Review of Wonders of The African World  

Wonders of The African World , narrated and hosted by Henry Louis Gates, was presented in three installments on October 25, 26, and 27. When I realized that the series would begin at exactly the time I had scheduled an audition, I frantically made arrangements to have the segment taped so I could view it later.

However, I made sure I was prepared for the second segment, buying quality tapes to record it on my VCR. This segment dealt with a subject I was currently working on, the issue of whether African Americans are owed reparation for slavery by European Americans and whether the descendants of Africans who had been involved in the slave trade were equally culpable.

The segment began in Elmina, Ghana. Of some 70 slave castles that had been used to store and export slaves from West Africa to the Americas, over half of them had been in Ghana. And Gates was intent on exploring how West Africans viewed their ancestors role in the capture and trade of their fellow Africans. I had taken my family to Ghana just this past summer, and we had visited the slave castles in Elmina and Cape Coast. We took the guided tours of the slave castles, witnessed the holding pens for male and female slaves, heard the descriptions of their ordeals as presented by the guides, and imagined how it must have been like in the crowded, stone encased rooms, with no possibility of escape.

Gates' presentation gave some sense of this, but the topic was seriously marred by his irreverent, prepschool attitude. He feigned surprise at how honest and graphic the guides were in describing the particulars of the slave trade, as if he had expected them to deny their involvement or at least sugar-coat it by denying its horrors. The camera follows him as he interviews historians and traditional chiefs about the slave trade, and he never misses a chance for a quip and a chuckle. What would he have been like if his ancestors had not been sold into slavery, he muses. Maybe, his historian hostess replies, he would have been a chief. Gates likes this answer, one that has spawned many an African American's fantasy, and they laugh. He makes no attempt to enlighten his audience to the conceptual paradox inherent in this fantasy: if there had been no trans-Atlantic slave trade, there would have been no African descendants of American slavery, and no Henry Louis Gates. One wonders if Gates is even aware of the problem in dealing with such historical counterfactuals. If he is aware, he shows no indication of such, and gives his audience no idea of how to deal with them except in the usual self-serving manner.

He travels from Elmina to Kumasi, and from Kumasi to Benin, as he outlines the extent of the slave trade. In Benin, he interviews African descendants of ... de Souza, a European who acted as a middleman between the Dahomian king and the European slavers. As with the traditional Ashanti chief in Kumasi, the remorse of the lady who is his guide in Benin is genuine. On the other hand, one of the more enlightening moments comes with the candid acknowledgement that the Ashanti and Dahomey kingdoms were built by conquerors, and conquest is always a bloody business. Were the African conquerors any more brutal than Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, or Julius Caesar? The suffering caused to the Africans enslaved was tragic. Equally tragic is the suffering experienced subsequently by the Africans who enabled the slave trade. Even more tragic is the irreverent attitude of the descendant of this era who returns and is so secretly pleased that his ancestors did not remain in Africa.

Gates pursues his exploration of the wonders of Africa to Ethiopia, home of Coptic christianity and reputed sanctuary of the fabled Lost Arc of the Covenant. The cinematography is beautiful as we follow him from Addis Abbaba to Gomar to Exum to Lalibedda. The mountaintop monasteries and mummified remains of ancient kings presents a vivid picture of a proud people with a glorious past. Unfortunately, it is again marred by Gates mouth. His quips, asides, and chutzpa show again and again that he has no stake in or respect for the beliefs of the people he is exploring. I am shocked when he asks a Coptic priest if he might be allowed to verify the authenticity of the arc the priest claims to be in his church, and on another occasion, muses on what might happen if he climbed a fence to enter a sacred cathedral closed to the public. One wonders whether Gates is aware of the spoiled brat image he projects, or whether he really believes that being a Harvard professor gives him the right to explore the beliefs and relics of his hosts with little regard for the effect of his inquiries on their sensibilities.

In an episode in the last installment, Gates has returned to West Africa, and has followed the Niger river down to the fabled city of Timbuctu. He walks through the dusty streets like the rich tourist he is, with a turbaned white english guide who has clearly taken great pains not to present Gates' image of an enlightened voyeur. At one point, Gates' has his guide ask the local Imman for permission to enter the mosque to film. The Imman replies that this would be allowed only if Gates converts to Islam. Gates asks in response whether, if he converts, he would be allowed to have four wives. The Imman is dumbfounded when Gates response is translated back to him. Gates, however, thinks it is all quite funny.

In the last part of this segment, Gates introduces us to the Dogon people and is taken to a site where young men were circumcised as part of their initiation into manhood. "Is this blood?" he asks his informant, as he points to a stained rock. "Yes" replies the guide. I cringe: Is Gates' going to ask to see where the women were circumcised? Will he take us there and show us the remains of their blood as well? Fortunately he does not. Perhaps the immodium he so candidly warns is a necessity for the tourist in Africa has finally quieted the spasms of his mouth.

In his book, The Signifying Monkey Gates introduces readers to the Yoruba deity Esu, who mediates between the gods and mere mortals. Esu is presented as the African equivalent of Hermes, and reminds us of the necessity of interpreting the information and messages we are presented with in life. Esu is a mischievous Orisha, and unless acknowledged and appeased will typically lead us astray. In one of the statues of Esu collected by Gates, the deity is shown holding his oversized penis, representing his proclivity for copulation, for joining opposites, and creating new meaning. In his Wonders of the African World Gates' wears his Harvard credentials much as he portrays Esu holding his penis. He leaves no doubt in the viewers mind that the power and resources that make his journey among the people of Africa possible derive from his connection with Harvard, and that he is an emissary, merely visiting, mediating between the Gods of the modern world and the natives he interviews. We would all be outraged had we been given a production of this sort by a white Harvard professor. The fact that Gates is the descendant of African slaves should give him no more license to flaunt his privileged position. I've still not seen the first segment of Wonders of the African World but I hope it is better than the segments I did see. Unfortunately I have lost my interest in obtaining it.

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