WWI+RAFT+Project+Dennis

R: Senegalese soldier who came back from Europe after the WW1. A: His people back home F: story telling T: Of his experience in the Western Front

WW1? It was such a terrible experience. I’m lucky that I came alive from that hell! In exchange of going to Western Front, somewhere in the continent owned by the Europeans, as you know, men of Senegal were promised with rights and numerous benefits. However, it was all flaws. We were used as walls against machines guns, dug trenches, threw ourselves to barbed wires, and didn’t get enough food either! You don’t feel how serious it was, right? You would never know how it was because you never experienced it. We lived in the rivers of blood, slept with torn body pieces around the trench, and only fun we could have was collecting bodies parts; knuckles, ears, and foot! I got a finger once, but I threw it away. Guys! Don’t laugh, it is not to be laughed! We were slaves in war. Our recruit was indirect slavery; the compensation we would get was uncertain or didn’t exist at all, and our workload was great and never ending. We were order to do jobs that the whites didn’t want to do. Connect the slavery in 18th hundreds with WW1 version of slavery this way; Whites didn’t want to work in the field bent down, and that is why they brought slaves. White this time didn’t want to get killed by machine guns, and that is why they brought us to the field, tempting us with good offers and sweet words. But what we really received was nothing but money for going back home. We had stay in Germany, where all the terrible memories lie, fix buildings and clean up dead bodies, and see the Whites going home. All the sacrifices we made were total trivia; No body cared about our version of story, just because we were black. I was surprised by how the difference in skin color can make them so heroic and us to trivial.

To the men of Senegal who wish to go to Europe and work, I’d tell them to reconsider. If we keep on obeying to their culture and go to their houses and factories for more comfortable life and wealth, then you men are imperializing our nation. You are abandoning your mother country. You may ask, “you went to Europe yourself, why are you not allowing us to go?” Well, it is because I love my country and my people. Also, I experience it myself, and know how cruel it was. If I can stop this imperialistic influence in our country, and stop people from repeating what I did, that is what I will devote rest of my life. We have been under the whites' reign too long, and I believe it is our time to get the power over our own nation. I believe that God protected me to carry out this duty. I really hope you guys understood me...