A MARXIST APPROACH TO OUSEMANE SEMBENE'S God's Bits of Woods

A MARXIST CRITICISM OF GOD’S BITS OF WOOD WRITTEN BY SEMBENE OUSMANE AND PUBLISHED IN (1960).

Yemisi Grace ODEBAMIKE

137442

Department of European Studies,

Postgraduate school,

University of Ibadan,

Nigeria.

Date: 8th September, 2014.

Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose critics emphasizes the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate and even challenge the prevailing social order. Marxist critics view text as a material product to be understood in broadly historical terms (in the realm of production and consumption-economics).

The Marxist revolution speaks of the continuing conflict between the classes that will lead to upheaval and revolution by oppressed peoples and form the ground work for a new order of society are economics where capitalism is abolished. The revolution will be led by the working class under the guidance of intellects, when the elite and middle class are overthrown; the intellectuals will compose as equal society where everyone owns everything (socialism).

Basic tenets of this theory that will be isolated successively in Sembene Ousmane’s                  God’s Bits of Wood published in (1960) are the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist (owning) class i.e. the struggle of the classes which leads to equality of shared wealth; major differences in lifestyle between the classes; how are the working class oppressed kept from rebellion- the strategies the capitalist used to oppress them; how the oppressed are denied equal reward of work done- capitalist are justified by their superiority; how does the oppressed attract sympathy in the work; how feminine empowerment leads to economic power and eventually leading to political power; how is religion used to oppress the oppressed and how are betrayers or traitorous acts portrayed in the work.

Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood is an attack on colonialism and the brutal savage forms it took in Africa-Senegal, nevertheless we can’t overlook the heavy element of the Marxist theory that abound in the work. His work is focused on European imperialism, hierarchy of social classes: European managerial class and Africa working class (since imperialism involves the violent maltreatment of the natives). In the knowledge of this theory (Marxism) God’s Bits of Wood will be examined, evaluated and appreciated.

Class exploitation which led to struggles- strike of the trainmen as described by Ousmane, he talked on the first strike between the Bambara natives and the European managers which was a flop but the second strike lasted six months in which the strikers established a Union through which it presented its demands to the Europeans who profited from their labour. The strike was flared up because the natives realised how much they have been oppressed and it resulted in a STRIKE to fight for the amelioration of their standard of living.

“It is true that we have our trade, but it does not bring us what it should. We are been robbed, our wages are so low that there is no longer any difference between ourselves and animals”

The oppressed (trainmen) were soon joined in the strike by the masons, civil servants, coal miners and even the men of shell oil i.e. in our modern days what we call a nationwide strike, which intensified their struggle for equality which of cause wasn’t on a platter of gold (hunger, death, thirst, illness and dehumanizing treatment), yet they pressed on to their hallmark and prevailed over the superior class.

Obvious differences in the lifestyle of the classes in this literary work are of great significances to the theory. The superior class earned more wages than the producers (work force), they lived in the decent areas of the city called the European quarters while the working class lived in the Bambara quarters which was littered with piles of old cans, heaps of excrements, tiny remains of cats, rats and of chickens disputed by birds and skinny children with swollen bellies clothed with filth. The houses were nothing to write home about as the structures are bent and been supported by tree trunks, beggars litter the street and children scavenge for food. In fact, the city of Thies was synonymous to a place of poverty, impoverishment and poor infrastructure. The character Bakary was tuberculous from the many years behind the firebox of the train and his skin of his face had turned grey. The superior class (the regional director-M. Dejean, director of the repair shop- M. Isnard, chief assistant- M. Victor and Leblanc- the old hand ) worked in managerial offices which were beautiful, good homes in a serene environment and had natives who did the menial works for them.

N’Deye Touti had a conflicting personality or suffered from cultural and personality inferiority complex. She wasn’t proud of her heritage and her educational exposure too made her desire more than she had. Most times she soliloquize on her dream house and family and was elated about the fire that had engulfed the scene had held her childhood she had been so ashamed of.

         “The memory was as sharp as the pain of an open wound, she was almost ready to bless the fire which had destroyed the witness of her childhood and her shame. She had a vision of houses painted in clear, fresh colours, of gardens filled with flowers, children in European clothes playing in tidy courtyards. But what she saw around her was something else again. Men and women were already prowling busily through the ruins… while naked children whose skin was the colour as the ashes ran about as if it were a holiday”   pg. (115 &116)

Her society was a direct contrast of her dreams and she was of cause ashamed of it. She longed to marry someone who will take her out of her misery.

