MODERN SLAVERY

Here's an interesting clip from part of a documentary that my West African class watched. This is about slavery in the cocoa industry (discussed in a previous post) and really shows how much people are still involved in slavery, even though people may think that it doesn't exist in society today as much as in the past.

AFRICAN CINEMA

I began learning about African Cinema last year in one of my Film classes, so you can't imagine the excitement I felt when I saw that we would be learning about Africa in my Film class. Combing my one passion, Film, with another, Africa, equals a lot of fun for me. What some people may confuse with this term (that I learned last year) is that African Cinema is completely different than just a film being ABOUT Africa. There are characteristics of an African film which make it part of African Cinema. The films which stem from African Cinema are those which dig deep into African tradition, so the viewers have a deeper understanding of the values and culture of the African way. You can see a list of African films by clicking here.

Ousmane Sembene, one of the most famous directors coming from Senegal, known as the 'Father of African Film, was praised for his film La noire de... (Black Girl in English) and was the first African Cinema film to be recognized internationally. Although a short film (about sixty minutes), it contains a very powerful message about women in Africa, the pride in one's own country and the struggles that occurred within these people. The ending of the film has its most value to me, where it seems that everything comes together and the viewer is left with feeling a bit of uneasiness but also some kind of satisfaction in knowing that Diouana's life will not be forgotten (this is shown when the little boy is following the French man who employed her). The ending of the film can be seen here and also a summary of the film's plot can be found here.

Another one of Sembene's films is Moolaade made in 2004, a more modern film in comparison to Black Girl which was filmed in 1966. This film deals with the issues and struggles of women within an African community, mainly with female genital mutilation and the power of the women who disagreed with this happening to their daughters and other people's daughters. Moolaade stays true to the characteristics of African Cinema; it deals with showing major issues of women in African tribes and also gives the background and culture of African people. The trailer for this film can be seen by clicking here and a more detailed summary of the film can be found here.

What I find most intriguing about African Cinema is that it is something that is completely on its own, it is something that shows to the rest of the world what is actually going on in Africa because these films come from a point of view of directors who live or have lived in this continent. Africa Cinema IS Africa; it is everything that people are too ignorant to discover more about, it is something that shows the true meaning of what it means to be African, what the struggles and issues are, what the traditions are and most importantly, who these people are.

JACKIE KAY

Looking at more works from Jackie Kay, a Scottish poet with a Nigerian background, I understand more now about her motivation to share her history and who she is with the world. I feel like that speaks a lot for someone to be able to discover who they are, what their background is, where they have come from and then express their feelings and thoughts by writing literature. I found a video of her reading some of her poems and that can be found by clicking here.

Kay has won many awards for her works and I was rattled to see that she did not win an award for her dramatized poem, The Lamplighter, which I found to be very moving and eye-opening. This poem was completely worth the two hours it took to listen to and I highly recommend listening to it and not reading it. The emotion, pain, suffering and darkness from the characters (the women) make the poem what it is and it would be hard to experience how incredible and moving this poem truly is without the audio behind it. This poem cannot be found anywhere online (or so I believe) and if you wish to listen to it, I recommend spending the money to purchase this item online.

I found a poem by Kay that I really enjoy and feel like it ties in with what she preaches most about:

