Hello, good afternoon. It’s always a tremendous challenge to introduce a person to a group of fierce supporters. For one, you all know everything about her. There’s nothing I can tell you that you
don’t already know. And for two, you are all begging whatever gods you serve that I will stop talking and sit down so you can hear from the person you came to see. But we all know that protocols must be observed, and it’s such an honor to be a praise-singer. When I was about ten, growing up in the US, I remember hearing a song by a white American band. And it had a lyric: “it’s another day in Nigeria… the children beg for bread…” And I remember going to my mother, indignant, saying “These white people have made a song and they put ‘Nigeria’, but they really
meant ‘Ethiopia’. There have never been any Nigerian children begging for bread. My mother didn’t correct me. Decades later, I remember reading Purple Hibiscus in one feverish sitting. I have always been a voracious reader, but
this—this was different. Who is this?, I thought. As I read, I remember the Roberta Flack song, the lyric ‘strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his [words], killing me softly with his song— that’s what that book did for me. I waited impatiently for her next book. When Half of a Yellow Sun came out, I bought it immediately, and it broke my heart. By then, I’d learned a little bit more about those children begging for bread. Those children were my people. I learned that my paternal grandfather was killed during the Asaba massacre. The story that I was reading was so deeply
mine. I’d never felt so seen in all of the, by
then, thousands of books that I had read. I bought copies for everybody I knew. I bought- If you were friends with me during that three-year period, you got that book. If you were getting married, if it was your
birthday, whatever celebration—you got that book. But most importantly, I gave it to my mother. And I was able to have the conversation with her that we couldn’t have when I was ten, or even after. My parents’ generation had borne so much in silence. Since then, Ms. Adichie’s influence has only grown larger. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Purple Hibiscus won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Prize. Her TED Talk on the Danger of a Single Story became the most-watched TED Talk ever. Her talk “We Should All Be Feminists” is both a sociopolitical and pop cultural phenomenon, and her brilliant and always incisive commentary can be relied upon to elegantly clap back and up-end assumptions about everything from motherhood to depression to toxic masculinity. Her voice is a voice of a generation that’s
become truly global. It is my great honour and my great privilege to introduce to you the person we came to see: Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. [applause] Daalụ nụ , Daalụ nụ rinne. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful, wonderful introduction. I want to say thank you to everyone who’s
involved with this conference, but particularly to two remarkable women: Louisa Egbunike and Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo. Because— Just that you both--and I know it hasn’t
been easy—just that you both continue to do this year after year is truly remarkable. And you prove what we know: that Igbo women are the bomb. And so the last housekeeping thing that I
want to say is that I want to show you my trousers. And I want to let you know [laughter] and
I want to let you know that it is made from akwete. [Applause] It’s by a Nigerian designer called Emmy
Kasbit. He sources it from -
[Question from the audience ] [laughter] Afterwards. But it’s Akwete. It’s traditional Igbo material; it’s made
in Aba. And it just goes to show that we know what
we’re doing. Okay. So, some years ago, there was a bill in the
Nigerian Senate. It was spearheaded by the Senate Committee
on Women and Youth. And it wanted to pass a law that would criminalize
what was called ‘indecent dressing.’ And this law was targeted at women. And we were told that it was supposed to "preserve
our true African culture.” We were also told that immorality had become
widespread because women have become westernized and were no longer behaving as women did before
colonization. There were pictures in newspapers of women
who dressed indecently, and they were wearing short skirts, low-cut tops that showed a bit
of cleavage. So I went looking for pictures of women before
colonization. I wanted to find pictures of women who showed
our true African culture. And so when I found them, I realized that
these women were wearing skirts that were not just mini-they were micro micro mini. And their breasts were bare. And so the irony, of course, is that women
in most parts of Southern Nigeria were close to naked before colonization. And so it challenges this notion that, somehow,
‘decent dressing’ is a way of returning to our ‘real’ cultural values. I have often been told, by both men and women,
that what I stand for is not 'real' African culture. Which is to say that I have often been told
different versions of “In the name of culture, shut up!” Many other African women have experienced,
in some way or the other, this invocation of ‘culture’ as a silencing tool. And often the things that women are told are
not our culture are things that benefit women, that make them happy, that make them fully like themselves. And so, culture--- [laughter] And so--so culture, for me, has become a contested and contentious word. And this is one of the reasons why I think
history is very important. If appeals to the past have been used as effective
