Last Chapter of Foe by J.M. Coetzee

Foe is a challenging novel to read because it does not follow the structure of a typical novel. Ironically, it is a reference to Daniel DeFoe’s story of Robinson Crusoe, which was considered England’s first novel. Other than a semblance of the basic story and names of the same characters Crusoe, Friday and Foe, Coetzee’s novel veers widely from its loose counterpart. In Foe, the reader is never really sure what is real or what is imagined. The final chapter of Foe is a continuation of this enigma. Up until this last chapter, the novel is told from the perspective of Susan Barton, a woman who lives a year on an island with Crusoe and Friday as a consequence of being set afloat in a dingy from a mutinied ship. She had been on her way home from Brazil to England where she had gone to find her kidnapped daughter without success.

The last chapter can be interpreted in many ways and seems to be divided into two parts that are perhaps told by two different speakers. There is a case to be made that perhaps the first part (pages 153 –154) is either the character Foe’s beginning chapter of Susan’s story or his dream of her story. It is told in first person, which we can take to be Foe because he repeats what she has said. He says, “I begin to hear the faintest faraway roar: as she said, the roar of waves in a seashell” (154). On page 142 Susan previously tells Foe that “It is for us to open Friday’s mouth and hear what it holds: silence, perhaps, or a roar, like the roar of a seashell held to the ear.” The phrase “as she said,” indicates whoever the speaker is; he/she is referring to Susan and the same words she used. In addition, the chapter starts out as novel-like: “The staircase is dark and mean” as we remember Foe’s insistence on how a story should be told: “It is thus that we make up a book: loss, then quest, then recovery; beginning, then middle, then end” (117). The first part of this chapter begins with loss as he describes the dead bodies of a woman or girl he stumbles over and the couple that “lie side by side in bed” (153). The quest is described as he presses “closer, and with an ear to his mouth lie[s] waiting” to hear something emanate from Friday’s mouth (154). And in the final sentence, he recovers “the sounds of the island” (154). Here we find Coetzee perhaps intimating that we are complicit in requiring our stories to have a beginning, middle and end. To be entertaining and understandable. This chapter seems to encompass the book's narrative in a compressed metaphor. In this first part of the final chapter, Coetzee is perhaps demonstrating how European novels implicate linear thinking and that this is very limited and stereotyped. The best that Foe could do was show us that Friday was a part of and metaphor for the island. And by implication, that even the best intentioned member of a colonized society can only see the other from their own superficial and limited perspective within the limitations of their language.

In the second half of the last chapter, we might say that this is Susan Barton telling us her dream; perhaps a dream she had told Foe, which might clarify the similarities in observations but different perspectives in both parts of this final chapter. Whereas in this second half, Susan’s story is more subtle and expansive than Foe’s in its portrayal in the first part. This is interesting in light of the fact that Susan says she cannot write as well as Foe and enlists him to make her story interesting. Foe says: “We must make Friday’s silence speak, as well as the silence surrounding Friday,” and Susan responds: “But who will do it?” (142). In this last part of the last chapter, it is Susan who tells the story and inscribes Friday with a metaphor that goes beyond anything language can say. Out of his mouth “comes a slow stream…[that] flows…out…washing the cliffs and shores…runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth…” (157). What is the symbolism of “this slow stream?” Whatever it is, it comes from deep inside Friday. It is his story. It is “the other’s” story that lay hidden in the silence of the bodies of the oppressed, in the abused and mutilated bodies. They are the signs and the signifiers more powerful than any language. This is the world that we choose or are taught not to see. This is the world that is a murky and dark place filled with complexity. “This is not a place of words…This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday” (157). Coetzee’s implication is that we cannot tolerate dark, murky stories with no ending or complete understanding. That it is the bodies and voice of the feminine, the other or the dispossessed that lie as deep as the ocean from our awareness, possessing horrible, sublime, real and valuable stories to tell in ways that are not understood because of the hegemony of the European white man’s version of history.

We can make the hypothesis that it is Susan’s point of view in this second part of the last chapter because of certain references to prior observations and word choice. For example, she uncovers what appears to be a letter to Foe with the first sentence that begins the book, “’Dear Mr Foe, At last I could row no further’” (155). In the next sentence, she describes herself “with a sigh, making barely a splash, I slip overboard,” which again refers us back to the beginning of the story being told by Susan about how she came to the island (155). She again uses the same words “With a sigh, with barely a splash”(155) she plunges into the depths of the ocean and begins to describe a dream world that is submerged, dark and complex. Earlier Foe refers to kraken as “a beast…lying on the floor of the sea”(140), and in this part Susan says, “If kraken lurks anywhere, it lurks here…” (156). We might surmise that Foe is complicit in inspiring these visions as he is in trying to get her to tell her story his way. In this way, Coetzee makes us question where the authority is to tell the stories. How are we swayed by our circumstances, our culture, and our own doubts?

