A season in my African soul

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Patrice Lumumba

The feel of participation is immediate: we are sat on plastic and rusted metal chairs in front of colourful 50s round tables. The actors – all black – are already on the stage to welcome the crowds. They are dancing to Congo’s music; giggling; grimacing and waving to the audience that is all the way up; on the balcony. The room is dark and air-conditioned but the vigorous African spirit snugly unwinds you. And the story of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected leader, begins with a transfer to an African early morning where saleswomen walk up and down the streets with big baskets on the top of their heads. “I have been there”, I think when Chiwetel Ejiofor’s  voice as Patrice Lumumba establishes his powerful presence; from now until he is forcefully silenced by death.

“A Season in the Congo”, a 1966 play by Aimé Césaire, at the Young Vic in London, wraps Africa’s turbulent times in a two-hour musical, theatrical, dancing but above all tremendously human show. Since his election in 1960, and until he was murdered by rebel troops (allegedly with the Western support) in 1961, Patrice Lumumba fought for a post-colonial ideal and a united Africa. The portrayal of his positive personality and dedication to justice makes him vulnerable in our eyes; a child you wish you could forever protect from the world’s atrociousness.

Lumumba’s wife (Joan Iyiola) role, like she has escaped from a Greek tragedy, is to prevent the bad from happening. She is crying over her husband’s political involvement; she is protesting against his naiveness, and she is warning him with dreams and omens. But she is there only for the audience to be warned. Lumumba loves his wife but Africa has been inside his heart long before she has.

The satire is swimmingly applied through an ensemble of man-sized, carnival looking puppets in the role of Western bankers, who are “distributing” Katanga’s region minerals. The comedy is successful when the UN Secretary General – a black actor with a fluorescent blonde wig – repeats himself: “I am neutral”. Not to forget the King’s of Belgium, Badouin II, monologue about how Belgium is generously giving back Congo to its people after having built it at Belgian citizens’ expenses. The intervention of America and the Soviet Union is shown by flags that serve as bodies, and animal skulls for heads that mouth the words of the nations. If all actors are black, guess how we distinguish the Westerners from the Congolese: the Westerners wear long, piggy noses. Very imaginative; very fine art.

An oral narrator couldn’t miss from a story about Africa. Kabongo Tshisensa talks in one of Congo’s languages, and his words are narrated in English by the other actors on stage. He is one of those tribal men whom you recognise as wise. His words are not always clear but you can see the future in his eyes. All the actors have perfectly stylized their speech according to the Congolese affluence.

The movement in the play is vital. Twenty to twenty-five actors were left in the hands of co-director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who choreographed them in a variety of situations: a triumphant crowd, fighters and massacre victims, intimate lovers and at the end assassins of their most loyal man: Patrice Lumumba. The slow motion of his death prolonged our emotions and my tears.

The puppets

The philosophy of Arts

Google image from the show

People avoid self-sarcasm because through goofy statements about themselves, they voluntarily reveal their weaknesses, fears and insecurities; because self-sarcasm makes them even tinier than what they actually are. And it is not like they don’t get enough humiliation anyway by their bosses, partners and Facebook friends.

The continuous one and a half hour Sutra piece of Art, which brings together a European Bruce Lee fan,  the sculptor Antony Gormley, the violin, cello, piano and percussion instruments, and 17 practicing Buddhist monks from the Shaolin Temple in China, narrates our story of isolation, spirituality and death in a sarcastic manner.

A Western man  (originally from Morocco) discovers that his physical skills, communication techniques and common sense are inadequate when he finds himself among the monks and their 21 wooden human sized boxes. The man is ridiculed because it is a very thin line to be crossed until you find out that what you considered to be a normality, in someone else’s world is a reason for you to be stared at as an outsider. Yes, dear Westerner; not everywhere food  is eaten with knife and fork, and not everyone is riding their babies in a stroller.

Through minimalism and simplicity, the show gives insight into how silly, lonely and scared man can be when he finds himself outside his comfort zone. The Western man is comical: he likes to struggle and suffer; even when the answer is simple and there.

The audience was laughing at the man’s misfortune, and that made me think that people have the need to be laughed at. We have missed the pure connection with our friends and family, where they could tell us what was bad about us without creating a drama.

Are we dead alive in our own boxes detached from nature, the environment and the rest human beings? But the little kid monk was constantly running around, connecting the poor Westerner with the superiority of the monks; giving us Hope for salvation.

Google image from the show

Neither Lenny Cravitz could change my mind

Hollywood has this dangerous power to mix and match UFOs with Robin Hoods and still make it look reasonable. And as long as there are close ups of a pretty face, the movie is a definite blockbuster.

The Hunger Games begins with the potential to describe an orwelliansociety but after the first half of an hour the director quits the idea and he follows the safer route of heroes, romance and violence for the next 100 minutes.

I was told I will cry, and I did because there is this one scene of a 12-year-old girl lying dead in the name of a reality game. And next thing you see is the only political reaction to the system by the people of her community; all black. Is this random and innocent?

I liked the performance of Jennifer Lawerence because it is still natural as her young age of 22 implies.

I am still confused how a movie based on a death game among teenagers is rated as suitable for audiences at the age of 12. At the same time that – let’s say – The Hunger Games is criticising the society in which our children are growing up, the movie is encouraging this society. That’s the bit I got lost.

The Hunger Games ended with the an ostensible happy end and the promise for The Hunger Games II soon enough.

