Revista Brasileira do Caribe ISSN: 1518-6784 [email protected] Universidade Federal de Goiás Brasil Spaas, Lieve Remembrance of Slavery in the Caribbean and in the Congo: Euzhan Palcy's Rue Cases-Nègres and Raoul Peck's Lumumba Revista Brasileira do Caribe, vol. VI, núm. 11, julio-diciembre, 2005, pp. 169-184 Universidade Federal de Goiás Goiânia, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=159113676009 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Remembrance of Slavery in the Caribbean and in the Congo: Euzhan Palcy’s Rue Cases-Nègres and Raoul Peck’s Lumumba Lieve Spaas Kingston University Resumo Este artigo compara dois filmes caribenhos, Rue Cases-Nègres (1992) de Euzhan Palcy, situado em Martinica em 1930, e Lumumba (2000) de Raoul Peck, cuja ação se passa na República Democrática do Congo em 1961, momento em que ocorre a transição da colonia belga para o estado independente. Os dois filmes revelam práticas trabalhistas equivalentes a práticas escravistas apesar do fato de que a escravidão já estava abolida em ambos os países nos momentos trabalhados pelos filmes. Este estudo também confronta a África idealizada pelos escravos com a África autêntica onde a exploração é algo constante e a luta pela verdadeira independência é algo constante. Palavras-chaves: Diáspora, Escravidão, África Pós-colonial Resumen Este artículo compara dos filmes caribeños, Rue Cases-Nègres (1992) de Euzhan Palcy, ubicado en Martinica en 1930, y Lumumba (2000) de Raoul Peck, cuya acción se sitúa en la República Democrática del Congo en el momento de la transición de una colonia belga a un estado independiente en 1961. Los dos filmes revelan praticas laborales que equivalen a prácticas esclavistas a pesar de que la esclavitud * Artigo recebido em agosto e aprovado para publicação em outubro de 2005 Revista Brasileira do Caribe, Goiânia, vol. VI, nº 11, p. 169-183, 2005 169 Lieve Spaas ya se había abolido. Este estudio también confronta la idealizada Africa, que los antiguos esclavos idealizaron, con la auténtica Africa donde la explotación está muy extendida y la lucha por una verdadera independencia es constante. Palabras claves: Diáspora, Esclavitud, África Pos-colonial Abstract The article compares two Caribbean films, Euzhan Palcy’s Rue Cases-Nègres (1992), set in the 1930’s in Martinique, and Raoul Peck’s Lumumba (2000), located in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo at the moment of transition from a Belgian colony to an independent state in 1961. Both films reveal labour practices that are tantamount to slave labour in spite of the fact that slavery had been abolished. The study also confronts the idealised Africa, which the former slaves imagined, with the real Africa where exploitation is rife and the struggle for genuine independence ongoing. Keywords: Diaspora, Slavery, Postcolonial Africa *** With the exception of Cuba, film-making in the Caribbean by Caribbean people is mainly a phenomenon of the 1980s and beyond. The very few films that emerged in that period did so without any infrastructure of production or distribution. As in many other third world countries, the Lumière brothers exposed the Caribbean to cinema at a very early period following the invention of film. In Haiti the exposure came in 1899, only four years after the new medium had been invented. Like the other Francophone Caribbean countries, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Haiti rapidly became a consumer/receiver of film products from the Western world. Besides being a consumer of Western films, the Caribbean was also used (or misused) as a resource for Western films where the representation of the beauty of the tropical islands was at odds with the people’s daily lives. It was only in the late 1970s and the early 1980s that a shift occurred. Political events in the islands, such as the movements advocating independence from France in Guadeloupe 170 Revista Brasileira do Caribe, vol. VI, nº 11 Remembrance of Slavery in the Caribbean and in the Congo... and Martinique and the Duvalier reign of terror in Haiti, were instrumental in creating a climate of political awareness. These political, economic and cultural currents of the ‘70s and ‘80s slowly found expression in films where they became the main subject matter. Whatever contemporary events dominate the Caribbean narratives, the memory of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora continues to emerge as the “oneness” that underlies the identity of the different countries. Not only does Caribbean cinema evoke the memory of slavery it also denounces how slavery after its abolition has insidiously persisted. Two celebrated Caribbean films that are particularly revealing in this respect are Euzhan Palcy’s 1983 Rue Cases-Nègres (Sugar Cane Alley) based on Joseph Zobel’s novel Black Shack Alley (1953) and Raoul Peck’s Lumumba (2000), inspired by the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the only democratically- elected Prime Minister of the Congo. The films are located at opposite ends of the black diaspora: Rue Cases-Nègres shows how the freeing of the slaves in Martinique did little to change the living conditions of the people, while Lumumba reveals how in the Congo Free State the colony, set up under the pretence of abolishing the Arab slave trade, instated labour conditions that amounted to slavery. Both films earned considerable international fame, continue to be shown frequently and have become landmarks in the cinema of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Rue Cases-Nègres is set in poverty-stricken Martinique in the 1930s, Lumumba in the Belgian Congo shortly before the country gained independence on 30 June 1960. Both films open with pictures of colonial memory. Palcy’s film opens showing postcards of Fort- de-France and various local views, which French colonials were in the habit of sending overseas. They are picturesque, sepia photographs revealing nothing of the poverty in which José, a twelve- year-old boy and main protagonist of the film, is growing up. Peck’s film, made seventeen years after Palcy’s, uses a more cinematographic language by editing the opening sequence so as to create a to-and-fro movement from still black and white photographs jul./dez. 2005 171 Lieve Spaas to the action of white colonials enjoying themselves at a party and back again to the photographs. These photographs, unlike those in Palcy’s film, reveal appalling colonial practices. One photograph shows well-dressed Belgian colonials relaxing around a table in the open air. On the table lie a few skulls; nobody looks at them, they seem to be everyday objects similar to a tea or coffee pot. In front of the table lies a young black boy who faces the camera in a position a domestic animal might adopt, or alternatively, as the contrived posture might suggest, like an ornament. From this glimpse of a tableau of colonial daily life in the Congo, the camera cuts to the party where expensively dressed guests hold glasses of champagne. Other photographs show two women chained together; a man tied up and lying on the ground while being beaten with the chicotte, the infamous whip made of hippopotamus skin. Another is a postcard showing the hanging of a black man in the presence of expressionless white colonials. Underneath the picture a caption reads: “Exécution d’un nègre à Boma”, and again the camera cuts from the black and white postcard to shots of the colourful and lavish party. Following this carefully-edited opening a statement appears on the screen: “Ceci est une histoire vraie” (This is a true story). Peck’s assertive and skilfully edited opening offers a powerful indictment of the treatment by the colonials of the indigenous people in contrast to the luxurious lifestyle the colonials not only adopted but also tauntingly displayed. Peck’s statement that this is a real story emphasises the fact that the murder of Lumumba has all the ingredients of an American thriller—a possible signal of an American involvement in the murder. Rue Cases-Nègres depicts the daily lives of the people in Rue Cases-Nègres, a microcosm of Caribbean colonial society with its old and young, its children, its white colonisers and its many kinds of black Caribbean people. The simple story is a powerful allegory of Martinique’s history, represented by José’s journey to adulthood. José lives with his grandmother, Amantine in Rue Cases- Nègres, next door to an old man, Monsieur Médouze. Both Amantine 172 Revista Brasileira do Caribe, vol. VI, nº 11 Remembrance of Slavery in the Caribbean and in the Congo... and Médouze work in the sugar cane plantation for a meagre wage, which barely allows them to survive, and in the case of Amantine, to care for her grandson. Through Médouze’s retelling of the past, José’s identity will be grounded in an imagined, yet real place of origin: Africa. Médouze’s story starts with “Once upon a time…” and then tells about his father, who was brought from Africa as a slave. Médouze now passes down the story to José, whose grandfather was also a slave from Africa. The story refers to the loss of a homeland and an identity that can never be recaptured. His father wept and wept and never understood what happened when the white people came. People were caught by lasso, then forced to march for days before being loaded on to the ships, then unloaded in Martinique to work in the sugar cane fields for white people, who stood over them with guns. Médouze is not very precise about the country; he speaks simply of “Africa”.