Urban Studies Using Literature: A Book Review of So Long A Letter By Mariama Ba
Cities are an interesting field to study. This is because so much goes on in the city from politics and economics to arts and science. The city can be viewed from so many different perspectives. Sometimes you can even find elements of urban studies in the literature that were not intended for use or reference in the field of urban studies. This essay will try to demonstrate how one piece of literature illustrates that several binaries of Modernity & tradition, Individualism & Community, and Morality & Immorality exist in an African city.
The piece of literature to be used in this essay is, So Long A Letter by Mariama Ba. Mariama Ba was born in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal (Latha 2016, 89), which is also the city the setting of So Long A Letter. The book was originally written in French in 1979 and translated into English in 1981 (Latha 2016, 86). The book was written as a semi-autobiographical account of a Senegalese lady, Ramatoulaye Fall (A character largely based on the author) who married a politician and gave birth to twelve children, her husband rejected her and remarried and then died. This story is told in a timeline where the country moves from a colony to a modern Nation (Harrow 2008, i). This is not a book that one would expect, to be associated with Urban Studies. I came across this book when it was assigned as a required text for a course on African History. It was assigned so that the students can examine it and then argue whether it qualifies as a credible source to understand the history of Africa given that it is partly fiction. It is evident in the beginning that this book is set in a city because Ramatoulaye says; “a taxi quickly hailed! Fast! Fast! Faster still!” (Ba 2012, 2), if we put this into the context of the time the book was written in the 1970s, one would not expect taxis in rural areas because from personal experience in rural African areas even in 2016 it is rare to find taxis in rural areas so what about in the 1970s.
One of the ideas associated with cities is the idea that cities are good places, places of progress and modernity in comparison to the rural areas which are places of ignorance and stagnation (Gelderblom and Kok 1994, 1). Urban space is regarded as a space of modern ideas and thinking and a modern way of life, breaking away from traditional practices and ways of thinking that are prevalent in rural settings. As Moten (2011), quotes Parsons (1974); “Modern generally means a national state characterized by complex traits including urbanization, extensive mechanization, high rate of social mobility and the like” (2). Per this definition, an urban society Is a modern society. Dakar in the 1970s was home to sixteen percent of Senegal’s population. 70 percent of all commercial workers, 50 percent of all service providers (e.g. transport & administration), and 80 percent of all manufacturing in Senegal were in Dakar which is why it is no surprise that the city consumed 95 percent of electricity generated in Senegal (Hance 1970, 209). So, Dakar was a modern society, fitting all the characteristics of modern society, with high mechanized and high levels of economic activity and production. This meant that to survive in this urban society one had to have an income-generating activity because they are operating in an environment that is heavily dependent on a cash economy.
Ramatoulaye is no exception, she is highly educated and has a job as a school teacher (Ba 2012, 20). She is an example of the high rate of social mobility that is associated with cities just because she is a woman did not mean that she could not get educated to become a teacher and earn her own income without having to traditionally rely on a husband. She presents modernity, a shift from the traditional thinking of women staying home and men working to provide for the family. In most African societies men are the ones who move or struggle to provide for families which is a sign of manliness e.g. in Zimbabwe some people migrate to cities or foreign countries as a rite of passage (Maphosa 2007, 127). She is going against that. However, we see tradition creeping back into the city, despite being a working-class woman she is still subjected to traditional female household roles of cleaning the house, cooking, ironing, etc. (Ba 2012, 20). Most shocking was the fact that she had twelve children (Harrow 2008, i). As though that is not enough he married a second wife as she says, “the presence of my co-wife besides me irritates me (Ba 2012, 4). In today’s money/capitalism-based city economies a working-class lady with twelve children and a man with two wives is unthinkable. One might that that back in the 1970s there was not much difference in tradition and urban life compared to today. However, according to a source written in 1969, polygamy worked in rural areas because people grew their own food, the more wives and children a man had the more who could grow and feed them all (Caldwell 1969, 176–177). So, it was logical in a rural setting but in a city, you cannot take children to work alongside you in an office which means as your bear more children your income increasingly becomes constrained and you cannot support them adequately. Therefore, such a lifestyle was regarded as backward and one for the uneducated (Caldwell 1969, 178).
