"All right. We are a bunch of clodhoppers. Who owns the banks? The insurance companies? The factories? The businesses? The wholesale trade? The cinemas? The bookshops? The hotels? All these and more besides are out of our control. We are nothing better than crabs in a basket. We want the ex-occupier's place? We have it. This Chamber is the proof. Yet what change is there really in general or in particular? The colonialist is stronger, more powerful than ever before, hidden inside us, here in this very place. He promises us the left-overs of the feast if we behave ourselves. Beware anyone who tries to upset his digestion, who wants a bigger profit. What are we? Clodhoppers! Agents! Petty traders! In our fatuity we call ourselves 'businessmen'! Businessmen without funds."="
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
El Hadji, p. 84
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ousmane_Semb%C3%A8ne
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Ousmane Sembène
15 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Ousmane Sembène →
Related Quotes
"God forgive me, I had forgotten Maimouna."
"Today, I will bring back something to eat."
"The faces seemed to have lost all trace of personality. As if some giant eraser had rubbed out their individual trait…"
"Striking brutally through the cloud curtain, like the beam from some celestial projector, a single ray of light lashe…"
"I told you yesterday, Rama, that I couldn’t do anything more for you, or for any of the striker’s families."
"El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was what one might call a synthesis of two cultures: business had drawn him into the Europe…"
"To his surprise he found himself already regretting this third marriage. Should he get a divorce this very morning? H…"
"Just as nature re-imposes its life on ruins with small tufts of grass, the ancestral atavism of fetishism was being r…"
"In our country, this so-called 'gentry', imbued with their role as master—a role which began and ended with fitting o…"
"It is worth knowing something about the life led by urban polygamists. It could be called geographical polygamy, as o…"