Titabet and the Takumbeng

Foreword

v FOREWORD I am honoured to write this foreword to Kehbuma Langmia’s play, Titabet and the Takumeng, not least because I have had the pleasure of seeing the work develop through a number of drafts. I first met the playwright at a meeting of African theatre activists in Germany in 2001 and it was thereafter that he showed me an outline. We continued to exchange ideas, and Kehbuma Langmia sent me a series of drafts for us to discuss. He then went quiet for some time. So I was delighted when he contacted me in 2007 to say that he had found a publisher for the play and would like me to write an introduction. No-one should under-estimate how difficult it is for new African playwrights to find opportunities to refine their craft, to get performed and published. Langmia was a student of the late and lamented Hansel Eyoh who did so much to promote Anglophone theatre in Cameroon. His work has resulted in the emergence of a number of playwrights and a strong theatre for development tradition. However, with its mixed language traditions - Cameroon has many local languages and a population that is split between those of Anglophone and Francophone colonial heritage – the Anglophone world probably knows less of the country than it does about the other English-speaking nations of West Africa. This only exacerbates the problems that all African writers experience in getting their work out to an international public. Like all too many African intellectuals Kehbuma Langmia has had to go abroad to develop his career and he now teaches media and mass communication at Bowie State University in the USA. vi Titabet and the Takumeng is particularly interesting because it imaginatively chronicles a true historical event. In 1992 Cameroon had its first democratic multi-party elections, but as in so many African countries the result was disputed. The Francophone dominated party of the capital, Yaoundé, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, apparently won the election but the result was rejected by the historically marginalized peoples of Anglophone Cameroon. When the military sought to arrest the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Ni John Fru Ndi, a successful resistance was mounted by the women’s cult group, the Takumbeng, who had already led a campaign of civil disobedience, which resulted in the military having to back down. All too often women have been seen as powerless, submissive and quiescent in Africa, both within patriarchal cultures and in the context of political struggles. While an important struggle for women’s rights is being fought on many fronts across the continent, and while it would be absurd to deny that African women have been and often continue to be oppressed as both black and female, it is also vital to recognise that women have historically had access to sources of political, social and economic power, particularly in a range of West African cultures. The Takumbeng is an indigenous women’s organisation which in the 1990s demonstrated that traditional institutions can still wield effective and democratic power in moments of crisis. Takumbeng is open to all women of postmenopausal age, and bases its power on the respect that must be shown to these women as both mothers and elders. vii It is also rooted in a strong taboo regarding nudity; particularly the public nakedness of the mother. In 1992 the political standoff regarding election results led to all cities other than the capital being closed for business between Monday and Friday. The boycott was enforced primarily by groups of the Takumbeng patrolling the towns. When Ni John Fru Ndi’s freedom was subsequently threatened the Takumbeng swung into further action. A group of older women surrounded their leader’s home, and over succeeding days that group swelled in number. When orders were received to move through the women the Takumeng resorted to their final instrument. They raised their dresses, revealing their taboo nakedness and pointed their breasts, the instruments with which they had suckled men, towards the soldiers like guns. John was not arrested. This is the story Kehbuma Langmia deals with in his play. Like so many African artists his theatre is not mere entertainment, it also has multiple didactic functions. Langmia profiles the power of women to act in support of democratic rights – and all his women are strong – for Nahsala, Titabet’s wife, fiercely stands up to the military, both on...