AFRICAN APOCALYPSE

In your documentary about violent colonial traces in Niger, African Apocalypse, there are some interesting connections between the classical novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and your documentary. Can you elaborate on the connection you sought in your documentary?

Femi: Well, of course, there are two parallels with the Heart of Darkness. One is the story itself and one is the timescale. Conrad was writing this novel at the same time as Voulet was undertaking his massacres, and the reality is that the character of Kurtz in the novel, a white man who goes to conquer but ends up in some ways being overcome by his own hubris, is replicated in real life with Voulet. The colonial violence as well in the novel is replicated in real life with Voulet. Of course, Heart of Darkness has had valid criticisms leveled against it by Achebe, and this is something which came up a lot in discussions about the film. However, the parallels are clear and present a compelling narrative that helps, in true docu-drama style, to aptly sit between the line of fiction and reality, which is all too often stranger than fiction.

Rob: Yes, the remarkable co-incidence of Conrad’s novel being written and Voulet’s expedition leading to the Mr. Kurtz-like behavior of its leader is profound. They are the Truth and Art of the psychology of the will to dominate in a colonial way—that is racially, economically and politically. Both Joseph Conrad and Paul Voulet were profoundly in tune with the zeitgeist of 1899 and late European imperialism. Our connection of the two in our film enables viewers to see an epic and tragic dimension to Voulet’s rampage that brought so much harm to communities in Niger. It also implicitly invites us to wonder how Heart of Darkness, the novel, might have been had it been told from an African point of view.

Heart of Darkness can be seen as an archetype of colonial narrative. Why does it become relevant toAfrican Apocalypse?

Femi: Heart of Darkness is, in many ways, a colonial narrative because it is written from the perspective of a white man observing in the Congo; Joseph Conrad was Polish. So, the main character Marlow is a white man’s perspective. In the novel, as we mentioned in the film, the Africans barely get a chance to speak.

Rob: This is why it's not only an archetype of colonial narrative, it is one of the very few works of European literature that shows how, as Aimé Césaire terms it, colonialism ‘decivilizes’ and ‘brutalizes’ the colonizer. As long as this is not clearly recognized, white supremacist thinking will go unchecked. It is a necessary work for all of us. This is the idea behind African Apocalypse.

Femi: Heart of Darkness is presented through the European gaze; it’s indeniable. This is something that we tried to avoid in African Apocalypse by giving a voice to the people who have been voiceless, by platforming the Nigeriens, the descendants of the victims, and allowing them to tell their story properly to the world for the first time.

Rob, you said, “For over 20 years I have made films about empire and colonialism (specifically British). In the past, it was important to reveal the workings of imperialism to understand how we reached the present. But although these films had impact, I never really felt like I put my finger on the problem. Now a younger generation is maturing which sees colonialism anew - as an insidious and pervasive presence in our world, both within European societies and globally. History is important, but the future is even more.” As you told us, you tried to give a voice to Nigeriens. What else is different regarding your approach in African Apocalypse to the former films you made?

Rob: African Apocalypse deals with history in terms of current community experience—in this case, it relates to the community that participated in making the film and also, no less, the community that watches the film. This also happened on Enemies of the People, my film on the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The earlier BBC films I made on British colonialism—in the 1990s—were made more directly to detail a history that had not previously been told. Though even in those cases the participant communities—in Burma and Malaysia/Thailand—have been very active in using these films for contemporary purposes. Perhaps it is also the nature of distribution that makes some of this possible.

Femi, being part of that younger generation, what is your experience regarding the demographic aspects and the changing perspectives in documentaries?

Femi: I think that many in my generation are challenging the ideas passed down by their parents, who grew up still in the direct shadow of empire, often themselves being born when the British Empire and French Empire, and especially Portuguese, because they clung to their colonies, were still formal structures. It is very important to speak to the youth, to utilize social media, and to understand that many of the most impressionable and open to new ideas, are those who have not undergone decades and decades of indoctrination. The message should not be solely directed at the youth, but should be formulated in such a way that it does not alienate and ignore this demographic, especially when talking about history.

Can you draw parallels between the apocalyptic events in your work and the historical consequences of colonialism, and in doing so, address the social and environmental devastation caused by imperialist endeavors you encountered during the filmmaking?

