Sponsors also included the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Ethiopian Airlines. The festival was also supported by the United Bank, Sida, the IOM and the Italian Cultural Institute.
Among the films screened at the festival was ‘Sisters In Law’ produced by Florence Ayisi and Kim Longinotto, a powerful work on
human rights and gender relations in Cameroon. Judge Vera Ngassa is a Magistrate by
vocation but a feisty human rights ‘actor’ as she refers to herself. She was here in Addis to share her experiences on the question of human rights as a modern/western concepts and its applicability to African setting. We invite you to enjoy excerpts from the exclusive interview she gave to Capital.
Capital was also fortunate to speak to South Africa’s Khalo Matabane, a film maker who calls himself the village story teller. ‘Khalo’s Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon’ has won the ecumenical prize at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival, which was the first to be screened at the Addis Film Festival. It is themed on a Somali woman’s plight of suffering on her migration to South Africa. Would you tell us about your personal
experience, challenges and trials in
Human Rights work?
Perhaps some Human Rights actors ( I prefer actors to activist because activist may scare people) are born while some are made by circumstances. I do not know which one I am but from a very early age, I have always disapproved of injustice and oppression more against others than against myself. By my nature I am somewhat an intercessor and find myself always intervening on behalf of anyone around me who is facing an injustice be it in the family, at work, as a passer by. Something ( perhaps its the mother in me) refuses to be indifferent when I see suffering and I know I am not the savior of the world but if I had my way, whenever I see news of suffering destruction and famine or war in Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon the tsunami and even Iraq I wish I could be there. I however actively and consciously became implicated in the Human Rights battle in 1993 when the world was preparing for the Beijing conference and people, especially women, began to associate themselves in groups. We as women lawyers and judges also got together to see what we could do from the angle of the law. We discovered to our shame that there were so many laws which we could use to liberate not only women but families, which because of our inadvertence and male dominance in the judiciary, had been lying dormant for over a decade . We thus started legal literacy for ourselves, for our colleagues and for the masses. Thereafter we trained trainers for the grassroots, executed other Human Rights projects, and the Legal Clinic you see in Sisters In Law is part of the fruit of our uphill progress. My profession as a Magistrate and Judge constrains me to be not-so-vocal and aggressive but I still consider myself to be a judicial activist. I use the law to fight for human rights and set people free and where the law is lacking I improvise and when the law is unjust I either circumvent it , ignore it or overturn it. For example there is a Supreme Court judgment of 1972 which said a man has a traditional right to flog or correct his wife but in Sisters In Law, you see us in a lower court going against that precedent using the ordinary law on assault which is not even gender specific. As a magistrate and judge, I am known for being fair but if it comes to it, I'll take the side of the underdog any day of the week. All in all I could never say I have had a boring life. You know when you start a new thing, you are bound to be misunderstood. People resist change and refuse to leave thier comfort zone even when it is for thier own good - it is like refusing surgery or bitter medicine which will heal you. My co-labourers and I have been branded all kinds of names and received all kinds of invectives and diatribes. When I was State Counsel for Kumba, I remember being slandered in newspapers by anonymous police chiefs for granting bail and setting people free whom they had unjustly detained. But then there have also been very rewarding moments. It pays to see the look of gratitude on the face of some poor person you have just helped get redress or relief. When I was appointed President of The High Court of Fako in 2005 after serving as State Counsel for 7 years, I went to the Kumba Prison to pay one last official and personal visit to my prisoners, most of whom call me mother. It was all I could do not to weep in front of them - the emotion they displayed was too much for me. In conclusion I will quote myself from my book ' Gender Approach To Court Actions ' - Human Rights never came to anyone handed on a golden platter. When 'push comes to shove' as it always does, then you have got to stand on your two legs like a man and fight. One of my favourite authors Harper Lee says in ' To Kill A Mocking Bird " " Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand - it is knowing that you are licked before you got started but starting all the same"
How well are human rights including
gender equality protected in Cameroon?
I will say you win some and you lose some but at
least there is a conscious and ongoing campaign/debate on the issue. For gender issues I will say we the sisters are holding our own, though there is a need for gender-sensitive laws in many areas and many more people need to get involved. Generally human rights is at least still a going concern which means it has not been abandoned or forgotten. We officially have a National Human Rights Commission and many NGOs which are quite active and vocal. Some have access to international human rights organizations. I remember as State Counsel of Kumba I had to investigate a report by a local NGO in the hinterlands to some international Human Rights Organization against an administrator who had unlawfully detained almost a whole village. We now have a new Criminal Procedure Code which makes arbitrary arrests, searches, long detentions and unwarranted prosecutions almost impossible with tough repercussions for the police officers and magistrates/judges who do not obey. On the face of it ,its a new day in Cameroon and it is no longer possible to lock up somebody and throw the key nor for an individual who has an issue against his neighbors to send him to spend the weekend in jail. The code became operational this January. I hope we make it worth the paper on which it is written and worth the sacrifice of all the right-thinking men and women who labored for over twenty years to bring it to pass.
