are the president who was able to oversee man walking on the moon,

Adesoji Iginla (45:52.736)
related.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:03.783)
it gives you a whole different level of prestige, right? And so for her to have overseen this expedition to punt, for it to have been as successful as it was to bring back the goods necessary for them to continue to worship their God.

Definitely gave her added if you will kudos, right? It's like wow or to have done that She truly has been ordained by the gods so she reinforced Egypt's hold over Nubia and you can decide how you feel about that because Nubia is definitely where you had the darker skinned people who look like us I have lots of pictures that we took when we went to

Adesoji Iginla (46:26.616)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (46:44.813)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:48.073)
a village in Aswan and just being around the Nubian people. But she was able to secure the gold mines in Nubia. She maintained open trade with the Levant and the Mediterranean, ensuring steady supplies of timber, copper, and precious stones. And she favored diplomacy over conquest.

So unlike her father and her stepson, she did not necessarily glorify the battlefield, although she understood the importance of securing the borders. But she sent soldiers, so she did send soldiers to secure the borders, but she built her legacy on commerce and cultural exchange.

Adesoji Iginla (47:35.244)
So she didn't build the wall.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:39.114)
Well, they certainly had walls. All of the temples were enclosed by walls because again, average people couldn't just walk in and walk around. So for me, was like, wait a second, you're just smoking in these places, what is wrong with you? that was my issue, not anybody else's. So there were certainly walls, but she was open to cultural exchanges and not just always battling.

She inscribed her reign on the landscape itself. And that is why, although there are different theories as to why it appears that there was a very specific goal to erase her, they were not able to accomplish it. So as I've already mentioned there, El Bari, the temple is a masterpiece of architecture.

It has terraces, pillared colonnades carved into cliffs. It tells her story in stone, which is harder to just rip off. We see in the United States of America, they assault on museums, they assault on books and so on and so forth. She carved it into stone. Hard, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (49:02.7)
Has the expression written in stone?

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:06.131)
Written in stone. Yes her divine birth her coronation and her expedition to fun So you will see parts of the different temples where it's like they have Chiseled out her whole face But then you can still see the body or you can still see the cartouche and the cartouche will always have the name Of the person. Yes, please go ahead

Adesoji Iginla (49:16.696)
She's older.

Adesoji Iginla (49:21.006)
Speaking of...

Adesoji Iginla (49:26.838)
Yeah, speaking of the phase, what is it about the broken noses?

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:32.94)
It's so interesting you asked that question because I kept taking pictures and it's like the noses that were intact will be more noses that were more narrow not noses that look like yours and mine and the noses that we assume were

you know, broken the face, the whatever, probably were more bad noses. What's interesting is when you read the books on Hatshepsut and the family, the Thutmose family, they talk about how they had broad noses. Certainly you can still see the lips on the parts where they leave the lips. So definitely a history of trying to whitewash.

Adesoji Iginla (49:53.507)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (50:18.668)
erasure.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:21.003)
you know, if we cannot deny the magnificence of ancient Kemet, then what we can say is, it wasn't dark skinned black people, know, it wasn't black people, it was other people. And there were different invaders who also attempted to erase just the history when we talk about the Hizkos people and so on and so forth. But yes, the definitely.

Adesoji Iginla (50:27.522)
can blow the...

Adesoji Iginla (50:32.963)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:48.691)
very strategic in which noses were vandalized. So in addition to carving her birth, her divine birth, her coronation and her expedition in stone at her temple in Der El Bari, she also had Karnak Temple, which I referenced earlier, where she erected obelisks of red granite.

and they're still surviving today, the tallest one being over 100 feet. She commissioned hundreds.

of statues, some showing her as female, others as a masculine pharaoh. This was not confusion. This was not her being a transvestite. This was strategy, blending identities to redefine that kingship. She was basically owning who she is. Yes, I am pharaoh and as pharaoh, this is how I present, but I am also female. I am also woman.

Adesoji Iginla (51:51.726)
So yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:55.564)
in that time although perhaps the distinctions weren't as clear as how we now live them in this patriarchal society because as you can see that royal lineage was actually clearer through the mother which makes sense you always know where the baby came out of but you can't always prove that the seaman

Adesoji Iginla (52:15.256)
to

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:22.811)
was from, you know, which male it was from. So that's just common sense really, period. That for any society, if you really want to know where the child, whose child it is, trace it through the mother.

