Product Description

In 1947-48 the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway came out on strike. Sembene Ousmane, in this vivid, timeless novel, evinces all the color, passion, and tragedy of those formative years in the history of West Africa.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22271 in Books
• Published on: 1996-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Sembene Ousmane is from Senegal. He is the author of Xala, Black Docker, Niiwam and Taaw and The Money Order with White Genesis.

Customer Reviews

A world too grand
Ousmane builds a world on a grand scale. In this fictional account of the 1947-1948 strike on the Dakar-Niger Railroad, Ousmane attempts to cover the whole strike. He creates the leaders, the followers and the imperialists. From the ends of the line in Bamako and Dakar to every city in between, there are characters that are built to show the effects on not only the workers, but also, those who do not work on the line, farmers, shopkeepers and the women who depend on their men's income.

It is too grand for 240 pages, however. Each of the characters is incomplete and one only gets a snapshot. The slices are enjoyable, yet one wants more. Perhaps, if he had tried to make it deeper and wider the book would have come off as one of the greats. Instead, it seems more like an incomplete outline of what he wanted to write. I definitely do not put it as a must read. Instead, I would suggest many other books from Western Africa should be read first.

Absolutely Beautiful
I am sad to say that even though I have read a great deal of French literature, my passion for African literature was confined until recently to anglophone writers. I don't know why. It was a mistake! I absolutely loved this book. It really was the African Germinal, but by comparing it to Emile Zola's 19th century book about French miners, I in no way mean to diminish the originality of Ousmane's contribution. Germinal is one of my favorite novels of all time, and this one was equally good. It was so moving, and often sad, but also, incredibly uplifting. Unlike Germinal, however, it left me with a feeling of hope and inspiration. The ending is so much more promising than Zola's. I'm getting ahead of myself. There is so much to praise.

First of all, Ousmane, who we recently lost, writes with a lyrical genius, a kind of epic prose that makes you want to linger on his every word. Secondly, he has such great insight into the imperial mentality, which has changed very little, whether we are talking about "formal" colonialism (this novel describes a railworker strike in 1940s ) or today's variety. He shows colonial mentalities for what they were and are-their paternalism, their patronizing condenscention, their contempt for the humanity of others. But he also has-this brings me to my third major point of praise- these great heroes, these simple men and women (he is such a great feminist!) who bring dignity and courage to everything they do and say. They find their own worth in the strike, and become fulfilled by it.

Like Zola, Ousmane vividly and thrillingly evokes the privation and misery that working people who strike against a powerful corporation must endure, but unlike Zola, Ousmane's characters find themselves, their souls, and real meaning in their lives through striking-striking is what gives them the moral and intellectual power to force the colonists to recognize them as equals.

A REVIEW OF GOD'S BITS OF WOOD: THE NEW BREED OF AFRICANS

Based on the 1947 strike that occurred in Senegal, God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane, explores the violent yet historic struggle between the French colonial powers and Africans railroad workers. The story begins with the emergence of a historic strike that occurred throughout a span of two years. Organized by a group of African men and women, they bound together and overcame social inequality and hardship. The characters within the novel resembled the reactions of the colonized continent and its resistance against the French colonial power. The idea of the African people uniting together and evolving as one became a symbolic theme for African nationalism and social justice.
As a member of the French Communist Party and a union organizer, Ousmane's work reflected his solutions to the conflict through the lenses of the working class. However, since the idea that colonialism was associated to capitalism, many African intellects rejected the notion of capitalism and found socialism comforting. Many of them like Ousemane, recognized that as one of the aftereffects of WWII, socialist movements were a necessity for the greater good of Africa. As the novel progresses, capitalism became the economic system that transformed Africa and changed the way people lived forever. However, it also created the social stratification between the people that colonized the continent, and the people who were colonized.
Like most European settlers and workers who arrived in Africa, it was a big piece of pie that many saw as a profit making opportunity. In the novel, Dejean, the French regional director of the railroad project, resembled the very nature of France's objective in Africa.
"Dejean had been an ambitious clerk, who arrived in the colony with the intention of making his fortune in the shortest possible time... That very morning he had refused to see the representatives of the workers. He knew that among them were the sons of the same men whose movement he had crushed nine years before, and he had no intention of yielding now... First they must go back to work; that was all there was to it" (P29).

