Groundings in Saint Louis, Senegal: GAEC-Africa and the Political Economy of Ousmane Sembène
Note: While a Fulbright Scholar in Senegal during the 2023-2023 academic year, T.D. Harper-Shipman launched the Miami Institute’s forum, “Reckoning with Empire.” Since then, Harper-Shipman has been bringing to the Miami Institute’s community interviews with academics and activists “who are thinking actively with and against empire from different vantage points.” In this post, Harper-Shipman reflects on her experience working with the Group of Action and Critical Study—Africa (GAEC) in Saint Louis, Senegal, and shares— with the consent of GAEC students participating in a seminar on political economy— short essays and poems that “were produced at the end of the seminar. They are the culmination of debate, intense reflection, intellectual negotiations inspired by [the work of Ousmane] Sembène.”
Group of Action and Critical Study-Africa (GAEC) is an independent association of intellectuals, activists, and scholars headquartered in Saint Louis, Senegal. Its mission is to continue the decolonial project through the study and application of Black radical thought. Many of its seminars and community projects are the building blocks to bridge decolonial theory with Black radicalism, while breaking down divides between the local and the global.
In February 2024, GAEC decided to add political economy to the list of its activities. I worked with GAEC members who were interested in thinking through the connections between global Blackness, political economy, and imperialism. Ousmane Sembène was the perfect interlocutor. We decided to run it as a set monthly seminar. Each month we would convene in-person to watch and discuss a Sembène film and conclude the final seminar with a discussion of God’s Bits of Wood. These seminars were open to all GAEC members, students, instructors, and community members alike. Each seminar was structured around different thought exercises that encouraged participants to think thematically and discursively about the post-colonial nation-state, capitalism, resistance, gender, and labor--culled from Sembène. Thinking with and through Sembène on ideas of political economy was our attempt to engage him, not as a provincial writer of French West Africa, but as a writer of struggle and transformation.
Ousmane Sembène—director, writer, intellectual—was born in Ziguinchor, Senegal in 1923. His life covered the span of French colonialism, neocolonial-state-led development, and the consolidation of market-led development. So too does his literary and cinematic production. His books include God’s Bits of Wood (1960), Black Docker (1956), O Pays, Mon Beau Peuple! (1975), Tribal Scars (1974), L’harmattan (1980) and Guelwaar (1996.) Before cementing his life as a writer, he worked in the fishing sector, dock worker, and railway worker. These jobs gave him insights that underscored his ability to see colonialism as, in fact, a process of “thingification”. Sembène’s writings offer a scathing indictment of whiteness and its vicious logics. Perhaps more brilliantly, is how Sembène shows how dehumanizing colonialism was for the French, not for the Blacks. Sembène’s genius could not be contained in writing. Learning from the Soviet Union as other African filmmakers were doing during this time, he transformed some of his written work into film. His cinematic works include, La Noire de…(1960), Xala (1975), Le Mandat (1968), Moolade (2004), Ceddo (1977), and Faat-Kine (2000). A true man of the people, he used film as a means of reaching more people once he understood the widespread problem of literacy, especially in the former French colonies. Sembène’s staunch criticism of colonialism transformed into staunch criticism of the post-colonial African state. Avarice, contempt, and impotence contour Sembène’s writings on the post-colonial African state. He routinely mocked the unimaginative capacities of African elites, incapable of envisaging more than what Europe deemed the heights of human potential—wealth acquisition. If language is a refuge, as Patricia McFadden states, then Sembène offered his work as a shared refuge. It is a familiar but necessarily uncomfortable place from which to ponder our enduring condition and collectively imagine otherwise.
Although many label Sembène a Marxist, that label is far too myopic. In many ways, his work disrupts and departs from orthodox Marxism and several of its European variants. Like Amilcar Cabral and even Julius Nyerere, Sembène saw potential in the Dark proletariat’s contributions to revolutionary struggle, but he saw their role as limited. For Sembène, the Black worker’s ability to transform society relied largely on women and their reproductive labor. Clearly ahead of his time, Sembène narrated the upending of capitalism as Black women’s work. He illustrated the productive and reproductive conditions that would make Black women revolutionary agents of history, something neither Marxism nor its European variants deemed within the realm of possibility. His worked reached and inspired radical Black feminists, including Toni Cade Bambara. Not only were Black women agents of history in the world of Sembène, but so too were the disabled. In Xala, it was the “lumpenproletariat”, the disabled beggars whose fates were the first to be bartered off in the negotiations for independence and who symbolically brought the state to yield. Sembène’s views of struggle and freedom were far more expansive and far more inclusive than Marx.
