There is no denying the power of media; it has been the fundamental social marker of our century. It is becoming more dominant year by year and more than a tool for entertainment. It is a central aspect of modern human culture and all the dominant powers have engaged it as a critical aspect of development. So what is the role of media, particularly the moving picture, in the Pan-African struggle?

Film in particular has an enduring quality, which channels human expression into singular bodies of work. The documentary film, especially in the last 5 years has becoming one of the most profound narratives of the human experience, but rarely has this experience expanded to embrace the Pan-African struggle.

Although cinema is a relatively modern innovation it is rooted in an ancient human tradition, that of the storyteller. Anthropologist denotes the storytelling experience as one of the key markers in human cultural development. It is around the campfires where storytellers cast their magic, dreams were forged, and social bonds that would allow human beings to eventually venture into outer space were developed. Thus, the modern storyteller or Griot [1] is the filmmaker and the significance of this in human culture is as important today as it was at the dawn of humanity.

Today the majority of the world knows about Darfur and it is not because of the African Union, the Sudanese government, or any government, it is because of one single fact-- media. And Africa, in terms of media, is the most backward continent, a fact that has allowed everyone else to make Africa the devil and victim in every story. A dilemma H.E. Meles Zenawi, blamed on African's shameful neglect. [2]

In one hand, most Africans claim to recognize the plethora of negative images, which for centuries have been perpetuated by Europe, in books, films, news, universities, against Africa. It is  voiced that Africa must do for self and African people must be agents of their own stories and controllers of their own images, like everyone else. If all of these things are true then what is the global African responsibility in actually building these tangible things so that they inhabit reality?

Film like any industry must learn to crawl before it can walk; Africa's general underdevelopment is directly related to the malnourished media image. But media is more than a luxury, it is an agent of self-determination and cultural/political strength. America, beyond its threatening military might has a far more lethal weapon—media. African cinema cannot overnight produce the paychecks that Hollywood or even Bollywood can produce; the process must start somewhere and allowed to grow, as Africa grows. However, unless the process is started by some brave few then it will always be an industry waiting to happen, but never attained. The soap opera imitation, which banners itself as African cinema in no way delivers anything worthy of chronicling African history or culture. And clarity is need to distinguish these video productions from the serious cinema of a continent.

The inconvenient question is should the task of documenting African be left to the European institutions? When they come to document Africa, yes, they have the big budgets to tempt people into their headlights but they also have an agenda that displays a defeated Africa. Of the 800 million plus African people on the continent, who is willing to rise to the challenge to present Africa on her own terms?

One of the untreated ills created by the African Holocaust [3] was that of self-worth and self-actualization. The consequence of the Holocaust was the restructuring of African value systems, where the systems of Europe were set as the standard and Europeans as the perfect human example. As a result of this, organizations such as the BBC are valued over independent African film studios (where they exist), European scholarship is copied and allowed to predominate African universities, the model of governance for Africa, if to be successful, is believed to have to be patterned on Europe. Indigenous Africa ideologies and cultural norms are viewed as backward as compared to similar systems in Europe. The benchmark of Africa is not an African standard but one set by Europe. And anytime Africa is being measured with a European ruler it will always be second best. [4] If concepts of beauty and success are inherited from Europe then Africans become the intellectual and cultural orphan of Europe, the child that attempts to echo the actions of their parent. [5] This mental condition runs almost uninhibited through African lives, without exception, and for the sake of the future, it must be identified and cancelled.

When African projects are initiated, they are footnoting not only by Europeans but also by the very Africans they are created for. Even today in Universities there is a natural dismissal of work, which is outside of the remit of European academia. Thus a student doing a paper on the historical connection between Ethiopia and Egypt is thwarted in African universities for producing pseudo-history not valid in mainstream historical circles, where mainstream circles mean accredited by Europeans. The merits of doing a historical documentary on a township in Durban is meet with ‘why do you want to do that?' Approaching ‘Black' newspapers about a film about African issues is seen as a waste of paper, yet ‘Gangsters' and ‘Bling' produced by some bored White Middleclass upstart gets front-page coverage. These so-called ‘representatives of African communities' smile, bend and bow when Europe is again creating negative stereotypes on Africa, but strut nervous contempt at the Africans putting Africa in dignity terms. And it is interesting how everyone, but Africans, emerge from obscurity to take a crack at telling African stories. [6]