Adesoji Iginla (52:27.832)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (52:37.026)
That is why I think it's the Ghanians. The Ghanians trace is matrilineal. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:42.055)
Mm-hmm. Yes, very much matrilineal. Yes, absolutely so I'm gonna get a little salacious here and again, they're gonna be gypto-ologists who they ever watch this little segment might be like what? But so there is a man Yes, who was known as Sanan Mut and there's some

Adesoji Iginla (53:03.374)
Hey.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:13.163)
There are some stories about whether he was really her true love, right? So she married Topmost II because this is what you do, but whether there was really someone who was more of her confidant. He was born a commoner. Yes, but under Hatshepsut, he rose to hold more than 25 titles.

Some say he was the architect of her monument. Some people don't agree with that and they point to by the 16th year of her reign, he kind of like faded from history. We don't find him. We don't, we know that he had a tomb built, but they say his body was actually never there.

but we know that he was a steward of Nefer Rure, who was the daughter of Hatshepsut and the Pharaoh, Thotmose II. We know that he was overseer of works. He designed their El-Bari and he managed many of her vast building campaigns. Much later, there's some graffiti that was found at her temple depicting him.

sentiment in some explicit scenes with a woman who they claim is Hatshepsut, but the chances that the queen would have, sorry, that the pharaoh would have depicted herself in that way is ridiculous at best.

Adesoji Iginla (54:50.744)
So how did you draw and get there?

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:54.031)
We don't know we know she wasn't the one doing the drawing. We don't know exactly when the drawings showed up But and whether it was her or someone else or whatever. so

Adesoji Iginla (55:03.118)
So she had a side piece.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:06.879)
I am not claiming that at all, but we do know that his closeness to her was unprecedented for a man of non-royal birth. But as I said, around the 16th year of her reign, he kind of disappears from history. His tomb was left unfinished, his body never found. And so that is yet another mysterious part of.

Adesoji Iginla (55:33.134)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:34.388)
You know hatchet so train what happened to him? Did he have a falling out with her? You know what went on? We don't know So she died around 1458 BCE It's said that she was probably about 50 years old Now there's some

assertion about CT scans of her mommy suggesting that she had bone cancer. But then there are other books that have been written that say they're not really sure that they really did recover her body because with the tomb robbers and all of that, were mommies moved and bodies moved. There is a tomb with

Adesoji Iginla (56:13.1)
Aya Fubara Eneli (56:16.267)
The nurse that took care of her citrate where if there are two bodies in there and they're saying one is the nurse and one is her and that the other body was obese looks like it would could have been her body but again, I don't have Information that says for sure Yes

Adesoji Iginla (56:31.544)
But.

Adesoji Iginla (56:35.982)
Okay, so the question would be, I thought the Mubbies, the Pharaohs were prepared in a specific way for the afterlife. Could that not have been an indication of who was?

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:45.855)
They were.

They were, but we also know that many of the bodies, by the time they were recovered, the tomb robbers had already disturbed the bodies. Some of the bodies were not intact. Some had been bandaged and re-bandaged and so on and so forth. So there's still a lot of work to be done. And I'm not sure that we are necessarily the ones doing that work.

Adesoji Iginla (57:00.597)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:14.943)
and there's always the lens through which you look at things. this is really important for us to, one of my lessons from visiting Kemet now twice is not just looking at ancient history.

Adesoji Iginla (57:18.624)
Mm, OK.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:34.002)
as in, okay, I've gone and I've looked at Kemet and I want to study that, but it's also tracing where we are and understanding our history and connecting the dots. So I actually did a presentation while we were in Kemet this time, and what I had done was do research on the EJaw people, and that's my quote unquote ethnic group, and begin to trace our migration.

and some scholars, which would make sense because all humanity began in one place and then people migrated. But we are basically tracing our lineage back to the Nile Valley and just showing how using following the waterways and with boats, we moved from the Nile Valley area to the Niger Delta in Nigeria. But I say all of this to say the importance of us.

Adesoji Iginla (58:06.882)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:30.539)
keeping records of our own lives and then also studying the lives of those who've come before us and making sure that we are telling our own stories. And that is one of the reasons why we are doing this series on women and resistance, to tell the stories of women who've come before us, many of whom history has tried to erase and to help.

Adesoji Iginla (58:30.688)
understanding.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:56.591)
Men and women reimagine how we can live today. I don't know that when Hatshepsut lived that she was thinking, okay.

