Our Narrative Through The Lenses of Culture | HILDA DOKUBO | TEDxDiobu
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXeuOntODbA Video ID: BXeuOntODbA ============================================================ [music] Say [screaming] I'm a big kimr. see ah that is the story of my people. That's how we start. It all starts whether the moon was out or not. We knew how to translate our culture into our younger ones through songs and dances and chants. The African is a storyteller and I am going to tell you a story. as a sevenyear-old growing up in townot not due I'm a wateride girl and my wateride flows all the way to dube and so in a way you can say abid begin because I be water begin and the story of the waterite ah this morning we saw the boy run ALL THE WAY STRAIGHT INTO THE HOUSE RIGHT UNDER THE NEIGHBOR. HE HID HIMSELF. THEN WE SAW THE GIRL BEARING THE HEAD OF a antelope and a masquerade. She runs right in and then we hear papa. We're all looking for papa. Where exactly is papa? Was papa the antelope? Or was it papa that killed the antelope? But then she begins to sing. The culture and tradition of my people are embedded in our songs and in our stories, in our dance steps and in our poetry. In them are planted the history of our people. And I am one of those histories maybe past her or is it her story? They say you will tell them and write them after you pass. But no, write those stories now. Tell them to now. Let them begin to understand who we are. Let them begin to see our values as a people. Let them begin to understand that there is a difference between a walk and a match, BETWEEN WAR and victory. THAT WHEN THEY CALL YOU a warrior, it is not because you fight. It is because you know the tactics of confronting the enemy and returning home victorious. [applause] I am a filmmaker. In my many years of making films, I have had to read several scripts and written a few myself. We have learned to think that everything white is angelic and everything black is demonic. Somebody has suddenly told all of us say see as a black like devil and see as a white like God. So now even in choosing our clothes, black is for morning and white is for wedding. Who tell you that kind story? Who they share that kind story give you? When only you they carry they come they share they give your people. This is my injury. You know what this rapper means? I'm a Siri with four different designs representing four homes. I tell you I am a jo of the calabar extraction. So it will delight me if someday as I read the scripts that I'm given I see amayana written properly as notable because we are not and we do not know what that means so that when I see a name I know what it means we can't be so enslaved that our minds are so colonial that Even our traditional names now annoys us. In my many years as an actor, as a director, and as a producer, I have had only one thing trouble my mind. When will we begin to tell our stories? When will we become our own voices? When are we going to look at the stage? And of course today social media I have watched that thing transform us every day. Even in the way that we market our products, even in the way that we decide who an actor is and who a director is. Even in the way that we decide who is telling a story. I have watched the social media change us. When are we going to take that powerhouse that has put both radio, television and film in our palm? When are we going to use it to tell our own story? It is for that reason that I am here as a cultural expert not just for my state but for the country. when and I will tell you yesterday but we missed it right so we start today how about we start right now how about you take pictures and let us post it and write on it the export of the wateride girl let's go [applause] in telling a story every story has a beginning a middle and an end in all of this There are five things that must happen. You must introduce something. And then when you introduce it, you build up that story till it gets to a point where there is something called complication. There is a trouble. There is conflict and then after that that conflict hits a climax and there is need for us to try and resolve this whole problem. Then it begins to come down and then you get to a point where you say we need to resolve this. Now it can start either ways as somebody already said sometimes the whole essence of everything is in the middle and we usually avoid the middle. Don't avoid the middle. Let's work on that middle and then we can begin to resolve and then it is called resolution. And then sometimes we say how about we put an epilogue since we already had a prologue. But does the African story truly go like that? Or do we sometimes start in the middle and then go back to the beginning and then to the end? Or how exactly do we go? And I will tell you how we go. We are always collaborating. So, I'm going to say something and then you're going to respond because I know that most of you know how we tell our stories. >> That is the Africa that I know. The Nigeria that I know where we collaborate even in storytelling where the one telling you the story may be mama and then as she tells you the story she gets you to sing along with her. Why? She wants you to remember who you are. Mama wants you to know your roots. Mama wants you for every time you remember that story, you remember home and you remember mama's roasted yam and palm oil and pepper and crawfish. That's what mama wants you to remember. So we sing along. We are people who dance all the time. Even in pain, we dance. >> We have the dance of the warriors. WE HAVE THE dance of the women and of the maiden girls. We dance. We dance when we're coming back. We dance when we're going. Do our movies say that today of us? Whose story exactly are we telling? Again, I ask, can we begin to tell our own stories? And we begin to tell the story not just of the elephant and the thies but of Queen Kambasa, of Bonnie, of Akaso and Wingi. Can we begin to tell their stories? Some of them told us that um our gods and goddesses cease to exist. But every day I hear grandma say Why do we say that? Because we respect our gods and goddesses. Maybe for you this will sound a little bit like fantasy or maybe me fairy tale, but seriously is it? Is it? You know why you are quiet? because you are battling with your mentality of colonial bias and traditional rights and wrongs. Ah, [music] not exactly what I thought. Let me tell you what they have done with what we have rejected. [music] Please play for me. Listen to that. You are very familiar with it. But listen to it. [music] [music] >> [music] >> The chant of the Africans that was from Wakanda. But they did not stop there. If you listen, you will hear the cuckoo of the calabari people when it will firing. You will hear the horns. Do we need to wait for Hollywood to tell the story of Nollywood? >> [applause] >> I am waiting someday, someday, maybe this day, when the true story of who we are is not just told to children near the fireplace, but is told to the world. The story of our strength, the story of our trials, the story of our battles, and the story of our victories. We are not weak. We're not those children with flies all over them that we see on social media. We're not those broken woods everywhere that they show as Africa. We are the strength of the future and you are already in that future. Viva Nigeria. Viva to all of us. Thank you. [applause] [cheering]