Editorial

In the meantime, the war goes on...

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« It would appears that
Africa and progress
might marry soon
which is why arms are incessantly
thundering in search
of a witness »

Idris Youssouf Elmi
Nostalgies ou Le joug du Verbe
(L’Harmattan, 1998)

The Masa and Fespaco in quick succession: an exhausting but enthralling fortnight of discoveries and questioning. Experiences, reactions, meetings, exchanges… It is hard to know where to begin to try to sum up the richness of all that was seen, lived, debated.
Ours is a subjective and critical voice. Alongside the factual angle found in other publications, we thought it necessary to provide something that is becoming a critical rarity: an approach which refuses to say « it’s good or it’s bad », but which, mixing personal impressions and analysis, expands on the reasons behind the praise or disapproval. That is, an engaged critical approach which is perfectly subjective, which reflects our desire to offer a forum of debate that highlights the stakes involved, focuses on the necessities, and makes people want to know more.
This does not always win us friends, but that is not our role. We do strive, however, to respect all work. Above all, we try to avoid applying a so-called universal model to creations which, precisely, try to establish their independence. For that is undoubtedly the buzz word of the new African creations: budgets are on the decrease, decors are being simplified, energies are converging to free work up from the foreign gaze, and to concentrate on the humane. The intimate now predominates, and it is this that the new writings strive to capture. Indeed, nothing, and especially not the private sphere, can escape the rampant globalization and its unique mode of thought, nor today’s self-destructive bent of hatred or drug-abuse. It can never be stressed enough: contemporary creativity is a means of resistance. Its evolutions reflect real needs. The African continent draws on its History and culture, and its modern dramas, to enlighten the whole planet’s quest, and, beyond the wars that are raging so fiercely at the moment, to refocus on the human. That is the kind of globalization we wish and are fighting for.

///Article N° : 5347


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