silencing tools, then appeals to the past can also be used as effective de-silencing
tools. One day not long ago, a middle-aged man came to visit my father. After he left, my father told me that this
man was a twin, and that he and his brother were the first twins in our hometown of Abba
who had not been killed for being born twins. I remember being surprised because I had not
realized that the Igbo tradition of killing twins, of taking them to the forest the minute
they are born and leaving them there to die, had ended so relatively recently. We make culture, and we can remake culture. Culture changes when people decide to change it. In our popular imagination, culture is something close to static that has endured for hundreds of years, but much of what we call culture
is actually really recent. I am from Abba in Njikoka Local Government
Area of Anambra State. Which is to say that my father is from there. Now that I am a mother, I am increasingly
resentful of this practice of a child’s identity being completely defined by the father. But since we cannot change things retrospectively, I am from Abba. My mother is from Umunnachi, also in Anambra State. My family went to Abba often when I was growing
up. For Christmas and Easter. To visit my grandmother, who would then take us to go to visit her neighbors and to show off her grandchildren. I loved going to Abba. I loved listening to the old people talk. I loved to watch and learn. I loved to ask questions. And when I asked questions I always asked
for detail—for visual detail. When I asked about my great-grandmother, for example, I often asked: How did she look? What did she wear? What was her hair like? And I really wish that Nollywood producers
would do the same. A lot of their--[laughter] A lot of their representations
of Igbo culture is not only spectacularly inaccurate but really close to comical. So if there’s anybody here involved in Nollywood, please, you know, go to the village and ask the real questions. Or even just look at archives and see pictures of what people were like before. I mean, there’s just no need for..Ị mago, mmadụ a dị ka mmanwụ (You know, people looking like masquerades). [laughter] And I also wish—I also wish that we would
stop destroying the physical remnants of our past. What’s going on all across Igboland in the
name of a certain kind of Pentecostal Christianity is that we’re destroying our past. Trees are being destroyed; shrines are being destroyed. Now, you don’t have to like it, you don't have to go to it, but leave it alone. It is our history. I remember going to Tokyo some years ago—I went and played tourist, and went to see the shrines —and paid money to see their shrines—and
all of it was interesting, but I left feeling a little sad. Because I thought, “this is exactly what
we have in my hometown, and I’m actually paying money to the Japanese to look at theirs.” Perhaps one way to preserve the little that
is left in Igboland is by appealing to that famed Igbo entrepreneurial spirit – so if
we explain to Igbo people that that we can turn these things into tourist attractions for which people will pay money, they might in fact stop destroying them. Years ago, my father was telling me about
his paternal grandmother, Omeni. And I am said to be "Omeni come back". And he said he remembers when she died and how her body was wrapped up and then carried to her own hometown to be buried. And I was struck by this. By hometown, I mean where she was born. I was struck by this. "She wasn’t buried in her husband’s hometown?", I asked my father. And my father said "No-women were not buried in their husband’s homes; they were buried in their birth homes." I found this very interesting. In every family there is a child who is interested in the story of who they are. In my family, I am that child. I wanted to know not only who we are but how
we came to be who we are. And that is why, in 2007, after I had published
my second novel Half of a Yellow Sun, I decided to go back to school to learn about African
history. My interest was in pre-colonial West Africa. And of course particularly Igboland. It was a curiosity borne of love. I wanted to know my history in order to better
know myself. So, I went to Yale. And I want to start by—in talking about
what I learnt at Yale, to first of all talk about how when I would tell people that I
was going back to school to learn about Igbo history, and I was going to Yale, a university
in America, there would often be a very stupid laugh, and they would say “How can you be
going abroad to learn about Igbo culture?” And I often felt defensive, and then I would
have to go into a long story about how the best African archives are at Yale. And also to point out that because our history
is oral, and because colonialism represented a violent unmendable break in the transmission
of this oral history– the generation that went to school, that became Christian, and
since Christianity and education came hand in hand, were now mostly cut off from the
traditional ways of doing and remembering. And so it’s a little ironic that most of
the documenters of our past are not Igbo people. That many of the archives that I looked at
at Yale were products of work that were done by colonial actors. And so, of course, reading them—one has
to read them keeping that in mind and knowing that they, too, had their own agendas. But there are interesting things such as photographs
not lying. You kind of look at the photograph, and, you
know, the photograph doesn’t lie. And so when the British missionaries came
to Igboland, British women did not have property rights. British women were in fact property themselves,
