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p The women’s movement in African countries forms an important component of the national liberation movement on this continent and is a major force in the international democratic women’s movement.

p The gains achieved by the national liberation movement after the Second World War, and the new stage characterised by a deeper social content, which the struggle of the developing countries entered upon, required the social forces, women’s organisations included, to activate their efforts, and to combine women’s struggle for their specific rights with the pursuit of antiimperialist and general democratic aims.

p At the initial stage of the national liberation revolution, that is when political independence was attained, the women in Africa had no mass organisations of their own that could act as independent bodies. The economic backwardness and the destitution of the masses, the imperfection of the social structure, and the relatively small number of women’s organisations that did not yet combine into a solid women’s democratic movement retarded the shaping of a social conscience in African women. Still, they did not keep aloof from the struggle for the progressive development of their countries, and together with other anti-imperialist, patriotic forces courageously fought for the liberation of African peoples from the colonial yoke.

p The existence of numerous women’s associations, societies, clubs and other such 243 organisalions was lypical for the social life of Africa in that period. Some of these associations functioned for quite a length of time, and some fell apart as quickly as they emerged.

p In North African countries associations of this type were maintained by a narrow circle of educated women, for the most, part of European descent. Some of them upheld views that were liberal for the time and sincerely believed that equality could be won by carrying through cerlain reforms primarily in suffrage. In Egypt, for instance, there were the Egyptian Feminist Union, Women’s Society for the Protection and Welfare of Children, Daughters of the Nile and other associations which were actively working for the emancipation of women.

p The leaders of some of these organisations demanded the abolition of customs demeaning a woman’s dignity, and made a public protest to this effect, lloda Shaarawi, chairman of the Egyptian Feminist Union, was one of the first to remove her veil, inviting other women to follow her example. This took courage to do at the time. Her appeal received a wide public response and rallied many women to the Union which, however, like many other women’s associations in Egypt failed to develop into a truly mass women’s organisation.

p Under the colonial regime the women’s movement was scattered in Egypt: there were as many as 150 various women’s societies and circles. This situation suited the forces of reaction, and they spared no effort to maintain this fragmentation. These organisations had a very moderate programme, mainly promoting culture and enlightenment. The colonial authorities kept them under control and for obvious reasons put every 244 possible obstacle in Ihc way of their alignment with progressive forces which had for their aim the abolition of the colonial regime and the attainment of political independence.

p In countries of Tropical Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra-Leone, Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, and others) the work among the women was done by international bourgeois women’s organisations. They set up their branches in these countries or drew the existing women’s associations into participation in their work. These branches were, in fact, small groups of African women who received education in one of the capitalist countries or women of European descent who had no connection with the bulk of the working women and even less so with the national liberation movement. Here, as in North Africa, the activities of these groups were usually limited to setting up sewing, housekeeping and other such circles.

p More often than not the emergence of women’s organisations resulted not so much from the development of the women’s social awareness and their greater unity as from the efforts of international women’s organisations (International Women’s Council, International Alliance of Women—Equal Rights—Equal Responsibilities, World Young Women’s Christian Association and many others). This has led to some of the women’s organisations in Africa still being engaged in activities of little socio-political significance.

p The illiterate and insufficiently well-organised women (in the villages especially) easily fell under the influence of experienced missionaries whose true intentions they had not the sophistication to grasp. Humility and obedience were 245 preached, and participation in public and political activities was forbidden. A desire for cooperation and closer contacts with women’s benevolent societies in the parent state was encouraged in every way.

p However, the economic and social conditions themselves prepared the African women for joining the common anti-imperialist struggle together with the other democratic and patriotic forces of their respective countries. Colonialism, by ruining the peasants in their masses, turning them into proletarians and semi-proletarians, leaving their families with no means of subsistence, gradually shattered the illusions of the women that sermons and handouts from European benevolent societies could improve the conditions of life for their families. And the better they got aware of this, the more resolutely they joined the struggle against colonialism, which was involving wider and wider sections of the African population. They were with those who rose in protest against exorbitant taxation, and the grip of money-lenders, with those who organised and staged strikes and demonstrations against feudal despotism and colonial authorities.

p In the beginning most women saw their participation in public life in the light of their own specific problems, such as employment, wages, taxes, etc. Their actions of protest were of a spontaneous nature, and were quickly suppressed by the colonial authorities. Such was the outcome of the women’s demonstration in Nigeria in 1929 demanding the abolition of a new poll tax collected from women. A mass women’s demonstration was staged in the city of Aba where political demands were made for the first time, 246 one of these being thai Europeans should go back to their home countries. On orders from the colonial authorities, the police shot down the demonstration and arrested the surviving organisers.

p Notwithstanding, the women’s democratic movement spread and developed as organised actions of protest against the colonial rule were carried through on an increasingly wider scale by the working people of Africa.

p A most important feature of the women’s movement in African countries is that the national women’s democratic organisations emerged under the influence of political struggle, on the initiative and under the guidance of political parties. Many of these parties, lighting for Ihe formation of a united national front, strove lo rally the efforts of the masses in their millions, to ensure their wholesale participation in political affairs. Departments and sections for work among the peasants, youth and women were set up within the parties.

