Hausa Fim

[Bajoga]

Asslamu Alaikum!!!

Ina son inyi amfani da wannan dama don inyi magana akan harkan shirin fim (musammanma na hausa) wanda shine muke tare dashi a kusa da mu kuma muke yawan mu'amala dashi.

Dukkan mu dai mun yadda cewa Hausa wata abace wadda take da al'adu wadanda basu saba ka'idodin shariar musulci ba, kuma tana koyar da kyawawan dabi'u ga iyalanmu baki daya.

Farko fitowar fim na hausa lallai mutane sunyi matukar farin ciki da hakan, domin ko ba komai tofa zamu fahimci al'adummu na hausa sosai (mai makon yawan ganin fina-finan da ba al'adunmu ba). Abin yana kara bunkasa mutane suna kara son ganin fina-finan hausa.

To amma fa a yanzu abubuwan sun fara lalacewa, don idan kaga wani abun, harma bazaka iya bada labari ba. Misali ka lura kaga yadda ake sanya kaya musammam mata, kai kace wallahi ba ya musulma kuma ba haushiya ba, haka idan kaga yadda mace take rawa tana jijjiga dukkanin jikinta, abin har ba'a cewa koma.

Gaskiya ina ganin yakamata masu fada aji su sa baki acikin wannan harka domin kuwa watara fa yayammu ne ko kannemu.

Lalle ban fadi/rubuta wannan magana don in bata wa wani ba, imma akwai wanta ransa ya baci to ya feni, nayi ne da niyar gyara.
Allah ya taimakemu, amin.

Jibrin M. Yusi Bajoga. :)

[HUSNAA]

Ni na gaji da wannan thread din na Hausa films na bata al'adununmu na Hausa 'masu kyau'...
Lets concentrate on something esle. Ai tackling 'yan fashi da makamai, da barayi, da aids da masu satar mutane suna tsafi da su, da masu zuwa cikin dare su yanka matan mutane da ma su kisa saboda siyasa, da fitinar 'yan daba da 'yan kalare masu shan sholisho (ko suma  'yan wasan hausan ne suka koya musu?)  da rashin aikin yi, da religious intolerance (masu bi su harbe malamai), da sace kudin gwamnati da rashin wutar lantarki da ruwan sha tsabtacacce, da rashin makarantu ingantattu, da kuma lalacin talaka da bazai tashi ya nemi  'yancin sa ba kullum in an danne shi. Wai sai ya ce kash! 'yan kwadago sun wahal dani a yajin aikin da suka yi, ko kuwa kememe ya ki bin hakkin da a ka take masa wajen kada kuri'a.
In an magance wa'yannan, sai a waywayo wajen 'yan wasan Hausa, wanda bakomai suke yi ba sai tafiya da yadda zamani ya canza.

[Nuruddeen]

Ni na gaji da wannan thread din na Hausa films na bata al'adununmu na Hausa 'masu kyau'...
Lets concentrate on something esle.

Haba my sister! Allow the guy to  express his feelings. I think even if something of this nature is discussed here, we need to give him a chance to say what he wants to say. Many thanks Husna.

[amira]

Guys i all agree with you's, you all have a point there,nuruddeen like you said allow jmyusi to express himself yea theres no harm in that, but jmyusi its true like husnaa said zamani has changed( kai ya waye) and husnaa you know am with you in this your bayani :D

[Rais]

Haba if zamani have changed we can do ds bcos our future, all what husna is talking about are the major problems .This is minor amma ya kamata aduba ance fim din hausa don bahaushe da al adarsa amma basa yin yadda al adar tace now domin u can watch dat fim with all ur family(U,wife and children).One day like dat I watched 1 hausa fims with my junior brother he was telling  me kaji abinda yace yana cewa ne ance su kama kansu har sai sunyi aure amma shi yayi auren ba amfani ta ki yarda dashi  sai yawan gaisuwa dare nayi tafara sumumi _sumumi .seven yrs old haba since from dat day nasan hausa fims it has its own negetive effect more expecially bcos of our youger once

[Bajoga]

Assalamu Alaikum!!!

Lallai anyi maganganu da dama on my above text, kuma i believe kowa yana fadin abinda yake ganin gaskiya, i don't think akwai wanda yake fadin wani abu because of ya batawa wani.