Name a "Black film” and look behind the lens; who wrote it, who produced it, who directed it? Amistad, a story of an enslaved African fighting for his right of return, the music by John Williams, the director Mr. Spielberg.  A Jamaican film called One Love, again the same pattern. Tsosti, a story of violence in the African communities, where again violence is the portrayed as the natural reality of South African people in European perception; it sells and feeds the image of Africans being gang bangers, and semi-noble savages. It is almost impossible to consider a film that does not include a European central figure. The recent Last King of Scotland reflects this, as it was not sufficient to tell the story of Idi Amin; surely, a notorious enough character in his own right but the fictional ‘White' character was inserted for apparent ‘appeal'. Returning to the likes of Richard Attenborough we cannot blame him for his bias in Cry Freedom, he is by nature a European and is simply acting out his European weighted worldview. Every healthy person is sensitive to their race and culture so it makes no sense to ask John Williams to create more ‘African feeling' in his string arrangements for the sound score of Amistad.  Even strong stories of African struggle are with few exceptions created by Europeans: Amandla (Lee Hirsch), Roots (Collection of Whites), Life and Debt (Stephanie Black), Rize (David LaChapelle). This pattern speaks directly to the social disinheritance, which is allowed to continue. Who is cashing in again and again on African tears? Why can't Africans be the central authors of their stories? So not only have African lands and minds been colonialized even African struggles are being colonialized, leaving Africans as slaves in their own revolution. The issue is not for Europe to become more sensitive in “pretending” to be African, the issue is amazingly simpler; it is for Africans to be agents in their stories and hence removing the problem all together. The concept that Europe is qualified in bringing out indigenous people's stories is just as arrogant as assuming Africans are and others are a worthless child-race. All nice intentions are aside, but these are all rooted in the same racist presumption of racial incapability on the part of Africans.

A journey to the local media outlet see Michael Palin in Africa, or a PBS special on Africa produced by an all European cast called Tigress productions. This is the interface, which needs to be challenged; many Africans are caught-up in the incidentals of struggle. Being seen on a screen is not self-determination, especially when the gatekeepers, decision makers who determining the validity of African work are all European. The few African stories today are attempts to explain Africans to Europeans as opposed to Africans explaining themselves to each other. [8] These mere fact renders the whole concept of “Black cinema” and “Black perspective” redundant. The solution is two-fold stop accepting others to control African stories and moreover support and create African by African productions.

China is emerging as a serious competitor to Hollywood. India is on the rise. And what they all have in common is a distinctive aesthetic which in an instances communicates the culture of the people making the film. Chinese and Japanese cinema evolved on a culturally independent paradigm. And through this process have a texture which is answerable only to itself.  So how do African people find a unique cultural voice within film, in a world saturated with Western film culture? This poses a challenge for any cultural minority, but it is especially difficult for a people whose development has been impressed upon by the greatest Holocaust in the history of humanity. However even from the ashes of this Holocaust a rich music culture was able to develop, which has arguably explored new dimensions by virtue of resistance and cultural exchange. But African musical development in the post-enslavement period is a completely different phenomenon, as compared with film, because African people pre-enslavement had a rich and sophisticated music tradition which they carried and developed throughout the dark voyage of enslavement. However, with the arrival of the motion picture medium, African people found themselves not only culturally disengaged, due to the pressures of racism, but also economically depleted. Because African music had a rooted ancient cultural aesthetic it was able to continue on an expanding trajectory (under the most horrid circumstances) to produce jazz, soca, reggae, gospel, et al. The African popular movie industry has never rooted itself in the ancient storytelling aesthetic, it drawn from a poor imitation of Western cinema but without the resources or sophisticated skills necessary to be successful in this imitation. Subsequently the concept of an African aesthetic is generally undefined, and worst there is no appreciation in Africa for films, which lean in this direction.

Pan-African cinema has a few great monuments due to contributions from Haile Gerima and the late Ousmane Sembène but a solid aesthetic is hard to define if defining cinematic contributions are so rare and far between. Only through greater Pan-Africanism could this centralized aesthetic emerge where the entire continent contributes to the inward development that other nations have done. One component which one may find critical to the properties of an African aesthetic is the social functionality of the art. In music hip-hop, soul, reggae, calypso have all in their pure form represented a voice of social mobility: a thermometer on the authentic voice of the masses. Today we know that these art forms have fallen far from this path with the exploitation of the major European owned western labels; weather for capitalist gain or political control they end result is a diluted useless self-destructive bland “art form.” [9] African-American cinema is a run of have been rap artist playing consumers, clowns and criminals. The few attempts at so-called multi-dimensional views of African-Americans only fall victim to mimicker of Hollywood models of success. The issue is one of a self-determined identity and as cultural orphans of White-Americans imitations is the only solid identity most have. Thus to conjure up an authentic African-American story is outside of the cultural realm of most. The continent of Africa is not faced with this dilemma. Africa is culturally weighted and has more than enough stories from contemporary to antiquity to fill cinemas for a thousand years. Thus when Nollywood continues to spin around a consumer, capitalist centre it is very disappointing. The necessary detour critical for African cinema will never be realized If left in capitalist hands of profiteering businessmen. [10]

