We Won't Budge: An African Exile in the World

Rating:
Summary: An African observer like no other
Review: Having read Professor Diawara's "IN SEARCH OF AFRICA" and been struck by his outspokenness, I was left with a puzzling question. How could he rail in that book against racism and exploitation in the West, while also taking African societies to task for failing to get on board with modernity? I'm used to views advocating that Africans be encouraged to respect their own traditions, to "be themselves"; the notion that certain aspects of Africans' cultural identity are holding them back is provocative, especially coming from an African intellectual like Diawara.

He elaborates on this seeming contradiction more fully in "WE WON'T BUDGE," while fulminating at length on the very divergent meanings of difference in French and American societies. His focus is modern migration, which he analyzes through his own experience as a young migrant in Paris and then in Washington in the 1970s, then again in Paris (now as a tenured professor and visiting researcher) at the turn of the millennium. Through his remembered interactions in all these settings with friends and family, with policemen and poets, with bureaucrats and bosses, he helps the reader come to grips with the meaning of exile.

"Exile" is an apt word for Diawara's life: like James Baldwin, or even Hemingway, it's something he's chosen, rather than something forced upon him. He's neither a refugee nor a labor migrant looking only to support his family back home. In fact he's severed many of the bonds that connected him with Mali, his native country. He's turned his back on his family's religion and tried to ignore its demands that he conform to what he considers stifling customs. For this reason it's refreshing to read his perspective on migration, identity, and home in the modern world.

Diawara's voice can be jarring, however, as well as contradictory at times. While he wears the mantle of ethnographer in telling his story, he doesn't tell us what his narrative authority rests on. In "WE WON'T BUDGE," all the dialogues with various persona appear to be reproduced verbatim, but I suspect they are merely paraphrased since he never mentions recording his conversations with people. Maybe he occasionally puts words in his interlocutors' mouths to illustrate a point. Moreover, he shows us the full text of letters he both wrote and received while a young man in Paris and DC. Did he keep copies of letters he sent, or get them back from their recipients? To do either shows tremendous ego; more likely, he's paraphrasing again to the best of his recollection. By presenting these memories as hard fact, Diawara tries to come off as both social scientist and memoirist, blending objective analysis with subjective experience.

This approach doesn't always work. Does the author contradict himself? Very well then, he contradicts himself. Nonetheless, or maybe because of this, "WE WON'T BUDGE" is a fascinating, quixotic, and lucid glimpse into the life of an African exile in the modern world.

Rating:
Summary: An African observer like no other
Review: Having read Professor Diawara's "IN SEARCH OF AFRICA" and been struck by his outspokenness, I was left with a puzzling question. How could he rail in that book against racism and exploitation in the West, while also taking African societies to task for failing to get on board with modernity? I'm used to views advocating that Africans be encouraged to respect their own traditions, to "be themselves"; the notion that certain aspects of Africans' cultural identity are holding them back is provocative, especially coming from an African intellectual like Diawara.

He elaborates on this seeming contradiction more fully in "WE WON'T BUDGE," while fulminating at length on the very divergent meanings of difference in French and American societies. His focus is modern migration, which he analyzes through his own experience as a young migrant in Paris and then in Washington in the 1970s, then again in Paris (now as a tenured professor and visiting researcher) at the turn of the millennium. Through his remembered interactions in all these settings with friends and family, with policemen and poets, with bureaucrats and bosses, he helps the reader come to grips with the meaning of exile.

"Exile" is an apt word for Diawara's life: like James Baldwin, or even Hemingway, it's something he's chosen, rather than something forced upon him. He's neither a refugee nor a labor migrant looking only to support his family back home. In fact he's severed many of the bonds that connected him with Mali, his native country. He's turned his back on his family's religion and tried to ignore its demands that he conform to what he considers stifling customs. For this reason it's refreshing to read his perspective on migration, identity, and home in the modern world.

Diawara's voice can be jarring, however, as well as contradictory at times. While he wears the mantle of ethnographer in telling his story, he doesn't tell us what his narrative authority rests on. In "WE WON'T BUDGE," all the dialogues with various persona appear to be reproduced verbatim, but I suspect they are merely paraphrased since he never mentions recording his conversations with people. Maybe he occasionally puts words in his interlocutors' mouths to illustrate a point. Moreover, he shows us the full text of letters he both wrote and received while a young man in Paris and DC. Did he keep copies of letters he sent, or get them back from their recipients? To do either shows tremendous ego; more likely, he's paraphrasing again to the best of his recollection. By presenting these memories as hard fact, Diawara tries to come off as both social scientist and memoirist, blending objective analysis with subjective experience.

This approach doesn't always work. Does the author contradict himself? Very well then, he contradicts himself. Nonetheless, or maybe because of this, "WE WON'T BUDGE" is a fascinating, quixotic, and lucid glimpse into the life of an African exile in the modern world.

Rating:
Summary: A Journey Back
Review: I have always enjoyed looking at life through another's eyes and now I have been able to do it from an international perspective. The title "We Won't Budge" does not give away the true meaning behind the text. It is just enough to invite the reader to pick it up and explore all that it has to offer. Diawara takes you on a journey of personal and intellectual moments that impact his life and the way he sees the world. It's a very honest and brave reflection of one's self. I am glad that he has decided to share his experience with world.

Rating:
Summary: A Journey Back
Review: I have always enjoyed looking at life through another's eyes and now I have been able to do it from an international perspective. The title "We Won't Budge" does not give away the true meaning behind the text. It is just enough to invite the reader to pick it up and explore all that it has to offer. Diawara takes you on a journey of personal and intellectual moments that impact his life and the way he sees the world. It's a very honest and brave reflection of one's self. I am glad that he has decided to share his experience with world.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you, Professor Diawara!
Review: Professor Diawara in this book speaks directly to what seems to be a generation of multicultural, intellectual nomads who are knowledgeable about numerous world cultures but not truly comfortable in any of them. His voyage to New York, beginning in Bamako and stopping for a time in Paris, is an interesting one and raises serious questions about the ever-kinetic lives of Africans who must shuttle between the Continent, London, New York, Paris and the other major cities of their colonizers in an unceasing uphill battle whose sole goal is a better standard of living.

His discussions of the culture clash between West Africans and the French are also salient and will seem familiar to anyone living in one of the world's multi-culti magnet cities. It is through his descriptions that we learn that we are all, in many ways, dealing with the same problems of modernity and negotiating the distance at which two cultures can peacefully coexist.