Last week, the Institute of African Studies continued their semester’s IAS Film Series with Ota Benga – a film reflecting on the life of Ota Benga.
Ota Benga, a pygmy from the Congo—then the personal property of the King of Belgium—was recruited for the anthropology department of the Saint-Louis Fair of 1904. The circumstances of his encounter with Phillips Verner, an explorer, Presbyterian minister who was hunting for natives, remain unknown. Verner invented many fictions to explain and justify his association with Ota Benga. Out of these fictions stood the story of rescuing Benga, with the help of Belgian army officers, from a death at the hands of cannibals. The humanitarian fiction therefore becomes part of Benga’s ordeal. Ota Benga was exhibited at the Fair and the Bronx Zoological Park in New York City for sixteen days in the Fall of 1906. He symbolizes the tragic fate of Africans targeted by conquering Western States in search of new resources and territory. The body of Ota Benga was literally and symbolically caught in the network of the colonial machinery that speaks both the language of raw exploitation and humanitarianism. Ota Benga, the “dark skin stranger from 10.000 miles away” (New York Tribune, October 7, 1906), was said to “represent the missing link between the higher man and the chimpanzee” (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 23, 1906). Benga eventually killed himself with a gun in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was in 1916.
In spite of the atrocities he was subjected to, the challenge in writing about Ota Benga is to avoid duplicating the story of his degradation and silence into which he was subjected. Therefore, rather than giving too much importance of the story of Darwinism, shameful racism, the exhibition itself or even Leopoldian colonialism, how can we restore Ota Benga’s humanity? While of course these are historical facts and cannot be totally ignored, how might we take on a mission to be part of the redemption process?
The post-film discussion, which you can watch online here, opened up a debate about the basis of humanity, social identities and divisions. This week, IAS will host another film about historian, anthropologist, nuclear physicist, and politician Cheikh Anta Diop.
Next Film Screening: “Kemtiyu”
16 November 2017
Director: Ousmane William Mbaye
Cheikh Anta Diop, “The Universal Man”, “The Giant of Knowledge”, “The Last Pharaoh”, these were the headlines, the day after his death on February 7, 1986. Thirty years later, KEMTIYU paints a portrait of Cheikh Anta Diop, a trail-blazing scholar with an insatiable thirst for science and knowledge as well as an honest, enlightened political figure, venerated by some, decried by others, and unknown to most.
This film tells the story of a man who fought his whole life for truth and justice in order to restore historical awareness and dignity to Africa.
For more information, visit http://www.cihablog.com/event/film-kemtiyu-university-ghana-institute-african-studies-film-festival/