Reflections on Ambiguity

"Go find out, among them, how one can conquer without being in the right." With these words, Samba Diallo, the main character of Cheikh Hamidou Kane's Ambiguous Adventure, leaves a life of the spirit in Senegal to pursue a life of the mind in Paris. The questions that Kane poses are important - How should one interact with a foreign power imposed on one's culture? Can one learn from the new culture without sacrificing the old?

My 11 year old brother Lamine is in the habit of showing me his school notebook from time to time. The teacher will write copious notes on the blackboard, which the students will copy word for word. This kind of rote learning came to West Africa grace a French colonization. One particular night I was reading Lamine's notes on the Berlin Conference, in which it was decided which European powers got what piece of Africa.

"Do you think this was a good thing?" I asked Lamine simply in French.

He thought for a minute, then clicked his tongue. "That's not in my notes."

"I know, but what do you think?"

After another long pause, "Sure. The Europeans brought civilization."

As I write this, I'm sipping an iced coffee in a cafe in Thies. Yes, the Europeans brought civilization - a very foreign one - to be superimposed over what was already here. What of Sundiata and the great Malian empire? Mansa Mussa and his golden trek to Mecca? Or even more recent heroes like Cheikh Amadou Bamba or Lat Dior. In the same town where I am enjoying my coffee, Lat Dior resisted the French rail system linking Dakar to St. Louis because he knew this would strengthen their hold on the country.

But let me bring this back to Lamine. One night, sitting under the stars with family (one of the rare moments we weren't watching tv) I posed a riddle -

"The rich need me,
The poor have me,
If you eat me, you'll die."

My host family thought and thought and finally, from under a blanket on a cot, Lamine popped out his head and answered, "Nothing."

At the end of Ambiguous Adventure, Samba Diallo returns to Senegal at his father's request. He comes home to find himself caught between two cultures - he is no longer the pious boy of his youth who would recite the Koran and pray five times a day, nor did he care for the Western culture which he found devoid of any soul. Kane resolves these questions by killing off Samba. But it is a finality filled with peace. The angel of death comforts him, "You are entering the place where there is no ambiguity." For Samba, as with many others, there is a surety in reciting the words of the Prophet, a surety in the ritual of prayer, a surety in religion. "Be attentive, for here, now, you are arriving."