Unwilling to accommodate and work out a resolution with the railroad workers, his arrogance and superiority marked him as the antagonist in the novel. It had been 20 years since his arrival to the Dark Continent. Colonial power had already extended its foothold deeply into the lives of Africans. Needless to say, these infrastructures that the colonial power has inserted upon Africans, created a dependency between the African workers and their French employers.
Smokes of Savanna also become a symbolic force that incorporated infrastructures created in the colony as a new way of life. As Bakayoko has described it in regards to his guidance to the strike, "I take a sense of absolute identity with everything that is in the train... My role then is nothing except to guide that machine to the spot where it is supposed to go. I don't know any longer whether it is my heart that is beating to the rhythm of the engine, or the engine to the rhythm of my heart. And for me, that is the way it has to be with this strike - we must all take on a sense of identity with it...'" (P210). The workers are now being identified like as an unstoppable force. And as they unite to become one, they must face the obstacles and fight like never before.
Although the novel's primary focus was on the progression of the strike, it also focused on a multitude of changing social ideologies and gender identities. Social construction of class and gender changed drastically from pre-colonial African traditions, purely as a result of the colonial projects. These projects created oppression and hardship for many of the Africans that were forced to live by this new system. Consequently, it created a new demand to change social construction of gender identity as well.
Although the author did not give any specific terms to label these men and women who evolved throughout the strike, the idea behind this change can be correlated to modern day social feminism. Colonial oppression forced Africans to strike out of their preconceived roles and traditions, and establish a new breed of men and women.
During the strike, the French employers attempt to discourage the strikers by shortening their resources through inserting pressure on local merchants. It was this hardship that men who were once the breadwinners began to realize the importance of their female companions. "And the men began to understand that if the times were bringing forth a new breed of men; they were also bringing forth a new breed of women" (P34). It was the women who went to salvage food for the family, and it was also the women who led the marches across the cities, and ousted the French soldiers in face to face confrontations. The changing role of African women during the strike can also be examined through the analysis of different female characters in the book.
The respectable housewife was someone who was stable and non-vocal, yet understood her place and importance in her home realm of domesticity. "'I don't know if there is anything that I can do. If my husband were here it would be different... but I am only a woman, and no one listens to a woman, particularly now.'" (P107) The quiet and submissive Assitan is the perfect example of a traditional African housewife who has accepted her role in this culture. She was to accept the decisions that have been made upon her in obedience, and in silence.
In contrast to Assitan, one of the most distinguishable yet important characters in the novel was Penda, who first emerged in the book as a sexual deviant. Because she couldn't have children, many women saw her as a threat in the community. However, as the strikes progressed on, her ambivalent status allowed her to rise to the top as being one of the most vocal and inspirational characters in the novel. Penda presented many feminist characteristics as her identity evolved through the second half of the novel. There is no better example than her speech in Place Aly N'Guer:
"`I speak in the name of all the women, but I am just the voice they have chosen to tell you what they have decided to do. Yesterday we all laughed together, men and women, and today we weep together, but for us women this strike still means the possibility of a better life tomorrow. We owe it to ourselves to hold up our heads and not to give in now. So we have decided that tomorrow we will mark together to Dakar'" (P187)

Her determinacy allowed men and women in the cities to recognize how much power women had as companions of equal burden. And when it was necessary, they outperformed the men in many ways. They stand shoulder to shoulder with men in times of hardship, and in time of unity. Her emergence transformed as well as reversed the role of African women in a patriarchal society.
In contrast to Dejean, Bakayoko, who was one of the directors of the movement, represented as a voice of resistance for the African workers. In the beginning of the novel, Bakayoko emerged as a "man whose shadow reached into every house, touching every object... His words and his ideas were everywhere, and even his name filled the air like an echo," and yet he was no where to be found (P64). Most of Bakayoko's perspectives and ideas were very socialistic: he strongly believed that workers deserved to be treated as equal and that their European counterpart should not rob the people of their basic necessities. At the same time, he was more pro-feminism than any other male characters in the book. "'As for the men in Dakar looking for water for their families, the time when our fathers would have considered that demeaning is past'" (P188). Socialism highly recognizes the importance of providing equal benefits amongst workers, regardless of gender. Bakayoko's acknowledgement of this gender role transition for women from the patriarchal past, presents the reader his recognition of social importance of women in this transient society. This also underlines the distribution of social power to both genders that was not present prior to the strike.
The force that has been driving these men and women apart from their traditions was also the same force that redefined these men and women as workers of the colonies, instead of citizens. The train, Smokes of Savanna, became a symbolic object that transformed the way Africans lived under colonial capitalism.
"An unlimited strike, which, for many, along the whole length of the railroads, was a time for suffering, but for many was also a time for thought... an age had ended ... when Africa was just a garden for food. Now the machine ruled over their lands, and when they forced every machine within a thousand miles to halt they became conscious of their strength, but conscious also of their dependence. They began to understand that the machine was making them a whole new breed of men. It did not belong to them; it was they who belonged to it." (P32-33)

In the height of enlightenment, Africans began to reestablish and understand their role in this disfigured society. Recognizing the oppressive hardship and social injustice that have suddenly conquered their lives, Smokes of Savanna created a new identity to answer why many Africans became instruments of the colonial power. And ultimately, a redefinition of Africans: workers first and Africans second.
Even though it was capitalism that has created the machine, it was the men who were the workers that were forced to become dependent of it. This machine has provided them the means of living, and no way back to self-sustenance.
Nationalism is one of the main, if not perhaps the main theme of the novel. The idea of returning to pre-colonial Africa free of colonial oppression is now challenged by this new establishment of colonial infrastructures. However, as history may have already shown us, things will never be the same for many Africans. Their lives became intangible with colonial projects and infrastructures; it has already been deeply embedded into their daily lives. Many Africans went from being part of self-sustaining communities to selling labor and hardship to a greater power for the sole purpose of profiteering. After suffering from hardship and lack of political, social, and economic power, these railroad workers realize that the only way they can have a voice for equality was through unity and resistance. Although many lives were sacrificed, the strike was an outcry from the people that could not be ignored.
Although certain traditions persisted, the aftereffects of the European establishment changed the way Africans lived and behaved. For many men and women, it was a time to resist the hardship through recognizing the power of unity, as well as recognizing the power within themselves. Persistence paid off, and their resilience and unity against tyranny brought them to a final agreement between the workers and their employers. The strike became a historic landmark for African socialist movement, as the men and women of Africa look back with a sense of pride and unity.