The market place is described as an eye sore on pg. 15 paraphrased.

“The market was swarmed with denizen- beggars and the flies, who were of every age and carried great blue-green flies that floated between them and the canteens in the market square”

The oppression of the workers is eminent all through the pages of this work has the author had carefully crafted the happenings into the plots in sequences. As the strike of the trainmen began, the European directors, even the black bureaucrats were already devising means to break the backs of the strikers. The superior class understood clearly that when a man’s basic needs are taken forcefully from him his strength or essence is gone. This motive was well employed by the Europeans in this work as seen in (pg. 32). 

“The days passed, and the nights. There was no news, except what every passing hour brought to every home, and that was always the same: the foodstuffs were gone, the meager savings eaten up, and there was no money in the house”

 Food was gone from every home and the capitalist had it heavy on them as even store keepers were not allowed to give foodstuffs on credit to the strikers.

“They could go and ask for credit, but they knew what the storekeeper would say. You already owe me this much, and as it is I won’t have enough to pay my bills. Why don’t you do as they say? Why don’t you go back to work?” pg. 32

As nights and days passed hunger began to prevail which brought fear in hearts.

“I cannot- I cannot! They’ll close my shop! Tell them to go back!”  

The strikers were denied water the very essence of life.

                     “… Well, what do they teach you in school then?                                           

                      ‘Everything- everything about life’                                                                                              “and the strike is not part of life?                                                                                              Closing the shops and turning off the water- that is not part of life?’”  pg. (47)

Water inevitably became a scarce commodity in the workers’ quarters and a commodity that came with a price too.

“How much do you ask for the jug of water? Five pieces, of five francs each, woman. Five pieces? The price has gone up again? Woman, I must now go all the way to Pikine to find water, and Pikine is far” pg. (54)

Psychologically because their lives has been webbed around the trains and their workshops, they long for the sounds and smoke that came with the trains to fill up the emptiness the strike brought with it- pg. 76&77. The pressure or demands of our jobs too are a form of oppression as it engulfs our very being. The consequences of these oppressive tools on the strikers were just inevitable as hunger, thirst, death and malnourishment- kwashiorkor became the order of the day.

“… but her primary concerns was for N’Dole, her next-to-last. The child wobbled unsteadily forward, on a pair of rickety legs, his shinning belly was so distended that it appeared to precede him, giving the impression that the skin might at any moment burst like a too full bladder… this ceaseless hunger, which swelled the bellies of the children while it defleshed their limbs and bent their shoulders”

They did anything for survival as they became desperate. Mame Sofi used religion as a strong point to appease the Toucouleur water carrier in pg. 54-55 paraphrased

“Mame Sofi asked the water carrier ‘do you believe in God?’ and he replied Yes, she replied Al Hamdou Lilah as if relieved and she added ‘I owe you five pieces of five francs each’ after she had asked him to pour his water into the family’s earthen vessel. The Toucouleur insisted he wasn’t selling on credit” 

Vendredi- the ram, was killed by Ramatoulaye after it had eaten the only available rice in the house. Its meat became a feast for the entire household and all that came around pg. (73-74), for a reserved character like Ramatoulaye; the fear of starvation aroused her survival instinct.

“they scarcely recognized the woman beside them as the Ramatoulaye they had always known, and asked themselves where she had found this new strength. She has always been quiet and unassuming and gentle with the children and never took part in arguments at the street fountain”

The youths of the Bambara quarters were not left out. The supposed ‘workforce- apprentices’ of the Thies people became idle and as the saying goes ‘an idle hand is the devil’s workshop’. They began to engage themselves on stealing escapades of chickens from the European quarters and from Aziz the storekeeper, using catapults to aim at birds and lizards and the last straw that broke the camel’s back was their attack on every last object in the European quarters and police station.

“They had found a new game to replace all others. They waited until darkness and enlisted on their side, and then, moving in the little groups to throw the guards and the soldiers off their track, they invaded the European quarter… everything that shone in the night was a target, from windows to lamp post.” Pg. (159)

Something astonishing sprang up in the face of this oppressions, a new order in which the women folks who had been handicapped became politically and economically liberated. The strike which affected their husbands steered them to rise to the occasion to defend their homes, children and their very existence.