In your opinion, what is the role of African cinema in addressing human rights issues?
Interestingly enough, I only became aware of cinema or African cinema with my involvement with Sisters in Law in 2003 (We started the groundwork and research then ) Before then, I was not a cinema-going person (in fact there are no cinemas our side of the country) and when I watch TV, Its news mostly or some late night movie. However, my eyes were opened to the connection between Human Rights/Democracy and Cinema during the IDFA(International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam) As the director Ally Derks puts it: "Documentary in conjunction with democracy, can provide civil society with information and enlightenment and help us face the reality of the 21st century" You see in Africa, with our chieftaincy mentality and colonial heritage you are not supposed to challenge authority. So when you talk you invariably get into trouble. Men lie but circumstances do not lie and the camera certainly never lies - it records what it sees. Cinema/documentaries are a mode of expression from the perspective of the person behind the camera and the subjects of the picture. Thus when you have a man or woman of integrity behind a camera and he records a human rights story it cannot be gainsaid. It is proof not only beyond reasonable doubt but against a shadow of a doubt. You cannot argue with a picture - it has the benefit and immunity of not hearing nor seeing you. As Chauser would put it 'Those are not my words but the camera's". You cannot jolly well ask a man - why did your camera see that picture? Also as a didactic tool and as a means of information and record people remember more what they see and hear more than what they just read or hear over the radio. Thus African cinematographers, directors and producers owe a moral responsibility to the future ( like all informed citizens ) to speak out against injustice wherever it may lie, when "lying" ( if you forgive the pun) on the media is becoming alarming. The only set back I see is the wherewithal - finances and know-how. Cinema comes in expensive and film schools in Africa are few and far between. It is the cry of African film makers that they do not have the recognition and funding they need and it is my heart cry for them that windows of opportunity, favour and recognition will speedily open to them.
Sister in Law deals with the question of human rights as a modern western concept and its applicability to African settings.
Do human rights really have brands and types?
On the face of it all human beings are born with the same inalienable rights regardless of race, color, sex, and creed. The right to life and liberty, freedom of movement, freedom from torture and all those rights that are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights Charters. However, sociological and cultural as well as positional happenings and circumstances lend a different complexion to the human rights abuse or crisis. People in a famine situation face a different human rights crisis from refugees and war prisoners for example. An illegal alien in the United States running and hiding from the Immigration has a different human rights crisis from a colored person in need of affirmative action to give him a head start.
A woman in Afghanistan in the late 1990s facing a threat of death for not wearing a burqa or for mistakenly exposing her ankle is facing a different outrage from the women in Italy who are outraged at a. Supreme Court decision that a woman in Jeans cannot be raped. The list goes on : Dowry murders in India, the cast system in some countries, autocratic rule in others, rigging elections etc. I cannot stereotype Africa in a few words and without proof of in-depth and credible research. But our human rights situation in Africa has a familiar thread running through its fabric : culture and tradition, ethnicity as well as mismanagement. Mismanagement at all levels. As to culture, gender abuse takes a different complexion when it comes to Africa: ritual rapes, ritual murders, widow and widower inheritance (the levirate and sororate), child-brides or betrothals ‘en vente sa mere,’ forced marriages, forced same sex marriages between older and younger women for procreative purposes, widower and widow cleansing, excision or female circumcision, slavery or giving of children as security for unpaid loans etc. Compounded by the fact that Africans are a very religious and fetish people. As I mention in my book " Gender Approach To Court Actions", the power of tradition is the fact that it is handed down by our ancestors who are deified and the sting of tradition is the fear of witchcraft. When it come to ruler ship our chieftaincy and colonial mentality makes it an uneasy situation for one to aspire to be head during the lifetime of the present head even if it is through legitimate elections. Race and ethnicity often translate to nepotism , tribal intolerance and war. Famine mismanagement and war create other forms of human rights abuse. Why do you call yourself ‘the Village story teller?
I grew up in a village and it was my grandmother who used to tell me stories. I also used to hear other people relate tales. The village was rich with stories so i owe my filmmaking to my village.
Would you describe yourself as anti
establishment?
That’s funny! I flirt with the establishment. I try to get the establishment to do anti establishment stuff.
What drew you to the refugee theme in ‘Conversations a on Sunday
Afternoon’?
There are many refugees in South Africa and I think refugees impact of the landscape, politics, economics and culture of the country they live in. It is one of the most important topics of the 21st century.
Do you address issues of urban violence in South Africa?
I think violence is linked to political history and economics. in my new film I am writing on violence I try to understand contemporary violence within a historical context. I see a relationship between apartheid and violence or colonization. Fanon said something like colonization is violence. I agree. But the fact that people starve while a few enrich themselves, isn't that also violence?
What are your future plans?
To make lots of feature films, to produce young filmmakers and to be a media player.
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