However, Foe asks Susan: “‘And do you meet with phantoms in your sleep?’ ‘I dream, but I do not call the figures phantoms that come to me in dreams.’ ‘What are they then?’ ‘They are memories, memories of my waking hours, broken and mingled and altered.’ ‘And are they real?’ ‘As real, or as little real, as the memories themselves’”(138). This is interesting as we muse on Coetzee’s, perhaps, purposeful tactic that ultimately creates the suspicion of whether all of the previous part of the book leading up to this second half of the last chapter isn’t also just a dream of Susan’s. Where does something begin and another thing end? In this respect, this is also a story about boundaries, both real and invisible. And again we ask where is the authority to tell our stories? Who tells them, how are they to be told and what memories do we rely on for truth? Perhaps Coetzee has positioned his readers more to ask questions than to find answers.

Excerpt from God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane

“There were very few people who recognized that Leblanc’s present condition was more the result of unrealized hope than of any thwarted ambition. He had tried in vain to establish some sort of friendly relationship with the Africans, but his knowledge intimidated them and his natural shyness made it difficult for them to approach him. This hostility – or rather, this lack of any response to his efforts – had gradually discouraged him, and his drinking had completed the work. He had become a narrow, bitter person, laughed at by the blacks and mistrusted by the whites” (168).

To me, Leblanc’s character represents the failure of cultural objectivity and appreciation of the “other,” which is one of the main themes that make up the rich tapestry of Sembene’s God’s Bits of Wood. As a young ex-anthropology student, LeBlanc comes to Thies with, perhaps, the naivety of a more liberal ideology of colonialism. What were these “unrealized hopes” that Leblanc is described as having in this excerpt? Perhaps his wish, as the study of anthropology claims to do, was to study the African culture to offer the world an “objective” understanding of its people as a way to bridge the gap between cultures. On paper, this is a very noble idea. One, it seems, that many anthropologists share. But Sembene’s use of Leblanc’s character I think, hints at “the [post colonial] notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects. [There is a consensus that the field of anthropology] grew out of colonialism–perhaps was in league with it–and derived some of its key notions from it, consciously or not…It is often assumed that an example of this exploitative relationship can be seen in the relationship between British anthropologists and colonial forces in Africa, yet this assumption has not been supported by much evidence” (Wikepedia: Anthropology). Not only is Sembene perhaps implying that anthropology is complicit in a colonialist reductive view of another culture, but Leblanc’s character offers a deep insight into the “do-gooder” response of those who are part of the colonial power, who want, but fail, to somehow help fight against it because of their deep indoctrinization of its ideologies.

Sembene says that Leblanc “tried in vain to establish some sort of friendly relationship with the Africans,” but we can read through the lines that Leblanc’s failure was due to something else. We can speculate that it might have been because he brought his own pre-conceived and unconscious colonial ideology into his approach instead of immersing himself in their culture with an openness to see and appreciate who these people really are: their customs, thoughts, beliefs, traditions etc. Whatever Leblanc’s approach was, it clearly inhibited any authentic experience and appreciation of the culture. Sembene gives us an “inside” African perspective; one that looks out onto this kind of colonist (or colonialism) like Leblanc as he tells us why the people were so hesitant to approach him. It wasn’t for any hatred of Leblanc, but because “his knowledge intimidated them and his natural shyness made it difficult for them to approach him.” We can clearly see how actions from different cultures can be misinterpreted as Sembene says, “This hostility – or rather, this lack of any response to his efforts – had gradually discouraged him,” and, as it did with Leblanc, causes a dislike or distrust between people. Through the complexity and skill of the characterization of Leblanc, Sembene offers a rich insight into this subversive dynamic of colonialism.

Although Leblanc seems to be on the side of the strikers and the African people, Sembene portrays Leblanc’s good intentions tied up with too much self-consciousness. All his vain efforts “had gradually discouraged him, and his drinking had completed the work. He had become a narrow, bitter person, laughed at by the blacks and mistrusted by the whites.” As Leblanc fails to realize that the root of his problem is his lack of communication and an appreciation of the authenticity of another culture, he takes his failed efforts personally. He interprets his failure of establishing good relationships with both the African’s and his white superiors as their failure to respect him and his turn to drinking just makes it worse.

Leblanc’s complex character carries an undertone of condescension and self-righteousness. He says, “And as for me, I’ll tell you frankly that I don’t like these blacks. They not only despise us but now they’re trying to pretend we aren’t even here” (168). He represents the “do-gooder” mentality that ends up despising the ones he once desired to help because his identity and power are tied up in the powerlessness of the other. He sees them as unappreciative of his so-called “good intentions.” Since his own empowerment comes from those who are less powerful, he unconsciously needs them to stay powerless. And yet, he gives the strikers money for their cause as an act against the whites because he despises the whites also. To me, Leblanc is representative of a more insidious colonialistic problem; that of not only treating other cultures as “the other,” or objectifying them, but doing so under the guise of helping them as it feeds their own ego and personal need for power.