From Modernity vs Tradition, I shall attempt to discuss, the next binary of Individualism and Community. This is because Modernity gives rise to individualism compared to tradition which promotes communal values (Gelderblom and Kok 1994, 5). To better understand this binary, we look at the ideas of Ferdinand Tonnies, Emile Durkheim, and Louis Wirth on the relationship between urbanization and the individual versus community binary, before talking about how this is illustrated in the book, So Long A Letter. Ferdinand Tonnies had the idea of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, whereby Gemeinschaft is a close-knit society of people bonded together by common values, sacred tradition, and blood ties while Gesellschaft is social relationships based largely economic value of the individual (Phillips 2010, 173). For Durkheim, he had a similar idea to Tonnies’ idea. Durkheim thought of society as having two types of solidarity; the mechanic, which is the beliefs, sentiments, and close family ties. On the other hand, we have organic solidarity is one that is based on people were not bound together by blood ties but by functionality, and what task they perform in society (Phillips 2010, 175). Louis Wirth also echoed the same views that unlike rural-urban centers people interact with each other based on what value they bring to a society based on various roles and positions they hold in the society for example job titles matter more than simple family ties (Phillips 2010, 177). The common denominator in all these views is that urban relations are focused on individual needs thanks to capitalism in comparison to Rural relationships that are largely based on communal needs rather than individual needs.
In So Long A Letter, we can see this individualism where relationships are portrayed on what job the person does but at the same time, we also see the community of close-knit family ties. For example, Ramatoulaye, calls her deceased husband’s friend Mawdo “his doctor friend” (Ba 2012, 2). Why could she not simply just refer to him as a friend, she had to state his occupation, he is a doctor. She further mentions that Mado and Modou had been friends for forty years (Ba 2012, 3). So, we see the closeness of friendship associated with rural areas being visible in the city. Forty years of friendship cannot be superficial; it implies a deeper connection between the individuals in other words Modou and Mawdo were almost families. However, we still see the emergence of individualism. The forty years of friendship may have been held together by the fact that Mawdo was a doctor and provided an important service (Medical care) to Modou. Modou kept this friendship because it benefited him and vice versa for Mawdo, Modou’s political connections may have been a basis to sustain the relationship. The point I am trying to make is that individualism and community exist in the city at the same time. The relationships may start off as relationships of convenience for individual gains but over time if the relationships are sustained long enough they become the traditional relationships based on kinship and as the networks grow everybody chips in their value in the networks and everybody as benefits as a community it once becomes a one for all and all for one system because everybody offers something and they get something in return. This then takes me to my final point morality vs Immorality because relationships are based on morality who you interact with or how you interact with them will be based on your moral compass.
There is a view in urban studies that urbanization leads to moral decay. The rural is a good place that upholds high moral standards compared to the urban areas where morality is taken for granted or thrown out the window (Gelderblom and Kok 1994, 1). In this section, I will focus on the marriage of Modou Fall to a girl named Benitou. “Benitou, a child the same age as my daughter Daba, promoted to the rank of my co-wife, whom I must face up to”, Ramatoulaye says (Ba 2012, 40). At the beginning of the book, she describes how close she is to Aissatou, a friend to whom So Long A Letter is addressed to as she says; “Your presence in my life is by no means fortuitous. Our mothers were separated by a fence and would exchange messages daily” (Ba 2012, 1). They were close friends. It was not by chance that they were friends and for that she felt a moral obligation to be loyal to her. I would like to think that being that has grown up side by side with Aissatou and being about the same age she would have thought of marrying Aissatou’s father. It is immoral. In the city because of individualism, there is no loyalty or moral obligation among individuals. Being a friend of Daba, Benitou is expected to be morally obliged to not marry a friend’s father. The whole idea of marrying an old man who is old enough to be your father is immoral both for the man and the girl. However economic hardships in a capitalist city give rise to individualism which in turn corrupts people’s moral compasses. Benitou gave up her moral obligation to Daba, by marrying Daba’s father in return for upward social mobility (Ba 2012, 40). Poverty in cities makes people act immorally. People commit crimes or do socially unacceptable things not because they want to but because they need to, to survive the harsh economic environment of the city. On the other morality is still visible in the city, after Ramatoulaye Fall maintained her loyalty to her husband, she despite being cast away did not let that deter her from performing her duty as a faithful wife something that would be expected in a city. She continued to treat her estranged husband’s relative with respect as a good wife ought to (Ba 2012, 58). That is a sign of morality in the city because as a wife who has been ditched you would expect her to run around with other men but she did not.
In conclusion, the city is often contrasted along with several binaries with the country. I hope by using So Long A Letter by Mariama Ba, this essay has shown how these binaries do not exist only between the city and rural areas but also within the city. You can have modernity and tradition in the city as well as morality and immorality.