and were supposed to be at home, protected, not seen as autonomous beings who could make
decisions about their own lives. Igbo women on the other hand were traders,
and they could own property. And this was understandably alarming to many of the British. And I think it explains many of the changes
that followed in Igboland. So at Yale, I learned about the Ọmụ in Onitsha. The Ọmụ was often translated as queen, but really the Ọmụ was neither the wife nor the relative of the king. She was a person who had won a position that was contested, and this position was open to any woman who had acquired wealth from trading. At Yale, I learned that women were the exclusive traders in Onitsha, and the Ọmụ played a central role in the markets. No trading could begin until she had arrived
and seated herself in her special seat. And so in my imagination—I didn’t quite
get to see a picture of an omu, but in my imagination I imagined this sort of grand
woman who would sweep into the market and take her seat and then pontificate to everyone
about how things should be done. I think we need more of those in the market
in Onitsha. At Yale, I learned about the married womens’ associations, how these associations punished women who had been found guilty of various
crimes. Also, how they judged disputes between men and women. And if the men were found to be at fault,
these women’s groups punished the man and used a system known as Ịnọdụ nwoke, which is ‘sitting on a man’ And I’m going to read a bit from the notes
of one of the British observers who says that sitting on a man, Ịnọdụ nwoke, involved “gathering
at his compound, sometimes late at night, dancing, singing scurrilous songs which detailed
the women’s grievances against him and often called his manhood into question, banging
on his hut with the pestles that the women used for pounding yams, and perhaps demolishing his hut or plastering it with mud”. [laughter] The men are like, “what?” [laughter] This is the objective recording of an English
man. I learned about— So at Yale, I learned about
the arbitrary nature of selecting warrant chiefs in Igboland. So In the southern village of Ihitte, for
example, an influential village elder was asked by a British officer to bring somebody who would be the warrant chief. And you know in that sort of clever, sly way
of Igbo people, this elderly man brought his slave, because he thought he was out-smarting
the British. And before he knew it, his slave had become
enormously powerful as the warrant chief. And these warrant chiefs were invested withso much power that the traditional jural methods in Igboland were outlawed. The women’s associations, for example, could no longer “sit on a man”. So sitting on a man went from being a valid
way of dispensing justice to becoming a punishable crime. Women were not chosen as warrant chiefs. Women were not members of the Native Courts. Women were not court clerks or police recruits or interpreters. At Yale, I came across very interesting little
quotes, and I want to share one of them with you. A British observer whose name was Burdo writes that Igbo women ‘traverse the country to collect palm oil and ivory, and sometimes their exchanges display surprising intelligence.’ [laughter] So now, if we can look past Burdo’s unfortunate idiocy, [laughter] what we learn from it is that women were economic decision-makers in pre-colonial Igboland. Women were in positions to acquire wealth. Most of the republican villages in the interior
of Igboland were agricultural and the major economic activity of women was farming, and
also trading. Farming was a gendered activity. So the yam, which was considered the king of crops, was farmed by men, and then the women did the cassava, the vegetables, the cocoyams. And so while the symbolic importance of
women’s crops was not higher than that of men, the practical importance was. Because women grew much of what was actually eaten, and so that gave them power to decide who got to eat and who didn’t. At Yale, I learned that there were many beautiful myths about Igbo origins. But one of them, which is associated with
the town of Nnobi, the Igbo myth was that it associated hard work with the female gender. And that praise of women depended on their industriousness and their economic achievements.” At Yale, I learned that the colonial government’s Native Authority declared that women could not own or inherit land, according to ‘native custom’. And this is native custom that was in fact
invented by the British, because we all know that actually, before the British came, women could own property. And I think that this decision was clearly
influenced by that nineteenth century European idea of citizenship in which a citizen was
a property-owning man. And so as a result, land registration in Igboland in colonial times could only be done in the name of men. So you had wealthy women then registered
their lands under the names of sons or husbands. And these sons and husbands then gained the titles to those lands. And we all know, I think, that many of the
stories did not end up well. At Yale, I learned about 'Idigbe marriage',
in which a woman would choose to have children with a man and the children would be counted
as part of her family rather than part of his. This situation benefited the woman because children, much valued in society, would belong to her kin group. Idigbe marriages were very common and were not perceived as outside the norm but rather as an equal alternative that a woman had. At Yale, I learned about woman-woman marriage, in which a woman could become ‘male’ and marry wives. These wives would take lovers and give birth to children who would be part of the woman-husband’s kin group. And sometimes when I’ve brought this up