Husna, i understand ur point, but karki manta u r a woman kuma ku masu rauni ne sosai, there/4 ki manta da wani abu wai zamani, it's d zamani ne ya chanja, wht of us? i don't think mu zamu chanja har mu kaucewa wa al'adunmu.

I hope to bear with me.

[HUSNAA]

Haba if zamani have changed we can do ds bcos our future, all what husna is talking about are the major problems .This is minor amma ya kamata aduba ance fim din hausa don bahaushe da al adarsa amma basa yin yadda al adar tace now domin u can watch dat fim with all ur family(U,wife and children).One day like dat I watched 1 hausa fims with my junior brother he was telling  me kaji abinda yace yana cewa ne ance su kama kansu har sai sunyi aure amma shi yayi auren ba amfani ta ki yarda dashi  sai yawan gaisuwa dare nayi tafara sumumi _sumumi .seven yrs old haba since from dat day nasan hausa fims it has its own negetive effect more expecially bcos of our youger once

Lol I cant stop laughing at what yr seven yr old brother said!! It so so so hilarious coming from a seven yr old!! hahahaha!!
Amma what you seemed to have done is underestimate his intelligence, and u think that bcos he is saying that,  it is necessarily a bad thing  or will have a bad effect on him. But you seemed not to realize that he is actually complaining against something that the bride of the actor is doing, which is also frowned upon Islamically. So how can you fault yr brother for being aware of that at an early age? Dont you know that children kept in utter ignorance are the ones that are most vulnerable and  in the greatest danger of being molested? Bama haka ba wani yaron will run throu the gamut of hausa films without ever appreciating anything.  Anyway abar zancan haka.  ;D

Ni dai I am of the view that 'yan wasan Hausa ba su suke lalata al'ada ba; kwaikwayon abinda suka ga anayi ne a cikin al'umma. Kuma as it is, har gara in bar 'yayana suyi ta kalon wasan Hausa da in barsu su kalli wasan kwaikwayon bature. Abin na bani mamaki. Wai sai kaga an nuna western film inda matan a practically naked (bay watch for example) kokuwa there is a full headon kissing scene and sai kaga no one bats an eyelid as kids and adults alike gaze raptly at the tv. Which is worse then? A graphic representation of what one is trying to avoid, ko kuwa an indirect  reference to it?
The whole point of this is that wasan Hausa will continue to go down the same road what ever anyone says, unless we stop watching them. That way if there is no market for them, then they will disappear. However something is bound to replace them, just like wasan Hausa replaced indian films to a large degree as the medium of entertainment for the average Hausa person.  Now supposing they are replaced by what is considered proper Hausa films which expound what our culture is all about, then we have to ask what is it that our culture entails?  Sa abaya har kasa for women and yin lullubi all the time in the films? Ok  that is achievable. Ok ba raye raye in the films like they do in Indian films ko? OK that is also achievable, but what about the kidan kalangu, da 'yammata suna ayyaraye? isnt that an ingrained part of Hausa culture? What about kidan goge (kamar garba supa?) isnt that part of Hausa culture? Are these necessarily good Hausa cultural things. What about 'yan daudu suna rawa a gidan buki? isnt that part of Hausa culture? Kuma in any case if one is going to tell a story, in  a proper Hausa movie, should it always have a moral? As immoral acts are well known and in general, can be limited to something like the ten commandments... no adultery, no thievery, no coveting other ppl's things, no talking behind someone's back etc, then it means that  there are only so many films one can do without becoming too repetitive and therefore boring. Ko da yake  most Hausa films na yanzu centre around the theme of love, but it seems that love universally is one subject that no one ever tires of hearing about.  So if we are not about to tell stories of morality all the time in the proper hausa movies then it means we have to tell stories about human frailty and normal human behavior and there is no way then u cannot introduce all the flaws of human nature which is only natural and which is one of the things that Rais's brother seemed to have understood in which ever film he was watching and commenting upon. So there is no escaping it.. Let's look at ourselves and our own behaviors and tell ourselves that we are exceptional model examples of good Hausa culture... are we?

[Bajoga]

 :), Haka abin yake, but i believe u r not one of d Hausa fim actrees, is just a supporting. OK!  ba komai Allah ya dawwamar damu akan hanya madai-daichiya, amin.

