Book Burning, Education, and Hausa “romance” novels (II)

Let me first clarify what I do not mean. I do not mean that girls should neglect their biology or maths homework like I did. There is a time for everything, and not everybody is going to end up a scholar of literature like me. So, girls, do your homework, and then read. I also […]

Let me first clarify what I do not mean. I do not mean that girls should neglect their biology or maths homework like I did. There is a time for everything, and not everybody is going to end up a scholar of literature like me. So, girls, do your homework, and then read. I also do not mean that I think all Hausa fiction is great literature. I have read some novels that are badly written, some with silly, incomprehensible plots, and others that encourage what I think is unhealthy behavior, such as young men emotionally blackmailing girls into relationships.My problem is not with specific critiques of such books—indeed, literature grows through criticism. My problem is with sweeping generalizations that assume all contemporary Hausa novels are “porn” or “alien.” My problem is with patriarchal book burning ceremonies of Hausa novels, many of them written by women, at girl’s schools, where these authors should instead be brought to speak to the girls about their achievements.
This week, I will respond to specific kinds of criticism I’ve heard about the novels.  First, I have heard people excuse the 2007 Kano state government book burning,saying that,after all, the Kano state government was only burning “Hausa novels” not “educational books.” One reader on Google+ said: “All I am saying is that they should be encouraged in a more healthy reading that would improve their vocabulary, so as to comprehend what they are actually taught. Imagine asking any of these so called students about Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Eddie Iroh. In fact try novels like Chike and the river, without a silver spoon. things fall apart, […] Its not that we don’t want them to read but engage in something productive.”
Now, can my readers see the immediate problem here? First, every one of these books are in English; second, almost every one of them are by male authors, A caveat: I realize that Nigerian students who read Hausa novels have a disadvantage that I did not have when I was in school. When I was in school, I read novels in my mother tongue of English, and this contributed towards my achievement in an English-language school system. Girls reading and writing in Hausa are reading for pleasure in a language that is not the language of academic achievement. So, yes, it would probably be a good idea for them to spend some time reading English-language novels to improve their English. But the problem with thinking that dismisses Hausa novels as unimportant is that such thought also dismisses the development of the Hausa language as a literary and educational language.
If classic English authors like Chaucer and Shakespeare had written in Latin, which was the dominant political and educational language of their times, English-language literature never would have developed into a globally dominant force. As an outsider,I can say that it was contemporary Hausa novels and films that first inspired me to seriously study the language and learn more about Hausa culture. It is this Hausa literary movement of “romance,” adventure, mystery, thrillers, muckraking social critique and so on that has created one of the widest reading publics in an African language on the continent. These writers who are, according to naysayers, “corrupting” Hausalanguage and the culture are, in fact, spreading it.  Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s novel AlhakiKuykuyo Ne was the first novel in Hausa by a woman to be translated into English (Sin is a Puppy translated by Aliyu Kamal). It is being taught in African literature courses in several universities in the U.S. It is one of the first novels that discusses the northern Nigerian experience I’ve seen taught in an introductory African literature course. Similarly, the literary translation journal Words Without Borders actively sought out translations of contemporary Hausa writing by women and published Ibrahim Malumfashi’s translation of the first chapter of Rahma Abdulmajid’s Mace Mutum. Scholars who take this literature seriously are helping grow the world’s knowledge about the Hausa language and culture, but because the dominant attitude among the Hausa elite is that these novels are not important, there have not been enough translators to meet the interest from international publishers.
When I asked my google+ interlocutor if he thought that students should only read English-language novels, he responded, “Why can’t these guys read books like “maganajari CE” “ Ruwan Bagaja” “Tauraruwar Hamada” and the likes. Reading those romantic novels especially in Hausa only makes them dull( dakikai) if you know what I mean.” He implies that Hausa literature is a stagnant pool of books written by Hausa men over fifty years ago. But of course a healthy literature will continue into each generation. I think some contemporary Hausa novels qualify as “great literature,” but not every book written has to be “great literature.” Most of the novels that support the publishing industries of the West are not great literature; they are books that get people to read.  The same complaints being made about Hausa literature as silly and time-wasting and “corrupting” society were being made about the popular gothic romances of 18th and 19th century England. But the Bronte sisters pushed the gothic romance to another level in novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Jane Austen mocked them in her novel Northanger Abbey. The gothic romances are not often read today, but without the reading public that they created or the literary environment that grew out of this reading public, the great artists we remember would not have existed. 
Most importantly these novels are spreading literacy in Hausa. Publisher and bookseller Aminu Mustapha of Al-Amin bookshop told me that he had seen almajirai asking people to read these novels out loud to them. Some of them learn to read roman script this way. Novelist and filmmaker Bala Anas Babinlata told me that one of his proudest moments was when he received a letter from a nightguard who told him that he had learned to read after hearing part of Babinlata’s novel read over he radio. After missing the ending, he wanted so badly to hear the end of the story that he ended up learning to read.
Finally, let me address the criticism that these novels are “porn.” Whenever I hear these complaints, I rarely hear examples from people who have actually read the novels and can point to specifics they object to. The novelists are well known in society. Their names and sometimes phone numbers and email addresses are on the novels. Would most authors living in northern Nigeria actually write “porn”? That said, I can understand the protest of one woman who told me that she didn’t want her daughter to be so caught up in romance and marriage that she neglects her education and her career.
There are several responses here. One is that parents might consider reading along with their children and discussing the novels with them, as one of my teacher friends does with her daughter. That would have driven me crazy as a kid, but it is more educational to discuss than to ban or burn. Another possibility is to provide more avenues for the best books to be reviewed. Fim Magazine does this. So also do some Hausa newspapers. It is also good to encourage students to read beyond their comfort zone. A Daidaita Sahu’s sponsorship of the publication of twenty novels to reinforce values it wanted to promote was fine. Where they went wrong was burning novels that they had not published. Let both sit side by side and let the reader choose the best.
South African Nobel prize winner Nadine Gordimer, who passed away last week, told the The Paris Review that she did not go very far with her formal education. Yet her wide-ranging and “non-discriminatory” reading, as a child gave her a thirst for knowledge and an ability to write. Three of her novels were banned by the apartheid government. In response, she wrote in a 1976 essay, “A Writer’s Freedom,” “Any government, any society – any vision of a future society – that has respect for its writers must set them as free as possible to write in their own various ways, in their own choices of form and language, and according to their own discovery of truth.”
I hope those concerned about education will keep this in mind.
#BringBackOurGirls