with (mostly Igbo men), their first response is “but they were not gay”. [laughter] But how do we know? [laughter] We know that it was a woman-woman marriage, they lived in the same hut-how do we know? We know that female-- We know that human love and human connection happens despite gender, so how do we know? What we do know is that women in Igboland married women. At Yale, I learned about igba nrira, which
is a swift divorce in which a woman simply left her [husband's] home and went to a new man’s home. And I learned about Ije urie, where a girl
who was betrothed would often visit her husband-to-be and his family, and the understanding was that “things” happened when she visited him. [laughter] And I also learned at Yale that all of these
things were banned because the colonial government considered them immoral. Ọ dịkwa egwu.(It is mind-boggling) [laughter] So I’m not trying to suggest that men and
women were equal in precolonial Igboland, because they were not. Men as a group still had more power. But what I am saying is that power was more diffuse, that women had more roles, more access to power, and that gender was not as rigidly
defined as it is now. History can inspire. Learning about Igbo women before colonialism, I was inspired because I now knew that my feminism, my discomfort with injustice based
on gender, my discomfort with rigid ideas of what a woman should and should not be and do, did not come from reading any Western book. It was in my cultural DNA. History enlightened me. It also led me to make my own conclusions, such as that every Igbo culture is Igbo. Which is to say that, as I like to put it
-- Igbo bụ Igbo. As I read of the similarities between the cultural practices of Igbo peoples, those around the Niger, those to the south, those to the north, I came to see that Igbo bụ Igbo. The contemporary distinctions we make today are not cultural identities; they are political identities, and political identities, especially
those based on denial of cultural roots and ties, can often be limiting. So what today we call ‘Delta Igbo', for
example, is a political identity. It’s not a cultural identity. Igbo bụ Igbo. I am increasingly interested in cultural identities, perhaps because of my deep disappointment in our political leadership, but even those who believe in a political identity as being sort of the paramount thing must realize that a cultural identity will give rise to a more organic, more wholesome, and therefore more resilient political identity. Which, in other words, is my way of saying
“Igbo, let us unite.” Igbo in Delta, Igbo in Rivers, Igbo in Enugu,
it’s time for us to unite. I do not believe that people should be excluded from a cultural identity into which they have been born just because they do not speak the language – which is really a fault that is their parents’, rather than theirs. [applause] But I do believe that language matters. When I had my daughter, I made the conscious decision to speak only Igbo to her. She is now two and a half, and she speaks
Igbo. I also love the English language, and sometimes I miss not speaking it to her at this young age – but I know that she is growing up
in a world that is not steeped in Igbo. And even when we are back in Nigeria, her
relatives in Nigeria don’t speak Igbo. “Ị ma ndị Igbo, I must speak English.”
(You know Igbo people, I must speak English) [laughter] And I know that she will learn English, and
that I can speak both languages to her when she is older. But what I am always struck by is the surprise that people show (Igbo people in particular), sometimes, shock-- when they realize that my child speaks Igbo. Why? I grew up speaking both languages, quite easily. There are Igbo parents who, when asked why they don’t speak Igbo to their children, they say: “Oh, it will confuse them”. And then, they go on promptly to sign up their children for French lessons. [laughter] So- [laughter] So- So it is not a question of a second language confusing the child. It is not a question of whether a child can
learn to speak Igbo. It is a question of how much value we give
our language, and by extension, our history, our culture, our identity. When did our language become something to be ashamed of? [audience comment]
[laughter] Some people have said that Igbo has no global power, or as one parent put it to me: Ọ nwerọ ebe eji Igbo eje.
(Igbo is of no use to anyone) This is not true. Igbo speaking opens you up to a new way of seeing the world, because language and worldview are so closely intertwined. Igbo also happens to be a particularly beautiful and wise language. But even if it wasn’t, even if it wasn’t,
the simple fact of being bilingual benefits a child’s intellectual development. I think it is a gift that a parent can give
a child, and it cannot do any harm to a child. But here I do not mean Igbo speaking as performance. I don’t mean where a child says one word
in Igbo and we applaud. [laughter] Or when Igbo parents, both of them Igbo speaking, talk about wanting to find Igbo classes for their children. Why don’t you just speak Igbo to them? In everyday conversation. Why don’t we normalize it? Why don’t we make it ordinary? Language matters because language is the conduit to culture. All over Igboland, the practice of speaking Igbo is in decline. Even in the villages. Now, one of the central motifs of Igbo life as we know is the kolanut. The kolanut can be blessed only in Igbo. Maka ọjị a da anụ oyibo.
