122 african appropriations
MORAL PANICS, SHARIA, AND CENSORSHIPFollowing Nigeria’s transition from military rule to an elected civil-
ian government in 1999, many of its northern states introduced sharia
law into their legislatures. The divine law was commonly expected to be
a catalyst for a much broader push for moral reorientation and religious
reversion (Last 2000). A “religious police” force (hisbah) was formed. Its
task was—and still is—the eradication of cultural practices considered
to be contrary to Islamic doctrine, regardless of whether these practices
are of local traditional origin (such as musical performances and spirit
possession dances, for example) or associated with a brand of modernity
modeled on the West. The attempts at religious reorientation led to an
increased scrutiny of female bodily comportment, dress, and mobility.
Among the first changes to be effected after the introduction of the sharia
was gender-segregated public transport, so as to forestall joint bus rides
by men and women. In public, women were expected to cover as much of
their bodies as possible. The radicalness with which the female body was
turned into an index for the moral condition of society at large added a
new dimension to older ideas about the female body as the primary do-
main for the articulation of notions about religious piety, morality, and
respectability.^1 Hausa videos, which brought men and women in ever-
closer contac t i n da r i ng song-a nd-da nce sequences a nd feat u red ac t resses
dressed in tight-fitting apparel, deviated vastly from the new paradigm of
religious reversion:
For the sake of A llah, actors, you should remember A llah! Remember the
religion of Islam! Girls in particular should stop exposing their bodies in
films. They should remember that the female body ought to be covered
completely; but instead they clothe themselves in blouses and trousers,
and smooth out their hair as if they were Europeans—such attire is not
in line with the Muslim tradition. Thus, you should stop this, as your
behavior bothers us because you, too, are Muslims as we are. Be cautious
in filmmaking in order to avoid offending God A lmighty. (Bamalli,
Muhammad, and Namaibindiga, “Letter to the editor,” in Fim 9, 2000: 4;
my translation)R ight from the beginning, the public debate about video films was
dominated by metaphors of cleansing, which go well with the paradigm