I'm going to be the female, quote unquote, leader pharaoh. And then after that, there'll be no more behind me or let me open the door for more to come in. I think it's important to own who you are in the moment and to be the most excellent version of yourself as you can. Karen says, only one black lead expedition and excavation recovery of a comedic tomb. Yes. And

I will not go into more detail about that, Karen, if you go and research the, believe the Egyptian government has actually told that one black expedition leader, if you will, that he can no longer be affiliated with that tomb, but you can go research that and see. Okay. So after her death, Thutmose III took full power. This was her stepson.

It is said that nearly 20 years later that he ordered her statues to be smashed and her cartouches to be raised and her images replaced.

Some speculate that it was because he had all this animosity towards her because she had taken over as Pharaoh when initially started as co-regent. Some others say it wasn't quite that nefarious, that it was really every Pharaoh tried to emphasize themselves in their own reign, and he did reign for a significant amount of time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:40.817)
And so he was just trying to make sure that the focus was on him. Some others speculate that there were others who wanted to get rid of her because it was kind of like an abomination to have this female in this role. And so we may never know the true story or perhaps as we, as more excavations happen, we may find more writings or information that sheds more light. But certainly,

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:43.736)
The focus was on him.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:08.843)
One of the temples they have a list of the Kings a list of the Pharaohs and She is notoriously or not on that list Neither is Akhenaten and Akhenaten is another Pharaoh who kind of blocked the system and created his own Yes, and he Was he attempted to replace Amun as the main God and to put it at ten?

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:28.843)
style.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:38.492)
And so some, some again, you know, when we talk about drama and what do they call those things that people watch soap operas and all of that. Again, that question of is it life imitating art or art imitating life?

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:52.054)
of ovaries.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:59.161)
in life, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:59.848)
Egypt certainly had a lot of intrigue and a lot of stories that could be told. But her resistance endured, her legacy endures. In the 19th century, archaeologists uncovered her temple and her obelisks. In 1903, Howard Carter, and I hate to mention these people's names because these people were opportunists, found her tomb.

We know what they shared with Egypt. We know what they've taken to the museums across the world. And we will never know possibly all that they have in their personal collections that belong to us. It is said that in 2007, her mommy was identified through DNA and CT scans.

Today, historians are recognizing her as one of Egypt's greatest rulers. And her resistance definitely lay in claiming the throne when custom, for the most part, did not have a woman outright claim pharaohship, redefining that reign to include prosperity, diplomacy, and monumental architecture.

and of course inscribing her reign in stone so that she is not, they could not erase her. So she definitely resisted the silence of history. She definitely resisted the confines of gender and power, particularly as we know them today.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:19.358)
No.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:33.502)
And even though for whatever reasons people try to chisel her name from stone, her legacy literally rises from the cliffs of their Elbari.

And of course the obelisks of Karnak and she reminds us that resistance I think is not just rebellion. It is the audacity to fully exist in spaces that may want to deny your presence. And so today we see a very brave sister. I might go to the Capitol tomorrow if she's still there.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:58.158)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:06.906)
the lady, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:09.451)
In Texas who says no I'm not signing a paper that says that the Department of Public Safety gets to escort and follow me everywhere I go Because I am NOT a criminal. I've done nothing. this is a so-called democracy and she's been in the Capitol I would have to check to see What the latest updates are bet as of a few hours ago. She was still in the Capitol

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:18.69)
Follow me to the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:38.475)
And just crazy things happening. Another representative who was out running and apparently whoever they had assigned to her could not keep up with her, lost her on the trail and wants to get upset and find other ways to restrict her. It's amazing. It's 2025. And so, you know, having the audacity to exist fully in spaces.

to carve your truth so deeply that the world, no matter how hard people try to erase you, has to remember who you are. And so as a woman, say that, you I hold up her name for women everywhere, whether you're a teacher, whether you're a grandmother, whether you're a nurse, whether you're an attorney, whether you're a stay-at-home mom, whether you're a wife, whether you're a daughter.

Accountant, know, whatever it is that you do Showing up and and fully embodying whoever it is you believe God to have created you to be Regardless of what the pushback will be So, yeah, that's just some information on the amazing hot chipsets who will not be erased

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:37.826)
Sure.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:00.846)
Speaking of will not be erased, you raised up a book earlier. You might want to show that. And for the listeners, what's the name of the book?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:07.593)
Yes, this is one of many. There are lots of different books.

