Fighting Against The Female Oppression in "Sardines" by Nuruddin Farah

In his novel Farah tries to culminate the exploitation of the patriarchy and the sustainment of women liberation by the state. Under the administration of Barre Government, the life of women and the quest for individuality among Somali women is hegemonized. The central character in this novel is Medina. Her character is portrayed very lucidly and vehemently. She had a bold resolution of fighting against the oppression of the state dictatorship and she fulminates the patriarchy.

“Medina was as strong –minded as she was unbending in her decisions, and she guarded her secrets jealously. She was, in a manner, like her father Barkhadle .She was confident as a patriarch in the rightness of all her decisions”.

Medina is a woman who does not surrender and bow down to the illegal and unjust activities by the state dictatorial administration run by Syad Barre for which she is dismissed from the government services. This act of not surrendering to the government which is selfish and promoting illegal activities symbolizes her bold attitude to resist and daring attitude to grapple against powerful structures that has been established by the patriarchal system.

She repelled towards the patriarchal society and the government in order to find a room of her own in to establish a unique role among the male dominated country. Farah intensely narrates that her repudiation towards government’s orders had a purpose on her mind which would benefit the feeble creature in the society as designated by the patriarchal society: “A room of one’s own. A country of one’s own in which one was not a guest. A country in which one was not a guest. A room in which one was not a guest”.

Medina, not only violated the rules imposed by the government, but also she refused to accept the words of her husband, Samater and her mother in law, Idil. Medina’s husband and her mother-in-law are intending to circumcise medina’s daughter, Ubax. But Medina refuses this act of crime and she is against this ritual of infibulation which is practiced on women of her society. According to Medina, this ritual which victimizes women should not be practiced all over the country and has wanted to put an end to it.

She wanted to save her daughter along with other women from being circumcised and to create a space to live happily. She wanted her daughter to get prevented and relieved from the pain that Medina was inflicted to when she was a child. Medina wanted to bring change inside of her family and that would reflect outside to the world. So she started the change from her home.

Medina has undergone this cruel ritual of female circumcision and she had experienced the pain. This act degrades the status of women in a society. Many novelists including Farah touched this sensible issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and they discussed in their novels in various situations. This practice of FGM is considered to be the suppression of women in Somali society. This inhuman ritual is condemned by various social activists and feminists in the modern Somalia. Medina’s point of view on women being circumcised is entailed with the description that,

If they mutilate you at eight or nine, they open you up with a rusty knife the night they marry you off, then when you give birth to a baby you are cut open and re-stitched. Life for a circumcised woman is a series of deflowering pains, delivery pains and re-stitching pains.

Medina is an intellectual woman with the spirit of revolution. She works for the liberation of a woman. She is fighting for the survival of the women like herself and others by refusing the ideologies that has been followed by Idil as a ritual and by opposing Syad Barre’s regime. The elements like marginalization and victimization of women in a society made her to respond to it and to bring a change in this society she strives to interrupt and struggle to attain an identity as a woman by aggressively demolishing them.

Medina believes that her struggle for women liberation in the society will change the whole cultural set up of her country. Medina struggles along with her daughter so that her daughter can lead her life in peace without any interruption of the government or male dominated system. She took a huge step to reconstruct the society and rehabilitate them with the changed cultural set up. Her process of reconstruction states that:

She reconstructed the story from the beginning. She worked it into a set of pyramids which served as foundations for one another. Out of this, she erected a construction of great solidity and strength. She then built mansions on top of it all, mansions large as her imagination and with lots of chambers that led off corridors in which she lost herself but which led her finally, when she chose to follow, to a secret back door in another wing of the building .She stood at a distance; she breathed deeply and took her time. She admired the result.

Medina’s direct opposition on the regime by Syad Barre is figured out in this novel and she prepares her daughter by instilling her with the ideology of resistance. The rebellious nature of Medina was inherited by her daughter. According to Medina, her daughter should decide for herself, she gets rid dependency over others.

Medina is not allowed to join Government schools like other kids of her age. Ubax asks about her schooling in these lines: “Why don’t you let me go to school like the other children then?” Medina purposefully tells her, “Because schools teach you nothing but songs of sycophancy and the praise names of the General. And because I can teach you better than they. I can teach you things that will be of use to you later in life.”

Those schools chant and praise the government who destroys the country without the knowledge of the people. The government betrays its own people. Medina prevents her daughter from playing with her friends because her language seems to change when she has the conversation with her friends and this was not liked by her mother.

At some point Ubax gets irritated by the action of her mother and asks her, “why don‟t you let me go and play with Abucar, Omar and Sofia?” For which she replies, “When you come home, your language suffers from lack of originality. You keep repeating yourself, saying the same thing. I want you to speak like an enlightened child.”

Medina is a strong minded woman who thinks of her own to save her from the punishable offences created by the patriarchal system. To liberate her future generation, Medina inculcates in the mind of Ubax the ideology of resistance, independence, and the philosophy of freedom to live her life with confidence and independence. She also helps her to develop Ubax’s creative mind.