Jessica Theodora Tomda
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Jessica Theodora Tomda is a ni-Tika Vanu poet and social critic, and a very controversial figure in her homeland.
Born in a rural village on the island of Vaa Enu, the eldest of five children, she grew up helping her extended family produce various agricultural crops, and was taught unconditional respect towards her parents, elders and men. At school, she proved to be an extremely bright child, and her teachers recommended that she should pursue secondary education. As she was their eldest child, her parents consented, hoping that an education would open up prospects for their daughter in the country's rapidly modernising society.
When she was eighteen, her teachers again strongly advised that she should be allowed to attend university. Her extended family eventually accepted to help fund her studies, and she attended the University of Kewa, the only one in the country. The agreement was that she should return to her home village after graduating, and help her family continue their subsistence economy activities.
Tomda studied literature and theology, but felt increasingly frustrated by what she saw as the moralising, narrow-minded, self-censoring and dogmatic teachings of the university, the result of Tika Vanu's traditionalist, deeply religious society. She applied for a grant to study abroad and, after just one year at the University of Kewa, travelled to West Ariddia and began studying philosophy at the University of Aqeyr. Due to the heavy enrolment fees in the developed, capitalist West Ariddia, Tomda had to work long hours as a sales assistant, then as a waitress, to fund her studies, but she later recalled her early student days with great fondness. "For the first time," she said, "I was actually being encouraged to think. It was incredibly stimulating."
She was able to obtain a visa extension to stay in West Ariddia and continue her studies, much to the displeasure of her family. What little surplus money she had, she nonetheless sent back to her family dutifully. Tomda graduated, then continued with postgraduate studies, living in Aqeyr while she eventually began and completed a thesis. It was while in Aqeyr that she met Stéphane James, a student in economics. They eventually began living together as a couple, without actually getting married.
As she worked on her thesis, Tomda began writing about her homeland's society, customs and morals, casting a deeply critical eye on its religious conservatism and on the inferior status of women. Her poems were published in West Ariddia, but not in Tika Vanu, since she refused to submit them to the ni-Tika Vanu Catholic Church for censorship.
At the age of 27, having completed her thesis, Tomda decided to return home to Tika Vanu. In order for her consort to be accepted in the highly religious country, they married before leaving West Ariddia; Tomda nonetheless chose to retain her maiden name. Back in her home country, the couple settled with Tomda's extended family in her native rural village, but tensions between the young woman and several members of her family soon caused the two to move to Kewa, the capital, where they rented a small flat. Tomda no longer accepted to conform to the expectations held of an "inferior" woman, nor to the religious practices of her devout family. She has described herself as a "critical, non-practising Christian with a mind of my own".
Tomda continues to live in Kewa with her husband, and to write poetry which is only published abroad. She has recently been forbidden by the government to address speeches to any gathering of more than five people, after having been fined several times for "blasphemous" speaking at small meetings with fans of her poems. Tomda's poetry is an appeal for rationalism, open-mindedness, curiosity for other ways of living and thinking, women's rights, freedom of religion, secularism, democracy and freedom of speech.
"I love my country," she once said. "We have a rich history and culture that we can all be proud of. Kastom is a good thing, a source of identity and strength. But our minds have been stifled, and we need to learn to use them again. We need to learn to think by ourselves, and we need to embrace diversity. We need to encourage critical thinking. It's the one thing that's really missing from this country."
Tomda's work has had fairly little influence in her home country, due no doubt in great part to the fact that it is not legally available there.
