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4-7.

Gerima's Imperfect Journey: Ho End in Sight

SHARON HUTCHINSONUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonBRUCE WIEGANDUniversity of Wisconsin-WhitewaterImperfect Journey. 1994. 88 minutes, color. Haile Gerima,director, with Ryszard Kapuscinski. Andrew Coggins, pro-ducer. First Run/Icarus Films, 153 Waverly Place, NewYork, NY 10014. 800/876-1710.

They promised us the world before they were in power.And now, silence.

An Ethiopian's comment on her governmentHaile Gerima's melancholy film Imperfect Journey

carries us beyond the tank-littered trails of militaryvictory into the post-Cold War darkness of contempo-

rary Ethiopia. Far from glorifying the new regime,which toppled the much-hated, Soviet-backed militaryjunta of Mengistu Haile Mariam (1974-91), the film ex-poses the continuation of state terrorism and the wan-ing optimism of a war-traumatized people. Gerima'sjourney across the land of his youth captures on filmthe dread and fear of Ethiopian citizens as they cometo realize that their new government may be just asrepressive as its predecessor (see Figure 1). It is thepostcolonial African theme of betrayal and repression,of a government appearing to be succeeding in its"capitalist-democratic adjustment," all the while bru-talizing and dismembering its body politic. It is a de-pressingly familiar journey on which Gerima takes us,but it is one that is uniquely Ethiopian.

1 7 0 A M E R I C A N A N T H R O P O L O G I S T V O L 1 0 0 , No 1 M A R C H 1 9 9 8

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Figure 1A postwar peace rally: mobilizing against the ethnic disintegration ofEthiopia. Photo courtesy First Run/Icarus Films.

Unlike most African countries, Ethiopia does nothave a centuries-long legacy of colonial exploitation. Itis relatively fortunate in that sense. Italy did brieflydominate the country militarily and economicallybefore and during World War II, but that experience ishardly comparable to the repression suffered by, say,Congo at the hands of Belgium. Gerima, however,seems to be equating at some level the domination ofcolonialism with that of the Cold War, an experienceabout which contemporary Ethiopians know a greatdeal. This might well be the subtext of his decision tobring Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist, into thefilm. In cinemagraphic terms, Kapuscinski gives thefilmmaker a foil with whom to speak while directinghis comments more broadly to the audience. His voiceand presence also connect the crumbling infrastruc-tures and impoverished citizenry of former Soviet-blocnations of eastern Europe and the repressive militaryhardware currently wielded by the Ethiopian regime.In symbolic terms, Kapuscinski may represent a dis-tant yet comparable country's search for identity inthe aftermath of the Cold War. Be that as it may, theimperfect journey these two men make in the film re-veals the unholy state of the new Ethiopian regime.

One would think that the new regime, after onlythree years in power, would be enjoying wide popularsupport. Certainly that is the impression initially con-veyed by the Western mass media. What Gerima's film

reveals, instead, is a regime whose political legitimacyfractured even before it could take hold. We are toldthat something is dreadfully wrong in post-Cold WarEthiopia, but we are never clear as to what or, moreimportantly, why Gerima identifies for us no dictator,no external threat, no proper enemy The regime itselfremains a faceless shadow throughout the film. No-where does the filmmaker explain the government'sideological leanings or institutional structures. No gov-ernment officials are interviewed or filmed. In fact, thegovernment is never referred to by name.

The filmmaker concentrates, instead, on the newregime's reliance on instruments of repression in si-lencing the voice of mass discontent. When it firstseized power in 1991, the Ethiopian regime activelyencouraged people to step forward, to speak theirminds, and to identify their former oppressors. Soon,however, prominent student leaders, union organizers,and outspoken citizens began to disappear. Relying ona clandestine network of spies and secret denuncia-tions, this new regime effectively criminalized politicaldissent while simultaneously projecting an image forthe outside world of building a democratic society. Farfrom eschewing the brutal militarism of its predeces-sor, the regime has refined the application of stateterrorism by assuming a mask of anonymity. Whereasthe previous junta, at least, made clear who its internalenemies were, this new regime keeps the populationguessing. In this shadowy climate of midnight raids,anonymous accusations, and festering resentments, noone speaks out openly any more.

