Sembène: The Making of African Cinema c/o Manthia Diawara & Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
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Key Takeaways
On recovering and retelling Samory’s story:
“I’m interested in his story, not in him. In my work, one sole man is never the protagonist. It’s the group that produces the man. A man leads the group, but the group produces him. Samory united parts of Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and the Berbers. What other African leader in the 1800s could have done that? The colonial power portrayed Samory as a barbarian in its schoolbooks. But when I did my research I realized he wasn’t a barbarian, they were wrong. The French arrested him and wrote ‘their’ story. Captain Gouraud who arrested Samory, created a legend with that picture. I have a copy of Gouraud’s memoirs in which he says as much. After arresting Samory in 1898, he returned to France for a vacation. He made headlines. He went into Maxim’s in Paris, and everyone hailed him ‘Our hero, the conqueror of Samory!’ Every country creates images. We don’t have to erase them. History will do that for us. I don’t define myself in European terms.”
— Ousmane Sembène
On the young generation of post-colonial continental Africans:
“You have to realize that after 100 years of colonialism, we fought for independence, and we’re ready. But we’ve never had these administrative responsibilities. We’ve always been subordinates. We’ve never made the final decisions. Then independence arrives, and we’re assailed by all kinds of problems! We had to train people and the meet the needs of our people. There was misunderstanding and ignorance. Thirty years later we realize that we now have young people who are trained. They never experienced colonialism firsthand. They don’t give a damn about that period. They recognize it as history but not as part of their everyday lives.”
— Ousmane Sembène