(Because kolanuts don't understand English) So if we lose the language of Igbo, then what becomes of this part of our culture? And speaking of the kolanut, I have always
found it absurd that if there is any male present in a gathering of women, even if that male is two years old, and they want to bless the kolanut, they bring out the little child. [laughter] The kolanut is a small nut, and quite bitter,
but its symbolism is enormous. It is the symbol of blessing, of goodwill, of prestige. And so it matters. I was once told a story by an academic in
the US whose father is a titled Igbo man, an elderly titled man. And whose father—he had many daughters, and maybe this is why he was a bit more sensitive to these things— but at gatherings, when
they would bring the kolanut, and sometimes--you know, they go around showing the kolanut, and they only show the kolanut to men— but this titled elderly man would show it to every adult in the room, men and women. And at first, the men were scandalized. But because this man was elderly, he was respected, he was titled—they kind of went along with it. But what’s interesting, this academic was telling me, is that now there are a few other men in the village who do that, who go around showing the kolanut not just to the men, but to women as well. Some years ago, in my hometown Abba, they organized a reception for me, and one of the things that moved me the most was that all the traders closed their shops to come to the reception. And we all know how Igbo people are about
their shops. [laughter] Now- [laughter] Now, afterwards, an old man came up to congratulate me, and shook me in the traditional way: Ọ naa m ịtọ. And so this is sort of—for the non-Igbo here, this is the sort of traditional greeting that, again, is supposed to be only for men. [laughter] And I remember being thrilled when he did
that. It was like being allowed into this hallowed wonderful special secret room, [laughter] but it also made me think of the unfairness of it, that one group of people are allowed into this special secret room merely by being born, and then the other group have to achieve something remarkable in order to be allowed in. What if we changed this and made it ONLY by
achievement? And I remember a friend telling me then: “you
are now like a man.” [laughter] Now, this friend did not understand why I
did not want to be considered ‘like a man.’ [laughter] Well for one, because I was not more like a
man. But also because I was a woman and I had achieved something and I still remained a woman. The point was that maleness should not be aspirational. It was not a compliment to me to be told that I was now like a man. And my friend did not understand, either, why it was not, for me, about me being allowed in as an exception, but about women as a group not being excluded. But in the end, to know where you come from, to know how you came to be from where you come from, is truly a great gift. Some people don’t have it. We are fortunate to have it. And I think we need to appreciate it more. History is storytelling. All history is storytelling. The history we learn in school, about the
English kings for example, is all storytelling. Actually, in the case of the English kings, I think it’s three quarters myth and one quarter fact. But even for histories that are documented—that are not primarily oral, like ours, there are always gaps, and it is people who fill in those gaps, who through storytelling create history. We, Igbo people, need to create and re-create our history, this time not in the service of colonialism but in the service of our dignity. Thank you. [applause] So we will now have a short Q&A session— —with Dr. Patricia Moran. Please keep your questions concise, as I’m sure there will be many questions, and we want to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity. My name is Onyi. I was born in London, I was born in this country, and I want to know more about pre-colonial West Africa. Because being born in this country, I have the dual identity of being both British and Nigerian. And I want to be able to know what we were before Western settlement. You talked about Yale and the archives there. How can anybody access those, or is it that you have to pay for them? That’s a really good question, and it’s one of the things we should figure out ways to make more easily accessible. From what I know, you would need to have sort of a Yale ID before you could— But I think there are probably things in the archives at libraries here, I’m sure. I know that when I was researching Half of a Yellow Sun, there were things at the British Library that I looked at. I mean, that’s not pre-colonial, but still. But it’s something that I’m thinking about. It’s something that I think we need— maybe we need to start some sort of group to find out ways to get our young people to know our pre-colonial history. Good afternoon, everyone. My question would be—given what you have told us and your experiences, and thank you very much for sharing, where would you put the Igbo woman as a force and an agent for propelling Igbo culture in the future? I think both Igbo men and women have to do that. But women in particular, because there are
so many things— part of what I found so interesting about reading about pre-colonial history was how often it was in opposition to what we now consider our culture. So for example, the idea that marriage is supposed to define a woman, you know, and so there’s so much pressure on young people to get married, and if you’re not married you’re stigmatized, and all of that. And women are supposed to stay in terrible
marriages because, you know, Ị ga-anọ na di,(You will stay married) and then you look at our pre-colonial past. And that was not the case. In fact, it wasn’t marriage, it was children
that were valued. The ability to have a child. And there were different alternative ways
