To be free is better than to belong to others.
— Mamoudou Dembel Guissé2021
Mamoudou Dembel Guissé
Mamoudou Dembel Guissé is a griot (West African storyteller, historian, and musician) and instrumentalist of Makari music. In the full interview, Guissé discusses the historical and social importance of Makari music and the agency it provided enslaved people, as well as the cultural practices surrounding music and the power dynamics of slavery in Fouta society. This interview was conducted in Orkadiéré in the Matam region of Senegal.
Watch the full interviewConversation Transcript
What happiness! To be free is better than to belong to others, to be independent is better than to be governed, to beat is better than to be beaten. It’s good to be free, it doesn’t get any better than being independent, it doesn’t get any better than that. If you’re not free you won’t know who you are, so you’re nothing. Look, before 1960 we weren’t independent, but today we’re sovereign, and the man who governs the country is a black man, just like the others were. Before, we were governed by De Gaulle, who took our fellow men, tied them up, put them on boats for Europe, America, Jamaica, everywhere, and sold them like slaves. Now they’re free. What we did to them yesterday, we don’t do today. We used to hit them, tie them up, separate them from their children – that’s what used to happen in Fouta. Today, what we call galonke, Servile (slave) or Endam Bilaali exists in name only, but not in practice. We used to make them go out to the fields, tie up their sons all day long, even sell them to buy food for our children, but that’s all gone now, because they’ve become free and independent.
