Africa's image problem
zakanaka
Africa's image problem
By Chido Makunike
A PERENNIAL African problem is the bad press the continent gets,
particularly in the western world. More often than not, the images of
Africa one sees projected from the west are of war, hunger, economic
collapse and other symbols of dysfunctionalism.
Among the reasons we give for why negative news about Africa from the
west predominate are: racism against the non-western world-particularly
towards blacks; ignorance about the complexity of the continent;
socio-cultural-religious arrogance that assumes the whole world must
conform to a western standard, and so on.
I want to delve into some of the ways in which we as Africans also
contribute greatly to the world's image of Africa as a sort of basket
case continent that can't seem to get too many things right.
Africa has miserably failed to live up to its independence promise to
itself, of a new era of post-colonial freedom and prosperity for its
people.
Just like yesterday's racist colonial governments, African governments
today find all sorts of reasons to justify why Africans are not quite
entitled to the degree of political and other freedoms that many people
in the world increasingly take for granted.
Despotic governme-nts are certainly not confined to Africa, but they are
the norm rather than the exception here.
Independence has simply not brought with it an improvement of the
freedoms of Africans nor the security over the colonial era that one
would have hoped for, and that the world would have expected. Mugabe's
apparatus of control is not that different to Smith's.
The beggar mentality has become so entrenched that Africa expects to be
a perpetual recipient of assistance. When Mugabe is rejected by the west
whose approval and largess he sought and valued so much, he does not
take that as an opportunity to explore greater self-sufficiency, he
looks for new benefactors.
The result is that even our 'friends' see us as always asking for one
favour or another and never quite being able to relate to the
non-African world as equals.
Even in the quite justifiable assertion that Britain and other European
countries cannot just walk away from the after-effects of their colonial
pasts as easily as they would like, there is an undignified whining
tone. It is a childish, petulant cry along the lines of "if you don't
live up to your post-colonial responsibilities, we will try to cause you
great embarrassment and discomfort, even if it means saying and doing
things which will further impoverish us!"
I am not one to pretend Africa hasn't benefited in countless ways from
its interactions with the west, like many of our thoroughly westernised
politicians hypocritica-lly do. Yet the benefits of that interaction
were mostly merely incidental to the exploitation of Africa.
The great benefit of literacy, for instance, was imparted to the natives
not so much for their development but to make them more useful to the
colonisers.
Africa's greater reluctance than other previously colonised peoples to
come to terms with the many things it has gained from interaction with
the western world, has had deep effects on how we are perceived and how
we interact with the west and the rest of the world.
One of them is that we simply look ridiculous pretending to be haters of
the west and all things western. We find it very difficult to say "we
don 't like the white westerners for the way they mistreated and
dispossessed us, but this or that idea they introduced was a very good
one that we embrace wholeheartedly."
The effects of this? We think we are being terribly clever in seeking
investment and technology from the east, without being aware that most
of it really originates from the currently dominant west!
A country like Vietnam, for example, almost carpet bombed into oblivion
by the US a few decades ago, has arguably even more reason to resent
that country than Zimbabwe has to be suspicious of Britain. Yet one of
the ways that Vietnam is moving forward economically is by attracting
American tourism and influencing a lot of American information
technology companies to assemble their products there.
Malaysia's Mahathir Mahommed may spout the same anti-western rhetoric as
our Mugabe, but he has also over the decades made sure his country has
developed strong economic and technological ties with the west. As a
result of a the wariness of the West, tempered with a smart pragmatism,
a country that was developmentally on a par with us a few decades ago,
has forged ahead, leaving us way behind, choking in the dust of Mugabe's
empty rhetoric.
Now, Mugabe sends delegations to Malaysia and other Asian countries to
beg for this or for that, when if he had been a more enlightened leader
these last 22 years, we might have had some of those countries coming to
learn from us for a change.
At any given time, there are all sorts of armed conflicts in Africa, the
world's poorest continent, between and within countries. I think it is
entirely reasonable for someone sitting in New York or Kualar Lumpar to
ask why if a country like Zimbabwe finds it so easy to participate in
foreign wars to the tune of billions of dollars in the form of planes,
tanks, fuel and the other paraphernalia of conflict, they can't raise a
fraction of that cost to ward off starvation in the middle of drought,
or to help other African countries in non-military ways.
How often do you hear of an African country sending substantial numbers
of troops or aid workers to help another African country with flood
relief or other humanitarian assistance? We don't mind going to Western
countries to buy the latest military hardware with the little hard cash
we have in order to oppress or kill ourselves, but let there be a little
drought or flood, and we expect, as a matter of course, the westerners
to come and bail us out! They usually do, but at the cost of a loss of
self-respect for our warped sense of priorities and reluctance to
construct and help ourselves.
Those of us who are fortunate to be part of the minuscule number of
Africans with above average education and some measure of economic
security, are as much a disgrace to Africa as our corrupt, violent, dull
geriatric politicians. Instead of using our relative privilege to be
risk takers in terms of challenging the corrupt, oppressive ruling
elites; or to create and innovate, we capitulate to that tenuous
security.
After all, we are able to meet our monthly mortgage, car and credit card
payments, and if we are good boys and girls we might be promoted at work
next year. "And look, we have satellite TV and the latest Nokia
cellphones! Our lives aren't so different from those of the whites," we
say defensively. So Africa can't be in such a bad state,can it? Why
create waves which would get us into trouble when we are so much better
off and safer than 99% of our countrymen?
And so we justify why we don't have any role to play in arresting the
decline and continued disgrace of our continent by the likes of Robert
Mugabe and others like him. Yet for all our fear and convenience-filled
justification, for looking the other way while Africa becomes more
dysfunctional and helpless, the badge of being the leading citizens of a
continent that just doesn't quite work follows us where ever we go,
whether it be London to work, Stuttgart to order the latest Mercedes, or
New York to study.
Africa's image will not change for the better because westerners and
others decide to do us a favour by having a change of heart about how
they perceive us. It will do so when the world sees Africans working for
their own interests more seriously than we are doing now.
the niggest
wrote:
>Zim Standard - Feature
>
>Africa's image problem
>
>By Chido Makunike
>
>A PERENNIAL African problem is the bad press the continent gets,
>particularly in the western world.
Horse shit.
A "perennial African problem" is the *accurate* press the coontinent
gets.
Africa's underlying problem is its niggers. No niggers = no problem -
everywhere.
sorites
the niggest
wrote:
>Excellent Article, zakanaka. Thanks for posting this.
Yes, there's nothing like a bit of nigger racism to reveal the nigger
for what it is: a failed and parasitical race of abject failures.