Our colleague and correspondent in Havana, Cuba, Belen de los Santos talks to Johan Grimonprez, director of the documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat”, during the IV International Colloquium “Patria”.
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NewsTranscript
00:00And as the second day of the 4th International Patria Colloquium continues,
00:04let's go live with our correspondent Belén de los Santos to know more about today's activities.
00:09Exactly, we continue here at this 4th edition of the Patria Colloquium in the University of Havana.
00:16And as we have been saying throughout the day, also yesterday,
00:19the big topic of discussion here is how do weaving networks make our new narrative,
00:27a new way of telling our stories.
00:29And that is what the Global South is thinking about how to put out there our new narratives.
00:36And we have been saying that this is not just a main discussion for media outlet,
00:41but this includes culture as a whole, this includes also art.
00:46And we are talking about filmography in particular now.
00:49We have been talking about it before,
00:52because today one of the main events in the framework of this event,
00:57that is the 4th edition of Patria,
00:59is the screening of the 2024 documentary film Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat.
01:04And we have the pleasure of being joined right now by its filmmaker, Johan Grimman Press.
01:10Thank you so much, Johan, for joining us here in Tell Us Your English.
01:14And I would like to start by asking you,
01:17why is it important to have this screening showcased in the framework of this event,
01:23that is discussing the possibility of showing new narratives into the world,
01:29of rethinking the way in which we tell our own stories?
01:33Well, the film plugs into, of course, the whole idea of history.
01:38Voltaire used to say history is the common lie.
01:40No, history is the lie we commonly agree upon.
01:43And you might as well say her story or history is in plural.
01:46And so it's so crucial to sort of re-write what that all means.
01:52You know, as J.A. Baldwin used to say, we are not our past,
01:55history is not the past, we actually are our history.
02:00And so the film plugs into a story that is set in the 1960s about the Global South,
02:06where in the United Nations, during the 15th General Assembly,
02:09there was a political earthquake where the Afro-Asian bloc, the Global South,
02:12gained a majority.
02:14And that caused consternation in East and West versus the Global South,
02:18where both East, and at the time it was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev,
02:23at that point proposing, initiating the decolonization resolution,
02:28was quite crucial, but it's hardly been talked about.
02:31And then the West, on the other hand, was sending arm twisters,
02:35basically CIA agents on the territory of the international sort of site
02:41of the world body of the United Nations, buying up votes.
02:45They were CIA agents, and at the same time sending jazz ambassadors,
02:48using music as a propaganda tool to win the hearts and minds of the Global South.
02:53But the flip side of this, while the decolonization resolution is being proposed,
02:58will be sponsored by the Global South, ratified 14 December 1960,
03:02actually the flip side of that is that my country,
03:05because this film digs very much into the sort of a dark page
03:09out of the history of my country, which is wiped under the carpet,
03:12was that how the West was about to deal with this decolonization
03:16and this wind of independence blowing over the continent of Africa,
03:20was actually using murder and assassinate the first democratically elected
03:24Premier, Patrice Lumumba, of which my country, in cahoots with the CIA,
03:27was involved. And so that story hasn't been told.
03:30But it ties into a lot of other sort of narratives that are dealing
03:34with the Global South. For example, you know, Fidel Castro was giving
03:38his first speech in 1960, at that 15th General Assembly,
03:42together with a lot of non-aligned leaders, amongst Indian leader
03:45Yawarhal Nehru, the first independent leader of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah,
03:49but also Fidel Castro gave his longest speech, still the longest speech
03:52in the history of the United Nations, but he was actually accusing
03:57and sort of advocating that Patrice Lumumba would be back put in government.
04:02But we could not source the name of Patrice Lumumba at the United Nations archive,
04:06so we had to come to Havana to actually find it here.
04:09And so again, we reinserted that, sort of a rewriting of history,
04:13but also it tied into so many threads to the Global South.
04:17It's so interesting to think about how a lot of the things that are being
04:21discussed here at this event are tying together, right?
04:25We've been talking with our media partners from, for example,
04:29Pan-African TV, and how to rewrite and retell those stories,
04:33and in this case, how the arts and through a documentary,
04:37there's another story to be told.
04:40And as we're talking about the role of the arts in this, as you were saying,
04:44music plays a very important political part that your documentary highlights.
04:49Can you tell us a little bit more about how music becomes a political agent in this way?
04:54Yeah, indeed. While I was researching for this film,
04:59I discovered that actually music very much was a historical agent.
05:03It's not just a soundtrack to a coup d'etat,
05:06it's the soundtrack to a political situation.