100 Days of A Genocide

In the film 100 Days, Director Nick Hughes has offered a psychological close up of the making and carrying out of a genocide. I say, “a” genocide because as we watch the film, we can detect multiple references to the genocide of the Holocaust in WWII, (not to mention Serbia and Darfur) which adds to
the impression that this is not just about what happened in Rwanda, but what happens (and continues to happen) when any group of people systematically murder with the intention of extinguishing another race. Through many close-up shots of various character’s eyes in pivotal scenes throughout the film, Hughes gives the viewer a vicarious and visceral experience of the horror of this hideous episode in African history. One does not have to know that the film begins after the plane carrying the Hutu President of Rwanda was shot down giving the Hutu’s justification for their genocide of the Tutsi’s whom they had lived in “tolerable” peace for some time. This lack of background story or reason for the genocide emphasizes the obvious and important fact that genocide of any race has no justification. As the film opens, the Hutu Prefet is seen entering the office of his subordinate who presides over a village that has been previously shown as peaceful and beautiful with shots of its natural habitat and a young couple in love in the midst of this natural beauty. The Prefet has come to this village to tell this man in charge (or “governor”) that “you have been told–ordered–that the first enemy, before fighting the rebels, are the Tutsi population. We are going to kill them all.” This is Hughes’ first close-up and we witness the determination on the Prefet’s face as he emphatically underlines his point: “That is most important–ALL!”

The analogy to the Holocaust is obvious as the next scene cuts to a Catholic priest standing facing the camera giving grace before a meal where the governor who we just saw is sitting with his wife and two children. As the priest prays over the meal, his voice over begins, “In the last war the Germans committed many terrible crimes. Now, the Americans also committed terrible crimes but we don’t remember them because the Americans won.” This scene embodies the Catholic Church’s complicity in this genocide as it condoned the killings. The wife of the governor says, “If the Germans’ killed more people why did they not win? Was God on the side of the Americans?” The priest is quick to point out that God does not take sides, but we know that the Catholic Church certainly does and has controlled much of the Rwandans by its historical education and colonialist ideology. When the governor says, “But Father, I’m being asked to kill,” we are privy to the psychological manipulation of the church as the priest responds: “Killing is wrong. But you are entitled to defend yourself. The Catholic Church is quite clear on this point. God forgives us our sins provided we confess, we repent and we seek forgiveness.” As we see by the end of the movie, this is hypocrisy of the Church’s religious doctrine and manufactured to further the Church’s power. The connection of this scene of the priest, which cuts to the governor’s face at the table then to his face back in his office during the same conversation with the Prefet, further connects the conspiracy between the Catholic Church and this genocide. Another close-up shows the governor sweating then cuts back to another close-up of the Prefet’s mouth talking as the camera pans up to his eyes that have widened with a crazed stare saying, “We are going to clean the whole country. It is your job to tell them that it is up to them to win this war…” The camera lingers on the Prefet’s crazed eyes: “After we are finished there will be no going back to living together because they’ll be no one for us to go back to live with.” What we see as the viewer here is unadulterated, baseless self-righteous hatred and a belief system that has instigated justification for superiority through ruthless power devoid of any human values.

Other scenes with close-ups of eyes continue to lend to the emotional impact of the film as it is through the eyes that many emotions and stories can be seen. The range of shock, intense fear and horror is seen in the close-up shot of the eyes of Batiste’s (who is seen in love with the girl in the beginning of the film) friend who finds Batiste’s family slaughtered in their home. In a following scene, the close-up of the priest’s (who later rapes Josette, Batiste’s virgin girlfriend) closed eyes in prayer suddenly open to look up where the scene cuts to a mural relief of religious figures, indicating the connection to religious mastery of natives and the priest’s later abusive actions of superiority and power. Later we see a close-up of the defeat and fear in Josette’s eyes after speaking to a Belgiun soldier who tells her he cannot take her family with them. Another interesting close-up is the reflection of the Priest in a French soldier’s eye who is describing the two tribes as animals to the Catholic priest who, in turn, describes them as children. These two characters are merely reflections of each other, colluding in the belief that both the Tutsi’s and the Hutu’s are the “other,” cementing their colonialist superiority. And finally, the incredible sadness of the massacre that takes the life of Josette’s father in the close-up of her younger brother’s tear-filled eyes as he witnesses his father being killed before he also is, and in the close-up of Josette’s tear-filled eyes before the priest sends her to witness the massacre in the church.

Other scenes remind us of the Holocaust such as when the governor rounds up the Tutsi boys of the village while he reads off the names of those to be taken into a house and burned. This is reminiscent of the way the Nazi’s called those who were to be burned in the concentration camp ovens. The shaved heads of the young boys are similar to the shaved heads of the Jews. The billowing black smoke rising from the house as it is burning is also analogous to the billowing black smoke of the ovens in the camps like Auschwitz. And in another revealing scene, when a Hutu daughter innocently asks why the Tutsi’s are different than they are, her mother tells her because they are tall, thin, small nose, head shape etc. Basically, their appearance is their only crime, as the Nazi’s believed of the Jews. It is evident that 100 Days tells an important story of a process so insidious and powerful that it effects unspeakable actions of people against others. Ultimately, it is the allure of power that seems to be the motivational force behind the senseless acceptance of a reality that goes against human decency. It is the troubling story of a psychological enigma that is both historical, and, unfortunately, perhaps unstoppable.

March 25, 1998, in Kigali, Rwanda President Clinton apologizes to the victims of genocide...

"... the international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope ..."

May 7, 1998, in Kigali, Rwanda U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan apologizes to the Parliament of Rwanda...

