decolonising film and space
There have to be films made by Africans on the African condition before we can talk about African cinema. Resources to make films, to distribute them, to make them more accessible to African audiences are all important for the existence of African cinema.
As in the case of literature, there has to be a certain quantity, more writers and more books, before we can begin to sort out the good from the bad, the beautiful from the ugly, the relevant from the irrelevant. So there has to be a decolonising of the economic resources and the technology so that they are available to more African filmmakers, and also a decolonising of the political space, freeing the democratic space so that filmmakers can confront real issues without the fear of state reprisals or without their films being blocked from reaching their real audiences in Africa.
However, the question of the decolonisation of the mind is as important, and it cannot wait until there are resources available… the question of African cinema is not only that of relations of wealth and power but also of the psyche.
Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Is the decolonisation of the mind a prerequisite for the independence of thought and the creative practice of African cinema?
Hey there Niteflyer:
I have been thinking through some aspects of the question Ngugi asks but not in the film arena. In the last few days I have read where Fanon presses the notion of decolonizing the mind in addition to the land.
I wondered what a decolonized mind might look like. I mean can one be decolonized without a colonial reference/marker? Is this question not really at the heart of post-colonial theory, or what some prefer to call postcoloniality.
I mean is the fact of re-constructing identity not really about making permanent the original identity in one form or the other? So when the post-colonial critic writes about decolonization is not much of the method confounded by its permanent relationship to colonialism?
It is a vexing question your post poses.
The novel, for example, like films/documentaries are Western in origin are they not? So if we Africanized a novel, a film, a university for that matter, what would its re-essentialized ‘being’ look like?
And, are there features that make any intellectual exercize decolonized or African in our context(s)?
I am not sure what the answers are but they weigh heavy each time the issues raised in your post come to fore. In a recent post at my spot I sought to play with some of these themes in trying to prove to myself that what I thought to be an essence of struggle (the notion of selling out) is often rearranged by time/circumstance.
So, to be decolonized or Africanized would require some theorization that appreciates that the template of history inevitably shifts (or is shifted), I think.
Would love to hear what you think about my nonesense here
Again, thanks for making me think.
Peace to you,
Ridwan
no nonesense. thank you because your contribution allows for thinking and writing through these issues.
i wish more people visiting here would do the same and see ‘comments’ as a valuable space because it allows for more than just imbibing what’s on a blog; it’s where we can engage.
so about what you say.
I wondered what a decolonized mind might look like. I mean can one be decolonized without a colonial reference/marker?
i think the short answer to your question is no; not in your or my lifetime at least. there can be no ‘post’ without reference to the thing that we are getting over because i don’t think we are over colonialism as we live and breathe where we are now.
how can we be over colonialism when to date in south africa there are more books published in Afrikaans than there are in the many indigenous African languages combined? this is important.
how can we be over it when access to land and to the resources for film making (using the film example) like cameras, editing facilities, hard skills – are still grossly skewed toward historically privileged “groups” of people who were the beneficiaries of colonialism? so no, it would be naive to talk about a post-colonial African cinema for example without references to colonialism whilst there is a resource and access bias toward the beneficiaries of colonialism.
I mean is the fact of re-constructing identity not really about making permanent the original identity in one form or the other?
i think it’s more about resisting the colonial attempt to make us forget – it’s about remembering – than it is about trying to restore a permanence of some original pre-colonial identity. i’m in favour always of revisiting “the origins” – but i’m not blindly caught up with wanting to automatically enforce the restoration of the origins and the identities associated with it.
because, bluntly put – and if we’re all entirely honest with ourselves – i think the origins as it existed then don’t necessarily provide solutions for where we find ourselves today. adaptation must figure into the equation somewhere. in south africa especially.
we’ve had two colonisers. sometimes they were fighting between themselves for the spoils of what? land. land and it’s mineral, agricultural and topographical abundance. and fighting over the indigenous labour to work the land. in order to make themselves wealthy – culturally, socially and economically wealthy. how fucked up is that? no sharing whatsoever. sharing is not part of the colonial vocabulary. sharing is intrinsic to African culture. so for example, i want to remember especially, how we come from a culture of sharing. amongst ourselves today, we could do with a little more sharing.
