• Home
  • Bio
  • Media
    • Read
    • Watch/Listen
  • Speaking
  • Work with me
  • Contact

MsAfropolitan

FEMINISM. PAN-AFRICA. SOCIAL CRITICISM. DIASPORA. CULTURE.

  • feminism
  • Africa
  • Pop Culture
  • Social Criticism
  • decolonisation
  • Afropolitanism
  • seven
  • Sensuous Knowledge
    • Sensuous Knowledge references and recommended reading
    • International
    • Sensuous Knowledge news
  • Other Books
  • The MsAfropolitan Philosophy Book Club @ Waterstones

Reflections on writing, voice and inner life

May 3, 2017 By MsAfropolitan 4 Comments

In August 2014, to my great excitement, I was invited to give a TEDx Talk in London. It was thrilling to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on the renowned platform and I eagerly began preparing for the event. But my excitement about the talk was soon replaced with gloom, when a few weeks after receiving the invitation, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I mention the two things – one positive, one devastatingly negative – in conjunction, not because they have much to with each other per se, but because both have since influenced the direction of this blog and my writing. Prior to my mother’s diagnosis, this blog was about feminism, Africa, cosmopolitanism and related topics.

This blog is still about feminism, Africa, cosmopolitanism and related topics. However, in the time that followed the diagnosis, weeks and months that were spent in hospital departments by my mother’s bedside, I would escape the despair of my sudden harsh reality by writing, including on my TEDx Talk, while she increasingly slept during the most part of the day.

Perhaps it was the stark, sorrowful atmosphere in which I gathered my ideas, or perhaps it was the overwhelming love and admiration that filled my heart as I watched my mother take on the brutality of cancer with her uniquely positive and calm spirit; but the more I wrote, the clearer it became that the voice in which I had always written was changing.

It was not altogether different. In fact, my voice was not different in itself, but it struck me like a bolt of thunder that the cultural environment I was writing in was. There was suddenly an expectation that feminist commentators like myself adhere to zeitgeist-sentiments such as outrage (however righteous), self-exposing first person essays, identity politics and so on. Where these expressions had once been countercultural, I felt weary of how they increasingly seemed to pigeonhole writers instead.

There certainly is a demand, and perhaps even a need for such “feisty” and “brave” black feminist voices especially, but with the event of my mother’s illness and the existential questions such a life moment can produce, I became preoccupied with finding a distinct and lucid language that instead clearly expressed what had indeed always driven my writing, namely the desire to enforce the humanity – and not the “othering” – of African heritage womanhood. My core feminist message will always be that women must have the right to uncompromising freedom, and it was therefore an important reminder that the meaning of freedom is contextual.

The rumination became all the more clear as I began drafting the TEDx talk. The talk was to be based on this blog, a blog which has been attributed with propagating African feminist issues to a mainstream audience, an achievement which I do not take lightly or, for that matter, solely. But the title and punch line of my TEDx talk –  “To change the world, change your illusions” – nevertheless reflected the sense of urgency I felt to situate the simple and mundane humanity that African women so often are denied into a complicated universal plurality. It therefore ended up being a slightly jumbled talk, one of which I am fond, but that nevertheless reflects a painful and confused moment at a crossroads.

A few months before I lost my mother, the TEDx talk was published online and we watched it together. In the talk, I tell a story about my two grandmothers – one Finnish, one Nigerian, and the similarities they shared despite having lived in seemingly different worlds. It was largely because of my mother, a Finnish woman, that I became a pan-African feminist. As I used to tease her, her upbringing left me with no choice – gender, race and class issues were always a steady topic between my mother and I. We both admired not only the Gloria Steinems of the world, but also the Alice Walkers, the Buchi Emechetas, the Audre Lordes, the Nawal el Saadawis and the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies who injected feminism with a needed humanist critique.

But despite our mutual feminist politics, it was not the content that she first remarked on when she watched my talk, it was the intent. “Don’t ever stop expressing your own truth,” she said with shining motherly love in her eyes. It was a variation of the mantra she’d knocked into my head since childhood – “Always follow your own happiness.”

