Kenya, a land of diverse cultures and complex history, presents a fascinating study of the role and perception of nude women within its society. This article explores various aspects, ranging from traditional customs to political protests, shedding light on the evolving significance of nudity in Kenya.
Kenya featured frequently in international news in the 1990s because of the fight for freedom and democracy under the dictatorial regime of the ruling independence political party, Kanu. However, the images from Kenya that were flashing around the world following the events of March 3, 1992 were particularly harrowing. There were numerous photos and tapes of armed policemen assaulting naked, mostly elderly, women.
Their crime? They had been camping at the iconic Uhuru Park to demand the release of political prisoners, and the police were determined to dislodge them.
The women - mothers, sisters, other relatives, and sympathisers of political prisoners - had on February 28 gathered at what later came to be known as Freedom Corner in the park to demand the release of 52 people detained because of their political views. Their hunger strike and protest attracted the attention of the media, which reported the happenings regularly. This displeased the Kanu regime, which sent security officers to chase the women out of the park. The officers used batons, fired gunshots into the air, and hurled tear gas at the protesters.
Led by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, the women had presented a petition to then Attorney General Amos Wako, asking for the release of the prisoners to no avail.
Read also: Chad Kovacs: An In-Depth Look
The brutal police action of March 3, 1992 so enraged the women that some of them stripped naked, shook their breasts at the officers, and shouted, “What kind of government is this that beats women! Kill us! Kill us now! We shall die with our children!”
Some of the policemen turned away and left the scene. According to Prof Maathai, the action of disrobing was particularly effective in stopping the police because, “In the African tradition, people must respect women who are close to their mother’s age, and they must treat them as their mothers. If men beat mothers, it is like sons violating their mothers, and the mothers respond by cursing them. And they curse them by showing them their nakedness.”
The violent attack made newspaper headlines and sparked violence all over Nairobi. The next day the women regrouped at All Saints Cathedral because the government had sealed off Uhuru Park.
Over the next 11 months, the women continued their campaign.
Traditional Societies and Nudity
In traditional societies of East Africa such as the Samburu and Turkana in Kenya, the Nuba of Southern Sudan, and many others continue to dress appropriately for the climate, often entirely naked while working or bathing. In some rural villages, both boys and girls are allowed to be nude while playing, based upon a belief that the young are innocent of negative feelings or sexual urges. Women also bare their breasts as symbolic of their nurturing children.
Read also: Pashinyan's Political Career
Let's delve into the traditions of the Samburu people to understand the cultural significance of nudity and dress.
The Samburu are a Nilotic ethnic group currently living mainly in the northern Kenya region of equatorial Africa. They speak a Samburu dialect of the Maa language, specifically the Maasai subgroup, belonging to the Eastern Nilo-Saharan language group. Although Kenya is a mass tourist destination, it has to be divided by the equator into the safe and well-visited south and the very unstable, in many areas very dangerous north, where foreigners practically do not travel. And that is where the Samburu people live, in the northern area between Lake Turkana and the Somali border. This little-visited area is ethnically extremely rich and offers unique glimpses into the deep past of tribal and clan-diverse Africa.
Similar to surrounding African ethnic groups, the Samburu practice rites of passage, particularly those relating to birth, adolescence, marriage and death.
Samburu girls undergo circumcision - of which there are several different types - immediately before the marriage ceremony, with the girl being ready for marriage at around the age of thirteen. Human rights organisations have strongly criticised female circumcision as practised in many African and Arab cultures, suggesting that it should be called female genital mutilation. The religious justification for circumcision is controversial - it is usually more of a cultural tradition, but for Samburu, culture and religion are one and the same and cannot be separated and seen in isolation.
On the first day of Samburu wedding ceremonies, the ritual circumcision of the bride takes place. A procession of women leads the bride to the hut. No man takes part in the ritual. The circumcision is performed at the very edge of the village without the attention of the wedding party.
Read also: Islamic Law and Concubinage
Colonialism and Perceptions of Nakedness
Colonialism is the domination of one culture by another, which has occurred throughout history as one society extended control over neighboring territories. This process expanded as technologies for navigation and transport allowed for contact with more distant parts of the world. Because clothing and body adornments are such an important part of non-verbal communications, the relative lack of body coverings was one of the first things explorers noticed when they encountered Indigenous peoples of the tropics.
One of the enduring stereotypes of non-western others is the naked savage based upon the belief that clothes being the signifier of membership in a civilized society, the lack of clothes represented a complete lack of culture.
Contact affected not only non-European cultures, but caused European cultures to reevaluate what it means to be human. From the Ancient Greeks to the Medieval period, there had been a distinction between two types, civilized humans and barbarians who were human, but lacking in culture. Western ambivalence about the human body could be expressed by responding to the nakedness of natives as either a sign of rampant sexuality or of the innocence that preceded the fall of man.
