World Peace Convention 2018, International Symposium, Speaker 3.
Incheon Harbor Park Hotel, Grand Ballroom(2F)
The Politics of Reconciliation: Re-inscribing the Wounded Body through a Feminist Body Hermeneutic
SAROJINI NADAR
(Prof. Sarojini Nadar (PhD) holds the Desmond Tutu Research Chair in Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.)
3. [Speaker3] Sarojini Nadar.pdf
Ⅰ. Introduction
In this paper I postulate a link between socio-political and textual conceptions of reconciliation. I use Todorov's 'narrative equilibrium' theory to conceptualize the discursive dimension of reconciliation as a socio-political act. The narrative level is particularly important in light of the influence and authority granted to sacred texts such as the Bible. I compare a biblical narrative with a narrative from the not-so-distant past to show how a 'rush' towards reconciliation and artificial “peace” leaves wounded bodies in its wake. Hence I suggest that when we think of “peace” and “reconciliation” a more embodied and feminist hermeneutic is required that enables genuine reconciliation rather than an abstract idealism based only on the need for equilibrium or 'balancing the scales'.
Ⅱ. Narrative l: Esther 2.1-18
'After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. Then the king's servants who attended him said, "Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. And let the king appoint commissioners in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel of Susa under the custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women; let their cosmetic treatments be given them. And let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti." This pleased the king, and he did so.
'Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite. Kish had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away. Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother; the girl was fair and beautiful, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter. So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in the citadel of Susa in the custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in the custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women. The girl pleased him and won his favour, and he quickly provided her with her cosmetic treatments and her portion of food, and with seven chosen maids from the king's palace, and advanced her and her maids to the best place in the harem. Esther did not reveal her people or kindred, for Mordecai had charged her not to tell. Every day Mordecai would walk around in front of the court of the harem, to learn how Esther was and how she fared.
'The tum came for each girl to go in to King Ahasuerus, after being twelve months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their cosmetic treatment, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics for women. When the girl went in to the king she was given whatever she asked for to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she went in; then in the morning she came back to the second harem in the custody of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines; she did not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name.
'When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his own daughter, to go in to the king, she asked for nothing except what Hegai, the king's eunuch, who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was admired by all who saw her. When Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus in his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favour and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers-"Esther's banquet." He also granted a holiday to the provinces, and gave gifts with royal liberality'.
Ⅲ. Text of terror
In a previous publication, using a feminist-literary lens, I argued that the text of Esther 2.1-18 should be read as a 'text of terror'. While the text seems - at least on the surface - to be concerned with a beauty contest, I showed that it provides enough evidence, as in verse 14 (' In the evening she went in; then in the morning she came back to the second harem in the custody of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines; she did not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name'), to claim that the activities at the harem constituted more than a beauty contest: they constituted sexual abuse. Not only were the girls spending a night with the king, but their status changed from that of virgins to that of concubines, and the night with the king could be repeated if he called them again because he 'delighted' in them. I showed how the text, through its literary devices of time and plot, compels the reader to follow its internal logic towards an understanding of equilibrium and reconciliation, so that the reader does not readily perceive the abuse.
Todorov's theory of narrative equilibrium, as represented in the figure above, captures the way in which the reader is guided towards narrative equilibrium: a reconciling of the textual disruption that has happened.
The textual disruption that has occurred is the disobedience of the first wife of the king in chapter one. Queen Vashti refuses to parade her beauty before the king and his drunken friends, and thereby disrupts the narrative equilibrium. The narrative disruption must be repaired and the way to do this, in order to reach a renewed state of narrative equilibrium, is to find a new wife for the king. Chapter 2 ends in this reconciling of the text: a repair to the disruption that has occurred, with the crowning of Esther as queen. This narrative equilibrium foreshadows a larger narrative equilibrium that is to come, the salvation of the Jews, whose lives are being threatened by the Persian Haman. For the Jews to be saved, Esther must become queen: only then can narrative reconciliation happen. Therefore we are pulled into the logic of the textual reconciliation: the bodies of the wounded women are sacrificed on the altar of a larger reconciliation. This reconciliation is patriarchal (the need for a new wife for the king) as well as national (the salvation of the Jews). Higgins and Silver succinctly show the dangers of this 'rush' towards narrative reconciliation: 'Analyses of specific texts, when read through and against each other, illustrate a number of profoundly disturbing patterns. Not the least of these is an obsessive inscription and an obsessive erasure-of sexual violence against women (and against those placed by society in the position of 'woman')... How is it that in spite of (or perhaps because of) their erasure, rape and sexual violence have been so ingrained and rationalized through their representation as to appear "natural".'4
The sexual abuse of the young virgins is 'erased' from the text as the reader is pulled toward the enticing goal of reconciliation and of narrative equilibrium. This almost 'naturalizes' the abuse, as Higgins and Silver argue.
III. Narrative 2: A contemporary South African story of 'Kwhezi'
2006 marked ten years of the New Constitution in South Africa, 12 years after the onset of democracy and ten years after the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. It is within this post-apartheid, postcolonial (and I use the term here as a chronological marker not a theoretical construct), reconciliatory context that we have to understand the charge of rape laid against Jacob Zuma (then 64 and up until 2018, the president of South Africa) by 'Kwhezi', the thirty-oneyear-old daughter of his comrade in exile. 5
Narratives are always 'partially constructed', and Kwhezi's narrative is constructed from the media accounts, court records and subsequent analyses found in books.6 Notwithstanding her vivid account of what happened in November 2005, Jacob Zuma was acquitted on 8 May 2006, and the court ruled that the sexual relationship was consensual.
