Ousmane Sembène: The Making of a Militant Artist

9 The Winds of Change

67 As one can easily guess, in the above cited opening lines of Black Docker, Sembène is vicariously on his way to France through the sad musings of Diaw Falla’s mother. In spite of the disappointments and misgivings about France in the aftermath of the war, he was unwavering in his faith that there, at least, opportunities he was denied in Senegal would be up for grabs. At only 23, Sembène was already experiencing the hardships of life in exile, which always implies a double absence: of the native land and of one’s own self. Surprisingly enough, Sembène was going to a country for which 9 The Winds of Change Her face was wet with tears as she gazed after the ship which had just rounded the Almadies—“The Breasts,” Senegal’s only mountain peaks. . . . The liner cleaved through the waves. . . . A large cloud engulfed the setting sun, filtering the reddish rays, tingeing the sky a deep rust. . . . Far off in the distance, the trail of smoke imperceptibly vanished into the air. The floating mass continued lazily on its way until it was nothing but a black dot. 68 dakar in the postwar period he had started to harbor a deep-seated hatred. Two years before, he thought he was fighting for universal freedom, while in actual fact he was merely strengthening the chains of his own bondage by getting himself involved in the liberation of France. After the return back home, he reminisced about the “long walks in the desert, a knapsack on your back, and during those treks you would accumulate a lot of resentment as you walked on.” Maurice Fall confirmed to me this new state of mind: “I don’t know what happened during the war, but this wasn’t the Ousmane I knew, he had nothing in common with the childhood friend who went to perform his military duty. There was such an anticolonial rage in him!”1 The massacre of colonial soldiers in Thiaroye on December 1, 1944, was the event that was most symbolic, in a very tragic way, of the “colonial misunderstanding ,” as Cameroonian film director Jean Marie Teno calls it. After addressing the issue in Camp de Thiaroye, Sembène clarified again his standpoint: “If I keep talking about Thiaroye, it’s nonetheless in a very dispassionate way; I’m not harboring hard feelings against anybody or any nation. However, I’ve to make sure people know my history right . . . these soldiers returned from the war . . . they shed their blood for France and the French didn’t hesitate to kill them!”2 France’s attitude was so shocking that even Léopold Sédar Senghor, usually so complacent toward France, could not come up with any excuse for it. Incredulity, disappointment, and anger coalesce in his poetic interrogations: Black prisoners, I should say French prisoners, is it true that France is no longer France? Is it true that the enemy has stolen her face? Is it true that bankers’ hate has bought her arms of steel? Wasn’t it your blood that cleansed the nation Now forgetting its former mission?3 Now, it must be pointed out that once elected president of Senegal, Senghor would never again bemoan the tragic fate of Thiaroye’s martyrs. For Sembène the dates are telling enough: while French soldiers were shooting his Black comrades, he was putting his life on the line every day in the Niger desert—and this for that same murderous France! As a very sensitive and introverted person, Sembène has likewise reflected on countless other events of political import. On August 25, 1944, only seven months after his enlistment in the army, Paris was liberated by the Allied Forces of General Dwight Eisenhower. What role did the colonial troops the winds of change 69 play in this liberation? The question was posed to Sembène when he came to Rice University, in Houston. Here is what he replied: “When Americans talk about this war [World War II], they only show American soldiers, and it is true that the latter’s involvement was decisive. The Europeans also see everything from their own perspective. As for Africans, they have participated in all the wars of this century, but only for the liberation of other nations; it is up to us, Africans, to see to it that the rest of the world knows we have...