I hope kema u will b part of my prayer  :).

As u said, let close this chapter in ba wani mai karin bayani.

[Muhsin]

Welcome on board jmyusi. I was out for sometimes but am now back.

[Dan-Borno]

Mr. Bajoga, naga alamun u are very interested in
this hausa film issue, and if to say you have taken
your time through our archives, i am sure you
wont have even make a post on hausa home
movies.

Its a settled issue, that these films we are watching
are a reflections of the true society we are leaving
in.  So, except we start bringing our children in a
modest way, hausa home movies will only aggravate
the issue.

[Abdalla]

Jama'a Sallama

Those who know me of course will be surprised I am foraging in this particular thread -- such heavy duty issues are often beyond my ken. I am attracted however by the "clash of values" undercurrent of the discussion so far, and wish to point out one or two things.

As Dan Barno suggests, this particular theme has been and done. I myself have been running a forum on Yahoo! groups for six years (since 31st August 2001) on Hausa video films with well over 26,000 messages. The essence of the messages are basically what Bajoga says -- cultural alienation in the visual medium. It in infact this that motivates me to engage on an ethnographic study of the Hausa video film phenomena -- spending well over four years collecting data and weaving it into a book. The said book was finished in October 2006 in a dingy bed-and-poor-breakfast hotel in King's Cross! I had a deadline to submit it to the publisher - James Currey, UK -- for evaluation before we move to the next level; although I already have a publishing deal in Nigeria. The book is titled: PASSAGE FROM INDIA - TRANSGLOBAL MEDIA FLOWS AND AFRICAN CINEMA: THE VIDEO FILM IN NORTHERN NIGERIA.

In the book I explore the fascination Hausa youth have with Hindi films and how such films became the inspiration for the development of Hausa video films. In the process of appropriating Hindi film to use either as directy translations, or as base conceptual storyboards, Hausa video filmmakers perceive modernity to be anything the Indians and the Americans do in their films -- believing that such filmic depictions are reflections of "modernity".

And yet there is a core resistance -- and Bajoga's statements are the tip of the iceberg. I have documented serious clashes between the Hausa Islamicate culturalist environment and the entertainment industries in general, and specifically the video film. Interestingly enough, the essence of the clashes has nothing to do with material culture as such, but simply THE WAY THE GIRLS DRESS IN THE SONG AND DANCE SEQUENCES. This was also the subject of a paper, PRIVATE SPHERE, PUBLIC WAHALA - GENDER AND THE DELINEATION OF FEMALE INTIMISPHERE IN MUSLIM HAUSA VIDEO FILMS, and which was presented at a conference in Dakar last year. If anyone is interested, I can happily send you a copy of the BOOK VERSION of the paper which will be published next year by the University of Basel, Switzerland (requests to auadamu@yahoo.com; subject "Public Wahala).

Arguments therefore on whether Hausa films are "spoling" Hausa culture or not; and whether they are merely "reflecting" current status of Hausa culture, or whether they are "modernizing" Hausa culture miss the point. The point of the objections are almost always religious. And even then, on the mode of dressing of the girls, and specifically in the song and dance routines which are the nafila and farilla of the Hausa video film.  It is for this reason that the video film producers have to rely on transethnic actresses to appear in the films. These actresses are mainly Muslim, but not Hausa, and therefore do not share the same sense of "kunya" or "pulaaku" as the mainstream ethnic Hausa. Consequently they do not see anything "wrong" with wearing skimpy dresses or shaking their body.

In my fieldwork, I did not see a single producer willing to allow his own sister (and they have them), or the daughter of a friend of his, to appear in any of his films dressed in the skimpy western dresses they so readily dress transethnic girls. In one incident in Sakkwato, a producer wanted to make a film in a brothel, but was bluntly refused by the girls. Their exact statement as recorded was "ba za mu fito a fim ba domin mu ba 'yan iska ba ne". Thus due to the way Hausa girls are depicted in Hausa films, even prostitutes think they are less respectable than them!

The mainstream ethnic Muslim Hausa objections are of course due to the factors of what most researchers call "oppositional resistance". This states that a core bedrock of cultural values exist in any society; and no amount of modernizing external nfluence can erode it. Hausa audiences may condemn these films, but they buy them in droves -- creating a scratch-itch-scratch paradox.

