Bush Baby

                      
Those things we say

Speak Truth to Power...but in what language?

I lack imagination you say

No. I lack language.
The language to clarify
my resistance to the literate.
Words are a war to me.
They threaten my family.

To gain the word
to describe the loss
I risk losing everything.
I may create a monster
the word's length and body
swelling up colorful and thrilling
looming over my mother, characterized.
Her voice in the distance
unintelligible illiterate.
These are the monster's words.

Poem by  Cherrie Moraga                                                          

I took a writer's workshop yesterday morning and this poem was one of the pieces we looked at. It resonated deeply with me. Why? Because it speaks to a condition that I and many others find ourselves in: the inability to fully express what we feel due to the lack of vocabulary in a beloved secondary language, becoming more popularly known as your Mother Tongue. The context of the above poem is a Spanish speaker finding voice in an English speaking world. As an Afropolitan I completely relate to it. I hold onto my native culture the best I can but, like many, I don’t speak my Mother Tongue as fluently as I would like and thus must rely on alien vernaculars to communicate the stories and perspective of the people I want to honor most. Even when someone does speak their Mother Tongue fluently the need to use a more prominent language to engage with the masses of this society threatens the relevancy and resolve of your Mother Tongue. In placing prominence over your "mother" we become unable to verbalize "the loss" in terms of our own choice, creating a "monster" of foreign words that terrorize our intentions.

"Language is power but we all know we live in a world that doesn't distribute power equally", Jan Clausen, Jan Clausen the facilitator of the workshop said. And I asked, "Is gaining more power synonymous with gaining more language?" Simply put, do I need to use the language of power to tell my people's story, to empower the ones I love so dearly? What is the risk to my Mother Tongue in doing so? It would seem I would distance myself from the very people I want to get closer to. It would seem I would get closer to the very people I wanted to distance myself from.

 
This conversation reminds me of Ngugui Wa Thiong'o , the Kenyan writer who deliberately chose to stop writing in English any longer and started to publish in his own native language, Gĩkũyũ. I highly regard this political and sociological shift as a gesture of faith and encouragement to Mother Tongue’s everywhere. Yet I often wonder what about those who never had a choice in using their native language or not, but would still like to say something positive, something organic about the Kenyans, the Africans, the world of "the others"? Talib Kweli once rapped "writing is fighting" and I hands-down agree with this statement when in the right context. I just wonder that if you are writing in English and fighting for the non-English then who are you really fighting? Who are you defeating?  

This is a complex issue that cannot be answered in a simple blog post. The poem inspired a response so I wrote one. Here. If anything it is interesting food for thought for the language lovers out there who contemplate the role of language on cultural identity. I guess, to paraphrase Kweli again, "Knowledge of Self" is the key to empowerment....no matter what language you speak.

Oge Anyi: The Era of Nigerian Cinema

Kedu! I hope everyone enjoyed their end of the year/new beginning celebrations. It is a great year! Already. I am starting this blog to document and discuss communication and culture that is fascinating, fun, fierce and fearless. I will be writing about the stories, conversations, notes, quotes and dramatic arcs that move me -- and hopefully you as well! With so many colorful characters, ideas and idioms shaping our now globalized world one cannot help but to appreciate the diversity of knowledge, talent, and profoundness that is accessible today. I hope you join me on this journey! 

I have chosen to start out this blog with a look at Nigerian Cinema. This is not because I am Nigerian or have a particular blind allegiance to one place or another (okay, well maybe a little lol -- you gotta support your people!) but because it is genuinely inspiring to see an artistic and intellectual movement take shape and grow. No, I am not talking about Nollywood here. I am talking about Nigerian cinema -- art house, independent, quality-driven storytelling  that noticeably differs from mass marketed films. These films focus on "social and political themes rather than any commercial interests" (as Wikipedia stated about African cinema) and present clearer pictures of the message they are trying to relay. In fact, some would say Nigerian cinema exists in juxtaposition to the Nollywood that we are used to which, unfortunately, can be characterized by overacting, suspect sound quality, mimicry of Western culture and never ending chapters to mediocre movies (Parts 1 - 10).

To be fair, not all of Nollywood is bad. There is value in Nigerians telling Nigerian stories and controlling the means of production and distribution. In addition, it gives a contemporary glimpse into African life that other Africans can relate to and identify with as opposed to outsiders coming in to tell our stories through their biased perspectives and viewpoints. However, Nigerian cinema offers something different, something genuine, something....well, cinematic. It delves deeper than the surface and does what drama is supposed to do: question, challenge, honestly reflect society onto itself. The images are crisper because it is understood that seeing is indeed believing. The sound quality is sharper and the plots are more refined, properly accenting the beat of each narrative. The stories overall are universally human yet distinctly African. Nothing more, nothing less. That there even exists a community of this sort emerging out of Africa's largest nation suggests there is new hope for the African in a world that doesn't hear its voice, neither on the continent or in the diaspora. It is my belief that in this new year, this new decade and this new millennium, the world, yes THE WORLD, will come to see and appreciate the genius that Nigerian creative minds have to offer.

It is important that such films are being made and indeed necessary. The people occupying the Niger Area have been struggling to find a cohesive national identity since the creation of the state we now know as Nigeria. Independent artists and progressive thinkers can help to forge - or forfeit - this effort through critical analysis of our conditions while still celebrating our culture. Art is meant to push society and facilitate growth, whether that is comfortable or not. Following the examples of preceding African storytellers that rode this wave of consciousness - Ousmane Sembene of Senegal, Haile Gerima of Ethiopia, Safi Faye also of Senegal amongst others - I believe the emergence of Nigerian cinema and independent thinking in the arts in general will push Nigeria, and Africans at large, into a deeper sense of self-awareness and human connectivity, something that is sorely needed in a time of identity crisis and lost generations.

Please take a look at the trailers below to better understand what I am talking about. These films are yet to be released or have had limited releases in Nigeria and elsewhere. What do you think about the hopes for the genre? Is there an audience for it? If so, how do we contribute to its sustenance? Na waoh, just to have this conversation gets me inspired! Alas, whether it is late or it is early, it is our time.