"... The world must deeply repent this failure. Rwanda's tragedy was the world's tragedy. All of us who cared about Rwanda, all of us who witnessed its suffering, fervently wish that we could have prevented the genocide. Looking back now, we see the signs which then were not recognized. Now we know that what we did was not nearly enough--not enough to save Rwanda from itself, not enough to honor the ideals for which the United Nations exists. We will not deny that, in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda ..."
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline).

“The Canadian Foreign Minister, Bill Graham, told the conference that ten years after the genocide the international community had still not learned how to stop such killings from happening again. ‘We lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from happening,’" he said (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3573229.stm).

Faat Kine - Film by Ousmane Sembene

Faat Kine, like most other films of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, is a portrait done in the cinema engage style. Sembene, the Father of African Cinema, says, "The artist is like a mirror. His work reflects and synthesizes the problems, the struggles, and hopes of his people" (qtd. in Pfaff). With this in mind, one can perceive in this film the wide perspective of various social ills in post-colonial Senegal while simultaneously viewing a close-up study of an African woman who has risen above the patriarchal constrictions of her gender. Sembene says, "Africa's society and economy are held together today by women.” And this is the crux of Faat Kine premiered in 2000 about a forty-year-old single mother of two teenagers who has risen to wealth and power through hard work, perseverance over patriarchal control, and ownership of a Dakar gas station.

Throughout the film Sembene cleverly frames many shots with parts of cars either totally in the frame, partially in the frame, or moving in and out of the frame to remind us of the living contradiction that is Senegal. What better icon to use than cars and a gas station to represent modernity in the midst of an old third world country. Cars represent status symbols, individuality and power, and are remnants of colonization that seem to intrude throughout the ancient landscape in the film. In addition, gas stations are a male dominant business and Sembene chooses this venue to show Kine’s unique position of female power in this dominant patriarchal society. As the film begins, Sembene’s panned view of Dakar, Senegal’s bustling capital, offers a vast image of a city that is both a mixture of old and new living interchangeably. The viewer is immediately struck by the movement of cars speeding through the panned shot of what looks like a modern city with high-rise buildings lining the horizon. But this wider perspective that gives a sort of gestalt of post-colonial Senegal narrows with a subsequent scene that focuses on Kine’s pristine blue car driving to her gas station. The shot from the point of view behind her car places it centrally in the frame’s composition as she stops to let a few traditionally dressed women carrying buckets on their heads and babies on their backs cross the street trafficked by modern cars and exhaust. The women slowly walk out of the frame as we see Kine’s car powerfully press forward illustrating the contradiction between tradition and modernity both in the general landscape and specifically in the roles of women.

Not surprisingly, many scenes take place in Kine’s gas station and especially in her office where she is filmed most regally seated behind her desk, which looks out through slated windows onto her gas station kingdom. She calls her main attendant, (attendant to Kine, the gas station queen) with a sort of Marx brother’s brass horn that honks like an old bicycle or car horn. This comic touch adds to the visual message of both the power of a car’s horn and her power, which are connected. Cars come and go in many scenes. Sembene’s use of close-up of a woman’s hand with a gold bracelet handing money to the attendant framed by the side of her car, gives the impression that the car has a human arm, that the car and human are one; illustrative of how identity is connected with what we drive. In fact, Sembene takes us inside the car where the whole frame is the car and through a mirror shot of the woman in the driver’s seat looking in her rearview mirror as the attendant looks closely at the money she has given him, we begin to identify her. It isn’t until she is forced to get out of her car after the attendant shows Kine her fraudulent French money that we cement the realization that this is an arrogant, wealthy, young African woman. Kine does not accept this money nor the fake gold bracelet the woman attempts to pass off as payment, forcing the woman to leave her car (her “other” expensive accessory) at Kine’s station until she brings legitimate Senegalese money. Kine inhibits this woman from both leaving Senegal and committing a crime. In essence, Kine administers not only transportation, which is to say that she administers movement, but also morality. Kine is moving Africa into the future, changing the face of corruption, gender stereotypes and patriarchal abuses, and she is most definitely in the driver’s seat.

Cars frame other notable scenes as when Kine arrives at her station with her teenage son and daughter who have both successfully graduated from high school and are going on to college. As they exit her car, Kine stands on the driver’s side and reaches over the top of it to hold each of her children’s hands. The top of the car frames the bottom of the following three or four shot/reverse shots as Kine tells them that she will take out a loan to pay for their college if she has to. The car is not only between them, but supporting them as they are connected to each other physically, emotionally and genetically; symbolic of the importance and relevance of this object in their lives.