Yet the other side of the argument -- reflecting modernity -- also needs some reconsideration. If is often ignored that Hausa societies have ALWAYS been modern. This is reflected in the extensive borrowings into the Hausa material culture and language from other cultures. For instance, Bahaushe was dealing with spirits who live in the fabled city of Jangare (occuping a parallel universe near Kiru in Kano, would you believe!) for hundreds of years. Then Islam came along around 1250 although more forcefully around 1380. Bahaushe changed the lexicon from Iskokai to Aljannu. He adapts. He changes. He appropriates. But he retains the core kernel of his cultural values. It is this molten core -- his Hadeed -- that is the subject of fierce protection in any critical public discourse about modernity and Hausa popular culture.

"Reflecting the society" is another refrain, perhaps not surprisingly, from the producers and actors themselves. Yet I feel -- in a situation where, as a public anthropologist I don't have the luxury of feeling -- this is a statistically skewed representation. The core of the objections as I repeatedly indicate, is in the mode of dressing shown by the actresses, not even in the storylines or stage settings. I live in Kano, and I have to two daughters in their late teens (pity me, eh?). I don't see them dressing the way the film actresses do as REPRESENTATIVE of Hausa girls. Okay, maybe I have greater control over my own children. But I teach in a University -- as liberal a place as you can find, and I still don't see what the film industry claims to be "the society". The majority of the girls who dress in the way the film actresses do are, like the actresses, transethnics or non-Hausa.  My family house is in Daneji, right in the heart of the city, and I drive there almost daily. The same thing. The point I am trying to make is I would like to know the PERCENTAGE of Hausa girls who dress the way the film actresses claims are common dressing behaviors, and then I would want to know how GENERALIZABLE is that that ALL MUSLIM HAUSA girls? Unless we sort this out, we are insulting the vast majority of Muslim Hausa girls who accept their Islamic values of modest dressing in public spaces.

A final point is what Husna says concerning foreign films. She is right. There are lots of kissing and hugging even in NileSat free to air chanels that are common now in Muslim northern Nigeria. People watch them. Mom, dad, baby and bro. No one bats an eyelid. Why? Simply because it is seen as reflecting the immorality of "the Other". In the typical psychology of such situations, it is "o.k. if they do it - it is their culture; not ours". This argument indeed was the basis for coming up with film censorship in Kano in 2001. And look at it this way, no matter how many thousands of Hollywood actors kiss each other, no one will care; get a Hausa actor and actress to kiss each other, and the Vesuvius is just a small faucet. They tried it between Fati Mohammed and Tahir Fage in SAURAN KIRI, where they ALMOST kissed -- causing a massive furor. Even Bollywood, which happily approriates hundreds of Hollywood films can bring out the "oppositional resistance" weapon. Can we forget the furor that followed the congratulatory kiss by Richard Gere and one Indian actress that lead to a warrant for his arrest for immoraility?! In Lollywood (Pakistan film industry) a Muslim actress what fatawa'd with death sentence for allegedly appearing in a kissing scene with a Hindu actor in an Indian film... It goes on and on.

So I feel it is not a question of being modern, reflecting society, or spoiling culture. At the very base there is the capitalist lucre. Hausa films with girls in skimpy dressess wiggling all their natural assets attract a lot of clasdestine pleasure from young -- and not so young - essentially urban sexualized male. Personally I categorize such scenes as soft porn and it is degrading to women, especially Muslim women when it is repeatedly made clear that it is the power of their body, not their acting skills, that can attract a film audience. Laura Mulvey is right about the filmic gaze being a male erotic exercise!

It is also a primitive instinct. The marketers, who provide over 90% of the capital needed for the films, know this. The actors and producers also know this. And significantly, the Islamicate culturalists also know this. In the end it is art and creativity that suffer in this endless battle, because the messages are lost in the clouds of sleaze, cash tills and religious self-rightenousness.

Allah Masani.

