Commencing in 1797 in the kingdom of Segu in West Africa, an oblong tract of land south of Timbuktu and surrounding Bamako, now the capital of Mali, Conde’s novel unearths the traditions, struggles, conflicts, and triumphs of a family and its culture over the course of a century. It portrays the Bambara people during the spread of Islam from the east, the slave trade from the west, and the introduction of trade and commerce from Europe.
Segu (first published in 1984 in French, and published in
English in 1987) is based around the patriarch of the Traore family, Dousika,
and his four sons: Teikoro and Naba from his first wife, Nya; Siga, the
offspring of Slave, his third wife; and Malobali from his fourth of five wives.
The novel is structured in five parts: not representative of his five wives,
but of his son’s migratory journeys and personal growth as the cultures of West
Africa fuse and interweave, rise and decline, causing the sons to question
their identities.
The kingdom of Segu, steeped in customary animist beliefs,
and in the traditions of story-telling, oral history, and griots’ singing
chronicles, is changing. This is initially seen through the eyes of the eldest
son, Tiekoro Traore, when he witnesses, with great fascination, a Muslim for
the first time, who is penning words with a pointed stick and ink – Teikoro is
seeing the “magic” of writing. Siga, the third son, notices that “in the past
all a man needed was a bit of willpower to keep wives, children, and younger
brothers in order. Life was a straight line drawn from the womb of a woman to
the womb of the earth … But now the menace of new ideas and values lurked
everywhere.” For Malobali, who had never seen a European before, “he couldn’t
understand their admirers, for he saw in them a danger worse than that of the
Fulani and all the other Muslims combined.” So, while some sons see change as exciting,
others are confused by it or fear it.
Conflicts are presented between family members, between
different religious and cultural communities, and internally as the sons decide
whether to convert to Islam or defend their traditions in which there is a
sense of kinship between man and nature; whether to relinquish their power and join
the traders and merchants or to remain within their aristocratic agricultural heritage;
and whether to fight or succumb to slave traders.
This epic tale is detailed, descriptive, historical,
compelling, and transformative. The novel is beautifully written in which the
landscape, characters, and cultures reveal the intersection of human reality
and the divergence of their dreams. Segu is a distinct, compact kingdom,
ritualistic and proud, in which the king is the custodian of knowledge and
secrets. Islam undermines the king’s position in which the community is now
introduced to the individual concept of the “will to truth.” When forced to
confront individualism due to societal and cultural changes, internal and
external, the sons must reflect on their stable sense of self and their new
identities within new communities. “I am Bambara from Segu” loses its sense of
meaning over time.
Tiekoro and Siga are contrasts in religious beliefs, for
Tiekoro choses to convert to Islam, thus starting the major conflict within the
family, but their fates are similar. As Siga discovers, “Tiekoro’s fate and his
own were as inseparable as night and day. Or as sun and moon, for they both
fill the world with light and life.” Siga’s idea of starting a tannery was
horrific to Tiekoro, who was a true Bambara nobleman in which agriculture was
the only occupation of worth and the hierarchical ownership of land the only
value of a man. For Malobali, he was paid to fight, “but too often his arms had
been turned against the innocent” and contemplated Christianity. Naba has an
altogether different fate, dying young, followed by Malobali, confused and
conflicted.
The personal dilemmas are “infinitely forlorn, infinitely
disturbing.” Sometimes a son emerges temporarily the victor, sometimes he
doesn’t. When victorious over one dilemma, such as Islam, they are faced with
another, such as western imperialism. All the while there is love and loss. Sometimes
the changes are gradual and progressive, but mostly they are violent, impacting
the kingdom and individuals in one forceful shock. In all cases, family
cohesion is torn as sons are uprooted.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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