As a child growing up in Nigeria, books sparked my earliest imagination, but films, films transported me to magical places with flying cars, to infinite space with whole universes of worlds to discover. And my journey of discovery has led to many places and possibilities, all linked with ideas and imagination.
作为一个在尼日利亚长大的孩子, 书本激发了我最初的想象力, 但带我四处遨游却是电影。 电影带我去有飞行汽车的魔法世界, 带我去无限的空间探索无尽的宇宙。 这探索之旅带我去了许多的地方, 领略了许多的可能性, 所有这些与想法和想象交织在一起。
A decade and a half ago, I moved from working in law and technology in New York to financing, producing and distributing films in Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg. I've been privileged to see firsthand how in Africa, film powerfully explores the marvelous and the mundane, how it conveys infinite possibilities and fundamental truths. Afrofuturist films like "Pumzi," Wanuri Kahiu's superb sci-fi flick, paint brilliant pictures of Africa's future, while Rungano Nyoni's "I Am Not A Witch" and Akin Omotoso's "Vaya" show us and catalogue our present. These filmmakers offer nuanced snapshots of Africa's imagined and lived reality, in contrast to some of the images of Africa that come from outside, and the perspectives that accompany all of these images, whether sympathetic or dismissive, shape or distort how people see Africa.
十五年前, 我辞掉了纽约的法律与技术相关工作, 转到内罗毕、拉各斯和约翰内斯堡等地方 从事电影的融资,拍摄和传播工作。 我有幸能在非洲第一手看到 电影如何以强有力的方式创造了伟大和非凡, 怎样传递无限的可能性和基本真理。 比如 Afrofuturist 的电影像 “Pumzi”, 还有 Wanuri Kahiu 的炫酷科幻片, 都在用色彩斑斓的图片描绘着非洲的未来, 然而 Rungano Nyoni 的 “我不是女巫” 和 Akin Omotoso 的 “Vaya”, 却给我们展示了非洲的现在。 这些电影人对非洲想象中的和 现实中的生活提供了微妙的影像 他们与那些来自外部的关于非洲的照片 以及伴随这些照片的观点截然不同, 而外部这些观点,无论同情还是轻视, 都扭曲了人们对非洲的看法。
And the truth is, many people think Africa is screwed up. Images play a big part of the reason why. Many tropes about Africa persist from pictures, pictures of famine in Ethiopia 30 years ago, pictures of the Biafran war half a century ago. But on a continent where the average age is 17, these tragic events seem almost prehistoric. Their images are far removed from how people in Africa's many countries see themselves and their neighbors. For them, these images do not represent their reality.
然而现实是 很多人认为非洲搞砸了。 因为图像在其中起到了很大的作用。 很多关于非洲的描述一直都来自于图像, 那些关于埃塞俄比亚30年前饥荒的照片, 那些关于比夫拉半个世纪前的战争的照片。 但是在一个平均年龄17岁的大陆上, 这些悲剧似乎都是陈年往事。 这些照片都是遥远的, 对于在非洲大陆很多国家的人 怎样看待自己和邻居, 对于他们而言, 这些图片 并没有表达他们的现实生活。
So what is Africa's reality, or rather, which of Africa's many realities do we choose to focus on? Do we accept Emmanuel Macron's imagination of Africa in 2017 as a place in which all women have seven or eight children? Or do we instead rely on the UN's account that only one of Africa's 54 countries has a fertility rate as high as seven? Do we focus on the fact that infant mortality and life expectancy in Africa today is roughly comparable to the US a hundred years ago, or do we focus on progress, the fact that Africa has cut infant mortality in half in the last four decades and has raised life expectancy by 10 years since the year 2000? These dueling perspectives are all accurate. Well, aside from Macron's. He's just wrong.
