In reflecting on how writers, artists, and intellectuals have theorized the role of literature and film in times of crisis and revolutionary transformation, I was struck by a quote from renowned Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène in an interview conducted by the Tunisian film critic Tahar Cheriaa. 

“But the mission, as far as the business of revolution is concerned, is not to “get it done” but to “get it started”! These are two very different things. We can’t, and neither should we, act as if we could achieve a revolution by just making films, as if our films were planning “documents” that viewers could use to execute a revolution masterminded by us, a revolution we would have spurred them into acting out. This is wishful thinking, nothing but ideological tomfoolery. We tend to think that the artist can pull off a revolution all on his own, or at least take part in it, get involved, etc. No, the artist is the one who lays the groundwork for revolutionary change; he’s the catalyst who sets the wheels in motion. What is more, even in the midst of a revolution in full steam, the true artist is the one who’s already paving the way for the next revolution or, if you will, the revolution called for by the inner workings of the system, and this is never lost on alert observers of the process, or at least those who never drink the Kool-Aid of conformism. That’s what I call a true artist. He pulls a lever, one among many, to spark a revolutionary dynamic, he inoculates others with the idea. That’s what he is needed for, that’s how he can achieve glory, but that’s also his shortcoming. Others will always make revolutions, just as he will always set the stage for it through clarifying, analyzing, revealing, and calling out things. He implants in the minds of others the clear conviction that revolution is necessary and feasible.” 

Speaking in 1974, in the wake of the independence of many African countries from colonial rule and amid ongoing national liberation struggles on the continent and beyond, Ousmane Sembène was addressing a moment shaped by decolonization, the Cold War, and the Global Sixties, when the word “revolution” was very much in the air. In this quote, Sembène shares his thoughts on the political role of the artist. Rather than imagining literature or film as instruments capable of executing political transformation, he reframes artistic practice as catalytic: the artist “sets the wheels in motion” and “inoculates others with the idea.” 

There is much to unpack in this passage. My aim here, however, is less to offer a full interpretation than to open it up for reflection. What might it mean, in our respective fields and lines of work, to act as “a catalyst who sets the wheels in motion”? How do we grapple with the tragi-glorious role Sembène assigns to the artist: one who prepares the ground for revolution but does not carry it out? Does this seemingly “humble” position risk obscuring the significance of the task at hand or does it, on the contrary, redefine where the true force of intellectual and artistic labor resides? 

In my research examining the work of writers and artists engaged in revolutionary cultural movements during the decolonization period, I argue that revolutionary failure does not mark the disappearance of revolutionary imaginaries. Rather, these imaginaries are deferred and remain available for reactivation at later historical moments. Such reactivations become possible through the traces left behind in cultural texts, aesthetic forms, ideas, and practices, which accumulate and sediment over time like latent deposits capable of resurfacing under new political and historical conditions. This suggests that the intellectual’s work in times of crisis does not always privilege immediacy; instead, it is oriented toward delayed, if not uncertain, gratification. 

In these circumstances, the intellectual must recognize that although their intervention is oriented toward the immediacy of crisis, its force may not lie in that “now” but in longer temporalities through which ideas are later reactivated and reworked in ways that exceed the crises they were originally intended to address.

Work Cited

Cheriaa, Tahar and Ousmane Sembène. “Issues in African Film: The Artist and the Revolution: ‘Interview with Ousmane Sembène’ in French.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 61, no. 2 (2020): 23–33.