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God's Bits of Wood.

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Sembene Ousmane's third novel, God's Bits of Wood, was originally written and published in French as Les Bouts de bois de Dieu. The novel is set in pre-independence Senegal and follows the struggles of the African trainworkers in three cities as they go on strike against their French employers in an effort for equal benefits and compensation. The chapters of the book shift between the cities of Bamako, Thies, and Dakar and track the actions and growth of the men and women whose lives are transformed by the strike. Rather than number the chapters, Ousmane has labeled them by the city in which they take place, and the character who is the focal point of that chapter.

As the strike progresses, the French management decides to "starve out" the striking workers by cutting off local access to water and applying pressure on local merchants to prevent those shop owners from selling food on credit to the striking families. The men who once acted as providers for their family, now rely on their wives to scrape together enough food in order to feed the families. The new, more obvious reliance on women as providers begins to embolden the women. Since the women now suffer along with their striking husbands, the wives soon see themselves as active strikers as well.

The strategy of the French managers, or toubabs as the African workers call them, of using lack of food and water to pressure the strikers back to work, instead crystallizes for workers and their families the gross inequities that exist between them and their French employers. The growing hardships faced by the families only strengthens their resolve, especially that of the women. In fact, some of the husbands that consider faltering are forced into resoluteness by their wives. It is the women, not the men, who defend themselves with violence and clash with the armed French forces.

The women instinctively realize that women who are able to stand up to white men carrying guns are also able to assert themselves in their homes and villages, and make themselves a part of the decision making processes in their communities. The strike begins the awakening process, enabling the women to see themselves as active participants in their own lives and persons of influence in their society.

This book is wonderful yet sadly under-appreciated. Ousmane's handling of issues such as the politics of language, indigenous resistence, the cultural costs of forced industrialization, and the changing role of women really has the power to change the way people think. And yet, maybe the book's reach and resonance are the reasons that God's Bits of Wood is not widely read and taught in schools.

A book of protest, made all the more relevant by the fact that it concerns workers from a universal vocation - the railworkers' industry. Epic in scope, yet founded in community values and beliefs, Ousmane articulates the protest brilliantly. What is also special is his portrayal of women as a force for change - especially considering the chauvinistic politics of Africa today.

In Sembene Ousmane's "God's Bits Of Wood" there is a detectable apect of human rights that surpasses all distinction. He points out the dilemmas of a neo-colonial state without giving them the weight of the novel. This novel utilizes this historical event to show humans at their best. The book shows the power of humankind to become humane without compromise. He displays well his ideas on race, gender, and human rights but by the end of the book we are led to an even more enlightening state of thinking and existing, which is to live without hate, even those who hate you, "[...] you must not let hatred enter your heart" (191). This is truly a great message to give while expressing such a triumphant story and event.
The novel also seems to contain a little intertextuality with the poetry of Muyaka (a 19th century poet who composed orally in his native tongue of Kiswahili and never saw the effects of colonialism). This relationship is most notable after reading his famous poem "Seeing Is Believing" (Ua La Manga)
-I've seen a hyena and a goat keeping good company.
-Also a hen and a hawk bringing up their chicks together
-And a blind person showing peopl the way;
-This was not told to me, I obvserved it with my own eyes.
I see the relationship throughout this poem but specifically with the third line, since one of the leaders of "Gods Bits Of Wood" is a blind woman named Maimouna, "All of the women seemed to want to walk behind Maimouna [...]" (201).
Ousmane also confronts the question of African Literature, and whether it can exist any mediums other than indigenous African languages. Throughout the book, which was originally, written in French, Ousmane will say such and such said in French when the novel clearly is already in French, "and then, holding out his hand to the two whit men, he added in French, 'Good morning, gentlemen" (125). By doing this throughout the novel Ousmane implies that the original is truly not in French but only exists that way (and in its English form) to cater to us, almost in an act of charity. The lines from one of the main characters embody this greatly, "That is all I had to say, and I have said it in French so that he would understnad me, although I think this meeting should have been conducted in Oulof, since that is our language" (177). He has written his novel in French for the same reason that Bakayoko speaks in it, because unlike Bakayoko,(and Ousmane) the French despite being surrounded by Oulof never picked it up.
All in all Ousmane accomplishes creating literature that is worthy of the world reading it. Like so much of African Literature it is masterful, new and refreshing, but sad because it is not enjoyed as widely as it should be.

Shortly after WW2 the black rail workers on the Niger-Dakar line went on strike for six months. At the time, it was the longest labor strike in world history. This book is based on the events that surrounded the strike. It tells how community adapts as hunger and thirst set in. There are almost 45 characters in the book in three different settings, so the chapters become more like a set of short stories that are interconnected by the overall plot and a handful of selected characters. It is obvious soon into the story that the heroes are the women. They are the ones that continue to care for their families throughout the six months while the men wait idly for successful negotiations between the union and the company.

Ousmane makes it clear that the main conflict is not between races or the colonizer and the colonized, but it's a class issue that is complicated by these other matters. The strikers receive support from laborers in France, and they want to work for the railroad (which is French-owned), but for a dignified wage. The author acknowledges that the "machine" changed the way of life in West Africa, with the oldest characters being the only ones who can remember (vaguely) what it was like without the train to transport and distribute staples throughout the region.

