Striking African Train Workers And Their Families example essay topic

The evolution of the strike causes an evolution in the self-perceptions of the Africans themselves, one that is most noticeable in the women of Bamako, Thies, and Dakar. These women go from seemingly standing behind the men in their lives, to walking alongside them and eventually marching ahead of them. When the men are able to work the jobs that the train factory provides them, the women are responsible for running the markets, preparing the food, and rearing the children. But the onset of the strike gives the role of bread-winner-or perhaps more precisely bread scavenger-to the women. Women go from supporting the strike to participating in the strike. Eventually it is the women that march on foot, over four days from Thies to Dakar.

Many of the men originally oppose this women's march, but it is precisely this show of determination from those that the French had dismissed as 'concubines' that makes clear the strikers' relentlessness. The women's march causes the French to understand the nature of the willpower that they are facing, and shortly after the French agree to the demands of the strikers. Perhaps no female character better captures transformation of the African female than Penda. Penda is first introduced as an unmarried women who breaks custom by having 'periodic escapades' with men (Ousmane 137). But the experience of the strike turns what once was anger and stubborn independence to dedication and selfless communalism. Her strength of spirit leads the union officials to seek her out to be in charge of the line distributing rations to the striking families.

Penda's firmness of purpose proves surprising and implacable to those that try to use her reputation for promiscuity against her. Penda goes so far as to publicly slap a man who chooses to pat her behind (Ousmane 142). It is Penda who gives voice to the women's desire to march to Dakar to support the strike. It is also Penda who shifts between cheerleader and drill instructor in order to keep the women walking and together during the journey. The novel itself draws its name in part from Penda's method of keeping the march together. The local tradition holds that the practice of counting adults and children directly brings misfortune and possibly death.

Instead of counting people, the people of the region count God's bits of wood. Penda willfully violates this tradition and begins counting women directly, in order to prevent some of the marchers from surrendering to fatigue and quitting. Even though Penda is later killed in a fourth clash between the African women and the armed French forces, her example and resolve encourages the woman to complete their march to Dakar. The Rule of the Machine As the strike begins to take effect, the striking workers, particularly Baka yoko, come realize how industrialization and the machine have changed their lives.

While the men can recall their elders telling them of a time 'when Africa was just a garden for food' the stoppage of the machine makes them 'conscious of their strength, but conscious also of their dependence' (Ousmane 32). Had they lived in the Africa that existed before the coming of the French, the men and women of the strike could have fed themselves from the natural abundance of Africa. But beyond making the families dependent on the machine and its masters for food, the machine has also forced the men to rely upon the machine for their sense of purpose. Without the sound of the factory and the schedule of maintaining the train, the men feel a temporary emptiness. In God's Bits of Wood, the striking African train workers and their families are primarily speakers of the African language Ou olof.

As a result, learning French is not necessary in their struggle to organize amongst themselves 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 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.

The traditional roles for African women are clearly portrayed -- especially through Niakoro and Assi tan. But things are changing: 'The women became conscious that a change was coming for them, as well' (33). This is made clear through characters like Ramatoulaye, N'Deye, and Penda -- and in the end, all of the women who march on Dakar. The French regard the differences between Africans and Europeans as cultural, as well as racial, as a matter of superior and inferior. Giving in to striker demands, e.g. would be 'a ratification of the customs of inferior beings' (181). The Africans, on the other hand, switch the terms to class: 'You do not represent a nation or a people here, but simply a class.

We represent another class, whose interests are not the same as yours' (182). Think about the way these 'conditions' (categories) interact in the novel -- how they are tied together in the conflicts and changes Sem bene portrays.