Faustin Linyekula: Of Ruins And Responsibility

This lecture will be (again) a dialogue with the ruins I inherited from my fathers, guided by the poet’s voice:

I would come to that country, my country, and I would say to it:
“Kiss me without fear… And if I do not know what to say, it is still for you that I speak. ”
And I would say to it:
“My mouth shall be the mouth of misfortunes which have no mouth, my voice the freedom of those which break down in the prison cell of despair. ”
And, coming, I would say to myself :
“Beware, my body and soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who cries out is not a dancing bear. ”

Aimé Césaire, Return to My Native Land
(Translated from the French by John Berger and Anna Bostock)