by
Obododimma Oha
August Meeting: a congregation of many women in Alaigbo to discuss the future and better life in their local communities! Very impressive. This initiative and progressive thinking from women needs to be promoted and sustained in contemporary Igbo life. Indeed, there have been allegations of the hijacking of this project by rich and influential women -- wives of politicians, important professionals, etc, but such hijacking should not be allowed and must be confronted where they arise -- so that eventually being wealthy and person worship would not be seen as having conquered and having taken over! August Meeting remains a significant initiative from women that one could think of with pride.
August Meeting! There is not just a pointing to the month of the meeting, as temporal deictic would do; there is also a pointing to the meeting's great importance. It is a meeting of "august" participants. The meeting could hold in March or April, but it is an "august meeting" where ladies become important participants in the lives of their communities. It is not a gathering for comparing clothes and skins. It is not a gathering for comparing self with the other and being envious.
In August Meeting, every woman participating is "august".
Thank you for bringing ụzọ ije back home, to think home. Thank you for making home important and worth focusing on. Thank you for putting the discourse on the lips of women who hitherto hardly contributed to the governance of their communities. Thank you for making life in the communities new.
And so August Meeting remains a political force maintained by those who participate in moulding lives but have been ignored sadly. It is not money that you are bringing but your minds. It is not your beautiful clothes you have to bring but beautiful lives to make these communities beautiful again.
But have you been present in the local women's meetings, making sure that all your dues and contributions are promptly paid? Or have you been waiting to return to the local community a corpse, with this and that powerful ambulance siren and select casket bearers? Is that voice heard only at death with the shooting of ground cannons and hired double barrel guns? Or do you try once in a while to come home, bringing the city with you and warming fellow women with your noble embrace?
August Meeting wants you as a wife and mother to know that you are from somewhere. It wants you to know that your presence needs to be felt back home. if you cannot be seen -- but you need to be, once in a while --- be present in your absence!
And there were antecedents to justify its important roles. There was the ụmụada, daughters of the community, whose voice in telling their brothers their impartial judgment, was not contested at all. So, August Meeting has an ancestor, a highly respected ancestor. Who would suggest that what the ụmụada have declared is not acceptable unless that person has ostracised self.
August Meeting does not just have a cultural ancestor but has an enviable place in the politics of the new postcolonial states. It is declaring that an exclusion of a segment of the population in decision-making in governance and development is senseless. It invites the postcolonial state to humility, not arrogance of whose words can carry more weight, and to consider this as a kind of legitimate parliament where women in the communities are properly and fully represented.
A critique of this initiative that has become very widespread in Alaigbo today is: Why is the project named in English, a colonial language, and not in Igbo? The naming in English may just be the inherited pride that English is more global and acceptable for a serious project. Further, there is the assumption that it exists in an anglophone country. The naked truth is that many of the local women involved are not quite anglophone and may find some concepts in English difficult to understand. In other words, the naming in English appears inappropriate. Why not something like "Nzukọ ụmụnwaanyị" or "Uche ụmụnwaanyị"?
In August Meeting, there is a very important lesson for Igbo town unions as crucial pillars of the indigenous governance systems. If women could think of congregating home every August, shouldn't town unions, especially men's wings, think of come-back-home-let-us-discuss gatherings? There may be such gatherings already, but August Meeting presents a model worthy of emulation and a strong come-back-home philosophy. It is necessary for town unions to be clearly on this project and not be distracted by the new structures of power and unnecessary contest arising from who is qualified and who is not qualified to become "Eze Ndiigbo."
August Meeting is a meeting of past and present, of Western cultures and that of the African, of women and women, of women and men . Indeed, it is a meeting of meetings.
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