The false assumptions about migration
The Mediterranean has two shores and while the EU polices it like a moat to keep out 'undesirables; the film-makers point to the long-lasting connections between Europe and North Africa. People risk their lives to cross for universally understandable reasons, yet their courage is not valued. Mbaye Sou's life questions many false assumptions about migration.
Europe -or rather it's organized corporation the EU- has been engaged in what Keenan Malik calls 'instrumentalizing human beings' for several decades, keeping refugees and migrants out of sight away from the Mediterranean coasts. As in the war on drugs, the criminalisation does more damage than the quest for, in this case, the freedom to start a new life. Frustrated, the need becomes more desperate, attracting more violent people to prey on migrants, while the demand for labour continues in Europe, and the illegality provides opportunities for abuse of migrants who arrive.
Pedro Figueredo Neto and Ricardo Falcao are two Portuguese anthropologists and their film documentary touches on this exploitation through the trans-Saharan route, which was described in detail in The Prisma by Cecile Allegra in two articles, but the story of Mbaye is different.
He is a man who knows himself and is committed to a way of life which requires courage, and is free from the typical western assumption that migration implies crisis and loss. Senegalese culture sees nothing odd in living in more than one country and moving between different locations to trade.
In their time working in African countries the filmmakers have come to recognize that customs like eating together are universal means to create community. As Portuguese, they feel at home in North Africa and point to the similarities between Portuguese poetry and the Arabic rhythms that it acquired during the centuries of the Caliphate in Andalusia and Portugal.
This interview was first published by The Prisma Multicultural Newspaper and can be read in full with links and film stills here: https://theprisma.co.uk/2022/07/11/the-false-assumptions-about-migration/