of mothering children, right? So I think it’s important for Igbo women—who by the way, I have to say there is a certain kind of strength in Igbo women that I find remarkable, that Ịma ụmụ nwaanyị Igbo bụ agụ (You know, Igbo women are tigresses). [laughter] But I also think, I mean there are so many Igbo women who are holding families together, who do much more than, really, they probably should be doing. But then in public they perform. I know many Igbo women who buy their own cars, and they say “My husband bought it for me”. [laughter] Because we’re so-because we’ve been socialized, again, to think that we—you know, there’s a performative part of culture. It’s not really necessary. That’s my thinking. So I feel that Igbo women need to push more. I feel we can start by not putting pressure on our daughters to marry once they turn 22. You know, if she wants to go to graduate school, let her go to graduate school. Let’s start with that, you know? I think we can also raise our sons differently. I see so many Igbo women who—and I say this not in a way of blaming Igbo women, because it’s the socialization that Igbo women have received. But I see so many Igbo women who, if they
have one son, that son is treated like a god. It’s bad for the son, it’s bad for the society, it’s bad for the woman whom he will marry, it’s bad for everybody. I would suggest that Igbo women start by not doing—you know. These are the ways that we can start to advance things for everyone. [applause] In the back, there- Chimamanda, Eze nwanyị, daalụ. Thank you for that quick time travel back to a glorious past. My question really is about history. Or rather, lack of it. I’d like to hear your take on the Nigerian
government’s very bizarre decision some 25, 30 years ago to abolish history in schools. Daalụ. Actually, it’s fairly recent. I don’t think it was 30 years ago. Well, I think you’ve answered it-it’s bizarre. I don’t think I can ever be in a position to speak for the Nigerian government and its decisions. Because quite frankly, most of them just make no sense. But I think that’s where we need to step in. Which is to say that—and I’ve felt this way about education in general. I think that there are many problems with our education system. One of which, for example, is the devaluing of our cultures. When I was in primary school you’d be punished for “speaking in the vernacular”, which meant that you were speaking your language in school. But you’d actually get into trouble for
it. You could only speak Igbo in the Igbo class.Outside of Igbo class you couldn’t speak Igbo. And also the idea that we didn’t learn anything about Biafra. We didn’t learn anything about the Nigeria-Biafra war. This is why I think we need to step in. While of course until we get what I hope to be a government that makes sense and have an education minister who knows to put things together-I don’t know when that’s going to happen, at the rate that we’re going. But that’s where we need to step in. I think that private efforts are important. I believe in supplementing what a child learns in school at home. I believe in parents finding resources that will educate their children. We have an education system that’s not doing very well at teaching us the more subtle things: having pride in who we are and believing in
our own innate sense of dignity. Our education system doesn’t really teach
us about ethics. And so you have a lot of people who are educated in Nigeria, and they just haven’t—you know, they haven’t been taught that. And I think that’s where we have to do it. Parents have to do it. It’s unfortunate, but we have to. [In the back] I just wanted to know, now that you’ve done this course at Yale, this Masters: what are you going to do with it? What am I going to do with it? [laughter] Can I just say- Can I just say that I really love the particularly African nature of that question? [laughter] It’s like parents: you know, you go and tell your parents “Oh Daddy, Mummy, I want to study Theatre Arts.” “What are you going to do with Theatre Arts?” [laughter] Well, I’ll tell you: I’ve already done a lot with it. Which is to say— [laughter] Let me tell you, I really think that there’s nothing more important than knowing who you are. Because it can propel you to all kinds of
success. And being at Yale for two years, which wasn’t, you know, necessarily a wonderful time for me. Because I found that I couldn’t do much of what I wanted to do, which was write. Write my fiction. But it helped me a lot because I learned things that made me secure in my sense of self. And it has been a huge blessing for me. And it’s made it possible for me to go everywhere in the world just utterly secure in who I am. So I’m actually doing many things with it. [laughter] [applause] The lady in green. [audience noise] Hello Chimamanda-thank you for the talk. I just wanted to ask about Yale. You learned a lot at Yale, but did you corroborate any of that stuff? I was wondering what makes Yale like, the fountain of Igbo archives. Did you-- What you learnt at Yale-when you went to Nigeria, did you now corroborate what you had learned? I don’t really understand the question. Okay. What makes Yale the— I haven’t said that. I just said that it’s really a-it’s a very simple matter of resources. And also, I think of interest and organization. Yale has the resources, Yale is organized-they’ve collected all these things in their archives, and if you want to see these things you go there. But of course it’s—there are other universities that have fairly good African archives. Yale is supposed to have the best. But you know—yeah, I ‘m not quite sure
