In summary one can opine that the efforts of the organization for intercultural German studies under the leadership of Wierlacher are undoubtedly a desirable and well-intentioned step towards a new determination for German as a foreign language. I have tried to show that their theories and theorems are only able to produce the desired effect, if
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they are implemented in practice-oriented activities. Moreover, one wonders sometimes whether the authors of these documents have anything serious and honest, or whether they have set up routinely theses in order to increase the number of their publications, and consequently to achieve academic advancement. This question is unavoidable if after 30 years of Intercultural German Studies, the problems and quagmire remain, especially in Africa. One would have expected that by now we in Africa would have almost 100 percent indigenous German language lecturers just like the French departments in Nigeria. This would mean that the German foreign academic service -DAAD will have a reduced budget each year caring for German lecturers who are sent abroad. My concern, therefore, is to sensitize all the policy makers to make German propagation in Africa independent and home-grown as soon as possible. The European paternalism must stop so that they can grow up German once and for all. In Nigeria, for example, an English speaking country, French is still at home there for a long time. The German Ministry of Education should immediately understand that it is much cheaper if one puts in place in Nigeria, customized "German teachers. And related to the first point, the German literature should be Africanized. Therefore, I would apply the African literary theory womanism on selected works of Heinrich Böll.
I believe that one should build next, to the (German language village), also an elite German language immersion centre in Africa nay in Nigeria, where German studies can be designed. The graduates of this institute would be the foundation for the establishment of further German Language departments in their countries or states. We have namely with dismay taken note of the fact that the simultaneous foundation of linguistically kwasiorkored German units at the Universities of Nigeria and Africa, without a single one being well equipped with teachers and teaching and learning materials had previously only unsatisfactory results. Take the example of the University of Bayreuth: Anyone who targets a degree in Intercultural German Studies and Intercultural Communication and African studies must come here. Even Barack Obama's sister followed this direction:
Auma Obama grew up in Kenya and studied in the mid-eighties German as a foreign language in Heidelberg. For her doctoral studies, she had no option than to come to Bayreuth, and write her thesis under Alois Wierlacher, the founder of Intercultural German Studies and the founding
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chairman of the Society for Intercultural German Studies (GIG). The question is how many Africans can afford to come to Bayreuth to study?
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Chapter 2
The Theoretical Framework 2.1. Introduction
The starting point of this work was my application of womanism as an appropriate feminist theory and method on twelve novels by Chinua Achebe and Aminata Sow Fall. Both writers are traditionalists and committed representatives of African tradition and culture. The intellectual product of that investigation is my first doctoral thesis: 'Women's Experiences in Selected African Feminist Literary Texts "Part of this work has been published as a book for feminist criticism with the title:Women in World Religions and Literatures (ISBN 978-3 - 936536-25-6). The above authors are referred to by feminist activists and extreme feminists as defenders of patriarchal values and idealistic pre-colonial era, as anti-feminists with old-fashioned mentality, as reactionary, etc. My view, however, is that these writers with their realistic representation of the female situation have undisputedly showed more concrete solidarity with women than the so-called feminists: The two writers have followed the high ideals of womanism for their portrayal of needs of women. These ideals are more results-oriented than the aggressive and provocative approaches of the Liberals and leftists. This is also the case with Heinrich Böll. Although Heinrich Böll was a German by birth, and Germany or Europe, is located about 5,000 kilometers south of the Sahara Africa, Böll has applied the womanistic ideals in his fair description and presentation of the case of women. In this context it is might be pertinent to find out the remote and immediate conditions which could have influenced the author, Heinrich Böll. This requires several answers: To start with, his strict religious background shall be mentioned. Then the terrible Nazi era is to be considered. Finally one must reckon with the post war era and the resultant reconstruction. Sowinski (1993: 1) has reinforced our notion as follows:
With hardly any other German writer of our time, does biography play such a role for the literary work as by Heinrich Boell. A large number of designs and other details of his poetry come from his life and experiences in and outside of his family, his service as
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a soldier and his experiences after the war. One cannot understand these facts about his work by ignoring this without immediately lapsing into a new biographism in the positivist manner of a William Scherer and will not look for inherited, experienced and learned things in the Böll’s works.
The Germany of this period, from 1917 to 1949, was a state in deep socio-political turmoil and chaos. Almost every social realist would have done exactly what Böll has done, namely to engage oneself with the help of the literary trend. Böll had to identify with the suffering population. This he pointed out himself in an interview with Renate Mathias and Peter Hamm for Bavaria Film (1974:138):
I think what you call commitment, has to do with my life. I was 15 years old when fascism came here not by chance, I believe, and because I was brought up in a relatively democratic tradition, both in terms of my family, like the city, from where I come, relatively democratic, well-noticed. I've experienced the whole Nazi era as a permanent terror. Has that not happened, I would probably have become an ivory tower dweller.
