Sometime ago, I bought a James Baldwin book on the
Kindle. A book about his journey to
several islands on a boat, by himself. A
few pages into the book, I thought, wait a minute. James Baldwin was a black
man. What’s a black man doing sailing across seas just to discover islands? I knew immediately that there had to have
been another James Baldwin. So I googled
and googled and of course, this was another James Baldwin and he wasn’t black.
I am currently filming with one of my favourite directors
and every day we argue about what really is the cause of our troubles. He says it’s the leaders, I say it’s the
people.
We’re a closed minded people, hardly able to see the bigger
picture. Intolerant, believing ourselves
to be all knowing and wallowing in a false sense of superiority complex. Which is why the question, do you know who I
am? Is one of our favourites.
Our true nature was very evident during the last
elections. If you questioned people’s
choice of candidates, you were shouted down and called names because the people
who sold the change agenda considered the people who didn’t buy it of lesser
intellectual capacity. Some of my
friends will argue though that the sentiment was mutual. Perhaps.
And now there’s another debate, the MOPICON bill. A bill which seeks to decide and register
motion picture practitioners.
Many of us have kicked against it, consistently asking what
values it will add to the industry and how it will address some of our
immediate challenges but we’ve been dismissed and called names in true Nigerian
style.
Why don’t we like being questioned ? No one knows it all, it’s only by constant
questioning and hole picking that we can eventually get things right.
Does it not bother us that no life changing invention came
from here? Not the light bulb, not the
airplane, not the telephone, not the Internet, not Facebook!
A friend was telling us that Zukerberg says he’d like to
provide free internet for the entire world, another friend laughed and said if
it gets to Nigeria, we’d package it and sell it. And he’s right. The Westerner seeks ways to
make life easier and better not just for himself but for the next person. We only want to enrich ourselves, as long as
we’re comfortable, the situation of the next person doesn’t count.
What do we care about bad roads, when we can afford SUVs or
why should the Government make providing 24 hour power supply electricity for
everyone a priority when there’s constant electricity for the top officials? What
about education; let the public schools continue to decay after all some of us
can afford the private ones. Isn’t it funny though, that most of the people who
rule us are from the public schools? Of
what use then is our overpriced and exclusive private schools?
This is what has kept us backwards. We are satisfied with a
small cake as long as we get a large piece, never mind that we can get even
larger pieces if we concentrated on making the cake bigger!
We must change our mind set, if we desire real CHANGE, we
must seek primarily to serve, to add value, and to leave the world a better
place than we met it not just for our children’s children but for total
strangers.
So back to MOPICON, again I ask, what values exactly will
this bill add to me as a filmmaker and to the industry as a whole?
As Denzel often said in Philadelphia, explain it to me like
I’m a four year old.
