Sembene Ousmane, by Dr Z Pallo Jordan, Minister of Arts and Culture
9 June 2007
It is with deep sadness that we hear of the passing away of the great
revolutionary trade unionist and artist Sembene Ousmane. Sembene was born on 1
January 1923 in Ziguinchor, Senegal. He worked from a very young age in various
manual jobs and taught himself to read and write in French. He published his
first novel in 1956, "Le Docker Noir" (The Black Docker), drawing from his own
experiences as a dockworker in Marseilles, France. Sembene's major contribution
to the development of African literature includes five novels, five collections
of short stories. He was also a major film maker, he directed numerous films,
four shorts, nine features and four documentaries.
Sembene's voracious reading included Marxist-Leninist classics, fiction and
history. He also visited numerous public libraries, theatres, and attended
seminars, educating himself. His comrade and friend Bernard Worms said of him,
"Sembene was a well-rounded intellectual and an exceptionally cultured
humanist". He participated in the protest movements against the colonial war in
Vietnam (1953) and the Korean War (1950â1953) and supported the Algerian
National Liberation Front in its struggle for independence from France
(1954-1962). He believed that friendship and solidarity should be the ties that
bind the peoples of the world together. He also worked selflessly to educate
and liberate the community of mostly illiterate and "apolitical" African
workers buffeted into the margins of French society.
Sembene was an informed social critic and provided the world with an
alternative knowledge of Africa. He witnessed the masses of workers including
women, exploited and silenced by the combined external forces of colonialism
and the internal yoke of the African "traditionâ. He was deeply aware of the
urgent need for political and social change in Africa and, like Palestinian
writer Edward Said, interrogated various issues of oppression and its impact.
He used the medium of words and film to invest in Africa, and indeed the world.
His love for Africa is evident in all his work.
A famous and popular novel of his is "God's Bits of Wood", a fictional
recreation of a comprehensive African railroad workers' strike against their
French colonial bosses. That was followed by "Voltaique" or "Tribal Scars", a
collection of short stories. In one of the stories he shows how slave-hunters
let go a young woman because of blemishes on her body and how the people then
made it an integral part of their methods to resist slavery. "The news spread
for leagues around and over the years and centuries a diversity of scars
appeared on the bodies of our ancestors â And this is how our ancestors came to
have tribal scars. They refused to be slaves."
He did not spare African rulers. He remained critical of post-colonial
Africa for failing to meet many of her peoples' expectations, where injustice
continues to prevail.
Sembene Ousmane is recognised as the Father of African cinema and has
received countless awards and distinctions. Like with his books he also used
the medium of film as a critical and an educational tool without compromising
its aesthetics and the artistic impulse. His work promoted freedom and social
justice and aspired to restoring pride and dignity to the African people. He
was a founder member of Pan African Federation of Film Makers 1969/1970. South
Africa joins the rest of Africa and the world in paying our deepest respects to
a great revolutionary artist, Sembene Ousmane.
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
9 June 2007
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za)