Femi: The parallels are clear. Colonialism is theft, it is violence, it is conquest, it is domination, it is enslavement. All of these things are representative of a mindset which believes that the world is yours for the taking, that other people's labour and other people's lives are yours for the taking, and of course if you are happy to destroy another person's life for no good reason, then why would you have qualms about cutting down a tree? The environmental devastation across Africa and much of the world goes hand-in-hand with the European colonial mindset, and this is something clear in the scenes with Teshi, who takes us to the holy tree in the film and describes how the Europeans cut them down.

Rob:  And there are also the uranium mines of northern Niger that have been critical to France’s nuclear power grid since the early 1970s. The discovery of significant uranium deposits in Niger in the late 1950s meant that Niger’s first government (on the eve of independence in 1960) was overthrown in a constitutional coup because it had been planning to forge an independent economic, foreign and security policy. Instead, France installed a pliant regime in Niamey, thereby guaranteeing easy access to uranium. Nigeriens of a certain age talk of La Pénétration Coloniale (Colonial Penetration). There can be no clearer and more chilling example of this than with the uranium miners we speak to in the film. Both had contracted uranium-related diseases by the time we met them. Since filming, both Bijou Bara and Abdou Haruna have died from these diseases.

Talking to the miners was a powerful moment in the documentary, to show the impact of colonialism from their perspective. There is another one of these moments in the documentary; when you talk to children. Their emotions coming up shows how the past trauma still has huge impacts on the youngest generation. Can you tell us how you navigated talking about such delicate memories with the local people?

Femi: It is indeed difficult to talk to locals about such delicate things, especially across language barriers, and this is something which came up in the film when I was challenged by my guides for sometimes showing a lack of emotion. Finding that balance between seeming overwhelmed in front of people who are stoic, often in the face of their own suffering, and seeming cold, was difficult and it's something which was a process throughout the film. There was a level of shared humanity in the interactions, and in showing empathy, we were able to overcome any notion of distrust and receive candid and truthful expressions of anger and righteousness.

Rob: The important thing with any film on difficult subjects (I have just been making a film with psychiatric patients) is that those speaking and participating in the film feel that there is something to be gained. Of course, our production ensured that each community we filmed with were fairly recompensed in material terms. But I am talking more about the emotional gain. Nigeriens we filmed with felt that this was a collective effort to document the wrongs of the past and the ongoing trauma of the present, and that there was a forward-moving process of which we all were/are a part. This process has continued with showings in Niger and even at an international level.

How did you deal with your positionality on that topic, how did you deal with that as director or activist? Can you draw on the connection to Black Lives Matters a little bit? To what extent did your perspective as an activist/director change during the process?

Rob: The Black Lives Matter movement resurged during the editing of our film. Of course, we were sympathetic to it, that’s why we were making the film. We were trying to bring to the attention of our audience that colonialism is not (only) of the past, it continues in the present. My positionality as a white director is different in Niger from at home in Britain. My preference is for coalition practice on the basis of mutual respect and equality—and as far as that can be rectified by the unequal economic position of people from Britain (any, white or Black) vis-à-vis people of Niger. In Britain, a different kind of identity politics is at work. This is difficult to navigate in the world of film. In the content of our film, I think it was only afterwards we realized that W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of Double Consciousness was relevant. We had felt it and thought it vaguely—e.g. Femi saying the soldiers saying he may as well be white - but not in such precise DuBoisian terms. If we had, I think we could have sharpened that dimension in the script and editing.

Femi: I, of course, was not the director of the film, but I do define myself as an activist, so to speak. Of course, the connection to Black Lives Matters is very interesting, because Black Lives Matters emerges from the diasporic perspective. It emerges from the treatment of those of African descent in the Global North, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and what this film does is it ties these two themes together and says that the state of Africans on the continent today and the historical colonialism which presented itself as violence inflicted on black bodies is inextricably linked to the murder of George Floyd, to the Black Lives Matter movement today.

Can you explain how you worked with the concept of apocalypse and revelation regarding colonialism?

Rob: Apocalypse as Revelation was the sense in which I was happy to move forward with the title. Previously it had been considered and discarded as being a little too sensational. However, there are a number of Revelations going on here: Voulet’s violence reveals the true nature of European colonialism; Femi’s journey reveals to him the lived experience of (post)colonialism as told by Nigeriens today; rural Nigeriens giving an active account of a history in which they were previously seen as passive victims—Testimony is Resistance—is a revelation, we hope, to the audience who see the film.