Through flashbacks of her story told by her mother we understand Kine’s character that has been shaped by African patriarchal hegemony. We find out that Kine worked her way up from a gas station attendant when very young after the birth of her illegitimate daughter by the seduction of her teacher. This ended her studies to become a lawyer when she is expelled. In another scene framed by cars, Kine goes to the parking lot after lunching with her girlfriends, and finds that her car is blocked by another car. The narrative that follows introduces her son’s long lost father as he approaches her after many years while she’s waiting for the owner of the blocking car. The following scenes are framed by either a wide shot of the cars in the parking lot or by a medium shot of her and her car. We get the back story of Kine and the father of her son through a flashback she has while sitting in her car looking at him; how he falsely represents himself and robs her of her savings. Surrounded and connotatively supported by the parked cars, the symbol of her success and modernity, she appears a formidable force to reckon with as she confronts this old relic of Africa with the sins he perpetrated on her and their son. She “runs him down” with her words. Earlier she asks her children “what category of man are your fathers?” The absentee fathers of her children both come back into their lives, but the corruption they bestowed on Kine is symbolic of the corruption this generation of men bestowed on post-colonial Africa. The owner of the blocking car eventually comes and it is Jean, a self-made honorable man as Kine is a self-made honorable woman. Together their children connive to get them married, but Kine and Jean are already attracted to each other. Symbolically, his car has allowed her to confront an aspect of the past. The contrast between Jean and the father of her son (in addition to past and future) framed with the cars around them becomes apparent. Neither of her children’s fathers owns a car, but Jean does and in an act of generosity we see him offer to take this man into his car to his home. But not before Kine and Jean exchange dialogue at the end of this narrative as she infuriatingly tells him to hurry and move his car because it is costing her money. He asks her why she is so incensed and briefly tries to calm her down. We might see this as a foretelling of Jean’s positive affect on Kine’s life if we are to take the last scene of the film as indication that they will ultimately be together. Even though this final scene is devoid of cars that frame the composition as in many previous scenes, Kine’s regal position in her bedroom chair with arms and legs open in a welcoming sexual come-on, is reminiscent of the power position she affects in her office chair, and indicative that Kine knows who she is and what she wants. She is what she has named her gas station, a “Total” human being.

Pfaff, Françoise. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene: A Pioneer of African Film. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Xala - Film by Ousmane Sembene

In Ousmane Sembene’s 1975 film Xala, his dedication to cinema engage is very clear. He does not hide the fact that this is a film about the corruption and failure of Senegalese independence from the French. Through somewhat stilted acting and almost laughable action in some scenes, the story focuses on one corrupt Senegalese man, El Hadji Abdou Kader, who is part of the new cabinet and symbolizes the extent of unspoken crimes against the people. Kadar has received the Xala, a curse that causes impotence, and its symbolism to the impotence of this new African regime is obvious. The film begins with a tilt shot of the steps of the government building as we see eight traditionally clad Senegalese men strut up to the top and wave to their people in triumph. This angled tilt shot emphasizes their victory over the French. They enter the chamber office where they proceed to take items representing the French colonization such as busts of French leaders, boots and hats and place them at the top of the stairs. The next shot cuts to the chamber room again where the President of the new regime points to the three French businessmen to leave and the scene cuts to a tilt shot of the steps again as the French ousted leaders pick up these items and walk down and off the frame, denoting the defeat of French colonialization and the take-over of a new African cabinet.

In the following scene, we see a tilt shot downward as a red carpet rolls down the steps to announce the new African regime. They walked up the steps connoting hope of a new and better government, but Sembene diffuses any hope of change. As the new African leaders are shown now clad in business suits walking down the steps each with a briefcase filled with money, they are helped one after another into a waiting line of Mercedes, capitalistic icons. Sembene has many sequences throughout the film that show objects and people in lines. The powerful viewpoint in this scene from the front of this line of Mercedes underlines the rampant corruption that has been internalized by these colonized Africans as we see that they all are no different than the colonizers enjoying the capitalistic perks of being in power.

Kadar has used money he has taken meant to buy supplies for the people to buy a third virgin wife, and even though he is not alone in his corruption techniques and self-reward, this begins his downfall. The wedding party is about to begin and again Sembene uses sequence shots to show the guests arriving, the wedding party of the bride arriving in cars and the Mercedes arriving in sequence just as they left the government building. Through this technique, African society is seen as lemmings where tradition and colonial ideas are followed without challenge or change. Another tilted shot occurs at the end of the wedding party reminiscent of the earlier shot of the traditionally clad new African leaders walking up the steps after forcefully taking over the government. In this scene, the viewpoint is from the back of Kadar, his new bride and her mother leading them silently up the steps to the bedroom where Kadar is about to forcefully take over his virgin wife. This power that Kadar believes he has is a false and pathetic power and we see Kadar’s impotency ooze into all areas of his life when he is ousted from power, loses his two younger wives and is confronted by the beggars seen throughout the film.

In the final scene of the film, the beggars invade his home and one of them reveals that he is responsible for the xala because Kadar had extorted funds and ruined his family. Earlier in the film Sembene introduces us to this group with some sequence shots of them walking and hobbling with sticks or on disfigured legs, which displays their horrible personal conditions. These sequence shots of the beggars places them as a shocking binary to the sequence shots of the Mercedes. These homeless people are portrayed as more generous and self sufficient than the government leaders. In the end, Kadar’s xala is removed by the action of each one of them spitting on Kadar’s naked body. Perhaps Sembene offers another way for the future of Africa than post-colonial corruption when he has a medicine man say to Kadar, “What one hand removes, another can put back.”