I understand the rest of the question. Oh, that’s pretty much it. Thank you. Please, no more questions about Yale. Let’s move on. [audience noise] Thank you. Chimamanda, kedụ? (Chimamanda, How are you?) Ọ dị mma.(I am well) My name is [name] I’m from Anambra as well. I was born in Nigeria. So my question to you is nothing about Yale. It’s how do we untitled but passionate women enlighten the older generation that what they're teaching is inaccurate. So in the last two years, I’ve come to know a lot of things I learned as a child about Igbo culture are not necessarily accurate. And it’s really post-colonial, and it’s
not really-like you’ve talked about things that you’ve learned as well. But I wonder how it enlightened the elder generation that don’t technically want to change their viewpoints or want to embrace what really is traditional and what is politically traditional. I mean, I think having conversations is important. But also to keep in mind that a lot of—they’re the generation that sort of had the first contact with colonialism. That’s what they learned. That’s what they were taught. There are many mothers who—I’ve spoken
to many young women who in many ways were damaged by their mothers. But in some ways it’s because their mothers themselves were damaged by what they had learned. You know, you pass it on. And- Maybe having conversations is important. But also, I think it’s important, I think,
not to treat culture as sort of— —you know, culture changes all the time. What I find interesting is that when people talk about culture-and usually use it to silence women. I mean, most of the time. I haven’t heard, actually where culture is used to silence men. So it’s sort of like though men are allowed
to go into modernity, women have to remain somewhere that’s called "culture." And I think the way to think about it is simply to say that because culture is never a static thing, and because these appeals are often
about the “real Africa”. For example, in talking about gay rights. Actually a lot of the opposition to gay rights on the continent is actually quite Christian. But a lot of the language says it’s about “African tradition and culture.” And so we talk about, you know “if you go back to real Africa”… But then when we start talking about women-women marriages, and by the way, this is something that cuts something that cuts across many African cultures where there were same-sex marriages, often women-women —then it starts to challenge that idea. And so for me it’s really about saying “you cannot then silence me by using culture." Because here’s the evidence I have.” Hi, my name is [name]. I wanted to get some top tips from you. So I’m quite an outspoken individual anyway. And I think that that really stems from my
dad’s mum. So my granddad passed away shortly after the war, and she didn’t re-marry. She stayed with her kids who were very young—her sons were very young— —and she really had to fight with the elders and challenge them in order to claim what was rightfully hers and her children’s. And you know, when she was alive she used to tell the stories a lot, and my dad would tell the stories. He was very proud of her and her achievements. And so now I feel like as I grow up there’s a sense of that proudness that my parents have of how outspoken I am. But I still find that sometimes they ask me to "shape" my mouth. [laughter] And so I think what I’d love to understand is how have you shaped yours in order to be able to continue to project— —you know...to project the message that women can have these things or achieve these things and it’s actually okay, and to you know, just
bring feminism to the forefront, but not in a way where it’s, you know, to say that men are less than, but that women are equal. And to have that conversation going. I think—honesty. Just keeping in mind...to be honest. Because if one is honest, you know, for example, that the idea that women are somehow a better species of human beings is not true. Anybody who has been to a girls’ boarding
school knows that. [laughter] And also being honest means that you recognize that men have been privileged and have been given access in ways that women haven’t. But in terms of just sort of-I think the question is maybe more about how to communicate. I try not to – I was going to lie. I was going to say I try not to talk when I’m angry, but that’s not true. [laughter] I try to keep my objective in mind, and that shapes how I deliver my message. So even when I’m angry, and I often am, I’m thinking “what do I want to achieve?" "Do I want this person to hear me, or do I just want to make noise?" And if I want this person to hear me, then I decide how I’m going to speak. And the other thing, I think, is always to be willing to listen to the other side. I’m very interested in hearing opposing views. I’m very interested. I have all of these conversations with many
Igbo men who are just reflexively opposed to even hearing the word “feminist”. They hear the word feminist and they get rashes on their bodies. They're just like.... [laughter] And I’m always interested in talking to them, because I want to know what the thinking is. I want to know... You know, I want to know. Which is to say that I don’t demonize a person who doesn't agree with me. I mean, actually, some need to be demonized. But not all. [laughter] And to say that-- I want to hear them. And hearing them is often a way of sharpening your own argument. So that if you hear what the other side is saying, you’re more able to find ways to demolish what they're saying. So listening to the other side, I think, is very good. And listening openly, with curiosity, right. And being honest. And also just thinking that what you have to say matters, even if they’re telling you that it doesn’t’ matter. Okay we have time for only two more. There’s a man in the back who’s had his hand up... [audience noise] In the very back. [audience noise] And then you. Hi Chimamanda-thank you. My name is Hassan Aliyu, and I’m an artist. Oftentimes I look at this question of our culture, and particularly from a pre-colonial perspective. Now, in your view, do you feel a sense of utopia when you look at Igbo culture before colonialism? Do you feel that everything was much better than it is today, [that] the influence of colonialism has made things worse than they probably were before colonialism? No. I don’t think I suggested that. So it’s not a question of utopia or "everything was perfect". And those two extremes just always seem unfair choices. So It’s not a question of “was everything wonderful before”…there has to be a middle ground. It’s to say that there are things that