This, I think, has become one of my favorites. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates a good book.

"God's Bits of Wood" is a well written novel about a 1947 strike on the Dakar-Niger railway (a real historical event). The story is seen through the eyes of the workers, their families, and railway management. Sembene Ousmane is both a novelist and film director, and his writing style might be called cinematic. Even in translation, this is a vivid depiction of Senegal (its various ethnic groups and their cultures), colonial Africa, and a struggle for worker's rights.

"God's Bits of Wood", which turns out to be what the women of this seiged west african community call their newborn children, is a vivid and well written novel detailing a strike of african railroad workers around 1947. The French controlled the entire western part of Africa at this point and had established a stronghold of French Colonialism based out of Dakar on the west coast of Africa. The problem getting supplies and such to their more eastern regions. The west african railroad was built to allow them to do this. Workers were virtually enslaved natives. This novel concentrates on the entire sequence of events surrounding the workers revolt particularly emphasizing the role of the women in the upkeep of the workers families during this time.

The railroad workers in Sengal strike against French colonialism. Their whole community and the people around them are involved and affect each other. Many political trends of the liberation struggle unravel the large picture of this collective effort in the epic march to Dakkar. Characters are vividly portrayed in warm, down to earth, yet poetical tones.

Ousmane builds a world on a grand scale. In this fictional account of the 1947-1948 strike on the Dakar-Niger Railroad, Ousmane attempts to cover the whole strike. He creates the leaders, the followers and the imperialists. From the ends of the line in Bamako and Dakar to every city in between, there are characters that are built to show the effects on not only the workers, but also, those who do not work on the line, farmers, shopkeepers and the women who depend on their men's income.

It is too grand for 240 pages, however. Each of the characters is incomplete and one only gets a snapshot. The slices are enjoyable, yet one wants more. Perhaps, if he had tried to make it deeper and wider the book would have come off as one of the greats. Instead, it seems more like an incomplete outline of what he wanted to write. I definitely do not put it as a must read. Instead, I would suggest many other books from Western Africa should be read first.

Truly one of my favorite novels. Sembene Ousmane vigorously engages the complex politics of post-colonial revolutionary struggle, while maintaining a humanistic artistic base of pure poetry. Also, Sembene Ousmane is one of a precious few male authors who creates dynamic, thinking, feeling female characters. Read this book--it's a gem.

Based on the 1947 strike that occurred in Senegal, God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane, explores the violent yet historic struggle between the French colonial powers and Africans railroad workers. The story begins with the emergence of a historic strike that occurred throughout a span of two years. Organized by a group of African men and women, they bound together and overcame social inequality and hardship. The characters within the novel resembled the reactions of the colonized continent and its resistance against the French colonial power. The idea of the African people uniting together and evolving as one became a symbolic theme for African nationalism and social justice.
As a member of the French Communist Party and a union organizer, Ousmane's work reflected his solutions to the conflict through the lenses of the working class. However, since the idea that colonialism was associated to capitalism, many African intellects rejected the notion of capitalism and found socialism comforting. Many of them like Ousemane, recognized that as one of the aftereffects of WWII, socialist movements were a necessity for the greater good of Africa. As the novel progresses, capitalism became the economic system that transformed Africa and changed the way people lived forever. However, it also created the social stratification between the people that colonized the continent, and the people who were colonized.
Like most European settlers and workers who arrived in Africa, it was a big piece of pie that many saw as a profit making opportunity. In the novel, Dejean, the French regional director of the railroad project, resembled the very nature of France's objective in Africa.
"Dejean had been an ambitious clerk, who arrived in the colony with the intention of making his fortune in the shortest possible time... That very morning he had refused to see the representatives of the workers. He knew that among them were the sons of the same men whose movement he had crushed nine years before, and he had no intention of yielding now... First they must go back to work; that was all there was to it" (P29).