The time of fascism and Nazism, with its dire consequences and especially the privations and the social penalties in a conquered country, was a painful time. Germany was like a colonized country under the control of the occupying powers. This historical era of Germany corresponds with the era of African slave trade, colonialism, and new imperialism. Hitler genocide machinery did not only target Jews and foreigners. Hitler and his accomplices equally liquidated their own people. Cities like Dresden were completely razed down by the British cluster bombs. Thousands of Innocent women and children and the elderly perished. Womanism as an ideology as already indicated sees the interest of women as also the good of the children and the husbands. It does not discriminate because the burdens of war, famine, lack of shelter and sickness does not spare anyone. The entire communities, regardless of gender suffer. Böll may not have used the term womanism but a critical re-reading of his writings proves his womanist
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leanings. In such a context I could not afford the luxury of l'art pour l'art (literary production) or the immanent analysis (reception) of the Social Realist. His work and its interpretation must adapt to their time (the zeitgeist).
Therefore, the engaged writer took sides with the suffering masses, by choosing a compromise between the two extremes. Just in the same way, the African feminists and literary women in developing countries have devised a temporary solution for the African version of feminism. The socio-political situation of the European woman is much more developed and more comfortable than those of their fellow women in the developing world. Also the Western feminist activists’ commitment are much more advanced than their African sisters. The African woman preferred a dialogue with the male sex, she hates confrontation. They cannot afford such luxuries as the following (Orjinta 2008:12):
The extremists want to banish the men from the political / social scenes, they hate all men and wish to establish a women’s republic. Their tool is of course the Marxist socialist ideology.
Therefore, Aminata Sow Fall had to explain her philosophy and that of womanism according to Samba Gadjido thus(1996:28):
Je ne suis pas féministe dans le sens où les gens l'entendent. Je ne suis pas une féministe militante et la Conférence internationale de 1975 n'a rien à voir avec le fait que je me suis mise à écrire. L'écriture est un acte de témoignage, une façon de filtrer la réalité sociale du moment.
A method coming from developing countries, such as the womanist literary interpretation, the Stiwanism or Motherism could, in my view, be applied to German works in the case of Böll. What matters is not the geography, but the humanism: on the one hand, the representation of political, social and religious crisis, on the other hand of famine, poverty, war, love, morality, affection, marriage and justice - of human values and global issues. So what we want to show here is that Böll's method is to be anchored much stronger
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in womanism than the European feminism. Stiwanism and Motherism are actually subdivisions of womanism, but all these schools have the same goal. Our preoccupation with female characters in the works of Heinrich Böll as primary sources and with feminist secondary sources will investigate if Böll presents himself as an advocate of European-oriented feminism. In this case, the negative judgments of some feminists would be completely correct. Such criticism implies, among other things, that his portrayal of women is " un-liberated and clichéd". Others, such as Grassmann (2004: 26) state that Böll:
Despite his classification as a socially critical author, [...] [designs], a conservative image of women in his novels, [imagined] the woman only as a counterpart of the man and glorified them as a saint and savior of man.
If the above-described case is not true, a scientific rereading of Böll’s works is necessary, where we are once again asked the question of whether we have previously objectively evaluated Böll. That is to say; the question of whether Böll ever wanted to uphold feminist ideals. If so, we still need further confirmation, because the feminist currents and movements are numerous. Therefore, it should be noted first, for which feminist school is Heinrich Böll interested in. It is also asking if Böll’s context of life and writing has contributed something important to his version of women's literature. In this sense, Böll himself noted in a comment about Gruppenbild mit Dame (Bellmann, 2002: 117):
The idea for this book kept me busy for a long time.
Already in most novels and short stories that I've written so far I have tried to describe the fate of a German woman in the late forties or write about that which has taken up the entire burden of this history from 1922 to 1970 with.
As far as feminist theoretical method of literary interpretation is concerned, in my opinion, the application of womanism in Böll’s case will be adequate and efficient, because the negative experiences of women in this inhuman world, whether in Germany or in a developing country can be adequately
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analyzed using this method. A methodological rationale for womanism and an explanation of this ideology and its separation from the Western feminism are described in detail in the course of this dissertation. While reading my abstract, Weidlich (DAF-COURSE at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) left the following comment:
Applying an African method of literary interpretation like the womanism on German works could indeed be very exciting. that is[...] interesting [...].