In 2023, africologne commissioned plays focusing on violence and resistance in the Sahel, including to the Burkinabe author Justin S. Drabo. His long-time friend Jörg Lange was held captive by jihadists in Mali for almost five years before he was released. Written from the perspective of the son of the kidnapped man, the monologue Aliens combines real and fictional elements.
We talk to Justin Drabo and Jörg Lange about the situation in the Sahel and their personal experiences. Jörg Lange reads excerpts from his as yet unpublished manuscript Satan im Wüstensand – 1702 Tage in jihadistischer Geiselhaft in Sahel und Sahara (AT).
Frank is convinced that his father, who has been held hostage by terrorists in the Sahel for years, is trying to send him a message through his dreams. He desperately searches for answers, which he believes he can find in the writings and testimonies of intellectuals and artists from the Sahel and Western actors.
The monologue is like an autopsy of the geopolitical crisis and the challenges in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel and elsewhere. Aliens also questions the stereotypical view of ‘Africa’ from a Western perspective and vice versa. Drabo counters the ambivalence of international relations and global, interest-driven government business with a plea for global citizenship.
The text will be presented in German translation as part of the africologneFESTIVAL.
Justin S. Drabo is a Burkinabe author. In L’Ingérence (at the africologneFESTIVAL 2017), he told the true story of Jörg Lange in Burkina Faso. The civil engineer and expert in development cooperation was ‘removed’ from the country from one day to the next after his ‘interference’ in the affairs of power of former President Blaise Compaoré in 2005.
Jörg Lange, a graduate theologian (University of Vienna) and hydraulic engineer (Cologne), worked for more than 20 years as a consultant engineer for development cooperation projects in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, RD Congo and Haiti. In April 2018, as country director of the aid organization “Help – Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe”, he was kidnapped by jihadists on the border between Niger and Mali and held hostage in Mali for 1,702 days. He was released on December 8, 2022.
SCENIC INSTALLATION N.N. | WITH N.N. | TRANSLATION Annette Bühler-Dietrich, Mahamadou Famanta