We Are Responsible for the Well-being of the Planet

In Italy to promote crowdfunding for the filming of Basandja , the Congolese director spoke to La Svolta about exploitation, indigenous peoples and the relationship between colonialism and the climate crisis.

For Petna Ndaliko Katondolo , award-winning Congolese director, activist, educator, founder and artistic director of the cultural center Yole! Africa of Goma and Congo International Film Festival, the colonization of Africa was not only genocidal occupation, devastation, exploitation, deportation and racism.

She has also "broken the cosmological circle of belonging, interrupted astral connections, separated lineages and imprisoned the imagination."

The European violence that since the mid-1800s has overturned an entire continent, killed and inaugurated a forerunner of the Nazi method that lasted a century and a half and established a permanent Shoah on defenseless populations for which a Nuremberg that delivers justice is still awaited, has infinite faults. What still leaves indelible marks is having introduced an extractive and predatory practice that has in one fell swoop impoverished tens and tens of millions of individuals rich in resources, caused conflicts, dramatically increased external turnover and broken the balance between human beings and nature. which led to the current climate crisis.

«Just as one of the initial actions of the invasion of Africa was to cut down all the biodiversity and build structures for extractivism in the same space – he explained to La Svolta – this practice has today occupied the center of world government. There is therefore a link between colonialism and the climate crisis we are experiencing today."

It is very useful to converse with this Congolese artist with a provocative, Afro-futuristic style, capable of using historical content to address contemporary socio-geo-political and cultural issues, while Cop28 is taking place in Dubai. His messages go in depth but are not limited to principles and evocations, they want to trigger political actions and changes. So, let's start from the beginning, from the primordial environment and delve with Petna into the fascinating concept of Ancestral Ecology.

« Ancestral ecology is a theory, a profound practice that supports a holistic understanding and connection with the Earth. This is not seen simply as a material resource, but as a complex living being, a holobiont that keeps all vital systems in balance. Drawing on multiple indigenous cultural sources, this understanding encourages individuals to recognize the Earth as the custodian of knowledge and the interconnected web of life. A being who deserves care, consideration and noble responsibility. In embracing the Earth as a living entity, a set of bio-spiritual intelligence, Ancestral Ecology emphasizes the responsibility of human beings: as part of the community of living beings, we are responsible for safeguarding the well-being of the Planet, recognizing it as the ultimate repository and source of healing, wisdom and resilience. Our survival as a species called humanity depends on this awareness."

In your opinion, what are the impacts that such a theory can have on a political level?
This shift in perspective can influence environmental policies and identify and support sustainable practices and conservation efforts. We must contextualize our evolving sciences in a way that leads to a much more complete understanding of the impact of human activities on the Planet. for example, when we talk about human rights in Ancestral Ecology, we broaden this vision to include the rights of all living beings, including everything that is considered non-organic. Thus, when governments introduce a new policy, then waters, animals or trees should be taken into consideration as well as humans and things. I'll give you an example: to give life to reconstruction and recovery projects after a war, an environmental disaster or a crisis, paths of reconciliation between enemies are imagined, compensation and subsidies for those who have lost everything, compensation for human and material damage, but you never think about how many trees have been devastated, how much water has been lost and dead or injured animals. They too are victims and the balance must somehow be re-established.

Congo is perhaps the greatest emblem, on a global level, of what exploitation, impoverishment and exclusion of indigenous peoples has meant and continues to mean...

We imagine Congo as a space shared by all peoples and cultures, but in reality the native communities of these geographies have been systematically excluded from decision-making processes that affect their lives. Over the past few generations, Native peoples have fought to have their voices and indigenous understandings of culture and ecosystems taken into account, but their efforts have consistently met with brutal violence and repression by of officials, whether from the colonial regime or current reminiscences. For an early and shocking example of such violence, think of the millions of people who were killed or had their hands cut off by the Belgian king, Leopold II, due to the automobile industry boom in the late 1800s. Second, we remember how the prime minister of the newly independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was killed, torn to pieces and dissolved in acid for having asked for the economic autonomy of the Congo. This legacy continues through massive sexual atrocities against women and men used as a war strategy to empty villages of their population so that multinational corporations can access the coltan and cassiterite mines that fuel the digital industry. The systemic practice of post-colonial extraction continues through the proliferation of proxy wars that are enabled to facilitate and respond to the high demand for cobalt for the need to transition to green energy.

In this period you are promoting a crowdfunding to complete your new film Basandja of which you have already shot and edited the first part, which starts precisely from these assumptions you have just outlined. Can you tell us about this new effort of yours?
Basandja is a film that fits exactly into the geopolitical context I spoke about above. It is a work that seeks to be rooted in the theory of "aesthetic recoding", inspired by ancestral ecology and Lobi Ejo practice (a totally different way of understanding temporality based on the notion of reciprocity and interdependence with all living beings, ed.). The aim of the film is on the one hand to recover those forms of indigenous knowledge and wisdom and tell their stories to remember and propose ways to engage the imagination of contemporary political and ecological discourse in order to form a more inclusive and locally informed understanding, on the other, transforming the current mentality of extraction and exploitation of material resources into an interrelational understanding with multiple centers. Basndja aims to promote a vision of the future proposed by indigenous cultures and practices that have developed their understanding through symbiotic relationships with the forests and waters that have supported their communities since time immemorial.

Is yours a proposal for action?
Yes exactly. I propose this to you as an impactful opportunity to engage in deeper inquiry and listening to locally recognized knowledge keepers, whose understanding is born through lifelong lived experience in the ecologies and communities where they live. I ask you to consider the enormous opportunity that is at hand, to be able to engage with indigenous knowledge reservoirs so as to synthesize new possibilities for social adventures tailored to sustainable solutions for a better life for all.