Lately, Danny Glover seems to spend more time in front of the camera as an activist than as an actor. SeeingBlack.com caught up with Glover recently in his role as chairman of the board of TransAfrica, members of which have been outspoken on the forced ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Accompanied by TransAfrica's president Bill Fletcher, Glover spoke to reporters about art and politics at the New African Films Festival in Washington, DC.
Q: What is the relationship between Haiti and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections?
Glover: Our president Bill Fletcher has been involved in that on a daily basis. So I'll first let him answer that question on Haiti.
Fletcher: What we see in Haiti is a continuation of a foreign policy that's representative of how the Bush administration believes that there are no international laws that they are bound to respect. And so, whether it is invading Iraq, whether its about destabilizing Aristide, whether it is supporting coups in Venezuela, this administration has a level of arrogance and contempt for the people of the world because they believe that no one can stop them. And so, yes, this is an issue for people in the United States to consider in November. Do they want an administration that takes them toward the brink of catastrophe, or do they want a different approach to foreign policy?
Glover: I don't think you can put it any clearer than that. Out of statement plays out the whole scenario that we see around the world. And, of course, the countries that the U.S. has gone into have been weakened—as the United States weakened Haiti, as it weakened Iraq, as it attempted to weaken Cuba, or as it attempted to weaken Venezuela. Through that process, the U.S. attempts to use whatever power it has to affect what it calls a "regime change."
Q: Relating current events to this film festival, do you think that the images that Americans get, either through film or through the mass media now, impacts our ability to empathize with people of color, particularly Africans of the diaspora?
Glover: Well I think certainly so. And look here, you're not going to get all Americans to look at African films. But what you can do is build a constituency based on film and other related activities, in terms of organizing and setting in motion a different sense of what policy should be about, and what concern should be about. So they may form that critical mass that you need to not only affect how we view situations, how we view people, but also how we view the policies toward them.
Q: Is it the responsibility of Black artists to not only be artists but to be activists and advocate for causes?
Glover: I think that it is the responsibility of all of us to be activists, not just artists, and for us to frame the role of the citizen in that way. We all should see ourselves as citizens of the world. We have to be active. Wherever we are, whatever place in life we are, we have to be active.
I was just at a memorial yesterday for Edward Said at Columbia University—just an enormous individual. He's Palestinian. Edward Said is the one who made it possible for Columbia University to get C.L.R. James' papers. Edward Said was the cat who knew not only about his own struggle as a Palestinian but also knew about the struggle of African people and people of color around the world—and that's extraordinary. What he said was interesting: we are not only artists and intellectuals. We have to rake muck. We have to create dissent. We have to question everything. We have to question power all the time, wherever that power comes from.
Q: Where do you see your future in film in relationship to your political activism right now?
Glover: I really don't know how to answer that! (laughs). I try to do films and I try to encourage films that I think are important…and hopefully, my work encourages young artists.
Q: Can you talk about your work with Carlos Santana and Artists for a New South Africa?
Glover: Carlos Santana a wonderful man. I've known him a long time. We went to high school together in San Francisco. Carlos has made an extraordinary contribution to South Africa. ANSA has formed very strategic partnerships with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. We're focusing on the issue of AIDS, focusing on the issue of development. We began Artists for a New South Africa 15 years ago during the height of the fight against apartheid. And to have it sustained makes a statement.
The first thing we have to acknowledge is the work that Africans are doing themselves, right on the ground. From Senegal to Uganda to South Africa, and many other places. We have to acknowledge that work, and embrace that work, and uphold that work. Second, we have to campaign for the resources from them to do that work. We have to say that the work that we do, collectively do, works. It works. We need it to work We're desperate for it to work. It must work.
More from SeeingBlack.com:
http://www.seeingblack.com/2004/x031504/danny_glover.shtml:)
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