It is Hatshepsut the Female Pharaoh by Joyce Till-Dissley and it's got some really great, you know, pictures from. So if you can see this, this is Karnak and you can see that Tecmen in the background. This is one of the carving statues of her as a sphinx.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:40.65)
Hmm, Christy Haazan knows that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:44.307)
Yes, this is the red granite. But then this is another one. She doesn't have a nose on this one.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:57.691)
This is for the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and her son, Thutmose III, her stepson. But you can see here she is fully dressed in the Pharaoh Regalia. No breasts and all of that. But then here is a statue where you can definitely see her feminine form and you can see her chest there. So.

Yes, they were definitely different.

This is a rendering. It's going to be hard for you to see it. But basically, this was Hatshepsut as the Pharaoh offering before the bark of Amin. And so, yes. And this is the Temple of Amin at Karnak.

Look at look at I mean and this is this is it in rooms so when you see some of the columns that still show The colors and the details and and you get a sense of what this place must have looked like Absolutely mind-blowing what they were able to accomplish back then

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:56.718)
Adesoji Iginla (01:08:09.282)
detail.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:24.642)
Yes, yes.

History has a way of pointing.

going back to your neck of the woods when your president decided the focus on

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:41.823)
Who's president? Not mine. But please carry on.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:49.318)
When the president in Seton decided the focus on the United States past is too much for him to bear, I suppose that's him indicating that truth is still a currency, unfortunately that which he cannot afford. So he's going to try as much as possible to ensure that that is not going to be a common theme.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:09.94)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:17.811)
And that is why more than ever we cannot depend on others to tell our story, others to think for us. So I'm very grateful for you and this platform and the work that you do week in and week out, not just with women and resistance, but also with African News Review, because it is important that we are paying attention. We are telling our truths. We are speaking up against the lies and the propaganda.

and that we are showing up as our very full selves on a daily basis, which does require courage. But then the alternative is to die, yeah, rollover, and for your life to have not mattered at all. And then for the lives of your ancestors also to have been in vain.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:58.124)
Roll over.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:11.052)
Now, I will also say the same of you in the sense that when you came up with the idea of rethinking freedom, yes, we might be free. We engage in sometimes the fascicle discourse because you can go online. There are hours and hours of nonsensical topics, maybe to me, but somebody else might find them truly engaging. But

in light of the assault on your freedom and you want to play pretend it's truly truly remarkable. It's shocking. I mean the world over there is this global assault on realism. People want to know draw up this kind of imaginary world of

what you're feeling is not real. So go back into your box. But then in England here, people are being arrested for showing disdain for an ongoing genocide in another part of the world. You guys had it earlier, but you're still living through it. And I'll just give you a quick one.

the president has a White House feed on Facebook, when you go on there and you just read some of the... and you read some of the postings on there, it's like, really? Really?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:05.259)
And people who are not paying attention or, you know, are just not used to thinking, you you swallow this hook line and sinker and then it affects how you then show up. And so we understand that we are in the position that we are in in the United States and that is affecting the entire world because some people bought into the propaganda.

that a man who had been convicted of 34 felonies, who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a woman, was, and led an insurrection, was better equipped to lead this country and to provide for their personal economic benefit than a woman who was of Jamaican ancestry.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:38.454)
A laden insurrection.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:56.777)
which is something that they highlighted Indian ancestry and happened to be female. And so people either chose to disengage and not vote. Some people chose to vote for him. We know that more people did not vote than that voted for him.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:56.814)
of Indian ancestry.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:16.447)
But now the entire world is suffering because it's not just the United States, the erasure of healthcare, schools being threatened, museums being threatened, cities being occupied, the weaponization of ICE, the disappearing of people. It's also wholesale like you and I discussed for those who want to go back and look at the

Last yeah the last episode of rethinking freedom people who are gonna die of AIDS and HIV because The medication is available, but it's being destroyed as opposed to letting people have it Same thing with contraception same thing with food Farmers not just being told not to grow things and being compensated for not to grow but for the excess food to be destroyed rather than to feed people

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:46.764)
rethinking freedom.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:57.71)
Destroy it. I mean...