That Distance Apart

I am only nineteen
My whole life is changing

Tonight I see her
Shuttered eyes in my dreams

I cannot pretend she's never been
My stitches pull and threaten to snap

My own body a witness
Leaking blood to sheets milk to shirts

My stretch marks
Record that birth

Though I feel like somebody is dying

I stand up in my bed
And wail like a banshee

II
On the second night
I shall suffocate her with a feather pillow

Bury her under a weeping willow
Or take her far out to sea

And watch her tiny six pound body
Sink to shells and re shape herself

So much better than her body
Encased in glass like a museum piece

Or I shall stab myself
Cut my wrists steal some sleeping pills

Better than this-mummified
Preserved as a warning

III
On the third night I toss
I did not go through those months

For you to die on me now
On the third night I lie

Willing life into her
Breathing air all the way down through the corridor

To the glass cot
I push my nipples through

Feel the ferocity of her lips

IV
Here
Landed in a place I recognize

My eyes in the mirror
Hard marbles glinting

Murderous light
My breasts sag my stomach

Still soft as a baby's
My voice deep and old as ammonite

I am a stranger visiting
Myself occasionally

An empty ruinous house
Cobwebs dust and broken stairs

Inside woodworm
Outside the weeds grow tall

As she must be now

V
She, my little foreigner
No longer familiar with my womb

Kicking her language of living
Somewhere past stalking her first words

She is six years old today
I am twenty-five; we are only

That distance apart yet
Time has fossilised

Prehistoric time is easier
I can imagine dinosaurs

More vivid than my daughter
Dinosaurs do not hurt my eyes

Nor make me old so terribly old
We are land sliced and torn

There's an interesting website here where you can listen to recordings of her poems and then also just find out some more information about this extraordinary woman.

"A poem is a little moment of belief." - Jackie Kay

IN THE BEGINNING

About a month or so ago I was introduced to sing/songwriter K'Naan, a man who is a voice for people in Africa. I was really taken back by his songs, more specifically, his lyrics and ever since I started listening to him, I can't stop. I have never in my life experienced music in this type of way; his songs have put the emotional experience of music on a whole new level for me. I feel like it's something that I can't really explain, something that someone has to be able to experience for themselves.

One of my favourite songs on K'Naan's album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher is "In the Beginning". This is one of those songs that the music has just as much meaning as the lyrics; the music in no way takes away from the lyrics and their meaning, but heightens the overall effect of the song. The lyrics can be found here and the video here.I strongly urge you to listen to the song first, get a feel for it, make your own assumptions about it and then take a deeper look by looking at the lyrics. I will leave you with my favourite passage from this song:

They say it's better to light a candle than to curse the dark
In the eyes of the youth there are question marks
Like freedom
Freedom for the mind and soul
We don't see them
See them for their worth at all
That's why we lead them
Lead them to these wars and what is it we feed them
Feed them our impurities and who it is we treat them
Treat them like the enemy humanity will need them
Need them like the blood we spill and we're freedom
Freedom for the hearts we fill
Mislead them
They hunger for the love we give
But we cheat them
The cops beat them when all he wants is his freedom
So they defeat them
Whatever spirit he's got
Beat them
And they teach them that the rest of the world don't need him
And he believes it's a disease that he's heathen
Put up your fists if all you want is freedom

CHILD LABOUR

After watching the documentary, Child Slavery, which was stumbled upon after viewing another documentary concerning slavery within the cocoa industry, I found that this documentary really pulled at my heartstrings because of its content and because I have a soft spot for children. I wanted to get some background information on child slavery and what the status of this is today and upon doing so, I found this interesting fact chart:

The thing that strikes me the most, as I'm sure it will for other people is that number: 218 million, 218 million children in the world who are being exposed to this life every single day, 218 children who have not experienced childhood, 218 million children who have had their lives taken away from them, 218 million children who know nothing other than the life they are living. Along with this, 22, 000 children who die in work related accidents every year, 22, 000 children who die, 22, 000. It completely boggles my mind that things like this happen in our world, that children have to go through this for the rest of their lives.

In this documentary, it shows boys fishing in the ocean, risking their lives for their masters who have bought them. These boys dive in the ocean, get caught in the nets, are unaware of the dangers in the water and injure themselves on a regular basis. One of the boys says, "When I go underwater, it hurts my ears. They say there's an animal in the water which kills humans so I feel anxious getting into the water." This just shows how naive this children are to the water, to the danger, to the sharks or the 'animal in the water which kills humans'.

One of the websites that I found while looking for some more imforation was Free the Children, obviously extremely popular and not any new find for most people. However, this link will show some interesting facts about child labour and its issues.