Tula will decolonise Curaçao's cinematography

The freedom fighting-fetish genes I have got me respecting our liberation warrior Tula who strove for the abolition of slavery in Curaçao. When in 2010 the news got to me that attempts were made to catapult the 1791 rebellion with Tula as protagonist onto the silver screen by Dutch filmmakers, I foresaw a controversy. I was wrong; one year flew by and the slave-narrative theft remained below the cultural conscious radar.

What happened to all my elders and their mental decolonisation principles? When you reach around or pass 60, does it water down? I need my elders who still have decision-making powers to be strong. Don't you dare continue selling out on us. We need people to drink ‘Awa di Huramentu’ out of an ‘ashe’-filled calabash. As the United Nations declared 2011 the year of Afro-descendants, how in nomber di Dios (‘for heaven’s sake’) can you green light a project of two Dutch European filmmakers who came upon this insensitive idea to do a movie about our recently declared freedom-fighting national hero Tula? This with the help of two Afro-Americans, a screenplay writer Curtis Hawkins and Warrington Hudlin, a pioneering black film-maker, activist and advocate for independent black film movement who should've know better than to participate in the exploitation of Tula.

On the website www.tulathemovie.nl they are talking about ‘a story representing centuries of conflicted relations between black and white, the effects of which still haunt us today’. And it does as the two Dutch white privileged filmmakers cold heartedly or extreme naively kidnap the opportunity of Afro-Curaçaoan – or at least Curaçaoan – to tell the tales of the freedom-fighting Tula. The website of the commission to rehabilitate Tula responsible for their active role to declare him a national hero – www.tulalives.org – states this: ‘After the revolt of May 1969, many political leaders, intellectuals and artists from Curaçao were inspired by Tula in their search for our national identity. In 1971, a play was presented in the national theatre named “Tula”.’ I can envision the outrage if this play 41 years ago would’ve been made by solely Dutch Europeans and written by an Afro-American. Fortunately it was written by culturista, historian Pacheco Domacasse and co-directed by Tone Brulin, a Flemish socio-politically progressive Belgian. But that was two years after 30 May during a period where the Afro-Curaçaoan was starting to revalorise his African heritage. A young nation where carnival is becoming the most elevated form of cultural celebration really doesn't worry that much about struggles of the past.

Was the announcement of this project lucid? No, there has been no transparency whatsoever of the commission in approving the making of 'Tula the Revolt'. No one knows the criteria, no national hero law has been made public and if there is such a law, we the people sure didn't have democratic participation in it and therefore no one can scrutinise to see if the right procedures are just and were used which resulted in an approval.

A few lines from their summary: ‘As many slaves were transported and traded through Caribbean transit harbours like the one in Curaçao, this story belongs to them and their descendants. It deserves to be told, for it’s an important part of history, identity and in the end of our society today.’ So they understand the story of Tula is ours but morals and respect for our own emancipatory path that we as descendants have fade away for a US$25 million Hollywood adventure?

You have to wait your turn until the descendants themselves have created a solid infrastructure where they can empower their communities, develop their talents via art, sport, music, theatre and film. You can't commercialise our ancestor's history, bypassing the descendants’ rights and think you are doing us a favour.

In 2011 there is no film school here – if you want to learn cinematography you will have to go study abroad. Only the middle and upper-class or connection to them without any regular working-class pressure has the privilege to choose and see the importance of film study. Most underprivileged or working-class folks will not end up in a cinematography class.

Tell me how many Afro-Curaçaoan role models who went to film school a barrio like Kenepa has (the area where the uprising started)? Lagun, Santa Cruz, Soto, Barber, Sabaneta – any filmmakers or role models to inspire people to grow an interest for filmmaking?

Let's be honest – there is a great scarcity of visual griots who can light the fire inside our hearts to depict the past, present and future of Korsou.

Visionary leaders create a breeding ground for democratisation of film and media in general. Troubled by a social-corporate-political cataract epidemic within the Dutch kingdom, where its citizens are treated as third class, Curaçao hasn't seen these leaders rise up yet.

A year before the physical disappearance of the fierce independentista Papiamentista Joceline Clemencia during a lecture in Holland of the annual Tula commemoration of 17 August 1795, she emphasised that in 2013 it will be 150 years since the abolition of slavery and that we should tell our own stories, document and re-interpret our own history. We have a long way to go, as many Curaçaoans really don't 'revere' Tula as some think we do. The thesis of Natasha Maritza van der Dijs – ‘The nature of ethnic identity among the people of Curaçao’ (2011) – illustrates this very clearly during her investigation: ‘an African descent, a subject in the age range academic degree in business 19–35, recalls lucidly how a black child called her “Tula” when she was in primary school; she even remembered that she felt ugly.’

Amidst the constitutional changes, referendum and elections, how many times our ears and hearts were bleeding as the group who supported the political process to become an autonomous neocolonial country within the Dutch kingdom shouted that ‘Tula hasn't done nothing for us, you shouldn't look back to your past, stop reminding folks of that slave history’. Ironically the same persons who contributed to buffoonise Tula are getting paid from Tula for being the master of ceremony and offer their restaurant to hold the pre-production Tula fundraising event within an elite circle far away from those that truly respect him. A top law office like Van Eps Kunneman Van Doorne, who never showed any interest in uplifting the Afro-Curaçaoan heritage suddenly sponsors these filmmakers hoping on a return on investment.

Nobody has ever seen the corporate sector showing love or any support financially to document the history of slavery or any sort of history period. We all vividly remember the fiery discussions on the removal of the Peter Stuyvesant statue at a public school in 2010. The rumour that the school would be renamed Tula unleashed an agitated youth protest weighing him off as a nonsensical historical figure. That was a classic despicable representation of how middle and upper class youth have been ignorantly conditioned to dehumanise Tula. On the other hand, the political parties who are seated now in the new so-called 'socialised' government have used the slavery past and Tula for electoral benefits, whipping up an anti-Dutch atmosphere and scaring the folks that the Dutch would take over this island once again if they didn't vote for them during elections and referendum.

We sure didn't forget the political propaganda on TV, radio and print media and how many times they referred to slavery, Tula and his comrades’ bloodshed for their liberty struggle, which we all benefitted from. Ten months later all this pro-Afro-Curaçaoan bravado all the emancipation rhetoric vanished completely from the public horizon. A cultural betrayal like this of course will have its repercussions, so to claim everybody loves Tula is hypocritical to say the least. In 2005 I wrote a poem called: 'F..k Tula' because obviously, just like now, only a small group is genuinely interested in uplifting this heroic character. Every year on 17 August no media will even live transmit or dedicate afterwards a full spread to the commemoration in Holland or in Curaçao; it has no cultural priority at all. The first monument made was in 1963. The second one in 1998 at Rif far away from the public eye unlike Louis Brion, a Venezuelan national hero who occupies our biggest square in the heart of Otrobanda. Sad but true – it took us 48 years to overcome an identity crisis to proclaim him as a national hero.

A wise thing to do for Dutch filmmakers Jeroen Leinders and Dolph van Stapele is to re-programme their ambition, put this project on hold and respectfully await the flourishing of Curaçao cinematography and a true ownership over the slave heritage and ultimately the story.

The re-enslavement of Tula – the greatest fighting spirit of our times – for commercial glory and international fame is an act of neocolonial villainy. A regime of critical thinkers and activists who sleep on this will have to deal with this when their ancestors lace them with the consequences. Everyone involved can still correct this injustice.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was first published www.triunfodisablika.wordpress.com.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.