QWhat fly could have bitten the demonstrators that day? The question is still on everyone’s mind, almost two weeks after the French Institutes of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second city, as well as the French Embassy in Burkina were vandalized by disgruntled people, in the middle of Rebellion.
The 1is October, demonstrations multiplied the day after the putsch which brought Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power, dismissing Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, himself the author of a putsch eight months earlier.
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Scenes of desolation
This Wednesday, October 12 in the afternoon, the French Institute of Ouagadougou, the capital, closed after the passage of vandals, reopened its doors to anyone who wants to touch the reality of the extent of the damage, draining a tide journalists and cultural actors. From the sentry box of the establishment to its various compartments, the observation is the same, striking: windows, some of them armored, are reduced to pieces, rooms and their contents ravaged by flames, demolished walls, objects of all ransacked genres, services literally robbed.
In the midst of this spectacle of desolation, the deputy director of the French Institute of Ouagadougou, Pierre Muller, in a briefing, lists the parts of the establishment reached by the demonstrators: “The adult library; the youth area, Campus France, the language center, the Petit Méliès cinema hall, the performance hall…” According to him, almost nothing was spared, not even the cafeteria which was emptied of its menu of the day, according to the general manager of the Institute, Thierry Bambara. “To repair all this, it will take time”, comments Pierre Muller. Three months ? Six, rather? A year ? No fixed timing for the time being.
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Immediate consequences for cultural actors
But, while waiting for a reopening, hardly conceivable in the short term, this closure is not without consequences for Burkinabè, in this case the actors of the cultural world. It must be said that some are already paying the price. Kantala, musician, is part of a selection of artists who were to hold performances or present projects during the months of September and October within the French Institutes.
That of Ouagadougou was to house the festival La Voix de la kora, of which he is the artistic director. He is full of regrets: “It is a great sadness to see all that has happened in the French Institutes. It is a great loss for us Burkinabe artists. Because everything we had planned as projects will no longer be possible, at least not for the moment, he confides. With all this damage, it will take time to put it back together. Suddenly, that takes us back and it’s not easy to find other partners for these events”, recognizes the one who says he is directing “a very young festival with few means”. And to specify that, within the framework of the collaboration with the French Institute, the space and the sound system had to be offered to him. But here he is forced to untie the purse string to pay elsewhere a bill that he had not foreseen.
For many artists, the ransacking of this high place of culture is only comparable to “self-flagellation”, especially since the French Institute has seen the birth of major cultural events in the capital, such as festivals Jazz in Ouaga and Ouaga hip-hop. “It is true that the establishment bears the French name, but it is in fact a place that many Burkinabés have appropriated”, indeed maintains Kantala, suggesting that the vandals acted “out of ignorance”.
When he talks about what this place par excellence of artistic creation and dissemination has undergone, Sahab Koanda, visual artist and actor, loses his humorous tone: “By ransacking this cultural framework, these demonstrators said to themselves that they hurt France. In truth, it is against ourselves that the evil is directed since more Burkinabe artists suffer from it. »
Inoussa Dao, visual artist, also argues, with supporting figures: “The impact is quite negative because the French Institute is a Burkinabe cultural showcase. About 70% of the exhibitions that are made there are by Burkinabe nationals, ”said the man who signed ten years of collaboration with the French Institute for an exhibition last September. And to add: “Until then, this springboard has made it possible to highlight a lot of artists from Burkina Faso and from the sub-region. Everyone came to express themselves and hoped to leave with contacts from clients or collaborators from other projects. It’s really unfortunate what happened. »
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Betting on culture so that reason prevails
In the wake of the events that risk being severely affected by this closure of the French Institutes, there is the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco), whose 28e edition was to take place from February 25 to March 4, 2023. In question, the French Institute reserves its rooms for official screenings at each biennial of African cinema. And, “if this ransacked site is not rehabilitated in the next four months, the Fespaco will in turn pay the price for the unjustified anger of the demonstrators”, analyzes an observer of cultural life wishing to remain anonymous.
In the Burkinabè cultural environment, it is urgent to have an in-depth reflection on the borders between culture and politics in the face of situations such as that experienced by the French structures in Burkina. “Those who burned and looted the embassy or the French Institutes, if you ask them the meaning of their act, they will just say that they targeted France. But, culturally, that doesn’t hold up,” analyzes Inoussa Dao, who never stops asking himself: “Do they know how many exhibitions the French Institute hosts each year? Do they know how many Burkinabés use the library? Do they know how many Burkinabe students had obtained scholarships via Campus France to continue their studies elsewhere? »
“We shouldn’t confuse politics with culture. Culture has no barriers or languages, even less ethnicity,” claims Kantala.
Sahab Kouanda, for his part, believes that a challenge is therefore imposed on Burkinabe artists: “to continue, through art and culture, to work for unity around the values of social cohesion and tolerance”.
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