那么什么才是非洲的现实? 更准确的说,我们从很多 非洲现实中选择哪一种去关注。 我们接受埃马纽埃尔·马克龙的 2017年关于非洲的想象吗? 在非洲所有的女人有七八个孩子? 或者我们应该反而去 依靠联合国的统计关于 在非洲54个国家里竟有 一个高达7个这样高的生育率? 我们是否应该聚焦在当下的实情 那就是非洲的婴儿死亡率和人均寿命 基本上和美国一百年前的水平持平, 或者我们应该关注当前的发展, 那就是,在过去的四十年中 非洲的婴儿死亡率已经降低了一半, 并且在2000年后的近10年内 人均寿命增加了10年。 这些相对立的视角 都是精确的。 当然,除了马克龙的。他是错的。
(Laughter)
(笑)
But one version makes it easy to dismiss Africa as hopeless, while the other fuels hope that a billion people can continue to make progress towards prosperity. The fact that Africans do not have the luxury of turning their gaze elsewhere, the fact that we must make progress or live with the consequence of failure, are the reason we must continue to tell our own stories and show our own images, with honesty and primarily to an African audience, because the image that matters most is the image of Africa in African imaginations.
但是有一种观点导致人们 很容易认为非洲没有希望, 与此同时,却有当其他的动力希望这十亿人 能够继续去朝着繁荣前进。 事实就是,非洲 并没有奢侈的把目光转向他处, 事实就是我们必须做出进步 或者生活在失败的恶果中, 这是我们必须讲述我们的故事的原因 并展示我们的景象, 真诚并首要针对非洲听众, 因为影响最大的因素就是 非洲人想象中的非洲。
Now, honesty requires that we acknowledge that Africa is behind the rest of the world and needs to move swiftly to catch up. But thinking of a way forward, I'd like us to engage in a thought exercise. What if we could go back a hundred years, say to the US in 1917, but we could take with us all the modern ideas, innovations, inventions that we have today? What could we achieve with this knowledge? How richly could we improve quality of life and living conditions for people? How widely could we spread prosperity? Imagine if a hundred years ago, the education system had all the knowledge we have today, including how best to teach. And doctors and scientists knew all we do about public health measures, surgery techniques, DNA sequencing, cancer research and treatment? If we had access then to modern semiconductors, computers, mobile devices, the internet? Just imagine. If we did, we could take a quantum leap forward, couldn't we. Well, Africa can take a leap of that magnitude today. There's enough untapped innovation to move Africa a century forward in living conditions if the will and commitment is there.
现在,真诚要求我们必须承认 非洲是落后于世界的, 我们需要迅速赶上。 但是要想着前进的道路, 我喜欢置身于思考的练习之中。 如果能回到100年前, 我们能对1917年的美国说什么, 如果能带上今天的现代化想法 改革,还有发明,会发生什么? 有了这些知识,我们能取得哪些成就呢? 我们能多大程度的提高人们的 生活质量和生存环境? 我们能在多大范围内传播这种繁荣昌盛? 想象在一百年前 教育系统已经有了所有我们今天拥有的知识 包括怎样把教导做到最好。 但是医生和科学家们知道我们所从事的这些事情 如公共机健康测量,外科手术技术, DNA 排序,癌症治疗和研究吗? 还有我们能接触到现代化的半导体, 计算机,移动设备和互联网吗? 想象一下 如果我们可以,我们就能 实现巨大的飞跃,难道不是吗? 是的,非洲今天可以实现如此大的飞跃。 有足够多的未开发的创新 在生活条件上可以把非洲向前带动一百年。 只要我们有意愿和决心。
This is not just a possibility; it's an imperative for Africa's future, a future that will see Africa's population double to two and a half billion people in just three decades, a future that will see Africa have the world's largest workforce, just as the idea of work itself is being radically reconsidered.