Abdalla

[bakangizo]

Lol I cant stop laughing at what yr seven yr old brother said!! It so so so hilarious coming from a seven yr old!! hahahaha!!
Amma what you seemed to have done is underestimate his intelligence, and u think that bcos he is saying that,  it is necessarily a bad thing  or will have a bad effect on him. But you seemed not to realize that he is actually complaining against something that the bride of the actor is doing, which is also frowned upon Islamically. So how can you fault yr brother for being aware of that at an early age? Dont you know that children kept in utter ignorance are the ones that are most vulnerable and  in the greatest danger of being molested? Bama haka ba wani yaron will run throu the gamut of hausa films without ever appreciating anything.  Anyway abar zancan haka.  ;D

Ni dai I am of the view that 'yan wasan Hausa ba su suke lalata al'ada ba; kwaikwayon abinda suka ga anayi ne a cikin al'umma. Kuma as it is, har gara in bar 'yayana suyi ta kalon wasan Hausa da in barsu su kalli wasan kwaikwayon bature. Abin na bani mamaki. Wai sai kaga an nuna western film inda matan a practically naked (bay watch for example) kokuwa there is a full headon kissing scene and sai kaga no one bats an eyelid as kids and adults alike gaze raptly at the tv. Which is worse then? A graphic representation of what one is trying to avoid, ko kuwa an indirect  reference to it?
The whole point of this is that wasan Hausa will continue to go down the same road what ever anyone says, unless we stop watching them. That way if there is no market for them, then they will disappear. However something is bound to replace them, just like wasan Hausa replaced indian films to a large degree as the medium of entertainment for the average Hausa person.  Now supposing they are replaced by what is considered proper Hausa films which expound what our culture is all about, then we have to ask what is it that our culture entails?  Sa abaya har kasa for women and yin lullubi all the time in the films? Ok  that is achievable. Ok ba raye raye in the films like they do in Indian films ko? OK that is also achievable, but what about the kidan kalangu, da 'yammata suna ayyaraye? isnt that an ingrained part of Hausa culture? What about kidan goge (kamar garba supa?) isnt that part of Hausa culture? Are these necessarily good Hausa cultural things. What about 'yan daudu suna rawa a gidan buki? isnt that part of Hausa culture? Kuma in any case if one is going to tell a story, in  a proper Hausa movie, should it always have a moral? As immoral acts are well known and in general, can be limited to something like the ten commandments... no adultery, no thievery, no coveting other ppl's things, no talking behind someone's back etc, then it means that  there are only so many films one can do without becoming too repetitive and therefore boring. Ko da yake  most Hausa films na yanzu centre around the theme of love, but it seems that love universally is one subject that no one ever tires of hearing about.  So if we are not about to tell stories of morality all the time in the proper hausa movies then it means we have to tell stories about human frailty and normal human behavior and there is no way then u cannot introduce all the flaws of human nature which is only natural and which is one of the things that Rais's brother seemed to have understood in which ever film he was watching and commenting upon. So there is no escaping it.. Let's look at ourselves and our own behaviors and tell ourselves that we are exceptional model examples of good Hausa culture... are we?

Only Husnaa can tell it like this. 8)

[bakangizo]

"Reflecting the society" is another refrain, perhaps not surprisingly, from the producers and actors themselves. Yet I feel -- in a situation where, as a public anthropologist I don't have the luxury of feeling -- this is a statistically skewed representation. The core of the objections as I repeatedly indicate, is in the mode of dressing shown by the actresses, not even in the storylines or stage settings. I live in Kano, and I have to two daughters in their late teens (pity me, eh?). I don't see them dressing the way the film actresses do as REPRESENTATIVE of Hausa girls. Okay, maybe I have greater control over my own children. But I teach in a University -- as liberal a place as you can find, and I still don't see what the film industry claims to be "the society". The majority of the girls who dress in the way the film actresses do are, like the actresses, transethnics or non-Hausa.  My family house is in Daneji, right in the heart of the city, and I drive there almost daily. The same thing. The point I am trying to make is I would like to know the PERCENTAGE of Hausa girls who dress the way the film actresses claims are common dressing behaviors, and then I would want to know how GENERALIZABLE is that that ALL MUSLIM HAUSA girls? Unless we sort this out, we are insulting the vast majority of Muslim Hausa girls who accept their Islamic values of modest dressing in public spaces.

