] [4: Ibid.] In Things Fall Apart, the reader can see how the British and French began to institute their governing and belief systems. Achebe writes, "[Apart] from the church, the white men had also brought a government. They had built a court where the District Commissioner judges cases in ignorance" and the prisons were "full of men who had offended against the white man's law." [footnoteRef:5] Furthermore, Achebe comments on the integrity of men before the white man began to institute his laws and traditions. In Things Fall Apart, Okwonko laments, "Worthy men are no more…Isike will never forget how we slaughtered them in that war…Before the end of the fourth market week they were suing for peace. Those were the days when men were men."[footnoteRef:6] Ibrahima's ability to cash the money order is hindered by a corrupt bureaucratic process with which Ibrahima is unfamiliar with, and which ultimately leads to him losing the money sent to him in its entirety. It is through this bureaucratic process that the audience can see how life differed before colonialism...

While Ibrahima attempts to lead an honest life, he realizes too late that the only way to get ahead in Dakar is to be a crook, like all the men that cheated him out of the money he was sent and desperately needed. [5: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, http://l-adam-mekler.com/things-fall-apart.pdf (accessed 8 April 2013), p. 61.] [6: Ibid, 70.]
Things Fall Apart and Mandabi provide insight into the irrevocable damage colonialism had on Africa. These texts allow the reader to see Africa, in general, was transformed and how its native inhabitants struggled to adapt to new, unfamiliar systems of governance that only made their lives more difficult and their fellow countrymen more corrupt.

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959. http://l-adam-mekler.com/things-fall-apart.pdf

(accessed 8 April 2013).

Mandabi (the Money Order). Directed by Ousmane Sembene. 1968. Senegal: New Yorker

Video. Netflix Instant Streaming (accessed 7 April 2013).