are happening now that we call our culture that, in fact, are products of a certain kind of Victorian Christianity. That’s really the point. There are things that, before Christianity, benefited women in many ways that's not happening now in Igboland. And for me-because culture is often used as a tool, culture is used as a tool to silence people, culture is used as a tool to pass off, sometimes, inhumane laws. And my point is we can also then appeal to culture as a way of defending ourselves against that silencing and against those laws and rules that are inhumane. So if, for example, somebody says “oh, let us police how a woman dresses because this is not true African culture”, you can then show them a picture of a woman in Igboland in 1850 and be like “well, I want to be authentically Igbo, like this.” [laughter] So that’s really my point, that we.. Because in some ways, we politicize culture. And so if we’re going to have that battle in the realm of culture, let’s have it. That’s really what I mean. So it's not—there’s no such thing as utopia. And also I’m not interested in romanticizing our past. I want to look our past in a very clear-eyed
way. I, for example, would not have wanted to live in a time when twins were murdered simply because they were being born twins. So obviously there are things that have changed for the better. But let’s also not sort of give into this
lie that colonialism kind of saved us from this dark, meaningless, past, because that’s also not true. [applause] What advice would you give to children who like to write like me? Aww. [applause] I would say read. Read—make sure you read very often, and then just keep writing. And save them. Don’t throw anything-just keep writing. Write, write, write. And then read. And then give it to your mum to keep for you until you're a bit older. I’m looking forward to reading what you
write. [applause] One more question, one more question. Thank you, Chimamanda, for coming. I actually feel a sense of kindred spirit
with you, especially when you talked about women marrying women. My grandmother did marry a woman. Yeah, she did. [applause] Well, I mean it happens that she had my mother, and she had others-my aunties as well. But she didn’t have a son. So after her husband passed away she married a woman, and then had sons for her, as it were. So I understand exactly what you meant by
that. There is a question, there is a question. My question is really, when you wrote—because I’m a writer myself—when you wrote Half of a Yellow Sun, as an Igbo woman, how did you feel writing it? I mean researching it-all the gore, all the nastiness, the vandals coming in, you know attacking young men, young women. Obviously our parents probably lived through the war. How did you feel just traveling back to that time and writing about it without—how would I say it— you don’t have to write objectively when you’re writing fiction, but still writing it and being able to carry on and write such an amazing book? I think two things. So you said vandals coming to harass-but also, I kept in mind that Biafran soldiers raped Biafran women. So it’s being very clear-eyed and knowing, of course, that I wanted to write a book that was unapologetically Biafran in its sympathy, but also that refused to romanticize that period. Right? There were Biafran leaders who made terrible decisions. We had people who died who should not have died. And I was very clear-eyed about that. But at the same time I wanted to celebrate
stories that I think hadn’t been told. The role that women played. The sense that people had this collective belief in something. And how that propelled them to do things. I would read these research papers and just stop and shake my head and wonder, like, “So ndị Igbo nwe ike ịme udi ịfaa? Ọ gịnị na-emezị anyị kịta?” So anyway. But there were times when I would stop to
cry. Because I’d look at pictures of refugee camps, and my grandfather died in a refugee camp. So it was also an emotionally difficult thing. Hi Chimamanda-my name is Chika, and I’m a student at Wellesley College, so I was very grateful to have had you as a commencement speaker a few years ago. Oh, right. So my question for you today is: I study International Relations, and I focus on history, especially African history, and currently I’m working
on my thesis, and you mentioned a lot of things that I had discovered, as I’ve gone through the archives as well. But a few my questions that I’ve had so
far are: Why do you think that women have been excluded from the colonial narrative, especially in concerns with liberation movements? My next question, also as someone who studies history, is: how have you been able to balance your feelings of anger or sadness, especially when you’re digging deep into a lot of dark history. I know at the same time there have been moments of agency, and moments of happiness and joy, but at the same time, as somebody who, you know, especially with current times, it’s very difficult to balance things that have happened in the past, and even now there are calls… What you do is you take time off and get a massage and make a cup of tea. [applause] Thank you. [applause]
I love this
What she said is literally what i asked in one of the quotds on the discord I still have no clue why we learn french and english over our own languages