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Misanet.com / IPS, 6 March - The film 'Adangaman', which examines the role Africans played in the transatlantic slave trade, caused a stir at the just ended Pan-African Festival of Cinema and Television (FESPACO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and revived the debate about reparations for the victims of slavery.
The film tells the story of Adangaman, an African king from the area around the Gulf of Guinea, who sold his prisoners to European slave traders in exchange for weapons and adulterated rum. Also illustrated in the film is the fact that Africans, at the time, enslaved other Africans. - This film really fills a gap. It will be a useful tool to help our children understand an episode in our own history, said Leon Da Bourdia, who attended the screening of the film. Gnoan M'balla, who is better known for his comedies, has made a dark and sombre film with only occasional comic relief. The audience filed out of the theatre silently at the film's end. "I was dumbfounded by the attitude of the tyrant, who mistreated and sold his own subjects. But what can you do? That's what happened and we've got to accept it," said one German film lover. Many festival-goers, affected by the sadness of the story, thought that reparations for descendants of the victims was a fair and practical idea. "At least moral reparations should be paid, in the form of making the damage done by slavery to the continent more widely known," stated Liesl Louw, a South African journalist. "Personally, as an African, I don't understand why so many people talk about the Holocaust and write lots of books on it while no one says anything about slavery," she added. Louw said that dredging up the past may only be of limited use. But, she added, "like in South Africa, where we're trying to understand our past, educated people have a special role to play in uncovering the facts of history so that the generations to come, in Africa as well as in Europe, will know what really went on." The director feels that people would be better acquainted with the history of slavery if there were more films on the topic. "More than 250 million black people were transported across the Atlantic over the course of four hundred years. Yet World War I, which only lasted four years, has had dozens of books written about," said Gnoan M'balla. Next August, during the World Summit Against Racism, to be held in South Africa, the debate on reparations will once again surely raise its head. But conference organisers have already warned that they will not let this issue overshadow the rest of the issues. "It's altogether reasonable to demand reparations, since we know that the people who have suffered most in history have always been compensated," stated Rodrigue Barry, a member of the jury for the World Health Organisation Prize at the festival. Barry pointed to the Jews, who have been successful in having their property and wealth returned thanks to the powerful lobby they've created. "We're going to protest, but what do you think we'll get when there's the general feeling out there that Africans don't count for a lot on this planet. In fact, it's as if blacks were created to be the whipping boys of history," said Barry resignedly as he called on African leaders to resolve the situation. But the film's director, Gnoan M'balla, said that demanding reparations from countries where slavery was practised constituted an "ambiguous debate" because of the role some Africans themselves played in the trade. "If there's compensation, should the seller or the buyer be held accountable?" he wondered. "And it would have to be those who were taken away and sold who deserve the compensation, because some Africans who stayed colluded with the European traders," said the Ivorian director. - Europeans could not have taken hold on a continent like Africa and stolen the strongest of our children if there had not been collaborators, explained Gnoan M'balla. However, the film-maker believes it is time to stop pointing fingers and to accept the errors that were made. The debate on reparations by slave-trading countries was also revived by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade. Last month, during a Dakar, Senegal planning meeting for August's racism conference, Wade called the concept of reparations "childish". Instead of reparations, the Ivorian film-maker suggested funeral ceremonies, monuments, or even a day of commemoration "for our brothers who died" as a result of the slave trade. Some film-goers at the showing of 'Adangaman' thought likewise. "After having seen the film, we would embarrass ourselves to ask for reparations. We've just seen how slavery was not caused only by white traders, but that it existed even before the arrival of the whites," exclaimed Mafarma Sanogo, a journalist who organised the forums and debates on the films shown during the festival. - The Negro kings, who enslaved other black people, made the bondage of their own sons possible in the New World. Who is it we can compensate today? asked Sanogo. 'Adangaman', which cost 2 million dollars, was a co-production of Burkina Faso, Italy, Switzerland, Côte d'Ivoire, and France. Five African languages were spoken in the film, although FESPACO's copy was subtitled in French. An English version is currently in preparation. FESPACO opened on 24 February and closed on 4 March. It was created as a vehicle to promote African cinema, and it has been held in Burkina Faso every two years since 1969. By Brahima Ouedraogo, IPS
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'Adangaman' is fictional and not based on any particular historical event, according to its Ivorian director, Roger Gnoan M'balla. The film was shot in Marahoue National Park in central Côte d'Ivoire, but its scenes could have taken place on the coasts of Angola, Benin, or Senegal, where most of the buying and selling of Africans took place.
