Gender, Religion, and Family Law: Theorizing Conflicts between Women’s Rights and Cultural Traditions

10 | The Temple for Women Initiates Project: A Framework for Culturally Meaningful Feminist Expression in Rural Areas

Fatou kiné Camara Chapter Ten The Temple for Women Initiates Project A Framework for Culturally Meaningful Feminist Expression in Rural Areas We can do something other than look to Saudi Arabia or the West, we can look to the interior of Africa, its culture, its spirituality. —Sembene Ousmane, Senegalese writer and filmmaker Introduction My paper is based on the realization I have made as a feminist activist in a countrywhere94percentofthepeopleareofficiallyMuslims1 thatitispossible to improve people’s understanding of each others’ rights and responsibilities without embarking into a discourse challenging mainstream religious norms. In Senegal (as is the case in sub-Saharan Africa in general) the majority of people continue to believe in the taboos and prohibitions set up by their ancestral pre-Islamic and pre-Christian religion. Therefore when one speaks in a positive way about indigenous traditions, most people listen with interest and pride. The project of setting up a Temple for Women Initiates in Baback Sérères,2 a Senegalese village where people follow different religions (Moslem, Catholic, Indigenous), was born from this idea that the revitalization of the pre-Islamic and pre-colonial Black African culture is the best way to circumvent religious fundamentalisms. TheyoungpeopleofthevillageofBabackSérèresheldameetingonOctober 15, 2007, to discuss the project of a Temple for Women Initiates. In a letter summarizing the views expressed in that meeting, they wrote the following: 268 · narratives oF innovative law reForm Culture, which can be defined as the ways of doing things, the way of life, the beliefs, in short the ways in which a group sees the world, occupies a major place in the life of people. However the phenomena of Westernization, combined with the attempts at Islamization, have caused the negation of the existence of Black-African cultures. Without culture it is impossible to reach development.3 Issa Laye Thiaw, the main promoter of the Temple for Women Initiates project, is the son of a high priest of the indigenous religion; he is also from an ethnic group, Seereer, with a long-standing tradition of resisting conversion to Islam and the Christian religion. He made the following statement: Since Islamization and Christianization, Africans do not respect nature. Conversion starts with a change of mindsets, and as soon as that happens, any further change is accepted. Each religion has plundered the tradition of its community of birth. Where Islam was born, women had little if any rights; Islam has led us to the marginalization and inferiority of women.4 Senegal is, according to its constitution, a secular state. Nonetheless, Islam has been officially used as a way to deny women equal rights. The Family Law contains a section called Des Successions de Droit Musulman (“Muslim Inheritance Law”). However, there is no section for “Christian Inheritance Law” or “Indigenous Inheritance Law.” Muslim Inheritance Law, as codified in Senegalese Family Law, consistently discriminates against women; women systematically get half of what their male counterparts are given, for no other reason than that they are females. For instance, when legitimate heirs are not all of the same gender, females receive only half of what the males get (Article 637, Code de la Famille).5 On the other hand, when it comes to monetary duties, equality is granted to women regardless of Islamic laws: duty to give alimony to their siblings and parents in need (Article 263), duty to take part in home and family maintenance (Articles 151, 155, and 375,§2), and duty to pay damages to the spouse in the event of a divorce suit in which the woman is found guilty.6 Doudou Ndoye (Senegalese barrister, former minister of justice, and leader of a political party) notes the following (in an article in which he nevertheless sings the Senegalese Family Law’s praises): Camara · the temPle oF women initiates ProJeCt · 269 The former president of the National Assembly, General Practitioner Amadou Cissé Dia, made a recent narrative of the position of President Leopold Sédar Senghor on the elaboration of the Family Law, specifying that President Senghor conveyed to him that it was necessary to secure the religious leaders’ approval and leave the Islamic concepts undisturbed but that unilateral repudiation was to be banned from our ways. (Ndoye, 2001, 11)7 Lip service is paid to “modernity,” while the greater concern for the Muslim leaders’ support is unashamedly made clear. Most articles of the Family Law, which came into force in 1973, were copied out of the...