Prof, the fact you got two daughters who dress decently is just a reflection of good home upbringing. And the fact you don't see "skimpily dressed" girls at Daneji (ko kuma a cikin Badala) is not conclusive that the Hausa society is not "awash" with such. Of course you won't see them dressed that way a cikin gari. A girl would have to be real "fitsararriya" to do that. I remember some of us living outside badala used to laugh at our friends 'yan cikin gari, as kansu bai waye ba. 'Cos in those days I know wearing Jeans/Shirts etc is not too common for guys living inside the city wall. In fact it is considered too hippy, and  frowned upon in some quarters. So it's no suprise if you don't see girls dressed that way there. We are all too aware of those girls who go out of their homes decently dressed, complete with hijab, but with a bag full of Jeans/T-shirts/Skirts and other hippy accesories, to change into either at school, gidan biki, or at their friends for the outing.

But have you taken a look around places like Brigade, Tudun-Wada, Hotoro, Naibawa? And I'm talking about our real Hausa girls. Not the "transethnics", as you call them. I'm suprised you're downplaying the fact that female indecent dressing is a part of Huasa culture now, and has been for a while. So pushing the whole thing to the doorsteps of the "Transethnics" (I love that expre) is, IMO, not totally fair. Yes they're worse than our girls. No even comparism there.

You also mentioned that at the Uni where you teach ( BUK I assume), you don't see our girls dressed indecently. I won't be suprised, because BUK is known for its strict dress and behavioural code? Isn't that why we use to call it "Islamic University" in those days ;D? What I know is that during my A.B.U. days, and this precede the the advent of the so-called "immoral Hausa Films", skimpy/indecent dresses/dressing was, and still is, very much part of the campus life. And, yes, our own dear girls inclusive. ;) Some of them at the fore-front even ;D

Indecent dressing isn't just about wearing short skirts or Jeans/Trousers. Ko ka lura da irin dinkin da mata suke yi yanzu? Wallahi wani dinkin atamfar ma gara mace tasa wando. Just take a walk around any gidan biki kaga irin ayar da mata suke shekewa. Irin rawar batsar da ake yi. A yanzu in tela bai iya dinkin "zamani" ba, to ko 'yammata baza su rika kai masa dinki ba.

I don't want to go into the issue of " what percentage to generalize". I'm no statistician. And I personally can't see how you can get a figure for that, short of conducting a poll on the girls ::) I do believe that those that are apt to dress decently are in the majority. But even before Hausa Films reached the stage where they are deemed as "spoiling" our culture, female indecent dressing had become an integral part of us. It is not a wholesome 'Transethnic issue'.

Thank you.

[Dan-Borno]

Madalla Abdalla and Bakangizi in addition to what Husnaa
posted in respect to Hausa Home Videos.  Abdalla have
spoken extensively on this issue and i concur with most
of his observations, except as to trying as much as possible
to exonerate the core hausa as never or did not constitute
a reasonable percentage in all these indecencies.

As rightly highlighted by Bakan-Gizo, BUK is regarded as one
of the modest university in the north that you dont find
extreme mode of dressing.  But wallahi tallahi i bet you, try
going into BUK hostel area during the evening and night time
and see for yourself, wether our hausa girls dress decently or
not.  Let me also bring to the attention of all; that wearing
trousers and t-shirts by our girls is more modest than these
types of new styles being sewn by our local tailors.  Among
these styles, there is - Ayaye (Its a stylish form of sewing,
from far view, it looks more of a skirt, but its not a skirt, but
a wrapper which is not up to full length yard - its easier to. .)
So also, there is - Fito min style, its a style that shows 120%
of the girls' buttocks in  a very tight form - wallahi har yafi wando.
Its so on and so on, every day new dressing style is being
invented, and all by our hausa sisters.

Malam Abdalla also spoke of (transethnic), but i dont know how
far you can exonerate a Babur Bura from Borno State who was
born and breed in Kano from a core hausa. Or Batangale from
Bauchi state whose father was also born in Kano.  Its a very
difficult tax when we try to distinguish what hausa is all about.
I remember, whenever our southern friends wants to refer to
us, they use the term "HAUSA", no matter how you explain to
them that the north consist of so many languages and cultures
they wont understand.  That is it, and that is how it it going to
be.  WE ARE ALL HAUSAS. 

What comments do we have on IBRO'S films?

What is good for the core hausa muslims,
is also good for the transethnic hausa muslims.

http://www.samarmagazine.org/archive/article.php?id=21

[Abdalla]

Thank You, Bakan Gizo, Dan Barno for very intellegent observations about my post and sharing your experiences of yester-years! Ahh, the memories, eh?

