Arts and Culture

Fama Une Heroine Sans Gloire by Dalila Ennadre

Omnia Wasfy, Egypt, Sunday 6 April 2008

A touching 53 minutes documentary by Dalila Ennadre.

Amid the captivating natural sceneries of Morocca, among the trees and with the mountains standing out as a magnificent background, walks Fama. The movie doesn’t specify her age, but the wrinkles on her face and her bent back reflects the many, many years of her life and stand as witnesses to her struggles for freedom and justice throughout her whole life.

“That gave me the conviction that God created men for men.
The one who doesn’t believe in that conviction, had better go off and die
The human being is of great value
He must live with his fellow man accepting his differences and if he’s wrong he should show him the right way.
I’m talking about the human being whether he’s Jewish, French or anyone else because we’re all equal.”

And that was how she lived, a human useful for other humans.

Ommi Fama (Mother Fama) as everybody calls her, never married; she willingly dedicated her life for the help and support of others since the age of fifteen. She's a woman who wakes up every morning looking for means of helping people; starting with the resistance fighters against the French and Spanish occupation, going through supporting the prisoners’ families, supporting the youth in their movements to change, and all the way through being a symbol for Moroccan women struggling for their rights.

In this documentary, Fama remembers, along with others, how she contributed in the struggle for a free, liberated, better Morocco.
The movie's photography was amazing, with lots of scenes shot outdoors among the trees and Fama stood or sat there like an inseparable, harmonious part of the natural surrounding, pouring pearls of wisdom as she retrieved her memories:

“Borders are the same everywhere!
Colonisation is the same everywhere!
It’s the same thing.
I feel as if we were in 1953/54
Everything runs through my head and it makes me suffer
They used to tell us what Bush is saying today
We’ve got your country working; we’ve shown you the right way to live, what more can you ask for?
Because we didn’t know how to live before they came?!
Colonizers act in the same way everywhere.
They steal the wealth and destroy the people.
That’s what happened in Morocco, in Palestine, in Iraq and Vietnam
It’s the same thing!”

“It is true that our country has been liberated but today it’s occupied by the ignorant
Occupation doesn’t necessarily come from the Spanish or the French
It can also come from your own brother
There is an occupation of the soul, occupation of materialism, and occupation by ignorance without any scruple.”

With all her contributions and at her age, Fama refuses to acknowledge that she’s done her share:
“I will have done my part the day of my death.
I haven’t yet reached my goal.”

This movie was made in 2004 and Fama died a few months after shooting it.

This is a woman to be remembered.