When Katy Léna Ndiaye (Dakar, 1968) first visualized that group of children, filmed in a newly independent Senegal in the sixties, reciting the fable in chorus and from memory The farmer and his children de La Fontaine, couldn’t get it out of his head. Written in 1668, this story, which encourages work as a guarantee of prosperity, was part of the educational program in French colonial Africa and in the metropolis, where she also learned it. “It doesn’t have the same meaning to recite it in France as it does in Africa,” she explains after the presentation of her documentary. Money, freedom, a history of the CFA franc in Spain, at the beginning of October, at the Basque Festival of African Cinemas Afrikaldia.
These images found in the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) motivated her to tell in a story-like manner, for almost two hours, the historical, technical and political ins and outs of the currency that still unites France today with seven million people who They live in their former African colonies.
The FCFA has become the symbol of the arsenal of instruments with which the colonizing country maintains its controversial influence in the region. The currency, used by 14 countries on the continent, is seen as a vestige of colonialism. Its value is linked to the currency used by France (previously franc, now euro) so its exchange rate is fixed. Since the mid-2010s and for the first time since the independence, youth movements and intellectual elites have promoted numerous public demonstrations in cities such as Dakar, Cotonou, Libreville or Bamako and in the Paris region demanding its disappearance.
In a conversation without clock or rush, Ndiaye reviews her career of more than two decades as a journalist in Belgium, her leap into cinema as a director and producer, her interest in representing “another Africa” and her great concern for dedicating time to people already the topics. The film can also be seen on October 21 and 24 at the Invisible Film Sozialak Bilbao International Film Festival.
Ask. What did you think when you saw African children reciting La Fontaine?
Answer. Suddenly I understood this fable as the metaphor of the CFA franc: the farmer is the (French) Empire that does not want to die, so, before doing so and to be sure of continuing to exist, it offers its children (the independent African States) the recipe they must follow: “Don’t change anything.” It is a metaphor: the CFA franc is a lie, a fable, a story to keep you awake.
Q. And from there you decide to tell your story in the form of a story. Why use this resource on such a technical and complex topic?
R. Lepoon liboon It is a signal to begin a story in Senegal, but also a formula to open a surreal world, in which for me this coin is located. I asked a traditional accountant who was legitimate to narrate and he answered that the person who committed to telling the story to the end. So that’s how I did it. He took me eight years.
Q. It begins with an anecdote, in Saint Louis, in his family home. To what extent does a currency influence everyday life?
R. The economy and finance seem like such big issues that we think we are not capable of understanding it and that is why we delegate it to our leaders…. It is something immense, however, it is present in everyday life. “The CFA franc is not everything, but it is in everything,” says one of the interviewees. He wanted to tell through a biographical anecdote how we relate to money. My grandmother would give me a coin before going to the market, so that she could spend it on whatever she wanted. Through this gesture, adults have transmitted the CFA franc to us, and give us, the following generations, the responsibility of deciding what to do with it.
Q. What does that coin symbolize?
R. The CFA franc sends us into a chain, that of the slave trade and the economy of slavery; to a rope, that of the forced labor horse during the colony, serving to enrich the French in their business with the metropolis. Maintaining it was a condition for independence and it was not until its devaluation in 1994 that we realized the great violence behind it: our purchasing power was reduced by half. Now this currency sends us to Europe, to the euro zone, with which we are linked through France without having decided. It is a shared history, part of our common heritage for better or worse. It goes beyond the economy, it goes beyond great politics, the right to self-determination.
Q. In Africa money is used differently than in Europe. Does this have consequences for currency dependency?
R. Money in our societies is not something to keep, but to move, and the person who circulates it is useful because it makes that community function. Paradoxically, the richest is the one who has emptied his account, because he has created ties with many people. When you greet someone, you give them money as something symbolic. The Cameroonian economist and sociologist Martial Ze Belinga explains it in the film: if we do not control the exchange rate (of the FCFA with the euro), we cannot control the internal politics of the country. Sovereignty is an element constantly evoked in the documentary. One of the interviewees explains how the soft power French in the region: military bases, access to raw materials and currency.
Q. To what extent does this film shed light on what is currently happening in the Sahel?
R. Although it is not a topical film, the history of the currency helps to understand that atypical and toxic relationship between France and its former colonies, which is the basis of the reaction that is manifested in countries like Mali, Niger or Burkina Faso and that, in The bottom line calls for the construction of a new relationship. There is a saturation of a certain youth, who cannot explain what is happening with words and technicalities like the experts, but who feel excluded from that asymmetric relationship, which always benefits them. It’s time to end that relationship, we have to do it quickly. It is not a hatred of France or Europe, it is a desire to take the reins and decide on our own fate.
Q. What do you intend with this documentary?
R. It is a film for youth: my intention is to ask my generation and the following ones what we are going to do with this history that has been left to us. In all these years there has not been a moment of reflection on what society we want to create for ourselves and what currency we need for this. It is time to do so, and to launch a utopia, to introduce the imagination to invent another relationship with Europe.
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