Mansa's Perspective by this blogger – "In the Cutting of a Drink" by Ama Ata Aidoo in No Sweetness Here

Left: Ama Ata Aidoo

The morning came late, as usual after Mansa and her friends worked. In that moment before becoming fully conscious and realizing that she was alone in her bed, Mansa had a nagging feeling, as if just waking from a dream she could barely remember but with a sense that it was somehow important. As she stretched, she remembered last night and then it all came back.
She heard Furaha getting breakfast in the kitchen.
‘Is there any fruit?’
‘Yes, one papaya left,’ handing it to Mansa.
‘Where’s Masozi and Zuri?’
‘With the big men they danced with all night. And you did not leave with the Fante man?’
‘No.’
‘He is from your village?’
‘Yes. He is my brother. He came looking for me.’
‘But I thought you said that your family believed you were dead?’
‘I thought this, too.’……I am not sure of anything. There is always my family…like this morning’s dream barely remembered and soon forgotten…but now I remember everything.
‘He does not approve of what I do. He wants me to come home. He does not understand anything.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said that he was hoping, if he found me, to find that all was well and that I would at least be married to a big man.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, why do you talk so badly about what I do? Do you not think this is better? Do you not think that I could be happy without marriage?’……I did not say what I know. I did not say that I know that marriage is not possible for me now. I did not say that I was happy to decide for myself. I did not say that I know that I would probably not have a child, or one who knows his father, or have a home, like my mother. I did not say that I often feel free from many things. I did not say that I fear my old age.
I did not have to say.

After a silence, Furaha said, ‘Maybe we should have stayed with Mother and taken up the sewing and cleaning. Maybe she will come to find me too, like your brother…and bring us both home.’
‘Your Mother was good to me, Furaha, and treated me as her daughter and your sister …and although she taught me the sewing and cleaning, like you, I knew at ten years old that if I could not stay in school in my own village, I was not going to stay anywhere that was not of my own choosing. You said then that you felt the same. Do you not remember how you begged me to take you with me when I left in the night?……Even though I promised my brother I would go home at Christmas, I cannot……He does not understand anything,’ Mansa said.
They sit together for a long time in compliant silence.

Film Review - Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man

During the 16th Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF) in Los Angeles held February 7-18, one can immerse themselves in African culture and politics through films rarely seen here made by many talented African filmmakers. African issues such as Darfur, AIDS, poverty, etc, are well known to most Americans essentially through the help of Hollywood celebrities using the media to draw attention to their cause. But many of the films shown at PAFF, directed by Africans from all over the continent, give the viewer a unique opportunity to glimpse inside these cultures and experience how the different African nations are both unique and similar to each other, and, in some ways perhaps, to our own nation.

The fact that the name of Burkina Faso’s past president, Thomas Sankara, is essentially unknown to most Americans is not surprising. In fact, if we were offered one million dollars to point to the African nation of Burkina Faso on a map, most of us would lose. Director Robin Shuffield’s Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man is a documentary of Sankara who, between 1983 and 1987 at age 33, became leader of Burkina Fasso, a small landlocked nation located north of the smaller nations of the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, south of Mali, and west of Niger. This small nation of Africa has been colonized by the French since 1896, and was once called Upper Volta. Sankara was eventually assassinated in a coupe led by his right hand man, “friend” and confidant, Blaise Compaoré, and discretely buried in an unmarked grave.

Many, to this day, consider the short-lived, revolutionary ideas that Sankara implemented in his brief term a tragic waste and missed opportunity for his country. Armed with a Marxist vision that might have made his nation a triumphant example of this ideology, Sankara began his presidency redirecting the political power base to create a fair, independent state through such successful programs that he was seen as a threat by many neighboring African nations sympathetic to colonial ideas and to others including Francois Mitterand, prime minister of France at that time. In the first year of his presidency, Sankara replaced all Mercedes owned by government officials with cheaper cars. He then began health reforms vaccinating over a million people in one week, a record recognized by the World Health Organization; instituted unprecedented women’s equality in all forms of society, banned female circumcision, polygamy and promoted contraception; began railroads and environmental protection programs; and attempted to use all the resources of his nation for production of food and clothing to prevent exploitation of outside imperialist forces. Changing the name of his small nation to Burkina Faso in his first year of leadership, meaning “The Land of the Upright Man,” is indicative of the vision that he had for his people.

Subtitled from French, director Shuffield allows Sankara’s charisma and dedication to Marxist ideals come through in many original filmed speeches to his people. Multiple close-ups of Sankara’s smiling face often reveal an intense yet approachable character. When he tells his people that: “The one who feeds you induces his will upon you” one can sense that this was a leader of the people who whole-heartedly believed in a vision of self-sufficiency and a refusal to “afro-pessimism.”

Shuffield has picked compelling footage that portrays Sankara’s earnestness, integrity, morals, and humor. An unwavering commitment to his leftist ideals, his people and his country are made indelible through a linear montage of interviews, news clips, and videos both old and new during Sankara’s time as leader and after. As a result, we see those who worked with him, those who benefited from his policies, and those who opposed him both in his own country and world leaders abroad. In an interview with a member of his party reflecting on Sankara’s regime, he lends insight into the reason that Sankara had the ability to say things many other leaders would not; because he never saw himself as a god, and he never saw any leaders of any other country as one either. He was a true Marxist in the egalitarian sense.

