Why I turn down portrait documentaries requests!

For several years, I have frequently received requests from various African, European, and American media groups that want to do a "profile" on me. I have declined and continue to decline these invitations to participate in documentary portraits. In the meantime, a journalist from a German media outlet insisted so much that I ended up blocking them. And just recently, an American documentary filmmaker also wanted to make a film on my activism.

I have never been impressed by this kind of offers; on the contrary, I am wary of how the media, in their desire to cover a story from a particular angle, create false heroes in the collective consciousness of the public and promote a romanticized view of resistance struggles. Especially when it comes to women, their goal is to portray a woman who breaks taboos by entering politics, when there were never any real taboos for these women in the first place, especially in societies where they have always been involved in liberation struggles since pre-colonial times like it is the case in my nation Togo.

I also refute the personalization of struggles, which leads to the distorted belief that it is thanks to a single individual or a small group of people that an entire nation was able rise up to claim their rights when, in reality, civil uprisings constitute a chain that build up over time from generation to generation before finally achieving leading to a revolution. For instance, it is not because the struggle of the Togolese people eventually led to the referendum of April 27, 1958 when our grandparents voted to oust the French that the Togolese people were sitting idle and enduring colonization before the 1950s. Several generations before Olympio resisted colonization and also lost their lives in the process.

Furthermore, liberation struggles are collective efforts, even if some individuals are more known than others because they are better communicators or have become famous due to a combination of circumstances. This does not mean that the lesser-known ones are any less brave or committed, as the vast majority of martyrs die unknown and in silence.

We should avoid hierarchizing struggles and especially activists. I have, on several occasions, granted interviews lasting 60 to 90 minutes to journalists, often from so-called mainstream media, only to find that the resulting article focused almost entirely on the 2 or 3 questions asked about my personal story. And when I asked why that, am told their editors were only interested in the personal part which is what people want to read.Indeed, people like these types of heatrmoving stories that makes them go in "Aww" or "Wow," but the  negative effect of this, is that it portrays activists as extraordinary individuals,  endowed with a courage or morality superior to the average human, which is not always the case.

The question I dislike being asked the most is: What inspired you to become an activist? My activism was not inspired by embellished stories of heroes who wanted to change the world; far from that. My activism was provoked by painful, traumatic events and is a reaction to a feeling of anger and aversion towards injustice. There was no inspiration, only provocation, despair, and the desire to put an end to this endless cycle of oppression and to heal from deep trauma caused by years of abuse.

I know that as the years go by, these solicitations will increase, but my answer will remain the same. Heroes are good for fiction. Here, we live in reality: our oppression is very real, and our pain and resistance are collective.

Farida Bemba Nabourema
Disillusioned African Citizen!