It is not difficult to see the totality of Sembène’s work as a corpus of anti-imperialist. For this reason, Sembène’s work is useful to diagnose the on-going malady of empire today. For many of the students, watching Sembène’s films from the 1960s in 2024 was like watching the boundaries of time collapse. The conditions that compelled Sembène to write in the 1960s were alive and well in Senegal and the world over nearly 65 years later—immigration, bureaucratic malfeasance, political corruption, labor exploitation, the erosion of community, corrupt religious officials, and most importantly, French imperialism. The students navigated this unhinged temporality, recognizing that the tools they had been receiving from the university were wholly insufficient for the type of transformation that Senegal required. Students could not help recognizing the limitations of the academy and higher education, especially as they sat in the shadows cast by another bout of electoral violence, student protests, and student deaths. We met at the GAEC headquarters once a month from March 2024 to June 2024 as the 2024 Senegalese elections roiled in the background. These students, like generations before them, were living through another attempt by the Senegalese president to usurp liberal democracy. And they, like generations before them, refused this outcome. Sembène helped to make sense of this reality. His work helped us see that the political violence and loss of life was not a single flashpoint, but rather one of many flashpoints in the slowly burning embers of empire.
In cobbling together the seminar, we faced several hurdles, hurdles that reflected standing asymmetries in access and resources between the global North and global South. For example, we wanted to read God’s Bits of Wood (Les bouts de bois de dieu) but could not find enough copies in French. Our film options were also limited to what was available through our personal and professional networks. At times we struggled to find high quality versions of the films, further narrowing what we could and could not watch. Sometimes there were power outages and internet cuts, extending the length of the seminar sessions as we waited, hoping the service would return quickly. Putting the seminar together demonstrated the pressing need for institutions such as GAEC. Like the Thomas Sankara Center in Ouagadougou, GAEC is a rare space for young and burgeoning intellectuals to freely access a diversity of resources from Black and critical scholars. These spaces exist because their members recognized the intentional maligning of Black and critical scholarship within formal academic institutions as part of a project of epistemecide (Nyamjohn). Seminars, workshops, and library curation are just some of the ways that GAEC, like the Thomas Sankara Center, operates in the tradition of Walter Rodney’s “guerilla intellectual”. Working with limited capacity and limited resources was never a reason to abandon the work. It only fueled the sense of urgency.
Our discussions were dynamic, revelatory, and sadly affirming. We began with Le Mandate (Mandabi) from 1968. Le Mandate tells the story of Ibrahima Dieng who receives a money order from his nephew in France, who had migrated to the metropole looking for work. We interrogated corruption, spawned by life under capitalism and the post-colony and how corruption remains an enduring facet of Senegalese political life. We explored how bureaucracy renders people legible or illegible via language, literacy, and location. For example, the main character’s inability to speak and read in French automatically excluded him from the full benefits of citizenship in the country of his birth. We laughed, sometimes uncomfortably, as Sembène skillfully demonstrated the exclusionary logics of state bureaucracy. The following month, we watched Xala (1975). Xala details El Hadj Abdoukader Beye’s efforts to consummate his third marriage to a young girl. After throwing an extravagant and costly wedding with ill-gotten money from taxpayers and commerce, El Hadj is cursed with impotence, xala. Xala gave us a platform to discuss the power and legitimacy in modern state formation. We addressed the omnipresent white characters who perform handing the country over to Black leaders but remain in the background for every important decision—Sembène’s not-so-subtle nod to neocolonialism. We considered how the assortment of characters represented the struggle with nation-building in the post-colony and the gross wealth inequality that came with it. Finally, we concluded with Black Girl/La Noire de (1966). Douana’s search for work takes her to France where she becomes enslaved as a domestic worker for a white French family. She asks herself repeatedly, “what am I?”, looking to question and affirm her humanity against inhumane treatment. The conditions that gave way to Douana’s imprisonment remain a stubborn fixture of Senegalese life—poverty, high unemployment, high cost-of-living, and an over-valorization of France. These were just some of the themes and connections that the students sussed out in the seminar.
The short essays and poems that follow were produced at the end of the seminar. They are the culmination of debate, intense reflection, intellectual negotiations inspired by Sembène. They are not all laudatory. Engagement does not always mean wholesale and uncritical adoption of an intellectual’s work. The students demonstrate this in their writings. Engagement means thoughtful interrogation with the ideas for the purposes of mutual enrichment. We hope these essays provide the basis for future engagement.
Abdoulaye Dièdhiou
C’est dans la même famille que ça pleure, depuis longtemps.
