Gelwaar

Guelwaar

The movie Guelwaar is very powerful political piece that reveals and let viewers see the real state of the third world countries especially African states. Particularly this movie Guelwaar described the reality of peopleÐ'Ѓfs sufferings from poverty, AIDS and deadly disease related issues, political corruptions, and religious conflicts among civilians. This Senegalese movie goes into the multi-dimensional problems that many African nations are confronting such as poverty, foreign food aid distribution issue, political corruption, religious conflict within the same tribe, and provide insight of Ousman Sembene, the director of Guelwaar. The story of this movie centers around the death and funeral of Pierre Henri Thioune, as known as Guelwaar a noble man, who stood by his patriotic humanitarian idea and outspokenly fought for his fellow Senegalese for their problem. I also found that problem solving process is also very interesting and very particular way that we do not see in western world.

The story begins with the disappearance of Pierre Henri ThiouneÐ'Ѓfs body from the hospital on the day of his funeral, and his family starts searching for his body. The Main character, who was the inspiration of this story, Pierre Henri Thioune, Guelwaar was a prominent Catholic, which was brought from French colonialist, is only about 5% of Senegalese population where 94% of the population is Muslim. GuelwaarÐ'Ѓfs thought is that the real problem of Senegal and the cause of the problem is rooted in neither neo-colonialism nor racism, but its root is ingrained from losing faith in themselves as Senegalese by enslaving their mind to the fact that they are blindly accepting foreign food aid and supplies over three decade but Senegalese government nor people has not come up with anywhere near from solving it. For instance, Senegal still has not developed own production system or industrial facilitations to be self-sufficient because of this foreign aid. Guelwaar was trying to inspire and convince people that this enslaved mindset leads corruption in bureaucracy, politicians, and riches those who exploit the international good-will for their own gain, and this is something that destroying Senegalese economy and keep stopping from growing any further. Furthermore, these states of mind of people keep letting corrupt government officials and riches to not solve tension between Muslims and Catholics but promoting to keep the people fighting. Guelwaar only tried to encourage and motivate his fellow Senegalese people to face the reality and start dealing with it. His family is suspecting that this Guelwaar's provocative outspoken thought may have caused him to be beaten up and mysterious death afterwards.

Despite of GuelwaarÐ'Ѓfs noble mind, his family could not get away with poverty just like many others in all over Senegal; they are facing very severe reality. As a matter of fact, GuelwaarÐ'Ѓfs family is almost dissolved because of ongoing poverty and enslaved mindset of the nation; ironically, GuelwaarÐ'Ѓfs noble mind did not bring food at his table. Because of their poverty only GuelwaarÐ'Ѓfs crippled last born son Aloys is staying with family. Both Guelwaar and Nogoy know that it is a shame that his family is separated. However, reality was much severe. The eldest son Barthelemy, who lives in Paris France who does not even want to speak their own tongue of Wolof anymore where his village is consist with poor peasants who cannot speak any French but their language, and only daughter Sophie who earn her living as a registered prostitute in Dakar. Ironically enough this separated family gathered up to mourn the death of their father Guelwaar. These descriptions