"Il y a un spectacle plus grand que la mer..."

Out of all the weekly topics we have discussed in our class, The Immigrant has perhaps proved to be the most interesting to me. This has everything to do with our reading of The Belly of the Atlantic and Diome’s poetically beautiful writing ability. As a student who is eager to continue learning about African history and modern-day African political development, I was enthralled by Salie’s narrative, which is so deeply entrenched in the aftermath of Western colonialism. Diome effectively used Salie as a way to navigate the struggles of living out a complex ethnic identity, while also using Niodior’s community members as a way to broaden the novel’s conflict to one of finding an independent national identity amidst continuing colonial ties.

What piqued my interest the most was this concept of community within Senegal, and perhaps within Africa at large. Diome repeatedly highlighted the norm of familial economic responsibility via marriage and pursuit of work in France, where greater opportunities awaited. This brought to mind the concept of ‘rights-in-persons’ that is starkly in contrast to the Western notion of liberty and individual freedom. In the West, we are in control of our own bodies and our own choices—we carry the burdens of our faults and the rewards of our successes. In Africa, traditional practices often revolve around the idea that each person’s rights belong to the community of people with which he or she lives. In return for the shelter, food, and living that a community provides, this person offers up the rights to their body as laborer, caretaker, homemaker, etc. In the West, we see a young woman given away to marry a wealthy man by her parents and we are quick to cry, “Slavery!” because we are angry that this woman had no choice in the matter. Of course, in Africa, not only is this considered normal, but there exist legal structures that derive its rulings from this system of ‘rights-in-persons’. Making an assumption that human slavery equates to unjust servitude encourages Western thinkers and observers to view rights-in-persons ignorantly rather than learn the cultural practice and put aside the bias of one’s own worldview. The antithesis of the Western notion of slavery is indeed ‘freedom’ and the idea that one cannot be bought from or sold to another individual, much like the 1926 definition from the League of Nations.[1] In pre-colonial Africa, however, being ‘free’ in the Western sense results in being kinless and a lack of belonging within the structure of society. At odds with each other are Western values and African traditions. So how do countries like Senegal begin to build themselves up as an independent nation when the West refuses to give up ethnocentric mindsets?

In Salie’s case, perhaps it can be said that she was always ‘kinless,’ even from birth. Her very existence was stigmatized, thanks to her genetic history. And so she is doomed to live in a state of limbo, where her identity is neither accepted in Senegal, nor in France. The perpetual ‘immigrant,’ Salie does not easily conform to state borders, but rather lives fluidly like the ocean. Like Victor Hugo wrote (in French, of course), the interior of the soul is one spectacle that is grander than the sea itself.[2]

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[1] Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers, Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 4.

[2] Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (New York: Carleton, 1863), 127.