这不只是一种可能, 对于非洲的未来,这是当务之急, 在这个未来,可以看到非洲人口翻倍, 在仅仅三十年内达到25亿人口, 在这个未来,可以看到非洲拥有 世界上最大的劳动力市场 正如工作的定义正在被彻底的重新思考一样。
Now taking the leap forward isn't that far-fetched. There are tons of examples that demonstrate the potential for change in Africa. Just 20 years ago, Nigeria had fewer than half a million working phone lines. Today it has a hundred million mobile phone subscriptions, and this mobile miracle is mirrored in every African country. There are over three quarters of a billion mobile phones in use in Africa today, and this has spurred justified excitement about leapfrogging, about bringing the sharing economy, artificial intelligence, autonomous machines to Africa. And this is all promising, but we need to think about sequencing. Forget putting the cart before the horse. You can't put the self-driving car before the roads.
现在实现这一飞跃并不是那么遥不可及。 无数例子在证明着非洲 改革的可能性。 仅在二十年前, 尼日利亚有不到50万的工作电话线。 如今,他们拥有1亿的手机用户, 并且这种移动端的奇迹 正在非洲的其他国家如法炮制着。 非洲今天有超过7.5亿的手机用户。 这激起了人们对于非洲跨越式发展, 对于带来共享经济,人工智能, 以及无人操控机器的合乎情理的兴奋。 所有这一切充满希望, 但是我们要想好其顺序, 不要本末倒置。 你不可能把无人驾驶汽车规划在道路之前。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
There's a whole infrastructural and logical layer to innovation that we take for granted, but we have to triage for Africa, because some of the biggest infrastructure gaps are for things that are so basic that Westerners rarely have to think about them.
我们理所应当的要进行一些 基础架构和逻辑层的改革。 但我们先要对非洲就行分诊, 因为一些最大的基础设施缺口 是很多事情的基础, 而这些基础西方人很少会考虑到。
So let's explore this. Imagine your internet access went off for a day, and when it came back, it only stayed on for three hours at a time, with random 15-hour outages? How would your life change? Now replace internet access with electricity. Think of your fridges, your TVs, your microwaves, just sitting idly for days. Now extend this nightmare to government offices, to businesses, to schools, to hospitals. This, or worse, is the type of access that hundreds of millions of Africans have to electricity, and to water, and to healthcare, and to sanitation, and to education. We must fix this. We must fix this because ensuring widespread and affordable access to decent infrastructure and services isn't just low-hanging fruit: it's fundamental to achieving the hundred-year leap. And when we fix it, we might find some unexpected benefits.
所以,让我们来探究下这个问题吧。 想象一下你的互联网有一天不可用, 然后当它恢复的时候, 如果在随机的15个小时内 你的互联网只能保持连续3个小时可用。 你的生活将会怎样改变? 然后把互联网使用权 换成电力资源再次同样设想。 想象一下你的冰箱,电视,你的微波炉, 只是闲置几天。 然后把这种噩梦扩展到政府办公室, 扩展到生意场上,扩展到学校中, 到医院里。 这,或者比这更糟的情况, 正是数亿非洲人民正在经历着的东西,包括 电力资源、 水资源、 医疗健康、 环境卫生, 还有教育,皆是如此。 我们必须解决这个问题。 我们必须解决这个问题, 因为确保对于基础设施和服务的 广泛和可承担的使用基建, 不是唾手可得的, 它更是实现百年飞跃的基础。 当解决这个问题后, 我们可能会发现一些超出期望的好处。
One unexpected benefit of the mobile miracle was that it led to what is perhaps the greatest cultural resurgence that Africa has seen in a generation: the rebirth of African popular music. For musicians like P-Square, Bongo Maffin and Wizkid, mobile phones paved the path to local dominance and global stardom. And the impact isn't limited just to music. It extends to film, too. Beautiful, engaging films like these stills of "Pumzi," "Vaya," and "I Am Not A Witch" show. For while its external image might be dated, Africa continues to evolve, as does African film. Now, every now and again, the rest of the world catches on, perhaps with Djo Munga's hard-hitting "Viva Riva!" with Newton Aduaka's intense "Ezra," or with Abderrahmane Sissako's poetic "Timbuktu." With mobile, Africans are discovering more and more of these films, and what that means is that it really matters less in Kinshasa or Cotonou what Cannes thinks of African film, or if those opinions are informed or fair.