The South African province of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) was a British colony until 1994. The Christian missionaries among the white colonial minority pursued the policy of civilizing the Zulu majority, imposing Western clothing being a visible symbol of this effort. An annual event that draws thousands of participants and spectators is Umkhosi woMhlanga or "Reed Dance" in Eswatini.
In the 19th century, dressing Africans in European clothes to cover their nakedness was the first step in converting them to Christianity.
Nakedness as a Form of Protest
Naked protests in Africa have historically been symbolic forms of collective protest, generally by the poorest and most marginalised women in society. According to Tripp, naked protests on the continent stretch back to the pre-colonial era when they were used “to shame abusive men into behaving”.
Under colonialism, they became part of some independence struggles. In 1990s Kenya, for instance, Wangari Maathai and others used their nudity as a powerful tool in their pro-democracy struggle.
In 2013, for example, 50 women in Lakang Amuru district in the north stripped naked in protest at alleged land grabbing. In 2014, a group of women in eastern Uganda took off their clothes claiming the government wanted to appropriate their property and give it to Soroti University for development. In 2015, an 83-year-old woman in Bukedea District in eastern Uganda took off her clothes in retaliation at a land takeover by Chinese investors.
The stripping off of clothes, particularly by married and elderly women, is a way of shaming men, some of whom believe that if they see the naked bodies they will go mad or suffer great harm.
Here are some examples where this method of protest was used:
- 1922 Kenyan Women’s ‘Guturamira Ngani’ Protest Against Colonialism: Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru invoked it during a Nairobi demonstration of the East African Association against the imprisonment of Harry Thuku.
- The 1929 Igbo Women’s War: Women in southeastern Nigeria sparked one of the most important anti-colonial revolts in Nigerian history.
- Tana River Protests of 2001, Kenya: Women stripped naked in front of scientists trying to annex land to build a nature reserve.
- Ivorian Women Protest Against President Laurent Gbagbo, 2011: Women protested his anti-democratic behavior by going nude or partially nude.
In the 1990s, Wangari Maathai and others used their nudity as a powerful tool in their pro-democracy struggle. During the Liberian civil war, Leymah Gbowee led protesters in threatening to strip naked in an attempt to push warring factions to agree a peace deal. Female activists in the Niger Delta have used nudity in protest at the actions of oil companies.
Jane Wanjiru Ngugi tells the story of how women have been able to resist non-violently against the police in Kenya. There are little means to verify whether the account of the events is accurate, so its strength is rather in the story than in the facts.
“At the height of political oppression in Kenya detentions without trial were very common. The mother of one of the detainees, Koigi Wamwere mobilized women to a national park where they camped and went on hunger strike. When police tried to disperse them, the women stripped naked and the police beat a hasty retreat. It is a curse for a young man to see a woman who is old enough to be his mother naked.”
“Although the detainees were not released, the act of stripping was very powerful and the police did not disturb the women for the rest of the duration that they stayed at the park. The spot where they had camped is up to this day known as « freedom corner » and it is normally used whenever people want to protest against any form of injustice by the government. The story of Koigi Wemwere and his mother has been told by Jane Wanjiru Ngugi during the online Course on Gender and Conflict Transformation which took place in July 2006.
| Protest Event | Year | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kenyan Women's 'Guturamira Ngani' | 1922 | Nairobi, Kenya | Protest against the imprisonment of Harry Thuku led by Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru. |
| Igbo Women's War | 1929 | Southeastern Nigeria | Anti-colonial revolt by Igbo and Ibibio women against British rule. |
| Tana River Protests | 2001 | Tana River, Kenya | Women protested land annexation for a nature reserve by stripping naked. |
| Ivorian Women's Protest | 2011 | Abidjan, Ivory Coast | Protest against President Laurent Gbagbo by women wearing black or nude/partially nude. |
Contemporary Issues and Perspectives
Kenyans took to the streets of Nairobi on Monday to send a message to men: Stop attacking women because of the way they dress. The protests followed the latest incident of a woman stripped naked in the capital by a group of men who accused her of “indecent” dressing. The attack captured on video last week prompted outrage on social media under the hashtag #mydressmychoice.
This is not the first time a woman has been undressed for purported indecent dressing in the East African nation, which is a majority Christian. Such incidents sporadically happen in other major cities, including Nakuru and Mombasa.
Tires burn and tear gas flies as Kenyan protesters clash with police
The issue in not limited to Kenya. A couple of months ago, a firestorm of controversy and debate was ignited in Uganda when Dr Stella Nyanzi stripped naked as a form of protest. As Nyanzi’s protest hit the headlines in Uganda and beyond, the response was highly polarised.
Much of why many of us, both in Africa and other parts of the world, might be unfamiliar with the history of the role that nudity has played in protest movements by African women is in part due to the shadow of shame that was cast over naked African women’s bodies during colonialism and still exists to this day.
Though nudity, in various forms, often partial, in many African communities was a part of everyday public life, where it was concerned with shame was during times of protest.
Popular articles:
tags: #Kenya
