“[Alioune] was annoyed by the way Bakayoko had spoken about Beaugosse, because he knew the story of N’Deye Touti and the boy. He lay down again and said very softly, as if he were talking to himself, ‘You know, the difficult thing about you is that although you understand the problems very well, you don’t understand men—or if you do understand them, you never show it. But you expect them to understand every word you say, and if they don’t, you lose your temper. Then they become timid, because they know they are not as intelligent as you are, and they don’t like to be made fools of. So the result is that no one dares to do anything when you are not around…I ought to tell you that I wrote a letter to Lahbib about it. You were already on the way here when it was sent, but now you won’t be surprised if he mentions it to you’” (209-210).
This paragraph is surprising because it is the first outright criticism of Bakayoko, who for most of the book is resoundingly praised by the strikers. However, upon further inspection, Alioune’s statement turns out to be dead-on. In his response to Alioune, Bakayoko admits to having lost his sense of perspective, comparing himself to a train conductor who thinks only of the final destination and not the concerns of the passengers. The situation Alioune refers to regarding Beaugosse and N’Deye is representative of Bakayoko’s shortcomings. N’Deye is strongly attracted to Bakayoko and Beaugosse (who wants to marry her) is jealous and resentful. And yet Bakayoko is oblivious to this insignificant (to him) human drama and cruelly rejects N’Deye’s later suggestion of marriage. In addition, he doesn’t recognize that all of the intelligence and knowledge he has gathered from Western political books has put up a wall between him and the people, even though he is using those ideas for their benefit. While the strikers may admire Bakayoko, they feel closer to leaders like Alioune and Lahbib who are more attuned to their interests. They were the ones who were around during the times of deprivation and hardship when Bakayoko was nowhere to be found.
Of course, despite his flaws, Bakayoko plays a key role in the strike. It is suggested that he is the strike’s originator and he definitely traveled extensively in an effort to convince all of the towns along the railway to join in. He is successful in persuading the other worker’s unions of French-occupied West Africa to join the strike, which tips the scales and leads to victory. He provides the ideological underpinnings of the strike, but theory must coexist with reality, and as Alioune says, he does not understand men (or women for that matter). Bakayoko has some radical ideas about how society should be, but he’s out of touch with how it is. Strike leaders like Lahbib are necessary intermediaries between Bakayoko’s ideology and the reality of the people, without them it would never work.
When the strike is over, Bakayoko returns home and leaves the strike leaders to deal with the practical arrangements that must be made. He had an important role to play, but Ousmane leaves no doubt in the readers’ minds that he is a flawed and limited character. He is not the savior that he appeared to be at the beginning of the novel. To drive home his point about the tension between theory and reality (or Bakayoko and the common man), Ousmane writes (at the end of Alioune and Bakayoko’s late night conversation), “A voice from the other side of the office interrupted [Bakayoko]. ‘What you are saying is very interesting, but also very tiring. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day’” (210).
Work Cited
Ousmane, Sembene. God's Bits of Wood. Essex, UK: Heinemann, 1970. Print.
Heidi,
ReplyDeleteI find Bakayoko to be a very interesting character as well. It seems, as you touch upon, that he is a symbol for the strike and does play key roles in getting the strikers, as well as the women, into action. In my mind, Bakayoko is not even necessarily attached to the strike itself on an emotional level. He is somewhat detached from all that he has seen and encountered on his journey and through his position as a leader. Perhaps to protect himself, he has neglected the humanity of those he encounters. It is only Penda and few others that truly affect him personally in the novel, enough to make him want to quit. In the end of the novel, he has changed though (presented when he asks his wife if she would like to learn French, too).
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ReplyDeleteI find your character synopsis compelling and realistic because it reminds me of other strong characters in the novel who attempt to provoke different kinds of change, without accomplishing their desired aim, or doing so less perfectly than Bakayoko. A blatant example is Tiemoko, who, in his own way, understudied Bakayoko from a distance by reading anything he could get his hands on. One of his aims was to assume a level of power among the people that would engender a much higher level of respect than he was accustomed to because he thought that he would suddenly become intellectually compelling. But a masters degree in rhetoric doesn’t come from a weekend course, it takes years of concentrated practice. This inadequacy could mean that he wasn’t that strong a character after all for the practical reason that he didn’t stack up to Bakayoko. The “intellectual” (which is not always an admirable thing in some cases) distance between Bakayoko and Beaugosse is even more startling, and can be reasonably argued that it was one cause of his jealousy. The trademark response of a jealous person is to either compete with the person they are jealous of or to mock them. Beugosse did the later.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, despite these imperfect examples, Bakayoko’s intellect didn’t place him above his responsibility to others. As a matter of fact it increased it all the more. Yet this evaded him, but why? For one, his connection with the people was his own limitation, which raises a few questions. Is persuasiveness, in and of itself, enough to effect revolutionary change? And if not, what is lacking? I think one answer is reasonably simple, but unfortunately it is the single greatest thing that was avoided by those in “God’s Bit’s of Wood” with the ability to economically strategize. A good leader should listen to their people. Is it possible that Bakayoko would have been more compelling if the women were allowed to have all of their questions answered one by one, or come up with answers deriving from bits and pieces of his insight, or even if children like Ad’jibid’ji were allowed to ask him a question during one of his speeches? There would be no harm in any of this, but letting women speak seems to be the largest imaginary risk of all...besides outright racism from the toubabs.
However, it might just be that the public enthusiasm was lacking for Bakayoko because for honest, hard-working people to adoption Post-colonial ideals, or any set of ideals, requires nearly infinite patience and support, which almost everyone can’t supply for the mere fact that they are starving at the moment and need practical solutions to their immediate problems before having to solve any others. You can’t teach someone how to do calculus without first showing them how to do advanced algebra, which is no fault of theirs, only the fault of the leader thinking of their knowledge in an elitist/possessive way and flaunting what they know instead of teaching it. Thus, the lack of willing teachers in the towns along the railroad, which provoked individuals like Ad'jibid'ji and Tiemoko to teach themselves whatever they could. The novel's siting of these infrequent occurrences, combined with the theme of intellectual neglect from Bakayoko typifies the events surrounding these people as realistic experiences.