Gerima overcomes this obstacle by tapping intohis deep family roots in and around the town of Gon-der. From there we learn, through the riveting tales ofgrieving mothers and the embittered laments ofshrouded spokesmen, about the profoundly distortedvision of power held by the current regime. Gerimaalso spends much time interviewing intellectuals at theuniversity in Addis Ababa. No doubt he feels that theyhave a vital role to play in defining for the populationsthe terms of internal conflict in Ethiopia. Indeed,much of the film suggests that the broadening polariza-tion between the intelligentsia and the military re-mains the greatest obstacle to real democracy

Is the filmmaker also suggesting that a clear, crea-tive, and politically compelling vision of the futurewould enable Ethiopia to free itself from past patternsof injustice and state terrorism? Perhaps. But com-pared with African intellectuals of the independenceera, whose visions of postcolonialism fired an entiregeneration of political change, Ethiopia's current cropof intellectuals appears cowered and lost. As one pro-fessor in the film remarks, "Ultimately, you might saythat the pen is mightier than the gun. But in the shortrun, I can tell you that the gun is much stronger."

FILM REVIEW ESSAYS 171

Rather than overhauling an educational system gearedsolely to the production of job-seekers in an era of toofew jobs, the professors interviewed seem to do littlemore than blame the youth for its loss of idealism. Theintellectual elite has not articulated for the generalpopulation a coherent political and cultural critique ofthe development paradigm of "jobless economicgrowth" which is being held out to Ethiopia and somany other African countries. Nor have the schoolscreated a forum in which such a critique could grow.

Much to his credit, Gerima avoids pointing a fin-ger of blame. He resists directly blaming Ethiopia'scurrent state of terror on a visionless, aging generationof intellectuals who have knowingly perpetuated aneducational system that is fatally flawed. The prob-

lems, he realizes, are much broader in scope. Theirsolution requires no less than a radical critique of theglobal political economy that dictates the fates ofEthiopia and beyond. This new critique must summa-rize in plain and compelling terms the complex interre-lations between global entities, such as the Interna-tional Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization,and the World Bank, on the one hand, and the perpetu-ation of state terrorism and the victimization of com-mon laborers and farmers, on the other. This is theface of the enemy that must be clearly sketched for thepeople of Ethiopia and every other developing coun-try. Until that task is accomplished, Gerima's Imper-fect Journey will have no end in sight.

Terminator 24: Or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer!

CONSTANTINE HRISKOSColby College

Double Theatre. 1995. 37 minutes, color. A video by Davidand Paul. For more information, contact The Resorcerer'sApprentice, P.O. Box 1226, Middlebury, VT 05753.

Terminator 24. 1994. 30 minutes, color. A video by Davidand Paul. For more information, contact The Resorcerer'sApprentice, P.O. Box 1226, Middlebury, VT 05753.

In the academic business, the corporate executives andmanagers (presidents and deans) who employ the workforce (faculty) in order to "handle" the customers (stu-dents) share the aims of their industrial counterparts: theprevention of customer malaise, the avoidance of strikes,the satisfaction of stockholders, and the growth of thefirm. The academic work force and their customers simi-larly share, by and large, the attitudes and aims of theirnon-academic counterparts: they play it cool, they do not"rock the boat," they grind out acceptable reports (booksand articles), and so forth. [Leiss et al. 1967:423]

Double TheatreDouble Theatre, a film by David and Paul, ex-

plores the public world of Terminator 24, who regu-larly discourses at Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park, Lon-don. He is a man who has been shaking up hisaudiences through story, parody, and dialectic for overtwo decades. A man who is a cook by day but a "Termi-nator" after hours. A man who is not paid to discourseat predetermined hours to university students whohave paid exorbitant sums of money. Yet someonewhose sole purpose is to ignite critical thought andinquiry. A modern-day Socrates railing against racism,

sexism, elitism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, essential-ism, and more. The Terminator has read much of thecritical literature (Marx, Fanon, Gramsci, Wolf) andlearned to think for himself. He is not concerned withthe academy, his publication record, or his status inthe field. Instead of waiting for prestigious journals todeem his ideas worthy of canonization, he dissemi-nates his own work. He has self-published tracts suchas Class plus Caste; The Transatlantic Slave Tradeand the Development of Tropical Africa; Tfie Dawn-ing of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.A.; Marx,Marxists on Racism; and others, which he sells at costto the public who listens to him.

A scintillating speaker and indomitable presence,the Terminator is theater in its most provocative andexperimental sense, one in which the boundaries be-tween speaker and audience dissolve, where everyoneis invited to listen and respond: to speak their mind, ifthey have one. A theater that unfurls a dialogical arenaof engagement, conflict, and debate. One that suggestswhat a democracy would look like if it were reallypossible. More often than not, though, the Terminatorreveals what Nietzsche also knew, that "because mostpeople look at themselves through the opinions of oth-ers, they find in themselves nothingbut the opinionsof others." And that is why he is out there, appealing tohis fellow citizens to "reason together," to thinkagainst themselves and all they have been conditionedto believe.

In a day and age when subjects are being buriedright and left, at the same time that their bodies arereappearing as emblems of a new religious order in whichidentities hybridize into new and more harmlessly con-sumable forms, yet one can no longer distinguish the