The aim of relating Kwhezi's narrative is not to debate the nonguilty verdict, but to understand the way in which Kwhezi's body becomes erased and re-inscribed as a site for political gain. In his reflection on the trial Raymond Suttner puts it aptly: 'While rape per se, or whether or not there was a rape, cannot be assessed or explained by the political context, this rape trial -in all its complexities -can only be understood within this framework. The most significant elements of those surrounding events may have been the perception and suggestion amongst many: that Zuma was the victim of a conspiracy hatched by President Thabo Mbeki. '7
In other words, we can understand Kwhezi's narrative only within the broader context of the post-colonial equilibrium established in post-apartheid South Africa: a context of racial reconciliation, or rather racial rehabilitation, where a reclaiming of black men as subjects and not as objects of violent discourses is happening. In this context the post-colonial equilibrium is disrupted through the charges of corruption against a 'man of the people'; then the gender equilibrium is disrupted through the rape trial. The debate in the public space was about Kwhezi's wounded body only in so far as this wounded body was 'constructed' and 'created' according to the conspiracy theorists, so as to disturb the postcolonial equilibrium that had been established.
In terms of Todorov's narrative equilibrium theory, stage 4, 'an attempt to repair the damage', is reached when the court acquits Jacob Zuma of rape. The narrative then proceeds to stage 5, a renewed narrative equilibrium. Now all is well in the post-colonial utopia that South Africa is so desperately trying to achieve.
IV. Reading through a feminist body hermeneutic
What happens if we use the lens of a feminist body hermeneutic to read 'the spaces between' the fourth and fifth stage of Todorov's narrative theory in the narrative of Esther and in the narrative of Kwhezi? I would argue that a re-inscription of the flesh and blood body happens in opposition to the politicized and narrative erasure. Reading through a feminist body hermeneutic causes us to pause, to consider the verse which the biblical text and socio-political locations urge readers to 'gloss over'. Higgins and Silver urge readers to adopt feminist modes of 'reading': 'Feminist modes of "reading" rape and its cultural inscriptions help identify and demystify the multiple manifestations, displacements, and transformations of what amounts to an insidious cultural myth. In the process, they show how feminist critique can challenge the representations that continue to hurt women both in the courts and on the streets.' 8
A feminist mode of reading challenges readers to consider 'epistemic violence'' (Foucault/Spivak) and gendered physical violence before we rush into the ethnic and political equilibrium which awaits us at the end of both narratives. Both the biblical and the contemporary narrative show that in the 'scramble for reconciliation' (racial, ethnic and otherwise), the wounded bodies of women are often erased. A feminist hermeneutic of the body challenges us to re-inscribe the wounded bodies so that reconciliation is comprehensive and not facile. As Audre Lorde has reminded us:
Black women's literature is full of the pain of frequent assault, not only by a racist patriarchy, but also by Black men. Yet the necessity for and history of shared battle have made us, Black women, particularly vulnerable to the false accusation that anti-sexist is anti-Black. Meanwhile, womanhating as a recourse of the powerless is sapping strength from Black communities, and our very lives. Rape is on the increase, reported and unreported, and rape is not aggressive sexuality, it is sexualized aggression. As Kalamu ya Salaam, a Black male writer points out, "As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscious of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape."
A feminist theology of the wounded body for reconciliation offers four important points for further deliberation and consideration:
1. The (female) body is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
2. The (female) body is not a 'necessary evil' but a gift from God. Overcoming dualistic notions of body and mind is crucial here.
3. The 'wounded body' of women can be read in juxtaposition with the 'wounded body' of Christ: the wounds of Christ too are 'glossed over' in traditional Christologies, because the wounds are associated with a salvific effect and not with protest leading to reconciliation. As Megan Mckenna remarks: 'To say that Jesus died for our sins i only half a theology-it is to forget that he was executed because he was dangerous to a society that wanted to hold onto its power.' 10
4. In the quest for a theology of reconciliation it is important to re-inscribe the body in the discourse. As Sharon Bong says: 'A theology . that matters is a theology that is embodied. And a theology that is embodied is sound theology.”
Notes
1. The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized edition). copyright 1989. 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
2. Sarojini Nadar, 'Texts of Terror -The Conspiracy of Rape in the Bible, Church and Society: The Case of Esther 2. 1-18', in Isabel Apawo Phiri & Sarojini Nadar (eds). African Women, Religion and Health: Essays in Honour of Mercy Amba Oduyoye, New York. 2006, pp. 77-95.
3. Phyllis P. Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary jeminist Reading of Biblical Narratives, Philadelphia, 1984.
4. Lynn Higgins & Brenda Silver, Rape and Representation, New York, 1991, p. 2.
5. As her identity was not revealed, 'Khwezi' (star) was the name given to her by a women's group called One in Nine, who were in court to support her.
6. For the most incisive analysis see Mmatshilo Motsei, The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court: Reflections on the Jacob Zuma Rape Trial, Houghton, Johannesburg, 2007.
7. Raymond Suttner, 'The Jacob Zuma Rape Trial: Power and African National Congress (ANC) Masculinities', in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, vol. 17, 3 (2009), pp. 222-36.
8. Lynn Higgins & Brenda Silver, Rape and Representation, op. cit., p. 2.
9. Gayatri Spivak, 'Can the subaltern speak?', in G. Nelson & L Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, London, 1988, p. 295.
10. Megan Mckenna, On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross, New York, 2006.
11. Sharon A. Bong, 'The Suffering Christ and the Asian Body'. in Kwok Pui-lan (ed.), Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women S Theology, New York, 2010, p.191.