Shuffield, however, does not paint Sankara’s revolution as ideal and all good. We see clips of newscasts exposing problems of Sankara’s impatience to incorporate his social ideas into the culture. In a teacher’s strike, Sankara makes the mistake of not recognizing their grievances and fires them all, hiring under-trained and incompetent teachers to replace them, damaging the educational system. Sankara’s ideals and impatience were perhaps what many say had ultimately led to creating unrest in the country by some who did not like where his philosophy was taking them.

Although, the back story of Sankara’s early life before his rise to leader is disappointingly absent, and much of the borrowed film footage is slightly blurred, the story is elucidating. Even though we see Sankara’s ideas fail in the end, at the very least the film is an interesting look at an independent government accomplishing positive results in record time when left to its own resources. And if that’s not enough, it’s worth the price of the film for no other reason than to broaden your knowledge of Africa.

Film Review - Ezra: Sacrifice of the Young

What greater tragedy is there than the corruption of innocence? This is the tragedy that unfolds in heartbreaking detail in Nigerian director Newton Aduaka’s film Ezra, screened at the 2008 Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles. Winner of the 2007 Yennenga Award for Best Film at the African Film Festival, FESPACO, Ezra makes an important statement about a growing problem of war, the psychological damage wrought by diminishing armies on the children they kidnap for use as soldiers.

Aduaka, who has at least four other feature films and various shorts to his credit, raises our awareness of what it’s like to be a child of war in Africa. Through a series of flashforwards and flashbacks told by both the protagonist Ezra, and his sister, we get two different perspectives of a horrendous, unavoidable situation and the psychological struggle of countless children in many African warring nations. The film opens with two scenes that cut back and forth between a happy seven-year-old Ezra running to school and the interior of a classroom and teacher writing a lesson on the blackboard portentously entitled “Why I love my country.” Ezra’s sister is at her desk looking out the window for her tardy brother when we see Ezra running towards the school. It is eerily quiet except for the sounds of children beginning their writing exercise. Suddenly, soldiers appear and begin shooting and dragging screaming children, including Ezra, from the school into the bush. The film continues with scenes of indoctrination by adult soldiers as innocence is systematically destroyed. When one little boy asks what they are fighting for the reply is: “Justice. There is no justice in this country, only through the barrel of the gun.” The film is excellent in its realism here as the faces of the children look genuinely fearful and the brainwashing tactics are believable. Ezra’s story begins when he whispers to another boy, “To survive you have to do everything you are told. You have to be a good soldier.”

Though non-linear, the film’s story line is, for the most part, fairly easy to follow. Some scenes make more sense later such as when Ezra is standing on top of his own parent’s home that he helps to destroy because we ultimately find out that he is drugged. This becomes clearer towards the latter part of the film in two or three short scenes of white American drug traffickers and British military personnel. The British military are briefly seen providing strategic help to the African government army trying to suppress the rebel army. The Americans are briefly seen selling meth-amphetamines that are given to soldiers to promote aggression and delete any memory of their actions so they are able to continue their violent acts. Both of these scenes, though fleeting, seem to be a reminder that the white man is still running the show and add nuance to what is happening to Ezra. There are many-layered, historical reasons for this situation in Africa, and the film does a good job incorporating responsible parties on all sides without pointing the finger at just one.

Throughout the film, flashforwards show Ezra as a sixteen-year-old living in a facility that helps children heal from their psychological wounds and reintegrate into society. We are also introduced to Ezra’s sister at a hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up in 1995 in South Africa by the UN after Apartheid to “reveal and heal” the psychological affects of the atrocities that soldiers committed between 1960 and 1994. Ezra is reunited with his sister when he comes back to his home as an older soldier, and throughout the film she is privy to much of his atrocities. Although she is not kidnapped, Ezra’s sister is another kind of victim of war as she is brutalized by a rebel soldier who cuts out her tongue. She is asked to be witness at Ezra’s TRC hearing revealing things that Ezra cannot remember doing, and this enhances the complexity of their relationship.

In a creative metaphor used by Aduaka for those familiar with Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Africa’s most famous book about the disastrous affects of colonization, we witness the eventual melting of Ezra’s emotional and intellectual wall that he has created to survive. He begins to question the authority of his kidnappers and the real meaning of what he is doing when he admits to identifying with a young boy in the novel who gets sacrificed because of an indigenous African tribe’s unquestioning allegiance to tradition. Ezra is beginning to become aware that he is being sacrificed by his country for diamonds. In such a way, the film seems to reify the idea that war endlessly waged since the colonization of Africa has almost become tradition in the minds of those who have never lived in peace. In the end, the TRC is shown to be quite impotent at restoring a victim’s psychological health from the army’s brainwashing methods and affects of war. A committee member of the Commission says that a soldier “must admit his crime before he can find peace with his ancestors.” Ezra replies, “I don’t remember. I cannot say what you want me to say.”

The interrelations of the main characters are multifaceted and give the film an intellectual depth that is true to its premise. Other than one scene in the army camp of soldiers dancing to reggae music, there is surprisingly little music in the film. Because music touches a deep emotional place, perhaps Aduaka’s film might have benefited from more of it. As it is though, Aduaka does a good job at illustrating, not only the corruption of innocence, but the level of evil perpetrated on children of war that can never be assuaged.

Musings on "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

Here is a (hopefully-not-too-boring) character sketch of Ekwefi, the leading female in Achebe's novel...

