(Post)Colonialism and Ideological Configurations: An Analysis of the Power Structures in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure

In Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (1996), Mahmood Mamdani provides an analysis of the obstacles to democratization in post-independence Africa whose roots reside to a large measure in the historical and institutional context of colonialism. The bifurcated colonial rule proved itself the most effective domination mode of the African colonies: a centralized exercise of colonial power combined with a decentralized, often despotic rule of tribal authorities (a hierarchy of chiefs) who enforced customary laws without checks or restraints, notably in rural areas. This two-tiered system of oppression allowed the colonizing forces to settle the “native question,” by maintaining law and order among the native people. This essay examines to what extent the ideological configurations under colonial rule as described by Mamdani are apparent in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s classic Francophone African novel Ambiguous Adventure (L’Aventure ambiguë, 1961) set in Futa Toro, the northern region of Senegal. In this text, it is primarily the issue concerning the foreign (French) school that reveals the power of the various local secular and Islamic authorities. Should they allow or encourage their children to attend the foreign school, acknowledged as the latest “weapon” of the colonial regime?

The relevance of this analysis is twofold: on a sociological level, it examines the force and resilience of ingrained traditional power structures in the face of political reforms, whether imposed by a domestic or an imperial administration; on a philosophical level, it deals with the question of reflection of social and/or historical reality within realist fiction.