p The 1950s saw African women actively preparing to contribute to the general struggle of the African peoples for their national independence. This upsurge in their social self-awareness was largely prompted by the victory won by the Soviet people in the war against fascism. The solution of the question of women’s rights in the Soviet Union also played an important part. The USSR was the first state in the world to prove in practice the complete unteriability of the bourgeois theories on the “inferiority” of female labour and women’s "indifference to politics”. Inspired by the example of the Soviet Union, African women wanted to join in organised struggle with all the working people against 247 exploitation, and for national independence and social progress.

p Guinean women took an active part in the struggle for national independence. In 1947, Guinean women received the right to join the Democratic Party of Guinea which had started a women’s section. Their participation in the referendum held on September 28, 1958, proved once again that women were not indifferent to the vitally important issues involving the interests of the entire nation. The success of the referendum in which the Guinean people voted for the liquidation of the colonial regime and their country’s independent development, was assured primarily by the efforts of the Democratic Party of Guinea which had no few women among the members. They energetically campaigned for the referendum, travelled about the villages, calling upon the people to vote against the colonial administration. Their participation in the referendum lent it a truly mass character and greatly contributed to the victory of the democratic forces.

p In Nigeria, women took part in political meetings, strikes, demonstrations and campaigns of open insubmission to the colonial authorities. In some colonies the women rose in revolt, this protest developing into mass women’s uprisings. Thus, in Egba district in 1948, twenty thousand women led by Ransome Kuti, a prominent public figure, rose in protest against the absolute power of the ruler Ademola II and the extortion collected from women for his benefit. Their demands were satisfied, and Ademola was dethroned and banished from Egba.

p During the popular uprising in Kenya (1952-1956) women did their share in the guerrilla 248 movement acting as messengers, scouts, procuring supplies and delivering ammunition. Women made up 20 per cent of the Kikuyu guerrillas. This massive participation speaks of the potential strength of the then emerging women’s movement in African countries.

p Little by little women were drawn into the strike movement of African working people. Thus, in 1947, in former French West Africa (Mali and Senegal) they gave their support to the striking railwaymen, and helped to hold up rail freightage carryings for three months. The growth of the movement compelled the French Government and Parliament to speed up the adoption of the Labour Code for the overseas territories. In December 1952, this law came into effect. It contained a number of clauses on female employment stipulating better conditions, on wages, and on mother-and-child care.

p Algerian women traversed a long and difficult path of struggle for the national independence of their country. Hundreds of thousands took up arms and fought shoulder to shoulder with the men in the ranks of the army of national liberation. Teams of trained nurses were formed under the auspices of the Algerian Red Cross. These women had to possess great moral strength and infinite faith in the Tightness of their cause to hold out in this long and cruel fight. Their dedication to the cause of the revolution can be illustrated by the readiness with which people donated money and women donated their family jewelry to the fund of the National Liberation Front in the 1963 campaign.

p The militant solidarity of Africa’s women was manifested most powerfully in those difficult 249 years of struggle for the overthrow of colonial regimes.

p In 1956, during the struggle of the people of Egypt against the aggression of Britain, France and Israel, popular resistance committees were formed with the direct participation of women’s organisations, and in particular the Egyptian Feminist Union. Under the guidance of these organisations, Egyptian women together with the men carried through mass boycotts of AngloAmerican goods, and set up first-aid groups for the population. Many women joined the ranks of armed fighters against the aggressors.

p The Arab Socialist Union (ASU), a mass political organisation which has been operating in Egypt since the early 1960s, headed the struggle of the popular masses for strengthening their national independence and carrying through a number of progressive socio-economic reforms. The women’s section of the Union assumed the task of forming a single women’s democratic organisation in Egypt.

p The Ministry of Social Affairs also occupies itself with the women’s movement, and reports that at the present time there are 190 women’s aspociations with 13,000 members, working in the main as benevolent societies. A major problem which wants to be tackled urgently is to efficiently coordinate the activity of these organisations and to mobilise them into the common endeavour of strengthening the country’s national independence.

p In Tropical Africa the whole work among women is undergoing a radical change. In many countries the old organisations have been dissolved and new ones are being formed. In Guinea, Mali, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Gambia, Zambia, the 250 Ivory Coast and in other states they have been set up as branches of democratic parties.

p In some countries national democratic women’s organisations have been founded such as: National Union of Algerian Women, Revolutionary Union of the Congolese Women (Brazzaville), National Council of Senegalese Women, National Union of Tunisian Women, Progressive Union of Moroc can Women, Union of Central African Women, National Union of the Women of Togo, Union of the Women of Niger, and others.

p Many of these unions are still young and not sufficiently experienced. Still, the dissolvement of the old associations which did not answer the requirements of a complete emancipation of women, and the formation of a single women’s organisation within one country should facilitate the coordination of women’s groups in different districts. Although different programmes, forms and methods of work are pursued by the different women’s organisations, all of them strive to coordinate their activity with the requirements of the national liberation movement. At meetings, gatherings and demonstrations initiated by them they come out in protest against the policy of racial discrimination, against imperialism and neocolonialism.

