"filmed for the League of Schooling in 1949 -1950 music text" "The only Whites before you to enter this village, were either administrators who take money for taxes, or recruiters who take men for the army." "So the village is wary." "But in children, curiosity is stronger than fear." "Here is an ambassador." "Not very reassured, though." "And here they all are." "They will examine, scrutinize you." "Look, they stick out their tongues, the review is favorable, you're adopted." "They may be willing to serve as guides to their village." "Follow them." "You will see things, very picturesque, no doubt." "But gradually you will realize that the picturesque barely conceals a great misery." "Baraman is getting married." "His friends help prepare clay bricks with which he will build his hut." "But after each tornado the hut will need serious repairs." "Here, tongues and arms set a good pace." "As in the wash-houses at home." "But the Niger is both wash and bath-house as well as water reservoir for drinking." "Pounding millet occupies a long stretch of the day for African women." "And they must also, of course, like all women of the world, wash and dress their children." "Here is the hair salon." "Gentlemen's side: the filmmaker's razor gets rapidly to work." "But the ladies side..." "What an achievement!" "Continuing our tour." "Here's the rope-maker, who plaits from sisal fibers all the links used by the village." "Fishermen, as in the small ports of Brittany, stitch their net." "The weaver weaves the cotton into long strips... that the tailor will turn into clothing." "But these cotton loin-cloths and tunics are often inadequate in the cool nights of Africa." "Here are the boatmen who make a canoe by joining two trunks of a hollowed tree." "Nails are a luxury they cannot afford." "Meanwhile, children try to imitate the grown-ups, and sometimes they succeed." "Or they play." "What else would they do?" "There are places in schools of Black Africa for 4% of school-age children." "Just enough for the administration to have clerks, and the colonial companies, accountants." "The kids play." "A snail shell stands in for a top." "Or a gourd stands in for a ball." "But this is a game too violent for the wise." "Oxford and Toulouse are not the preserve of rugby." "And when it's dusty, The Niger is not far." "Do you prefer the calm?" "The peace of the fields?" "Follow these two philosophers who go to join the guardians of the flock." "Over there, in a comfortable stone house" "Mr. Administrator takes a nap, crushed by the sun." "But here, we must work." "Follow the herd seeking food in the bush." "And you return at night to the village, at a time when children complete their antics, at a time when the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer," "at a time when we gather on the banks waiting for the last canoes." "Are you surprised to see a village with no school, with no doctor?" "In Africa, we open a school when the big colonial companies need accountants." "They send a doctor when the big colonial companies may lack workforce." "But this village is still lucky in its misery." "It is at peace." "Look at what lies in wait for the African villages." "Here was the village of Palaka, in northern Ivory Coast." "The village chief was unable to pay an overdue tax of 3,700 francs." "February 27, 1949 at 5 am, troops came." "They surrounded the village." "They fired, they burned, they killed." "Here the village chief, Sikali Watara, was smoked out and shot by a bullet in the neck." "A French bullet." "Here a child of seven months was killed." "A French bullet blew off her head." "Here's the blood on the wall." "A pregnant woman came to die, two French bullets in her belly." "Beneath this African land, 4 dead:" "Three men, one woman, murdered in our name, for us, people of France." "You are surprised." "Huts burned, the inhabitants massacred, slaughtered cattle rotting in the sun, this is not the official image of colonization." "Friend, colonization, here as elsewhere, is the kingdom of vultures." "And the vultures who divide up Africa have names." "Commercial Society of West Africa, 650 million profit in 1949." "French Company of West Africa, 365 million profit in 1949." "Davum, 180 million profit." "French Africa French Niger" "French Company of the Ivory Coast," "This is the Anglo-Saxon trust Unilever." "11 billion 500 million profit in a year." "40 million per day stolen from the Africans." "In exchange, these missionaries of commerce brought progress to Africa." "Progress..." "Here is the famous dam Markala Sansanding on the Niger." "A turbine supplies electricity to the homes of the Whites." "But there's no electricity to open the floodgates for the barges of the large colonial companies." "Because the sweat of the Blacks, at 50 francs per day is cheaper than the installation