Pan-Africanism means all of Africa united under and African flag. However, how is this going to be achieved when the elements, which make up the progressive wing of change, are actively ignored and disengaged by the very keepers of Pan-Africanism? How can there be a Pan-Africanism that ignores the efforts of Pan-African filmmakers seeking to reconstruct the nobility of African people via the powerful instrument of film? How can they be a real tangible Pan-Africanism when there is virtually no relationship between independent business, grassroots organizations, film studios, musicians, et al? This form of Pan-Africanism is merely academic and mute, because beyond the prestigious governmental board meetings in the elaborate hotels the movement must reach the people. The sentiment of African union has ultimately to be a movement high to low, and low to high, which engaged through education the masses of the people, thus allowing progressive involvement from the people and the intellectual regeneration of the movement itself. The solidified identity of European and especially America was one indisputable forged in part with the mass media machines of Hollywood, the subsequent export of the Pax-American dream was in the hands of the filmmakers. So why haven't Africans engaged the media when it comes to its dream of a United Africa?

All across the globe, Pan-Africanism exist in isolated pockets of vulgar individualism; fighting skirmishes against a battled harden imperialistic Western singular entity. Ignorant of the very first definition of Pan-Africanism, is unity. The word has become a cosmetic accessory more than a cause because if it is very meaning means unity and it is becoming more fragmented with more and more paper organizations without any pattern for delivering a unified Africa. Therefore, it is high time the broken-hearted Africans who have been victims of false hopes and dreams, which never come into season, be offered not those who talk about what we need to do, but are actively engaged in doing something. A school that has been built as opposed to someone talking about we need to build schools. A university, which instructs students in African languages as opposed to someone talking about that, is what is needed. 

If film is an important format, then the few who carry this heavy flag need to gain the support of the people who profit the most. If we scrub through the entire canon of Western Cinema, we see films like Gladiator, Troy, the entire sword and sandal tradition glorifying their history, or in the case of 10 Commandments, Hannibal Barca and Mummy Returns claiming other people's history. So the power of film is a fundamental aspect of identity and preservation of history. And the racist story in film is that of a noble Africa. Where is the story of Sundiata, the story of Mansa Musa, the story of Yared? Very few African filmmakers have even dared to tell these stories; some like Fuqua would rather vomit up the same nonsense, which demonized Africa. [11] If care is not taken when we finally see the glory of Abyssinia on the screen, it will be a distorted glory confiscated by Europeans, or a story of Uthman Dan Fodio but cast in the light of Idi Amin. If Africa wants to continue to wait on Europe for ideas or even funding it is a staunch denial of self-determination for Africa will forever see the politics of the funders in the final edits. The limits and scopes of the topics on Africa are testimony to this, the soft or irrelevant agendas will continue to plague the screenplays. Europe has always been smart in placing ‘Black' agents in positions to misrepresent Africa under the facade of authenticity.

It was not the wealth of Kemet that forged pyramids against the endless African desert; it was the will of the people to tap into their spirit and produce something unprecedented in human history, an enduring statement of their religion and culture for all to see and marvel in. We must not rest of past laurels of antiquity but in the tradition of the past continue to forge forward the spirit of humanity to express itself in splendour for the benefit of all. The flag of Pan-Africanism may be a heavy one but when all hands are on deck. For the future of our stories, in the modern medium of cinema Africans must insure that Pan-African cinema is flown high.

OWEN ‘ALIK SHAHADAH : is a multi-award winning critically acclaimed film director, and cultural writer. He authors work, which deal with African history, social justice, self-determination, environmental issues, education and world peace. Shahadah is of a new generation of African Diaspora filmmakers inspired by the likes of Ousmane Sembène and Haile Gerima. He produces work that articulates a multidimensional African world perspective. Testimony to this is the seminal documentary film 500 Years Later and his current film in production MOTHERLAND; a sweeping epic film about the African continent. His influential paper ' Linguistics for a New African reality' was adopted as the linguistic ethos for the African Code. www.owenshahadah.com