Through the thoughts of the Commissioner at the end of the novel, Achebe illustrates how Euro-centric views of Africa reduce the complex life of its people to mere sketches of humanity. While Okonkwo is described by one of his own people as “one of the greatest men in Umuofia,” the Commissioner defines him only as a “man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself” (208). In response to reductive, insidious, and destructive Euro-views of African nations and their people, Achebe assigns incredible depth to his characters with minimal narrative. To me, the character of Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi, is full of complexities. Although I am a white female living in an American post-modern world, and may lack much cultural capital that would most likely deepen my appreciation of her, I find Ekwefi’s character full of subtleties. She is not simple by any means.

To me, Ekwefi represents strength and courage as seen through the hardships she bears in clan life, and through the complex connections and choices of living within a society’s rituals, traditions, gender roles and laws. Although Ekwefi does not appear much in the second and third part of the novel except for preparing the feast to leave Mbanta, she and her daughter (who is portrayed to be so much like her) are strong characters and given more importance than other females in the novel, illustrating a less common patriarchal characterization of African society. Okonkwo’s first wife is always referred to as “Okonkwo’s first wife” or as “Nwoye’s mother” (40). “Of his three wives Ekwefi was the only one who would have the audacity to bang on [Okonkwo’s] door” (76). She has her own mind and does not always obey the rules of gender.

Ekwefi defies the traditional marriage ceremony by leaving her first husband “two years after her marriage” because “she could bear it no longer and…ran away to Okonkwo” who she fell in love with after watching his wrestling match (39). We might assume there was no bride-price or marriage ceremony, which meant that Okonkwo felt equally strong towards Ekwefi. But because Achebe does not inform us of the details of this situation, and there is no mention of any consequence, we might assume that “justified divorce” is a pardonable course of action in this society.

While we see Okonkwo as a character who displays a strong, hard, unemotional outer self hiding an inner more emotional side, we might see Ekwefi as his opposite; her emotions plainly displayed while at the same time strong enough to survive what might easily destroy others. Losing one child for many mothers would be enough to defeat them, but Ekwefi, who has “suffered a great deal in her time” (40) losing nine out of the ten children she bore, finds the strength to continue. Achebe allows the reader insight into her strength by describing the complex emotional and mental states of despair, resignation and bitterness that she passes through during this time of loss. These are all understandable emotions. Adding that “her bitterness did not flow outwards to others but inwards into her own soul; that she did not blame others for their good fortune but her own evil chi” (79) shows a depth of feeling in her character that connects her to tradition and responsibility.

For the most part, Ekwefi is motivated by the beliefs and traditions of her clan, but never seems to accept them passively. When Ezinma has lived longer than her other children, Ekwefi “believed deep inside her that Ezinma had come to stay. She believed because it was that faith alone that gave her own life any kind of meaning” (80). Her strength comes from this traditional belief that her god, her “chi,” will allow Ezinma to survive. When Ekwefi finally is assured of this after they find Enzima’s “iyi-uwa,” she allows herself to feel love again, but cannot relax. Ezinma is “the center of her mother’s world”…and Ekwefi has “put all her being into” taking care of her (79). The deaths of her previous children and her devotion to her only surviving child have engraved a mental and emotional state of constant anxiety and fear for Ezinma’s survival. Ekwefi cannot be completely assured that her “chi” will not take Ezinma. This fear and anxiety seems to motivate much of her actions.

Although Ekwefi does adhere to the traditional female role in this society by being part of a family with multiple wives expected to produce offspring and attend to those typical duties, in many further respects she does not comply with the traditional female gender role. Achebe describes her relationship with her daughter as both mother and contemporary: “Ezinma did not call her mother Nue like all children…the relationship between them was not only that of mother and child. There was something in it like the companionship of equals” (76). This is a multi-dimensional mother/daughter relationship that defies stereotype. In addition, Ekwefi questions the authority of the clan, Okonkwo, Chielo and the gods when she decides to follow Chielo who takes Ezinma into the forest. Chielo warns her not to go: “How dare you, woman, to go before the mighty Agbala of your own accord? Beware…lest he strike you in his anger” (101). But she does not heed this danger to herself and defies even an angry god who could kill her. Okonkwo does not stop her when she declares, “I am following Chielo” (103), which implies her own authority with Okonkwo and in the family. Nor is she punished for this, which Achebe may have utilized to indicate that questioning authority is allowed in this society. She does not think to ask for help from Okonkwo and takes on the responsibility of Ezinma alone. This action of Ekwefi, who is already constantly filled with fear and anxiety, shows immense strength and courage. She not only fears for her daughter’s safety, but she goes into a forest she believes to be filled with “evil essences…She would wait at the mouth, all alone in that fearful place. She thought of all the terrors of the night” (104). This certainly demonstrates determination, devotion, strength, defiance and courage. Ekwefi is ultimately a survivor, stronger than Okonkwo, who chooses death rather than fight for survival in the end.

Very first blog ever...

Here's the first of (at least) seven blogs of African Film and Lit. Never wrote a blog before. My name is Wendy and I know nothing about Africa, but have always wanted to go. So, I'm looking forward to learning about Africa through its film and literature in this class.