and maintenance of a turbine." "It seems that there are, beyond the seas, steamrollers, machines very useful for making roads." "But in Africa, there's no need for steamrollers." "Blacks are cheaper." "In the fields of millet, in the cotton fields," "in the groundnut fields, black women, black children are working." "Income for Lesieur and Unilever is skyrocketing." "Upgrade equipment?" "Why?" "A machine would do the job of twenty Blacks?" "Of course." "But 20 Blacks at 50 francs a day are cheaper than a machine." "So we'll wear down Blacks." "Besides the blacksmith is in place to repair the instruments and to produce others." "And his sons can help." "A school?" "No need to read to work the bellows 16 hours a day!" "And the Blacks working in plantations." "The Blacks working in the forest." "For 50 francs a day." "The riches of Africa accumulate." "A Sudanese proverb says:" "When the dung beetle rolls its ball it's hard work, but it's to fill his barn." "When Blacks labour under the African sun it's always to fill the coffers of the large colonial companies." "It's always to fill the holds of these waiting ships." "Waiting to go, loaded with all the vitality of Africa." "In exchange... are shutters for the home of Mr. Administrator." "Not on the head!" "A Black's head is dirty for an administrator's shutter." "At arm's length, and faster!" "A company barge runs aground on a sandbank." "No need for a tug to shift it." "Blacks are less expensive than fuel." "If one drowns or is eaten by a crocodile, they give 500 francs to his widow." "Push the bamboo, for 50 francs a day." "Since 1946, forced labor has been abolished in Black Africa, but you must pay tax in cash." "And you saw how they treat villages who can't pay their taxes." "To have money, just one way:" "work for the colonial company at 50 francs a day." "And the Blacks push on their poles, to glide on their river shipments of cotton, without hope of clothing." "Shipments of cocoa, without hope of tasting chocolate." "Shipments of groundnuts, without hope of oil and soap." "Shipments of okoume and mahogany with no hope of furniture in their huts." "There, the boats wait." "The great boats of the colonial companies waiting in the early morning." "To leave filled with products from the land of the Negroes, from the toil of Negroes." "But little by little..." "From Dakar to Brazzaville," "Abidjan to Niamey the people of Africa stand up, unite, looking for the reasons for this exploitation, of this misery, of these mass killings." "The people of Africa, supported by the French constitution, demand that the land be returned which was stolen by the colonial companies." "Demand that their sons be returned, that were torn from them to fight their yellow brothers." "The people of Africa stand peacefully." "They claim their due." "From Dakar to Brazzaville, Abidjan to Niamey the people of Africa appeal." "But run up against an administration which even MRP deputy, Father Boganda said was corrupt, racist, Machiavellian." "It did not represent France, but committed crimes on behalf of France and civilization." "And the colonial administration will respond to the Africans as it responded to the Malagasy and Vietnamese." "By force, by baton, the prison, the gun." "Military trucks loom, spreading everywhere ruin." "Ruin and death." "On behalf of us, people of France." "Agboville" "Dimboko," "Seguela," "Daloa, Bouaflé, Kétékré, ruins, raids, shootings and the names of towns and villages resound to the Africans like Oradour." "The police went by..." "The ruins..." "Raids..." "Shootings..." "Hugo N'bena, killed with rifle butts." "Mbogou, murdered during a search." "Marine Gueno, died following a police interrogation." "And many others, many other names of martyrs sounding to the Africans like d'Estienne d'Orves, like Guy Môquet." "The administrator Auzuré murders within his circle." "The commander Cuny burns alive one of his constituents." "Ruin..." "Arrests..." "The dead by the dozens..." "The police go by..." "In Bassam prison where 1,000 Africans languish," "Mamba Bakayoko died at age 70." "Died for fighting for schools and hospitals... to replace the current jail." "So that the machine be used to alleviate the toil of man... and not to prepare the strategies of a new war." "So that all these kids can live in peace, can live free and proud." "Mamba Bakayoko is dead so that the African people can finally know happiness." "Bakayoko Mamba is dead but all the African people take their place, with the people of France, arm in arm, for peace and happiness." "From Abidjan to Niamey Dakar to Brazzaville... the people of France and the people of Africa are arm in arm." "And this place in the common struggle, the African people will hold." "Against all odds, until it is won, the battle for life." "Subtitles:" "Corvusalbus, Fatmaster"