Mon nom est Abdou. Ma sœur s’appelle Diouna. Elle, nos parents et moi, vivons ensemble. Tout est bien, jusqu’ici. Diouna a des rêves. C’est depuis toujours. Elle rêve d’une vie meilleure pour nos parents. Tout est bien, jusqu’ici. Ma sœur n’a pas fait d’études, comme on dit. Mais, elle parle Joola. Le destin vint à elle, un jour, sous la forme d’une file, toute de jeunes femmes, à la recherche d’un travail. Le destin avait les allures d’une européenne, et la promesse de larges avenues de liberté et d’or. C’est dur le chemin du rêve au réveil dans la grisaille. Et, là, rien ne va plus dans ce réveil devenu une prison imprenable. Chez nous, l’attente toujours. Diouna pense à nous. Son retour sera faste et fêté. Puis vint, la lettre. Diouna ne rentrera plus jamais. Ce matin, je ne sais quoi faire de mon balaie dans les rues de Paris.
Mon nom est Diouna. J’étais partie à la conquête de mon rêve, je le croyais tellement loin et j’ai trébuché au milieu de la nuit. Je l’avais laissé, chez nous auprès de mon frère et de nos parents. Tout était bien, c’est vrai. Abdou est parti. Lui, aussi. Lui, il avait fait l’école, il voulait continuer ses études. Mais, il voulait aussi aider nos parents. Une histoire banale de travail à la tête. On lui dit un jour, que s’il savait s’y faire avec un balai alors le travail était pour lui et qu’il devait décider vite. Il décida son devoir, pour l’honneur de notre oncle Ibrahima Dieng et l’amour de notre mère.
Ibrahima Guissé
Je suis...
Né en 1960, je suis venu au monde tout heureux. J'étais l'espoir de tout un pays, de tout un peuple : le Sénégal. J’étais un radieux avenir que rien ne pouvait compromettre. Ma réalisation était toute tracée. Voilà que j’ai été confié à mes frères qui clamaient qu’ils me réaliseraient de la plus belle des manières. Ils s'appelaient : élites. Entre leurs mains, je devais devenir ce que j’étais venu pour être : un soin pour tous.
J'étais le rêve de soi, le moteur de la volonté de soi. Fourvoyé, j’étais devenu entre leurs mains. Elles me retenaient dans le rêve tantôt, et, d’autrefois, dans l’horizon.
Je devais devenir ce que j’étais venu pour être : une justice pour tous. Alors, fallait-il abandonner ? Me faire oublier ? Rester rêve ou horizon ? j’avais décidé d’exister, donc de résister, donc de vivre.
Je suis parti avec Abdou, émigré africain en France. Une de vie de souffrance, pour un peu de mieux au pays. Donc je me fis mandat, pour rentrer au pays. J’étais à Ibrahima Dieng. Je l’ai cherché longuement. Il m’a longuement cherché. Nous ne nous sommes jamais trouvés. Mes frères nous ont joué des tours. Ils s'appelaient : élites. Ils s’appellent toujours élites.
J’ai remonté le temps. Je me suis réincarné Diouana, âme d'amour et de liberté, tombée morte de déception dans le froid et la neige.
Depuis, j'erre dans la nature. Je me faufile dans les entrailles de l’histoire de temps à autres. Je teste toujours ma chance, je suis toujours dans l’espoir de ma réalisation.
Assane Bâ
Voleurs de mandat, voleurs de vie
Pourquoi nous ont-ils forcé cette vie nouvelle ? Une vie qui n’est pas la nôtre. Une vie qui a tout changé de l’ancienne. Celle de la quiétude. Je ne reconnais plus la tradition d’ici. Toutes ces nouvelles façons, toutes ces nouvelles manières, toutes ces nouvelles de… de…de…
Des nouvelles façons de communiquer dans une langue qui n’est pas la nôtre. Une nouvelle langue qu’ils ont apprise. De nouveaux habits. Ils se déguisent avec. C’est pour ne plus nous ressembler. Nous ne leurs ressemblons plus. On ne se ressemble plus. Ils ne veulent plus. C’est pour que désormais, ils ne croient plus à notre parole. Notre parole troquée pour le livre. Le livre qu’ils ont emprunté.
Sans pitié, sont-ils devenus. Transformés en faucheurs de mandat. Mon mandat à moi. Moi, Ibrahima Dieng, ton cousin à toi, Mbaye. Toi aussi avec les loups, toi parmi les loups, loups toi-même.
Mes papiers, dites-vous ? Papiers comme carte d’identité : Nom, prénom, date et lieu de naissance, nom du père, nom de la mère, domicile, empreinte. Vous ne savez pas si je suis né déjà ou depuis, et pourtant je suis bien devant vous. Je suis bien devant vous, mais vous voulez encore tout savoir. Vous ne voulez rien savoir. Vous savez déjà tellement tout. Tellement rien.