Before the issue tangients off into a different dimension, let me simply say that we are focusing on visual entertainment media and cultural representation. I still insist that "urbanite chicks" dressing in styles they see in movies and rap artistes do not reflect a generalization of the Hausa girls. I still think it is unfair of the Hausa video film industry to generalize urban phenomena to well over 20 million people. Read every comment by any aspiring "super star" and she will sprout the same article of Hausa video film faith: we do it because your daughters do it.

"Cikin Gari" is not a totally  moral space. In a strecth of road that connects Gwale Secondary School (my alma mater) and Emir's Palace -- Tudun Wizirci road, I could count about five brothels between 1969 and 1973 while I was going to school. That was not the only place. There were others. I am not therefore naive to the immorality (some of it beyond pale, really). It is just a reflection of the hypocrisy of many people to be holier than thou. So point noted, taken and agreed on immoral dressing and behavior of both "ethnics" and "transethnics".

However, let us not forget the issue of mindset. That is what I am addressing in my post. That a core mindset shapes the dynamics of our behaviors and shields us from the public space. The jeans, t-shirts, and the increasing new styles of dresses set to provoke are essentially accountrouments of a clubbish identity best expressed in PRIVATE SPHERE of the special space. Sex and identity therefore become the coeffiencients of delineating spatial occupation in social discourse. Homosocial (same sex social gathering and bonding) hegenomic social configuration is therefore a female as well as a male strategy for defining out-groups. That is why at gidan biki, in their private chambers -- WHEN THEY ARE TOGETHER -- women abandon the rules of heterogenous discourse and be what they want to be. It is not only Hausa women who do this. Arab women are notorious for it. See them clad in those black shrouds? Well underneath are designer jeans, Chanel blouses and dresses. It is not therefore that they don't wear them. They do. IN PRIVATE. IN THEIR GATHERING. IN THEIR HEGEMONIC SPHERE.

Assuming they do in public. That does not make it right to the Islamicate environment. And that is the point Hausa video filmmakers refuse to understand about their audiences. Hausa society received literature VIA religion. The benchmark used to judge Hausa literature is Islam. If it fits Islamic tenets, it is acceptable; if it does not, it is not acceptable, no matter how modern it is perceived. As I repeatedly point out, the entire gamut of objections to the Hausa video films revolve around sexuality of the female body form and its open display in the public space. Whether such objections are hypocritical in a society that condones other immoralities is something else.

Thus Hausa literature -- oral, written, visual, is DIDACTIC; indeed as the video filmmakers themselves kept insisting, they are in the business to "educate (iliminitar)", "sermonize" (wa'azantar), and "entertain" (nishadantar). The methodology they adopt to communicate these incombinable threads is what leads to the "clash of civilizations". Hausa cinema is about aping Hollywood and Bollywood. It is not about cultural preservation. Yet the mainstream Hausa society expects literature to be a moral process. THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is where the core problem lies.

To the Hausa Islamicate environment, modernization does not mean abandoning your mindset values, since modernity is not about material culture. It is a TECHNIQUE, and is present in all ages and all cultures.

By the way, Transethnic is an anthropological term to refer to a person who belongs to a distinct social group -- by ancestry -- but finds themselves in another group and accept the latter's group identity, even while holding on to his primeval identity. From my fieldwork on the video film in northern Nigeria, I noticed that such transethnics were more revolutionary and readily accept what they perceive as modernity (essentially a template for accepting American values) than the group identity they find themselves in. This is because they have no particular reason to promote the group's identity via their craft, but wish to at the same time become recognized as catalysts of modernity within the group, even when masking their primeval individual identity. They are the most successful Hausa video film producers.

It is all a very fascinating study of the change and transformation in a global eddy of migration of ideas and concepts across the cultural, economic and religious borders.  We will not hear the last of this, but I think I have made the points I wanted to make. I am currently engaged in a project to provide some form of illuminative direction to the Hausa video film industry via DFID under their Security Justice and Growth initiative. The theme is The Rights of Women Under Shari'a. So watch this space!

BTW I will be giving a talk about this at a Public Lecture in New York on Thursday 7th November 2007 at 6.00 p.m. at Barnard College, NYC. If you happen to be in the area, do drop by to say hello!

Abdalla