移动端的奇迹带来的 一个超出期望的好处就是 它引起了这一代人可以亲眼见证的 或许是最伟大的文化复兴, 也就是非洲流行音乐的重生。 对于一些音乐家诸如 P-Square, Bongo Maffin 还有 Wizkid,对他们来说, 移动手机帮他们铺平了领衔本地音乐 和走向国际舞台的道路。 并且这种影响不只局限于音乐界。 它也同样延伸到电影行业, 诸如美丽迷人的电影 "Pumzi", "Vaya" 和 "我不是女巫"。 一段时间内她的 外部形象可能会显得过时, 但是非洲国家, 正如非洲电影一样,在继续进步着。 现在,或者时不时的,世界的其他国家都会跟上来, 或许以 Djo Munga 的强有力作品 "Viva Riva!", 或许以 Newton Aduakas 的充满紧张的作品 “Ezra”, 或者以 Abderrahmane Sissako 的诗歌 “Timbuktu”。 通过移动手机,非洲正在发掘越来越多的此类电影, 这意味着在金沙萨或者科托努 戛纳电影节对非洲电影的看法并不重要, 也包括这些观点是否客观或者公正等。
Who really cares what the "New York Times" thinks? What matters is that Africans are validating African art and ideas, both critically and commercially, that they are watching what they want, and that African filmmakers are connecting with their core audiences. And this is important. It's important because film can illuminate and inspire. Film can bring visions of the future to us here in the present. Films can serve as a conveyor belt for hope. And film can change perspectives faster than we can build roads.
谁会真正在乎《纽约时报》在想些什么? 真正有意义的是非洲人 正在激活和验证非洲的艺术和想法, 他们正在严肃而带有商业化的 审视着他们想要的东西, 同时非洲的电影制片人也正在 与他们的核心观众建立连接。 这一点很重要。 因为电影可以照亮和鼓舞人生,所以它很重要。 电影可以给此时此刻的我们带来对于未来的愿景。 电影如希望之传送带。 电影改变人们的观点速度胜过我们修路的速度。
In just over a decade, Nigeria's film industry, Africa's largest, has taken the country's words and languages into the vocabulary and imaginations of millions in many other African countries. It has torn down borders, perhaps in the most effective way since the Berlin Conference sowed linguistic and geographic division across Africa. Film does speak a universal language, and boy, Nigerian film speaks it loudly.
在仅仅十年间, 尼日利亚的电影工业, 也是非洲最大的电影工业, 已经把这个国家的词汇和语言带到了 其他许多非洲国家的 词典里和数百万人的想象中去了。 它打破了边界, 或许是以一种自柏林会议后最有效的方式, 打破了会议播下的遍布非洲的语言和地理分裂。 电影使用一种通用的语言来讲述, 孩子们,尼日利亚电影大声的说着。
Making Africa's hundred-year leap will require that Africans summon the creativity to generate ideas and find the openness to accept and adapt ideas from anywhere else in the world to solve our pervasive problems. With focus on investment, films can help drive that change in Africa's people, a change that is necessary to make the hundred-year leap, a change that will help create a prosperous Africa, an Africa that is dramatically better than it is today.
创造非洲的百年飞跃 要求非洲人民激发创造力来产生更多想法, 并且寻找开放以接受和采纳世界各地的想法, 以便能解决我们无处不在的问题。 关注投资, 电影可以帮助推动非洲人民的改变, 这个改变对非洲的百年复兴不可或缺, 这个改变将帮助我们创造一个繁荣的非洲, 一个比今天更加美好的非洲。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Asante sana.
谢谢你们(斯瓦西里语)。
(Applause)
(掌声)