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:04.055)
Food.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:11.598)
Detroit.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:14.193)
And in the last really 20 years, over 80,000, sorry, over 80, something like 80 trillion being siphoned off from the poorest of the world and being put into the hands of an elite. So when people say, we have more billionaires than ever, how? And people say, may you be the next billionaire in your family and at whose cost?

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:31.118)
Yeah, private. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:43.249)
And so there's so much going on right now that we must speak up about we must fight back against we must fight against and I'm grateful for the work that you're doing one last thing that I want to say because I know a lot of people who watch this also May be aware of in class with car which is on YouTube and some of you also Maybe like we mentioned earlier Nubian narrative Lorna. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you. Thank you Karen as well

I do want to say this. So last week we were supposed to do Hatshepsut and I was in Egypt and I'd done my research and was ready to go but I was in such physical pain. I was having some issues with my knee and I was in such physical pain that I knew that I could not sit in front of a camera and try to speak coherently for 60 minutes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:13.56)
Thank you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:37.004)
What hit me as I was watching in class with car this past week is for 284 weeks straight I Just have to say this publicly because just like we're giving flowers to these women We need it I feel like I need to give flowers to this this man as he's living

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:46.75)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:03.517)
It was, we were supposed to go live at 2 a.m. Egyptian time. At 1.37, I was in so much pain and that although I just did not want to do it, I texted you and I said, we have to postpone.

And to know that I've not been able to go what? I don't know how many episodes have we done. Okay, so I've not been able to go 28 in a row. Right? And this gentleman has come rain, high water, the transition of his mother, illness.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:27.768)
It will be 28, 29.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:33.688)
Shuck it. Shuck it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:48.533)
times when we would not ever know what was going on behind the scenes. He's showing up every week for two hours weaving together.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:57.358)
for five years and four months.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:04.267)
all kinds of his, I mean, we're dealing with one topic. He like writes three books in one session, pulling together things and this analysis with this power and passion and intellect and brilliance for 284 straight sessions. I was like, listen, until you start doing this work, you don't even begin to understand.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:25.72)
But.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:33.07)
Yeah, five years, five years, four months, five years, four months. And I can say when, where I was when I started watching. In fact, I would say I was part of the first episode, part of the very first one, because when he came on, I still remember it was during lockdown. It was in the middle of May.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:35.315)
Yes. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:01.844)
I was going towards the kettle and he said something. He said, the history of African people stretches as far as the Caribbean, Africa, through writing. And then he mentioned Chinua Achebe and I'm like, who are you? Exactly. I'm like, who are you again? And then I sat and from then on, I mean, even just watching, I have missed

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:16.843)
What does he know about Chinua Chave?

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:30.614)
couple of weeks just watching but yeah not me you know so just watching I've missed a couple of weeks you know bed days football practice for the kids and stuff like that but what I find is when you come back and watch it

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:33.129)
Just watching, not doing the work, just watching.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:49.33)
you you feel pained missing it. It's not like it's just one of them. You feel pained. I mean the man sat us the man was there during the insurrection he was there during the passing of Ruth Gator Ginsburg he told us even predicted what is happening right now.

that's you know so again it goes to show that when you see someone doing the work quietly because the man doesn't he doesn't do the you know he doesn't do the fanfare you know doesn't do the fanfare

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:28.619)
Yeah, it's it's it's not a lot of fun he doesn't have a whole lot of time it's not yeah, yeah But it just it just gave me you know having to text you cuz I was trying really hard and having to text you and say I don't have the bandwidth to be able to Sit in front of a camera and be coherent right now because I am in physical pain and just thinking

Wow, you know, we do need to it's easy to criticize. It's easy to say what people aren't doing, but you got to give people their kudos. And that level of commitment day in, day out that I have a whole new appreciation for it.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:01.474)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:06.702)
The one other thing I want to mention actually too. One is the fact that

He taught me how to read again.