Unwilling to accommodate and work out a resolution with the railroad workers, his arrogance and superiority marked him as the antagonist in the novel. It had been 20 years since his arrival to the Dark Continent. Colonial power had already extended its foothold deeply into the lives of Africans. Needless to say, these infrastructures that the colonial power has inserted upon Africans, created a dependency between the African workers and their French employers.
Smokes of Savanna also become a symbolic force that incorporated infrastructures created in the colony as a new way of life. As Bakayoko has described it in regards to his guidance to the strike, "I take a sense of absolute identity with everything that is in the train... My role then is nothing except to guide that machine to the spot where it is supposed to go. I don't know any longer whether it is my heart that is beating to the rhythm of the engine, or the engine to the rhythm of my heart. And for me, that is the way it has to be with this strike - we must all take on a sense of identity with it...'" (P210). The workers are now being identified like as an unstoppable force. And as they unite to become one, they must face the obstacles and fight like never before.
Although the novel's primary focus was on the progression of the strike, it also focused on a multitude of changing social ideologies and gender identities. Social construction of class and gender changed drastically from pre-colonial African traditions, purely as a result of the colonial projects. These projects created oppression and hardship for many of the Africans that were forced to live by this new system. Consequently, it created a new demand to change social construction of gender identity as well.
Although the author did not give any specific terms to label these men and women who evolved throughout the strike, the idea behind this change can be correlated to modern day social feminism. Colonial oppression forced Africans to strike out of their preconceived roles and traditions, and establish a new breed of men and women.
During the strike, the French employers attempt to discourage the strikers by shortening their resources through inserting pressure on local merchants. It was this hardship that men who were once the breadwinners began to realize the importance of their female companions. "And the men began to understand that if the times were bringing forth a new breed of men; they were also bringing forth a new breed of women" (P34). It was the women who went to salvage food for the family, and it was also the women who led the marches across the cities, and ousted the French soldiers in face to face confrontations. The changing role of African women during the strike can also be examined through the analysis of different female characters in the book.
The respectable housewife was someone who was stable and non-vocal, yet understood her place and importance in her home realm of domesticity. "'I don't know if there is anything that I can do. If my husband were here it would be different... but I am only a woman, and no one listens to a woman, particularly now.'" (P107) The quiet and submissive Assitan is the perfect example of a traditional African housewife who has accepted her role in this culture. She was to accept the decisions that have been made upon her in obedience, and in silence.
In contrast to Assitan, one of the most distinguishable yet important characters in the novel was Penda, who first emerged in the book as a sexual deviant. Because she couldn't have children, many women saw her as a threat in the community. However, as the strikes progressed on, her ambivalent status allowed her to rise to the top as being one of the most vocal and inspirational characters in the novel. Penda presented many feminist characteristics as her identity evolved through the second half of the novel. There is no better example than her speech in Place Aly N'Guer:
"`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 mark together to Dakar'" (P187)

Her determinacy allowed men and women in the cities to recognize how much power women had as companions of equal burden. And when it was necessary, they outperformed the men in many ways. They stand shoulder to shoulder with men in times of hardship, and in time of unity. Her emergence transformed as well as reversed the role of African women in a patriarchal society.
In contrast to Dejean, Bakayoko, who was one of the directors of the movement, represented as a voice of resistance for the African workers. In the beginning of the novel, Bakayoko emerged as a "man whose shadow reached into every house, touching every object... His words and his ideas were everywhere, and even his name filled the air like an echo," and yet he was no where to be found (P64). Most of Bakayoko's perspectives and ideas were very socialistic: he strongly believed that workers deserved to be treated as equal and that their European counterpart should not rob the people of their basic necessities. At the same time, he was more pro-feminism than any other male characters in the book. "'As for the men in Dakar looking for water for their families, the time when our fathers would have considered that demeaning is past'" (P188). Socialism highly recognizes the importance of providing equal benefits amongst workers, regardless of gender. Bakayoko's acknowledgement of this gender role transition for women from the patriarchal past, presents the reader his recognition of social importance of women in this transient society. This also underlines the distribution of social power to both genders that was not present prior to the strike.
The force that has been driving these men and women apart from their traditions was also the same force that redefined these men and women as workers of the colonies, instead of citizens. The train, Smokes of Savanna, became a symbolic object that transformed the way Africans lived under colonial capitalism.
"An unlimited strike, which, for many, along the whole length of the railroads, was a time for suffering, but for many was also a time for thought... an age had ended ... when Africa was just a garden for food. Now the machine ruled over their lands, and when they forced every machine within a thousand miles to halt they became conscious of their strength, but conscious also of their dependence. They began to understand that the machine was making them a whole new breed of men. It did not belong to them; it was they who belonged to it." (P32-33)

In the height of enlightenment, Africans began to reestablish and understand their role in this disfigured society. Recognizing the oppressive hardship and social injustice that have suddenly conquered their lives, Smokes of Savanna created a new identity to answer why many Africans became instruments of the colonial power. And ultimately, a redefinition of Africans: workers first and Africans second.
Even though it was capitalism that has created the machine, it was the men who were the workers that were forced to become dependent of it. This machine has provided them the means of living, and no way back to self-sustenance.
Nationalism is one of the main, if not perhaps the main theme of the novel. The idea of returning to pre-colonial Africa free of colonial oppression is now challenged by this new establishment of colonial infrastructures. However, as history may have already shown us, things will never be the same for many Africans. Their lives became intangible with colonial projects and infrastructures; it has already been deeply embedded into their daily lives. Many Africans went from being part of self-sustaining communities to selling labor and hardship to a greater power for the sole purpose of profiteering. After suffering from hardship and lack of political, social, and economic power, these railroad workers realize that the only way they can have a voice for equality was through unity and resistance. Although many lives were sacrificed, the strike was an outcry from the people that could not be ignored.
Although certain traditions persisted, the aftereffects of the European establishment changed the way Africans lived and behaved. For many men and women, it was a time to resist the hardship through recognizing the power of unity, as well as recognizing the power within themselves. Persistence paid off, and their resilience and unity against tyranny brought them to a final agreement between the workers and their employers. The strike became a historic landmark for African socialist movement, as the men and women of Africa look back with a sense of pride and unity.