Movie Review: The Africans

I watched this educational film at Berea College. Berea required all students to attend Cultural Events and write about them. I tried to write things about these events that would be fun for someone who hadn't been there to read. As some of The Nephews are in or considering colleges, I think posting a few notes on the Cultural Events of our day may give The Nephews an idea of the kind of letters I want to receive. 

College students' blogs about shopping, games, lovers' quarrels, and how cool it was to watch La Picadora confuse the teacher into three minutes of silence, are not nearly so interesting as blogs about what the teachers are actually trying to teach them and how they, the students, are taking it...This was a movie about geography. I was supposed to be reporting on it for a music teacher. Sometimes that sort of mix-up makes reports more interesting. 

Would it have been more interesting if I'd noted who the narrator was? Probably. Even when I was young and cute I never was perfect.

THE AFRICANS: A TRIPLE HERITAGE

The Africans: A Triple Heritage opens with the image of a signpost covered with dozens of signs pointing in all directions. This symbolizes the variety, conflict, and confusion the narrator finds in contemporary African cultures, which he says have all been shaped by three major influences.

During the discussion of the first influence, traditional African civilizations, the narrator purposely misquotes John 1:1, “In the beginning was the water, and the water was with God, and the water was God.” This reflects Africa’s longing for water and the significance of the Nile River in ancient Egypt, but to Christians it’s offensive.

Traditional African music and dance feature very briefly in the discussion of traditional cultures. Neither the music nor the dance last long enough for this observer to identifiy a pattern. Complex drumming and colorful costumes flash past our ears and eyes.

Other aspects of traditional African cultures discussed include close ties to nature, the economic importance of women, and a lack of interesting exploration beyond one’s own tribal territory. Human beings are believed to have originated in Africa, to be “more native than cattle or maize,” so civilization itself is a legacy of early African cultures—especially Egypt, the home of Moses.

The second influence on modern African culture was Islamic culture, which might also be called African in the sense that the Arab Peninsula was once connected to Africa. Although the Muslim countries are the homes of traditional music and dances, the only music that is really considered Islamic, and exported to other countries, is traditional “cantillation” of prayers, scriptures, and hymns/poems. A short fragment of one “song” illustrates Islamic music in Africa. It is sung without accompaniment by one voice. I recognized the Arabic words “God is great...by the grace of God” and guess that the rest of the words are also Arabic, probably from the Koran.

Although Muslims use and participate in casual translation from the Koran for teaching purposes, a true translation of the words of the Prophet is considered impossible. Those who want to understand the Koran learn Arabic. The film does not discuss the ways in which this Islamic cultural tradition has both promoted and prevented literacy and literature in Africa. When boys, and less often girls, have had the opportunity to study the Koran and Muslim-approved books, Islam has exposed them to a rich body of literature in many languages. When elementary education has come from non-Islamic sources, it has been viewed as "corrupting" the students. 

The most important aspect of Islamic culture is of course the words of their Prophet, with all that they involve. “Never send to know for whom the muezzin tolls: he calls for thee.” The muezzin, a religious official, summons everyone to prayer five times a day. Prayer is uttered with the face toward Mecca, so a side effect of this rule was the invention of the compass. Islamic Africans are not always punctual in business but they are punctual in prayer.

One feature of Islamic culture that is clearly shown, but not discussed, in the film is the strict rule of modesty. Women cover their hair, and sometimes their faces; men's jackets and shirts completely cover the tops of their trousers.

The third influence on contemporary African culture is “Western” culture from Europe. (The background music in this film is mostly European-type, but is never featured enough for any piece to be identified.) European food, love of natural beauty, “Western” clothing, the building of “citadels of authority,” and the use of European languages represent the European influence on Africa.

Although the narrator certainly displays a love of natural beauty, he disapproves of European food—especially meat, and most particularly pork. In some traditional African religions and philosophies animals were believed to have souls, to be “brothers” to humanity, and to be “sacred” or “unclean.” (A tenor voice sings a simple repetitious tune in a language I don’t recognize, accompanied by percussion and electronic keyboards.) Europeans felt free to kill their “brother” creatures for science or for profit. (An elephant is shot; as it falls, it is surrounded by other elephants, who touch it and vocalize over it very much like humans who can hardly believe that one of their group has been injured. Then a soprano voice sings a slow, high-pitched, descending melody as if mourning for the elephant.) For Muslims, no animals have good or bad souls or sacred natures, but the pig is unclean. Yet, for European money, Muslims will touch, handle, and butcher the pig. They then do a special ritual of “cleansing” before they can pray or enter a mosque. (At this point, there is no music; the narrator’s voice echoes grimly in the silence.) This section of the film is carefully structured to convey more of the narrator’s feelings than his words express.

The last portion of the film digresses away from Africa’s heritage and focusses on Africa’s ecology. The forest was traditionally said to be the sacred place of ancestral spirits. Under European influence, many forests were destroyed. As Europeans sought asylum in their churches, Africans sought it in their forests, but “the forests have no refuge.” Deforestation dries and sterilizes the land. It can be said that “the ancestral spirits are displeased” as precious watercourses dry into blowing sand. Famine results from the destruction of forests and thus of farmland. “Taking up the White man’s burden” has not solved the problem; White men have generally been more ready to take up their neighbors’ wealth than to take up any burden of alleviating their neighbors’troubles. The narrator suggests that traditional religious beliefs, which at least preserved some ecological awareness, might be preferable to those versions of science and Christianity that ignore the ecological impact of “development” on the land.

In conclusion, the narrator says, Africa’s land and heritage must be preserved, for since Moses was drawn out of the Nile River, the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic world owe the beginnings of their faith to Africa.

In my opinion this film is a good example of the filmmaker’s art, and the narrative might even be a good piece of literature, but I find it impossible to write about in terms of music. More use of African music might have distracted from the narrative point, or merely have cost more than the filmmaker could afford.