Cultural Satire: Rebeka Njau’s The Scared Seed
Kenyan Rebeka Njau’s The Scared Seed (2003) textualizes in various ways the problems women have suffered under patriarchal political dominance and inserts the role African Americans have in liberating the still colonized women of Africa. Ellen has come to Africa as a missionary but her contribution to the Church, which has deep connections with the state, is “paid back” through the pastor’s attempt to rape her. The ingratitude and greed of the church is underlined in the pastor’s lecherous attempt which parallels other acts of violence against women by the patriarchal traditional society and the state.
The main character in the story, Tesa, is raped by the head of state who has also perpetrated ethnic war that affects women most. Ellen is shown in instances of the narrative which indicate possibilities of healing after tribal cleansing, participating in the reconstruction of Africa. Her moment of self-realization comes when she abandons the church and joins women in a traditional shrine that is also threatened by the state: Ellen felt gratified to have had the opportunity to be around the women who knew how to use their power calmly. She was fascinated by Tesa’s music and was moved by her ability to relate to people at all levels. She admired her talent and skill in training the young village boys and girls. Within a short time they had learned to sing and create pictures which expressed their feelings, and told stories of joy and sorrow. (174) Underscored here is the need of direct grassroots negotiation.
African Americans with direct relations with Africa are likely to be interacting with the westernized and power-wielding elite, as Ellen previously did. They will be given honours by the authorities who want to exploit their western connection for funding and business, as the pastor tries to do with Ellen to export gourds to America. The text seems to argue that the diasporic African has a duty to deconstruct the formal structure put in place to oppress the ordinary African by the state and its organs. The creative potentials learnt in Africa and taken to America in painful circumstances can be reinvented to assist the African continent:
Her mother, she recalled, had been a skilful craftswoman. She had made fabrics and rugs using fibre plants which had grown in her backyard. Ellen had learnt the craft and she decided to pass the knowledge to the women before she left for the USA. (174)
Rebeka Njau here shows that the intellectual resources stolen from Africa through slavery can be restored to the continent through training. Ellen’s mother is a symbol of skilful diasporic Africans that retained their connections with Africa and passed on skills to the next generation. The skills, according to the text, should be repatriated.
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