Note: I am cinephile but not in the sense the term is widely understood. I do not remember names of directors and secondary role actors, and the more movies I watch, the more I tend to forget their names. Especially if I have seen the movie in Greece and the original title has suffered a dramatic transformation. I am cinephile because I watch at least one movie per week, and I always keep it inside my head for a day or more. Unfortunately, not only the good films have an impact on you.

You are the one

I feel I have been nothing but sneaky towards my blogging ethics, as it’s been more than a month without me posting. I have disrespected the main journalistic “law”: obligation towards citizens. Seriously now, have I? OK, considering the amount of followers I have, may be not really.

However, there is someone who had noticed my absence, and I would like to thank him for letting me know. I promise from now on to be more responsible regarding my readers; or my only one reader. If my sayings and writings have the power to affect in any way even just one person out there, I am quite happy to keep it this way and not let it go. Who knows? One person may be two next week, and 20 next month; why not 200 next year?

My reader is also interested in the book The Elements of Journalism; What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, and my review on it – the one that was part of my autumn’s term assessment. I had corrections and points addressed from my tutor, but overall the feedback was not bad at all.

At a time when truth is so hard to be reached and journalism is losing both its identity and its public, Kovach and Rosenstiel are coming up with this great unconditional offer to everyone who produces or receives information in any way. The Elements of Journalism: What newspeople should know and the public should expectis a substantial dialogue between the citizens and journalists across the media and across cultures.

The idea for this book came after June 1997 when some prominent newspaper editors, broadcasters, journalism educators and a few authors met at Columbia University to discuss the state of journalism in the United States. The reason for this was their conviction that there was something seriously wrong with the profession. They were worried about the state of journalism and the public distrust of the media. Also, they began to agree with the public that journalism was increasingly damaging public interest instead of serving it. They decided to engage both journalists and the public to determine what journalists were supposed to be and what the core principles of journalism were (Tobie Wiese, Save journalism – to what end? Global Media Journal African Edition, 2008 Vol 2 (2)).

Kovach and Rosenstiel do not cover their eyes denying that modern journalism is suffering. However, they do not take part in the drama about a bleeding and slowly dying journalism by the ‘punches’ of technology and new media. Instead of panicking and feeling terrorised, professional journalists, they propose, should leave on the side their reputation and self-interests, and proudly admit that the news production is going through a change.

But, why journalists are so surprised and even disappointed to find this out? Didn’t they know that their profession is a reflection of the culture they are members of? Societies are “live organisms”, which cannot stay forever stable due to acknowledged Auguste Comte’s sociological theory.

How is this transition reflected in the contemporary practice of journalism? “The news is becoming less of a prepared lecture and more of an open-mike conversation, with all the pluses and minuses that implies” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2007, xii). The Elements of Journalism interrogates citizen journalism: Do citizens have the time, the motivation, and the skills required? If not, then do those who try to cover the news professionally have the skills and the will to help citizens gain these tools? This updated and revised edition proposes a mutual sympathy that should determine citizens and journalists in the name of quality journalism.

The weakness of professional journalism is not because of the threat coming from technology. Borrowing authors’ quotes: “But the character of internet discussion groups is not the issue. Technology did not create the attitudes of those who participate. Machines do not change human nature” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2007, 182).

The weakness is more likely to be coming from the lack of journalists to remember towards whom their deeper obligation is. Journalists tend to focus more on the demands of the market rather than on their audience. The values within the newsrooms are declining as time becomes more and more a luxury and journalism itself a competitive business.

The very best point of Kovach’s and Rosentiel’s work is that even if we accept the fact that every generation creates its own journalism, the ten elements addressed will not change; they are timeless and global. Nonetheless, new principles can always be added on the top of the already existing ones.

This book is the perfect “welcoming” for young people to the world of professional journalism, as it is not another repetition of prolonged academic theories, detached from the actual body of the news production. As the writers put it: “This book is the fruit of examination. It is not an argument. It is, rather, a description of the theory and culture of journalism that emerged from three years of listening to citizens and journalists, from our empirical studies, and from our reading of the history of the profession as it evolved in the USA” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2007, 5). Kovach and Rosenstiel are trying to give the next generation of journalists a template to inspire their work.

As a reader personally involved in the news production, I found very lovely the metaphor of journalists as the earlier mapmakers of the 15^th century. “Journalists who devote far more time and space to a sensational trial or celebrity scandal than they know it deserves – because they think it will sell – are like the cartographers who drew England or Spain the size of Greenland because it was popular. It may make short-term economic sense but it misleads the traveler and eventually destroys the credibility of the mapmaker” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2007).

1200 journalists have been contributing to this work, which I would characterise as “piece of art”. Kovach and Rosential do not use amplifications in order to attract readers’ attention; the book is simple and true; it speaks for itself.

The Elements of journalism should exist on the bookcase of every individual who wants to be called journalist; the book should be skimmed through from time to time in order journalists to reconsider their identity and their obligations towards society. If we could all agree to that, professional journalism would not have been a mixture of scandals, plagiarism, lies and fake sources anymore, but a provocation towards people to think; “a challenge for citizens to defend their ideas and govern themselves.”

Finally, I would like to point out that this book is not merely about addressing the problems, risks and deficiencies of modern professional journalism, but also about its possibilities, that are yet not to be appreciated enough and tend to be forgotten.

Journalism is followed by an era of doubt and confusion. This is what makes this book even more valuable. The Elements of Journalism is the glasses every journalist should put on in order to see the world of media in its real dimensions and not as he or she is still dreaming of it or remembers it.

I feel lucky to start my career in journalism by holding this book in my hands. It makes me feel more powerful, more confident and more aware of what to expect and what to offer.