The economy of Senegal was caked on the backs and hands of the natives (Bamako- Thies- Dakar) yet the proverb that says “one works as an elephant and eats like an ant” is a better description of the standard of living amongst this people. The Europeans had a better ride on the backs of the black working class who were the majority of the populace.

“We’re the ones who do the work… The same work the white man do. Why then should they be paid more? Because they are white? And when they are sick, why should they be taken care of while we and our families are left to starve? Because we are black? In what way is a white child better than a black child? In what way is a white worker better than a black worker? They tell us we have the same rights, but it is a lie! Only the engines we run tell the truth- and they don’t know the difference between a white man and a black. It does no good to look at our pay slips and say our wages are too small.” Pg. (8)

This position in which black men found themselves led to their demand of equal work, equal pay, old age pensions, proper housing and family allowances as their counterparts enjoy.

The working class suffered a great deal on the path they chose for themselves for a future they considered not farfetched, where their lives would be worthy of living, food on their tables, hospital allowances at their beck and call of their families, pensions at the end of active service, good clothes on their children’s back and a decent environment to live in.

“for more than four months now we have been on strike, and we all know why. It has been a hard life in that time- without food, without water, without even fire. It is a hard path for a man, harder still for the women and the children, but we chose it and we trod it” pg. (216)

Deaths abound in this period of their lives as darkness gloom over every household, hunger came knocking and sickness was a shadow to them. Despite all, they forged on in their struggle for a better financial empowerment, never to be victims again but to be in control of what they worked for. They fought to the end at all cost and triumphed over every of their plight because even when fear came it was dispelled as quickly as it came, even when strike breakers arose they dealt with it in their own simple way and even when their opposition sought to create a division it was too late as fraternity and brotherhood ran through their veins towards their CAUSE even when imprisoned- they suffered dehumanizing things for their cause such as been imprisoned in a dark room with their faeces and urine bowls. Sounkare the old watchman had desired to eat rat.

The women could be seen as a strong force or as the back bone of the strike. From the first day of the strike, the women organized by Dieynaba at the market place launched the initial riot.

Dieynaba had rallied the women of the market place, and like a band of Amazons they came to the rescue, armed with clubs, with iron bars, and bottles.”  Pg. (22)

When the strike prolonged men frequented the union’s building and the women held the home fronts- catered for every need by selling all their jewelleries and their ceremonial tunics. Even the men began to realise that this hard times- strike was bringing about a new breed of men as well as women. Women were now been consulted and asked to attend meetings at the union such as the trial of Diara the traitor of the strikers.

But I have told the women to come, Tiemoko said the have important things to say.” Pg. (91)

The N’Diayene women is a strong force in the strike as they fought the police men who came to arrest Ramatoulaye, they attacked the squad with straws and coals on fire and when Ramatoulaye was taken to the station they followed en masse as a support; even when the firemen came with water to flush them out of the station they stood their grounds in their frightened state.

"Stay where you are! Mame Sofi screamed. There is no water for fires, but there’s plenty for us! Just stay sitting down and it can’t hurt you.” Pg. (122)

Penda became the first female member of the strike committee, she championed the women’s march on Dakar from Thies.

“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 march together to Dakar” pg. (185)

If the women had not come alive to take up the reins of duty when it called or remained supportive, the strike would have failed for hunger and thirst would have driven everyone crazy and homes in disarray.

The African culture holds religion as a strong force or a necessity for a successful living, therefore the Imams and the Priest are held in high esteem. The European leaders understood this mind set of this people- the natives and set their leaders in their own favour to emphasize that they were wrong and should be made to end the strike. Religion became a tool of oppression to the oppressed. The Imam made women depressed as he accused them of killing Houdia M’Baye.

“God has decided that we should live side by side with the French toubabs, and the French teaching us things we have not known and showing us how to make the things we need. It is not up to us to rebel against the will of God… for my part, I plan to preach a sermon on the subject to the entire community next Friday” pg. (124)

To dispel the emotional trauma caused by the religious clerics Bakayoko endeared the people to himself as against a God/cleric who didn’t care. Karl Marx explains that reality is material and not spiritual because we are socially constructed and not spiritual beings.

