Zeitgeist Quilombo 5 comments

5 Nov 2010 @ 12:36, by Max Sandor Yesterday night we watched "Orí", a film by Raquel Gerber, 1989, 54 minutes. A documentary, Zeitgeist-style 20+ years ago. But like the 'Zeitgeist' movies, it's more than just a documentary. "Orí" is an hommage of a young white woman to a black man who died 400 years ago. The word "Orí" is usually translated as 'head', sometimes as 'destiny'. In this Blog we referenced it quite often in its meaning as 'Higher Self'. As an Aramaic fragment within the Yoruba language, it is the concept of the action of 'Or', the 'light' as referenced in the Genesis as "the Elohim said 'there shall be light' and there was light". Which makes the Yoruban Archons, the Orisha, 'Beings of Light', if one would follow the common Genesis interpretation. The multi-layered Yoruba language allows also for the interpretation of "Orí" as "that who sees". But, personally I prefer 'vibration' instead of light, comparing it to 'oro', the sound of the 'word', which aligns it with the famous 'in the beginning was the word' as the principle of the first manifestation. In any case, the title "Orí" seems strange for a documentary about the attempt of a quiet revolution. What would happen if some people just walked out of society, into the woods, and created there own society, free of dogmas, money-tokens, and forced labor, a society in which every race can coexist in equal rights? The latter ideal of course promised by modern Western society and being betrayed in every sense of its letters. Yet the Quilombo movement in Brazil 400 years ago was exactly that: the attempt of a quiet revolution, a walk-out from a suppressive society. Not, like usual, to create just another oppressive social structure, cults and such, but peaceful coexistence and honoring the beauty and abundance of nature. And that's what Berger's film is about: creating a new destiny, a new orientation, a new head, "Orí", and she couldn't have found a better title for her grand work than that. But Raquel Gerber is not just another Pierre Verger. Daughter to European wartime immigrants, she links legend and history to the realities of today's society, not just Brazil, but the world. Far from encapsulated into the modern relics of African religion like Verger in the 50s, Gerber documented OUR times of today, comparing them subtly to the memories of past centuries, invoking a dream that lies dormant in all suppressive societies, the dream of freedom and justice, of peace and happiness, of coexistence with nature, invoking Her spirits to celebrate Her beauty. But back to the future: at the end of the year 2010, more than 20 years after the release of Raquel Gerber's documentary, have the lessons been learned, has the legendary leader Zumbi dos Palmares still enough Meme-power left, more than 400 years after his head was chopped off? The film "Orí" is celebrating this grand Meme and reminding us at the same time painfully that not that much has changed in fourhundred years than we would like to believe. Brazil celebrates the first woman to be its leader after the recent election, or, 56 percent of its population at least. But what comes to mind is really Princess Isabel who, on the 13th of May in the year 1888, signed the law to ban slavery in Brazil, and who was its first senator. Forced slavery has largely been abolished in the world. It has been replaced by 'voluntary servitude' for all of us except a very few. Does the Zeitgeist movement create a new Quilombo? Strange words, indeed, but in a world of twisted words and broken promises we have no other chance than to fight double-speak with new-speak, unless we revive the Memes of the past, or both. Lastly, the film "Orí" is a film of a woman who looks at women, across continents and centuries. Its inspiration arrives through transcending the historic context of slavery and illustrating our situation today, reviving the Meme of Quilombo, the Zeitgeist movement of 400 years ago.

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