The Lock on My Lips: Lock on My Lips, The

Postscripts

213 POSTSCRIPTS Lola’s The Lock on My Lips is a brilliant meditation on the ambiguity of land ownership in contemporary Cameroon. In it, Lola uses the simple metaphor of a family misunderstanding over a piece of land to explore the broader disturbing subject of land tenure in the Cameroon nation state. The author opts for legality where the “woman” gets back her piece of land. The suggestibility of the allegorical perspective which goes far beyond the feminist literary posturing is evident to those who are familiar with the history of Cameroon since its conquest till date. Indeed, The Lock on My Lips is a great contribution to the development of the concept of national literatures in Cameroon. Dr MOBA Jesse Senior Lecturer of African Literature University of Douala “Some people are brave and famous in their emptiness. I celebrate achievements and not titles.” The Lock on My Lips by Dr. Perpetua Lola Nkamanyang stars a woman whose land and rights are seized because she’s a woman. The shooting, sometimes mortal wit on which the story hangs its imagery announces, even celebrates and sustains the conflict, suspense and tension born of the stark differences in the couple. The hate of colonisation and its disintegrating effects on a people, the responsibility of the colonialist and their progeny as well as that of the post-colonial subjects for the destruction of the environment and their society, the blowing out, the degeneration and fall into disease and death of families due to sexual promiscuity, lack of parental care and education; the education of the girl child and woman and the objection to it… are undertones that animate the fight for the ownership of a piece of land and its land title that only the court can solve fairly. This play is an incredible contribution to the students of literary studies both in Secondary 214 Schools and University Institutions offering courses in the area of Feminism and Post-colonial Studies as a whole. FONYUY MUSA WIRTUM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF NNAMBS PUBLISHERS, Douala Perpetua Lola’s The Lock on my Lips revolves on three key concepts in Gender Studies: ‘Androcentricism’, ‘citizenship’ and’ Consciousness Raising’. ‘Citizenship’ and the civil rights that go with it is gendered in two ways: men have a fuller and/or different range of rights and obligations than women — the right to justice (denied the woman [Mrs. Ghamogha] in our traditional courts); the right to freedom of speech and thought, (metaphorized in the’ lock’ on her lips); and the right to own property (symbolized in the play by ‘Land’). The play springs from the Postmodernist and Postructuralist theoretical backgrounds that dissolve the dichotomy between ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ and expose the idea of ‘man’ and/or ‘woman as discrete and unitary categories as a cultural construction achieved through cultural discourse rather than being ‘real’ entities; a view that is strongly articulated by Lola’s heroine, Mrs. Ghamogha in the mirror episode of the traditional Court scene. Lola’s handling of gender inequalities in The Lock on my Lips goes beyond the restrictive scope of ‘‘Women Studies” and feminist struggles which simply amount to ‘adding women in’ rather than recognizing that like women, men too are gendered beings. Recognizing that men too are gendered beings, Perpetua Nkamanyang Lola also shows gendered citizenship operating to include/exclude men on the basis of ethnicity and/or nationality. Lola has fully experimented in the stream of consciousness and surrealist techniques, but her major strength lies in the even- handed handling of the central gender conflict between men/ women or husband/wife. Mrs. Ghamogha must have her civil rights as well as maintain her marriage. Lola’s groundbreaking work on gender is a significant contribution to Cameroon Literature and theatre. Although Gender Studies has been 215 a vibrant and productive area of research in Europe and America for decades, Cameroon dramatists have hardly ventured into this territory. Perpetua Nkamanyang Lola has left a footprint for us to follow. Dr. NFORBIN GERALD NIBA Lecturer of English Literary and Cultural Studies University of Douala ...