“The Imam spoke to you of God. Does that mean he doesn’t know that people who are hungry and thirsty are likely to forget the way to the mosque?” pg. (217)

In the characters of LeBlanc and Diara we can find elements of alignment and fragmentation. Leblanc owned up to his colleagues that he has been sending money to the strikers.

“… I’ll tell you something, though. I sent them 20,000 francs to help out with the strike… I did it twice, I sent them a ten-thousand-franc note.”  Pg. (169)

The Europeans turned the clerics against their people since some crumbs falls of the white man’s table to them.

“Infuriated by the workers’ resistance to their injunctions, the imams turned the full force of their wrath on the members of the strike committee, accusing them of responsibility for every crime they could think of- atheism, alcoholism, prostitution, infant mortality. They even predicted that these infidels would bring about the end of the world” pg. (204)

Diara who was among the trainmen who voted for the strike was accused of maltreating / humiliating the women folks by sending them off the trains because they supported the strikers- their husbands and sons; he was equally shamed as he faced trial like an infidel.

The story line of Germinal by Emile Zola will be illustrated as a related text to the main text and the same theory can serve to analyse the both text.

The miners were oppressed as the trainmen in the main text. Similarities between the strikes of this different works can’t be eluded as their struggles, oppressions and sufferings took the same forms. They earned low wages, women participated actively in the strike- and this calls to mind the Aba Women’s Riot in Nigeria (1929) and the women’s march on Versailles in France (1789) ; oppression has no restriction to borders as for every action there is a reaction, Etienne Lantier and Bakayoko are the activist or strike propeller of the strike as prophesied by Karl Marx- a leader will arise from among the oppressed class who will pioneer a revolution that will turn their tide. Common tool of oppression in these works are starvation, thirst, and weaponry by the armed forces to attack the native. However, the strike ended on a tragic note in Germinal and on a joyful and triumphant note.  

Class struggle isn’t just a niche in imperialism, it occurs in our day to day work environment. In our immediate society in Nigeria we have Workers’ Union/Association that saddles itself with the responsibility of its member’s welfare, pension scheme, leave bonuses, health care scheme, salary payment etc. for example: the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) embarked on an indefinite strike on the grounds of a 24 count demand from the Federal Government of Nigeria; the latter threatened to retrench all residential doctors Nationwide for not taking the initiative to call of the strike as their OATH to Humanity demands of them when the Ebola Virus broke out in the Nation but the association stood its ground that none of its members will acknowledge the memo to the treat. Eventually, the strike was suspended on a mutual bases that their plight will be attended to and they returned to work to combat the viral disease. Although in this work the trainmen were oppressed by the Europeans but in our society workers or the workforce of the society are been oppressed or exploited by their employers in the world of capitalism; even the civil servant in our days suffer under their government employers such delayed salary payment, tax methods- pay as you earn, poor infrastructure and unconducive work environments.

In this write up we can say that our society indeed has been and is still a dialectical society (the rich class and the poor class), residential areas are even divided into this category (ghetto versus Victoria garden city; rural and urban- the South-south of Nigeria suffers from oil spillage from where the nation gets its Gross Domestic Product but the revenue is used to develop the capitals), national wealth stays in the centre and drops down to the margin. 

Social amenities are readily available in the capital unlike the suburbs, the suburbs are technologically lagging as against the level of exposure and development experienced in big cities. Exploitation exist in our day to day lives, how we perceive our relationships to be- husbands oppressing their wives, children revolting their parents, boyfriends and girlfriends cheating on themselves, businessmen swindling their clients, clerics using religion as a psychoanalytical tool on the minds of their congregation to syphon money from them or to make them be seen as demi gods.

Truth, integrity, sincerity, trust and concern for mankind, ecosystem and the universe will be a starting point for equity, true liberation and sense of collective ownership of the world.

Works Cited

Ousmane, Sembene. God’s Bits of Wood, African Writers Series (63), 1960.

Tunde, Ayeleru. “Theoretical Approaches to Literature” Course Note on Marxism on August 11, 2014.

Gillespie, Tim. Doing Literary Criticism: Helping Students with Challenging Texts, Strenhouse Publishers, copyright © 2010.

http://www.enotes.com/topics/gods-bits-wood.

http://free-academic-essay.blogspot.nl/2014/05/gods-bits-0f-wood.html?m=1