05:09And so it's as much also the rumba, which was actually sourced,
05:13it ties back into the fourth, fifth, sixth generation of Cuba,
05:17where Congolese made the transatlantic passage, reinvented the music,
05:21and the Congo was a big part of that, ended up as the cha-cha,
05:25which made its way back to the Congo, became a very political movement,
05:28this music, so much so that when Patricia Lumumba, for example,
05:31was put in prison because she was calling for independence,
05:34when he was flown over upon demand unanimously by all the Congolese political party
05:39at a round table where they were discussing independence,
05:42he was accompanied by the musicians.
05:45And so on the spot, when independence was claimed,
05:47they composed Indépendance Cha-Cha, and it became a huge important anthem
05:51for the political movement within the continent of Africa.
05:55But not only the rumba, for example, there's also Louis Armstrong, right?
05:59He was a jazz ambassador.
06:01He was sent about one month after the General Assembly,
06:0415th General Assembly top, where he was used as a cover
06:08for actually what's happening underneath was the overthrow of Patricia Lumumba,
06:12but also subsequently the assassination.
06:15And so here you have sort of a very schizophrenic stance,
06:18but Louis Armstrong sent to defend democracy while back at home
06:22there was a full fling of civil rights movement.
06:24They were not allowed to even vote, because they were second-rate citizens.
06:28So the music, in a sense, sort of steps onto the political stage,
06:32but vice versa, the way we treated the politicians
06:35was that they were sort of becoming function in the editing,
06:39sort of lead singers to the jazz compositions as well.
06:42So they went back and forth.
06:44That is definitely an experience to see, right?
06:48This documentary screened at this moment.
06:51And just before we end, Johanna, I would like to ask you,
06:55you were just talking about, for example, the political significance
06:58of Fidel Castro's speech at that famous UN conference.
07:03What does it mean to you that this documentary is going to be presented now
07:07at one of the symbolic theatres, the Yara Theatre here in Havana, nonetheless?
07:12Well, it's a bit of a homecoming, right? It's a bit of a homecoming.
07:15You have to know also what other feature, another big topic in the film
07:19is that Fidel Castro was thrown out of this hotel.
07:22And so Malcolm X invites him to Harlem, to the Hotel Teresa.
07:26But spontaneously what happens in Harlem,
07:30because suddenly the whole situation of Harlem was suddenly thrown
07:34in front of the world media, and it actually made a cause
07:38also for what was going on within the United States,
07:40because it's still this whole civil rights movement.
07:42But spontaneously what you see is you have Abdel Nasser
07:45visiting Fidel Castro at the Hotel Teresa.
07:48Then you have an 18-minute talk on the sidewalk in Harlem.
07:50Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian leader, comes to visit him.
07:53Then we have Kwame Nkrumah as well at the same spot,
07:55which is 125th Street and 7th Avenue,
07:57which is sort of the spot of the Black Nation movement in the United States.
08:02And it's also the moment when Nikita Khrushchev for the first time
08:05is saying, you know, I want to go visit Fidel Castro,
08:08actually to point at the fact how they treated the Cuban delegation
08:14and also to put the spotlight on the black situation.
08:17And so you see Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro embracing each other
08:20on the sidewalk at Hotel Teresa.
08:23So I think there's a lot of stuff that actually, in essence,
08:27that has not been in the spotlight, but I think to retell that story
08:31is for me, well, it's special to have it here.
08:35It's like a homecoming, but not only that,
08:37there's much more to the film that also is so crucial today.
08:40And we talk in East Congo, occupation of East Congo,
08:43occupation of Gaza, and, you know, we can add Yemen, we can add Sudan.
08:49So it's not what the film focuses on.
08:51It's not sort of something of the past.
08:53Again, it's history, but history is very much alive,
08:56and it's something that should be talked about.
08:58And I think this forum is so much about this as well.
09:00Exactly, and the challenge of thinking about these narratives
09:05with an intention of really being able to rewrite it
09:09from a Global South perspective.
09:11Thank you so much, Oham, for joining us in Tell Us Your English.
09:14It's been our pleasure.
09:16And the invitation is on today at Yara for Soundtrack to Akuda Tab.
09:21And as we were thinking, the importance of thinking about
09:25these cultural artifacts as a way of rewriting history
09:30and also doing that through a collaborative spirit.
09:34So that is all just for now, because we will continue
09:37bringing you the updates on the Patriarch Colloquium.
09:40Back to you, studio.
09:42Thank you, Belén, for all the information.
09:45And with this report, we are going for a short break now.
09:48But first, remember, you can join us on TikTok at Tell Us Your English,
09:51where you'll find news in different formats, news updates, and more.
09:55We'll be right back. Stay with us.