The novel, for example, like films/documentaries are Western in origin are they not? So if we Africanized a novel, a film, a university for that matter, what would its re-essentialized ‘being’ look like?
i don’t dig essentialist anything. but this question is important. how do we know when we are decolonising our minds and spaces? and what is the function of ‘art’ in this process? according to Ngugi (& here i refer to the talk/article i used in the blog) the social function of art is to make the invisible visible.
in south africa today, artists have this very important function. and i don’t mean some elite group of proclaimed artists. we all, are artists – i believe. some of us dedicate all of our time to making the invisible, visible. some of us do less of this. how many unknown ‘artists’ have been born and have died in this space called south africa? i think it’s unproductive and reactionary to get sucked into accolades for being a “film maker” or “artist” of any kind. when you do, you virtually stomp on the grave of every unknown artist that died here. what makes you exceptional?
anyway, i’m digressing – another time for that ;-o
Ngugi says about the difference between literature & film for example, regarding the decolonisation of the mind:
“If you look at African literature, you will see that even where it has contributed so much to our sense of being, it has itself been further colonised by its refusal to engage in African languages.
African literature, or shall I say europhone African literature, has depersonalised the African character by making him see himself and the world in and through French, English and Portuguese. In this literature, even peasant and worker characters, who all have legitimate and vibrant African languages, are made to speak in European languages.
It is in the African cinema, no matter what we think of its content, where, on the whole, the African character has been restored to its language. It is on the screen where we encounter African people speaking their own languages, working out problems in their own languages, arriving at decisions through a dialogue in their own languages. In that sense the traditions of europhone African literature and general scholarship are way behind the brief tradition of the African cinema.”
I quote this not because i want to elevate cinema above literature. But Ngugi’s differentiation is important. Cinema is potentially powerful when it comes to “how far” the respective art forms have been able to, and can, deal with decolonisation. How we see is so intrinsic to dominant culture. Cinema and all things visual thus have immense power to challenge, immediately, how we see.
And, are there features that make any intellectual exercize decolonized or African in our context(s)?
In terms of how we weave in the indigenous into our everyday institutions and practice – well we get to know about it, remember it, talk about it, exchange ideas about it and practice it more i think. more seminars at universities about this, more books in indigenous languages more pictures that completely flip colonial notions of being – and more everyday practice in how you and i relate to each other. why can’t we just take from the past what works and discard what doesn’t work any more?
I don’t think anything is carved in stone. Just because something is an age-old practice from the past doesn’t make it “better”? We need to open up more spaces where we debate these things, interrogate them. South africa is diverse. not all of us are African indigenous – but we are at the same time! let’s meet around one fire for a change and see how we see things. because all indigenous peeps with the same mind, i think, have the same desire to leave the world a more equitable and beautiful place than what we found when we got here. easier said than done, but such is life and we have to start somewhere.
And, are there features that make any intellectual exercize decolonized or African in our context(s)?
how about a challenge for you and i (& anyone reading here) to identify what these could be?
ah i wanted to quote another piece from Ngugi here – he is so much more economical with words –
“We are products of history and we live in history. Colonisation, the most salient part of that history, was a total process invading the entire, ecological, economic, political, cultural and psychological being of the colonised. The anti-colonial resistance was also or should have been a process of the negation of that entire colonial enterprise at all those levels.
The success of the anti-colonial enterprise can only be complete if it has restored the colonised to their memory.
It is arguable which of the above aspects of colonialism was the worst. Some may want to pick up on the economic, others on the political, others on the cultural. The key thing really is that they are all connected.
But in some ways the psychological, the aspect of seeing, of images, is most important. If one cannot see clearly, if our memory of what has been and could be has been completely distorted, then we cannot see clearly what we have to do in order to free ourselves in all the other aspects.”
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful engagement here.
I read your “challenge” and thought about a question that was asked when I addressed an audience at the annual PCC African Film Festival in Portland a few years back.
We had just watched a documentary about remembering apartheid and the themes of reconciliation and forgiveness were heavy in the air.
So this well-meaning person in an almost all-white audience asked what a black centered response to remembering the past may entail.
I answered quickly and without much tact by saying that “whiteness must be made irrelevant in any matter that was about re-constructing a postcolonial identity.”
My response was not well received by many white audience members because they correlated whiteness with their actual existence as white people.
Though the correlation is not entirely misplaced I also recognized that some folks of colour also struggled with the notion of un-anchoring any intellectual exercize from being centered on whiteness.
Biko seemed to press the notion that black liberation was aimed at un-anchoring whiteness/whites and that this also led to ‘liberation’ for whites.
Interestingly, at least one dominant theme or marker could be the acceptance that whiteness cannot exist without domination or domineering theorization of content in most intellectual exercizes.
For this reason, making whiteness irrelevant, and this does not mean absent, allows for a more comprehensive remembering, for example.
I am as always, thinking it through
because it is about resistance hey.
Peace,
Ridwan
yes i like the making irrelevant part of what you’re saying. that’s not to say any of it is irrelevant yet. i take from Ngugi the challenge to turn the lens inward. how often do we “see things” from the perspective of the dominant? how often in a day do we mimic the behaviour, the language, the thought?
i have only questions for now…