Her words will forever stay with me. As it approaches the second long year since I lost the person that I would choose as a mother every lifetime were I given the chance, I just wanted to let her know; that albeit with a tender heart, I am following her advice, I am expressing my truth and I am following my happiness – and having so many of you accompany me on this journey – makes me childishly excited and incredibly grateful.

Filed Under: uncategorized

Comments

  1. ebele says

    May 4, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    Moving tribute and account. You link the personal and the political beautifully. A Finnish woman can birth and nurture a pan-African feminist! She must have been proud of you.
    I have recently lost a parent and know the powerful emotions it can stir, both positive and negative. I wish you that your mother’s spirit lives on and continues to speak to you

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      May 4, 2017 at 11:41 pm

      I’m very sorry for your loss, dear Ebele. My thoughts are with you.

      Reply
      • ebele says

        May 5, 2017 at 7:12 pm

        Thank you Minna! My thoughts have been with you too.

        Reply
      • ebele says

        June 27, 2017 at 8:59 pm

        Thank you so much Minna

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Feminism. African Studies. Social Criticism.

Hi! I'm Minna Salami, I'm a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish writer and social critic, and the founder of this blog. Read my full bio here

View My Blog Posts

Subscribe to my newsletter

* indicates required

Follow My social media

Visit Us On InstagramVisit Us On FacebookCheck Our Feed

The New Institute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_ddI8Lu9k&t=7s

Sensuous Knowledge – Get the book (US version)

Sensuous Knowledge – Get the book (UK version)

Recent Comments

  • Evgen on There were no matriarchies in precolonial Africa
  • ทางเข้าเล่น joker on The challenge for western feminism in the 21st century
  • Schües on On Abortion
  • AneM on Polygamy in Africa has little to do with sex
  • Khalifa on Polygamy in Africa has little to do with sex

Archives

  • March 2023 (1)
  • February 2023 (1)
  • August 2022 (4)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (2)
  • December 2021 (1)
  • August 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (5)
  • April 2021 (3)
  • March 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (3)
  • May 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (2)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • November 2019 (1)
  • July 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • November 2018 (1)
  • October 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • July 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (3)
  • August 2017 (6)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • May 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (3)
  • January 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • November 2016 (3)
  • October 2016 (3)
  • September 2016 (2)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (2)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (3)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (2)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (3)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (4)
  • August 2015 (3)
  • July 2015 (2)
  • June 2015 (3)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (10)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (3)
  • November 2014 (5)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (2)
  • August 2014 (4)
  • July 2014 (3)
  • June 2014 (3)
  • May 2014 (5)
  • April 2014 (4)
  • March 2014 (2)
  • February 2014 (4)
  • January 2014 (3)
  • December 2013 (3)
  • November 2013 (4)
  • October 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (4)
  • August 2013 (5)
  • July 2013 (4)
  • June 2013 (4)
  • May 2013 (6)
  • April 2013 (3)
  • March 2013 (7)
  • February 2013 (3)
  • January 2013 (5)
  • December 2012 (4)
  • November 2012 (9)
  • October 2012 (8)
  • September 2012 (4)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (6)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (8)
  • April 2012 (7)
  • March 2012 (5)
  • February 2012 (4)
  • January 2012 (6)
  • December 2011 (5)
  • November 2011 (6)
  • October 2011 (6)
  • September 2011 (8)
  • August 2011 (6)
  • July 2011 (5)
  • June 2011 (5)
  • May 2011 (5)
  • April 2011 (4)
  • March 2011 (7)
  • February 2011 (6)
  • January 2011 (7)
  • December 2010 (5)
  • November 2010 (9)
  • October 2010 (7)
  • September 2010 (5)
  • August 2010 (4)
  • July 2010 (6)
  • June 2010 (5)
  • May 2010 (3)
  • April 2010 (3)
  • March 2010 (1)

more articles

Black feminism and the polycrisis

March 17, 2023 By MsAfropolitan Leave a Comment

… [Continue Reading...]

New writing on the Eco Gender Gap

February 16, 2023 By MsAfropolitan Leave a Comment

… [Continue Reading...]

Privacy Policy

https://msafropolitan.com/gdpr

Copyright MsAfropolitan © 2023