While I was still a kid, parents in France had all kinds of saying to make their kids eat the food. They would say "eat it, or the "Bosh" will eat it". The "Bosh" are the Nazis who invaded France during WWII. They used to requisition the food and all the goods for their own armies. Parents would say also "eat, those little kids in Biafra don't have anything to eat". France had created a crisis with providing arms to civilians in Biafra and French parents were using it to educate their children.
An army had provided weapons to civilians just like the "Resistance" in France was given weapons during WWII. Any resistance, any time, have always been an instrument of power for the people in the country and for people from other countries. The first mass hunger that was ever video taped happened in 1967 when France gave military weapons to civilians. That was my first encounter with Africa and it might have been the first encounter for many children in the world. Children who are now adults.
In 1984, another crisis happened in Ethiopia. In 1984, a journalist video taped a camp of IDP refugees, "Internaly Displaced People". They were provided tents and food from the United Nations, but they suffered malnutrition illnesses.
The United-Nations were involved and the world was sorry. Singers, actors, public personalities started to get their voices heard.
Artists around the world started to sing and get involve into the battle with songs and signatures. This became a movement, but the slight movement of a wave in an ocean of public and political unconcern.
Black people in America started to make their voice heard for those black brothers they had never met, not better than me. They were behind their screens and they felt concerned by something that they could not control.
All this happened in the 80s and the world has changed since then. Religion has become the scope of reflection along with races. Politicians, journalists and intellectuals have progressively learnt from Biafra and from Ethiopia that emotions were an instrument and that the good voice of a good singer could bring the emotion higher. A new era of communication has started to organize this kind of new "Resistance" from one people against another. The white against the black and vice versa. The immigrant against the settler. The worker against the unemployed. They don't talk that much about the rich against the poor, but they emphasis about health care, guns and "rights". The laws are shacking and this is the symptom of a new era, just like the Roman empire has been, just like Christianities have been all along the past 2000 years.
My first encounter with Africa has been sad and when I arrived in the United-States, I was not so happy either. I found mostly blocked head people. People who have been taught one thing and who are stuck with that. They are labelled and even though nobody would label them, they would label themselves. They are black that matters. I would rather say that they are lives that matter like any other life in a world that became really dumb.
The big shock when I arrived in America was to discover that "the bad guy" in the film is not an exception to educate the people and show "don't be like him". Not at all. The "bad guy" is the average guy in America, this is the norm and what the film is teaching, is for the world to not be like him. This gave me the intense willing to write and to testify because this slight nuance behind the person of "the bad guy", is in fact a very big nuance. This maybe the nuance between a Roman and a Christian. At some point, we shall insist to understand the difference.
I am no better than anybody, I don't know what to do in front of the disaster, but I have decided to not remain silence and this is a choice I have done in March 1992, 26 years ago. I don't sing and I don't have money, but I can write and I can influence. This is now time to get heard my voice.
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