It's not that don't read. Most of my reading was basically, you know, geopolitics and stuff like that. But he told me, he showed me how to not only read, what to read and how to understand what, you know, what you're reading. Make the connection. Don't just, you know, you're not just reading for reading sake. There were times I would come in just to spy on a stack of books which has since disappeared.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:20:41.811)
Make the connections, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:53.454)
you know, the stack of books. That way I know what he's reading at any point in time, you know. And again, I mean, kudos to him, Listen, that five years, the world in terms of how one engages with knowledge is just...

gone elsewhere. So for me personally I've been enriched in that five years. Yeah so even the time I spend is middle school in comparison to what I've gained from him. So I gotta give him.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:23.017)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:36.395)
So it is my commitment to, there be any other reasons for me to feel the need to postpone. So they said you was definitely ready to go to grit my teeth and yeah, cause.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:53.582)
Because the man, don't forget, the man also did an episode of Office Hours. We're talking about In Class with Kyle, we've not talked about Office Hours yet. Okay, so maybe most people might not be able to see the Office Hours. But the Office Hours, you remember the episode when he came on and he was basically choking for breath. And he refused to, I mean, that is dedication, but you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:03.285)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:12.277)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:17.291)
Yeah. Well, or lunacy. There's a fine line between the two. There's a fine line between the two.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:31.798)
Yeah, but you know, still still.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:35.431)
Yeah, because self-care is important too. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:38.674)
No, he is, I mean, he is. We have to, and I want to beg people to do something. Maybe this is part of, you know, appreciation. Can we also take it upon ourselves when he asks us to read, to at least read? Please. I mean, that's our little way of saying thank you. You know, just read.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:57.375)
That part, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:23:04.959)
Yeah, to actually engage him in the text because he does want people to engage him in the text. And I think it would probably be a little, I know I would be a little frustrated if I'm talking, teaching, whatever, and everybody comes and talks about everything else except what I was talking was like, wait a second, was I just here entertaining you? But you know, yeah. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:08.296)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:27.138)
But his magnanimous alone is magnanimous enough to, you know, engage.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:23:32.288)
But again, someone said it in the chat that, what did she say? did she say? When you were living, Karen says, when you're living your purpose, it's never worked. That that's something that he has said. And I think it's also just understanding that your purpose is your purpose regardless of how people respond to it. So as a gardener or farmer or whatever, I often think about planting seeds and.

I have any control over what seed is going to grow. I do my part and then just trust that what is going to grow is going to grow and what is going to produce and so on and so forth. And so I think, I don't know, but he may just have the mindset of, I do my work and who takes it, who runs with it, who grows from it, who applies it. That is not what he has to focus on because he can't control what other people do, but it's too.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:04.813)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:24:24.699)
do his part. And I think if each of us showed up and did our part, not I think, I know, you know, what a difference we would make in the world. Lorna says, Dr. Carr has a lot of respect for you and Adesuji's knowledge. Well, then we've, we've, we've accomplished something little, something good. But yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:33.165)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:42.272)
must be doing something right. be doing something right.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:24:49.253)
But definitely I would much rather just be sitting and learning from him than acting like I could go to it on any level go toe to toe. Maybe on gardening I could. Maybe on gardening I got it with that one. That would probably be it. Well.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:54.827)
Mm-mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:02.242)
Bye.

I'm just glad to be a student. I mean, like I said, going towards the kettle, here in Chinua-cheibe, it was like, okay. And then we've read multiple books from various authors, some of which I might not even have come across. And some of them that I have been moving with, but didn't really understand the significance of which.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:26.795)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:35.509)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So who are we doing next week?

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:35.948)
A equal more, you know? So, yes.

Yes, next week would be the lady who gave us the quotation, no humans involved, Sylvia Winter. So we'll be looking at the lives and times of Sylvia Winter, the writer, essayist.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:59.614)
And she is still living. So that's gonna be, that is gonna be interesting to see how she lets me show up. She is still living. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:01.772)
She's still living.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:07.254)
Yeah, she's still living in Cuba of all places. So yes, thank you all for coming through. And yes, we continue to learn. And again, we'll give people their flowers from time to time. They might even still be around us. But again, like my people would say, know, speak well of the elders while they're still around. Don't wait till they're gone.

starts beating yourself, throwing yourself on the ground crying and...

But you know, so next week we're looking at the life and times of Sylvia Winter. Sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:26:52.191)
Well, again, thank you, brother.

It's been an honor to work with you. It continues to be an honor and this continues to push me to do my work and to show up. So thank you so much for the opportunity.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27:06.472)
Again, yes, it's been Women and Resistance again next week. Save your winter. Until then, good night. Subscribe, yes. All the good stuff. Like, share, subscribe. And yes, you can also download the audio version of this podcast on all podcast platforms. Spotify, you name it. It's all there. Only iHeartRadio.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:27:15.953)
Like, share, subscribe.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27:35.234)
That's the only place you can get it. But everywhere else, yes. And yeah, so until next week, good night and God bless.