Vous avez volé le mandat. Le mandat de mon neveu, Abdou.
Ahmadou diouldé Diallo
J’entends…
Un masque dans La noire de…
Que voulait l’enfant qui le portait au visage ?
Courait-il à la suite de l’homme blanc ?
Et, lui, l’homme blanc, que fuyait-il ?
J’entends. Écoutez le vent.
J’entends. L’âme de Diouana murmurant
Birago a dit, les morts ne sont pas morts,
Ils sont dans la pénombre, dans les bois de Dieu Geno l’Éternel.
Dans cette sculpture africaine.
D’une beauté frappante et non illusoire.
J’entends l’âme de Diouana murmurant
BIOS:
Assane Ba was born in Ndiamb Fall, a village not far from the town of Louga. He is a Master 2 student in Social Sciences of Religions at the Universite Gaston Berger de Saint Louis. Assane BA is the author of a case study on <<the dreadlocks hairstyle >> in 2022. Currently, to complete his dissertation, he is focusing his research on issues linked to the relationship between <<Religions and Races>>. In addition to these studies, Assane BA remains very involved in social and humanitarian organizations: he is a volunteer with Gaec (Groupe d'Etude Critiques Afrique), the Red Cross and MOJDEL (Mouvement des Jeunes pour le Développement de l'Enfant), working to improve health and education in Senegal.
DIEDHIOU Abdoulaye is a young Senegalese boy born on 01/12/2000 in BROGHOUNE in the Sédhiou department in southern Senegal. At the age of 05, his parents enrolled him in a French school, followed by a Koranic school 2 years later in his native village, BROGHOUNE. Diedhiou spent his childhood and his school career in this southern part (Casamance and Gambia) of Senegal. But when he passed his Baccalauréat in 2019 at the Lycée de Diacounda (Sédhiou), it opened doors for him to discover other parts of the country. He then moved on to the Centre d'Etudes des Religions at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 2022. Fascinated by the issues of witchcraft, death and funeral rites in traditional African societies, Diedhiou worked on a case study in the third year of his degree on the theme of “death and funeral rites in traditional African societies: the case of the Manjack of the village of Kamoya Kabeumbe”. Enrolled in a Master's program since 2023, he is directing his dissertation research towards Guinea Bissau, the home of the Manjack people, on the same theme. He is also a member of the Groupe d'action et d'étude Critique-Africa (GAEC-Africa).
Ahmadou Diouldé Diallo is a Senegalese-Guinean born on February 27, 2001 in the “Santos” neighborhood near “American Tali” in Ouakam, where he grew up. With a baccalauréat in the S2 series, a passion for writing and an interest in the intellectual and cultural resources that can contribute to African affirmation in this globalized world, he joined the Social Sciences of Religions department of the large UFR Crac of the Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis in 2021. Diouldé is currently a brilliant student enrolled in the second year of his master's degree. He is interested in the role of religion in nation-building processes in Africa. Diouldé has produced a case study on the theme: “Essaie sur la nation sénégalaise: le cas Wolofo-mouride dans la question socio-politique du pays”. He is also the author of a poem entitled Feu (Fire), exhibited as a written and painted work of art at an event organized by GAEC-Africa, of which he has been an active member since 2021. Designated valedictorian at Crac after obtaining his bachelor's degree in 2023, the young pan-African student's ambition is to build on this success and go on to write his thesis. He wants to follow in the footsteps of the great scientists who have served the world from Africa.
Ibrahima Guissé is a newly admitted Master 2 student at the Centre d'études des religions de l'Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis. He was born in Saint Louis on January 18, 2002. He grew up and did his early studies in the same city. In June 2023, he traveled to Casamance to write a case study. He was researching Sheikh Ousmane Sountou Badji's Islamic revolution in Casamance. He is currently engaged in metaphysical reflections (between man and his environment) as part of the preparation of his master's thesis. He has been a volunteer with the Groupe d'Action et d'Étude Critique- Africa since 2021.
T.D. Haper-Shipman is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, Chair & Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. Prior to Davidson, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her first book, Rethinking Ownership of Development in Africa, was published in 2019 with Routledge Press. She has published in Third World Quarterly, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Philosophy and Global Affairs, and International Studies Review. She has also published public-facing work in Pambazuka, The Global African Worker, Miami Institute for the Social Sciences and Africa is a Country. During the 2023-2023 academic year, Harper-Shipman was a Fulbright Scholar in Senegal working on a project titled “Suturing Reproduction and the Nation: the politics of family planning in West Africa.”
