Colonial modernity—for all that it can be distinguished from modernity writ large—emerged through a process of invasion, domination and theft, a process marked by multiple forms of brutality perpetrated against populations of the global south. On the African continent in particular this foundational dynamic was predicated on anti-Black racism and the erasure of Black bodies, an operation that persists today. In Boubacar Sangaré’s documentary OR DE VIE (A Golden Life), we zero in on a violation not often broached in discussions of this ongoing exploitation: the theft and diminishment of Black childhood in Africa. Set in the gold-digging site of Kalgouli in Burkina Faso, the film follows 16 years old Rasmané as he strives to make a living as an artisanal miner.
The drone of exertion and struggle fills the inner worlds of its protagonists in their moments of both toil and rest, and extends to the finely crafted sonic space of the film.
The presence of colonialism is a spectre in the film; we never explicitly encounter its traditional forms and forces—no white man, no army, no missionary, not even his language. Colonialism here remains unseen but felt, perceivable in the textures of conversations between the underaged miners, but also in the sound that precludes silence, and by extension, calm.
In OR DE VIE the white man is spoken of as a larger-than-life character that can burrow into the earth deeper and more efficiently than the forces of all Burkinabe miners combined. His drilling machinery looms in the landscape and threatens to engorge the land, extracting and claiming all its gold for himself. He is present in the economic hopes and fears for the future, spotlighting the risks involved in their attainment. He is present in the din of diesel-run machinery and the repetitive rhythms of rudimentary pickaxes hacking the womb of the earth. Such clatter dominates the quiet of the film, forbidding silence even in the long durations where no one speaks. The drone of exertion and struggle fills the inner worlds of its protagonists in their moments of both toil and rest, and extends to the finely crafted sonic space of the film.
This omnipresence of noise operates as a metaphor for the afterlives of colonialism. Six decades after Burkina Faso first gained independence from France, the legacies and ongoing violence of colonial domination persist. And nowhere is this more evident that in the ceaseless drill and drive toward the Franc—the nation’s currency that is still printed in France. The CFA Franc, still circulated in most of Francophone West Africa, remains one of the most valuable currencies on the continent, tying the politics and leaders of countries such as Burkina Faso perpetually to their former oppressor. The Francs that populate the dreams of the film’s men and boys with promises of wealth and prosperity, are also the founding principles of invasion, extraction, racial capitalism and environmental catastrophe.
The artisanal miners cannot imagine the chain of power; they are unable to imagine the routes this gold they’ve pried from their land will follow. They can only conjure the images of golden rings and bracelets.
Racial capitalism’s inextricable entwinement of economics with colonialism and slavery describes a dynamic in which both the African and her environment are extracted and exploited. Both bodies—the body of land and the body of the African child in particular—stand in for Africa’s future, which is tied to Africa’s colonial past. Here the African child is denied the luxury of childhood; their path is instead predetermined by the demands of an economic system that has earlier defined those of their families.
The film serves to trap the viewer in their own in a violent cycle, feeling complicit in the brutality of racial capitalism and coloniality. Why are these children not in school, one wonders, before recognizing the risk of blaming the victims for their circumstances. The very dictates of colonial modernity and racial capitalism teach us to be compliant subjects: to go to school and become good citizens who are then absorbed in a labour economy that continues to oil the wheel of western-defined progress. And along with it our oppression. We are taught to strive for this particular path to success, for education and a job. Such opportunities come at a cost most families cannot meet, however, leading to a grave state of affairs: diminished opportunities, radically shortened lifespans, destroyed childhoods, or the ‘non-choice choice’ to flee. It’s unsurprising, then, that West African youth—confronted by dim futures in the shadow of the CFA—make up the majority of travelers who undertake the grueling journey across the Sahara in attempt to cross the Mediterranean into the shores of Europe.
This power dynamic must be understood as willful, anti-Black, and environmentally catastrophic.
In a colonial modernity Black children are not allowed childhood—their innocence and vitality are a sought-after, exploitable commodities. In the film we follow Rasmané’s harsh journey from picking the earth to selling the miniscule fragment of unearthed gold to a far older broker, positing a non-negotiable power dynamic. Where do we think this gold is headed? In whose hands will it end up? The spectre of an insatiable economy with tentacles in Africa remains the framework necessary to understand this documentary. The artisanal miners cannot imagine this chain of power; they are unable to imagine the routes this gold they’ve pried from their land will follow. They can only conjure the images of golden rings and bracelets.
This is the case in the Congo too, where the metals and minerals extracted by fungible Black bodies—pawns in the larger economy of extraction dominated by Australian, Chinese, European and American corporations—are never enjoyed by the families or countries that bear them. This power dynamic must be understood as willful, anti-Black, and environmentally catastrophic. We must know and live with the truth of this civilization whose economic progress is buttressed by racism, the hatred and killing of children and nature, the decimation of the African population and African sociality, and a disregard for the future.
This film and all it alludes to reminds us why Afro-pessimists call for the end of this world. We welcome Sangaré’s offering into the larger body of work that lays bare the hideous costs of the progress we myopically enjoy.
Uhuru Portia Phalafala is a roving artist and scholar working in the field of Black Studies.