Femi: The name African Apocalypse actually came quite late, and we didn't necessarily deal with the biblical connotations of the apocalypse in the movie. Of course, Christianity on the continent has its own colonial history. The Book of Revelation itself is known to speak of the twelve tribes of Israel ushering in the second coming of Christ, which itself is cited as a justification for many Christian Zionists who push for the ongoing settler colonialism in Palestine. The idea of religious eschatology and revelation is immensely interesting when spoken about in relationship to colonialism, and this is something I would love to explore further in my writing and my filmmaking. 

At one point in the documentary, Femi Nylander says that something was revealed—what was revealed to you, Femi?

Femi: Many things were revealed to me throughout the journey. As I say, in the film, there is the knowledge that you gain through reading books, and there is the knowledge that you gain through experience and discussion and first-hand testimony, and I believe that I had not really truly appreciated the extent of the European violence necessary to conquer and enslave most of the planet until undertaking this journey. Coming back to the topic of Revelation, it is clear the journey represented a revelation to me.

What important things should policymakers and people around the world consider regarding the colonial entanglements that persist today, especially on global challenges?

Femi: Policymakers and people around the world should consider that we live in a system of global apartheid. They should consider that the causes of the so-called migrant crisis, which I explore in my book Seeking Refuge 2060, are rooted deeply in the global inequality which is a result of their colonial history and their colonial present. They should consider changing the narrative from a narrative of development and charity to a narrative of continued exploitation and resistance to that exploitation.

Rob: Colonialism is not over. On what Femi said, I would add, that it persists in many dimensions (and they make it persist): the global economy, the immigration regimes of the world (especially Europe and the US), the effects of climate change and environmental destruction wrought by colonial extraction, international political representation, and much more.

Did you get any feedback on how the public received the documentary and what kind of impact it had? Is this responding to your expectations?

Rob: The film has been exhibited at film festivals around the world (Europe, China, US, Canada) and shown on TV worldwide. Most significant, however, were the screenings in Niger itself. Some say this film brought a greater awareness of the colonial conquest among Nigeriens as a result of the Niamey screenings we did in 2022 and its showing on Nigerien TV to an audience of around 10 million. And they say this awareness has been important in the public attitude to the military government that has in the last six months expelled French troops and begun to redraw its relationship with the former colonial controller. It has been a useful means of enhancing Nigerien diaspora activity in Britain and Canada. The US and France diaspora still remain uncharted territory for the film. It has led to activity towards Reparation for Colonialism by the diaspora at the Houses of Parliament in the UK and in UN legal procedures by the communities that participated in the film.

Femi: Myself I have been approached numerous times in the street to compliment me and to say that the film was very educational. Furthermore, our reception when we translated the film into Hausa and released it in Niger itself was even more heartwarming. People were very happy that their story was being told. Many Nigeriens had not been properly educated on this topic themselves and were ravenous to know more, eager to ask questions and engaged at every level.

The Double Feature was part of the collaborative, transdisciplinary project ‘Decolonising Public Engagement’. Launched in 2023 in partnership with the Institute for Advanced Studies at University College London, this project aims to cultivate innovative and critically self-reflective approaches to university research and science communication.

Rob Lemkin has produced and directed over 50 documentaries for BBC, C4 and other broadcasters in UK and US. Feature length documentary films include: ‘Hospital in the Mind’ (2024 forthcoming), ‘From Babel to Abstraction’ (2024 forthcoming), and African Apocalypse (2020). His feature film, 'Enemies of the People' (2010) is a groundbreaking account of the Killing Fields of Cambodia which won over 30 international awards including Special Jury Prize at Sundance, Best Documentary BIFA and Emmy for Best Investigative Documentary. The film and its sequel 'One Day at Po Chrey' (2012) were at the heart of the United Nations trial of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Other political conflict-themed films include ‘Malaya: The Undeclared War’ and ‘Who Really Killed Aung San?’ His writing has appeared in TAZ, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, Politis, Mediapart, Morning Star. A new essay on African Apocalypse, Joseph Conrad and the coup in Niger is published in Joseph Conrad’s Cultural Essay:  (Bloomsbury, September 2024) 

Femi Nylander is an activist, poet, actor and author of African descent hailing from Manchester in the UK. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 2016. He wrote and performed two critically-acclaimed TED talk poems on migration and decolonial public health. He joined the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford movement and appeared on the BBC’s Big Questions, Daily Politics, Good Morning Britain and The One Show to discuss decolonial history. He is the author of Seeking Refuge 2060.