p The patriots of Angola and Mozambique fought against the Portuguese colonialists for their national independence, for the right to decide their own future in exceptionally difficult conditions, and the women shared all the hardships of this struggle with the men. They joined the ranks of the People’s Volunteer Corps, supplied the guerrilla detachments with food, delivered weapons and ammunitions to the fighters, and 251 nursed the wounded, displaying a high sense of awareness, patriotism and genuine heroism. Many of these women were killed, many were imprisoned or exiled. In 1969, five leading functionaries from the Angola Women’s Organisation were seized when carrying out a military assignment and brutally murdered. Their names are revered by Angola’s patriots. By decision of the Angola Popular Liberation Movement (MPLA). March 2—the day when they were seized—has been pronounced the Angola Women’s National Day, the day of the solidarity of women in different countries with the women of Angola in their courageous struggle.

p Undaunted by tremendous odds and difficulties, the peoples of the Republic of South Africa are developing the scale and force of their heroic fight for freedom, against oppression and lack of rights. More and more women are joining in the struggle. The name of Winnie Mandela, a courageous patriot and wife of one of the leaders of the now banned African National Congress is widely known. She was kept in prison for many months on a false charge. All the “crime” she committed was bravely defending the rights of her people. The authorities were compelled to release Winnie Mandela, but acting against the law they continue to keep her under house arrest. And many valiant women, true patriots of the Republic, are in prison.

p The history of the women’s movement in the Republic of South Africa abounds in instances of women’s struggle against the racist regime. On October 24, 1955, a demonstration of over 20,000 women was held under the leadership of Lillian Ngoyia, Florence Matomela, Helen Joseph, Caroline Mashaba, Rahima Mussa, and Dorothy 252 Nyembe. Their names will always be remembered by the patriots of South Africa.

p Women play an important part in the heroic struggle waged by the peoples of Namibia under the leadership of South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO). They actively participated in the mass strikes staged by the working people demanding the liquidation of colonialism and better conditions.

_p In the course of its brief history the women’s democratic movement in Africa made considerable headway but it has also suffered grave losses. Many of its active members were killed, put in prison, or sent into exile. The colonialists did not stop at physical reprisals. They tried to disorganise the movement by means of deceit and demagogy, resorting to other methods as well.

p That was in the past. Today, the neocolonialists are using the same methods.

p Although the majority of the African countries have won political independence, imperialism still holds powerful means of influencing their socio-economic and political development. Some of them remain under the political control of imperialist countries till this day. Capitalist monopolies are still in control of the key positions in their economy. Drawing support from the reactionary forces within these countries, the imperialists organise plots and coups d’etat, stir up the differences between nations, thus encouraging nationalism, and provoke territorial disputes between the liberated countries.

p Combining the forms of “classical” colonialism with neocolonialism, imperialism strives to influence the presently shaping alignment of forces In a way that would help to stabilise the ruling 253 positions of its representatives with a capitalist orientation and, in the final count, to prevent these developing countries from escaping the sphere of its influence.

p With this aim in view, imperialism resorts to a wide-scale ideological indoctrination of the working people, women in particular. Many bourgeois scholars take a metaphysical approach to the problem of women’s emancipation, substituting an analysis of biological and psychological factors for the analysis of the socio-economic conditions of the women’s life. More often than not they picture the life of an African woman as a round of endless family cares.

p This is made obvious in their attempts to present the economic and social dependence of African women as something that has existed since the beginning of time and, consequently, to be taken for granted. These sociologists assert that the women of many African tribes and peoples are primitive creatures whose notions are restricted to the narrow bounds of family and home. Bourgeois scholars seek this substantiation for their theory about the African women’s alleged indifference to politics, and try to blot out the social and class aspects of the problem of women’s emancipation in African countries.

p The idea is to gradually make the women reconcile themselves to the thought that their participation in socially useful work is a temporary thing and therefore it is hardly worth their while to strive for professional skill or want to receive a special education. A double purpose would be served: female labour could continue to be exploited, and the women’s desire to take part in the social life of their country would be stifled.

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p Aware of the real power of the women’s movement, the imperialists want to keep women away from socio-political activities and for this purpose they try to direct their energies into the placid stream of charity and philanthropy, insisting that women should concern themselves excluvely with their own specific problems. It would be a mistake to underestimate the danger of the propaganda of such purely feminist aims and of the attempts of the forces of reaction to isolate the women’s movement from the general national liberation movement.

p Therefore it is a most important task of the progressive forces to challenge this sort of propaganda with one disseminating the correct view on the role of women and the urgent aims of the women’s movement in Asia and Africa at the present stage of their development.

As the independence of African countries becomes stabilised, the social division within the country deepens and the struggle between the progressive and the internal reactionary forces, supported by imperialism, becomes more acute. The outcome will largely depend on how well the progressive women’s movement in Africa will rally its ranks to participate even more actively than heretofore in the building of a new life.