we call it home

In the media, whenever someone talks of Africa I see
emaciated children, topless
women and despicable dictators;
unending wars and good for
nothing farmers who have no
idea of western “civilization.” I see a suffering continent, with
starving children and hopeless
mothers. Then in the background
I see foreign heroes; full white
hands feeding empty black
mouths. That’ s such a monochromatic picture to paint
of a continent that has diversity
and many colors.
And so does Hollywood and its
afro-negative creations. Over the years, the movies set
and produced in Africa have
been singularly created to paint
the continent black. Remember
“The Last King of Scotland”, “Blood Diamond”, “Out of Africa”, “Black Hawk Down”? All these movies creatively depict
Africa as a bottomless abyss of
lust, greed, poverty and
destruction. Few western
creations make an attempt to
showcase both sides of the African coin. Such single minded
misconception does no good to
the continent and neither does
it help in alleviating the problems
in Africa. True, there have been a lot of
problems in Africa, still are;
malnutrition and genocide, coup
de tats and dictators; however,
none of these problems are
“uniquely African”. African problems are the world’ s problems. For example, an
African coffee farmer is paid less
than a dime for every
Starbuck’ s cup of coffee sold in the Western world. If this is not
neo-colonialism, then it is neo-
enslavement; just darker and
hotter! The same is true for
cocoa, tea and flower exports.
Peanut farmers in Africa get their worth-peanuts. Flower
farmers do not have it any
rosier. Developing democracies take
time to flourish. European and
American ideas of civilization and
democracy are a couple hundred
years old; yet Africa is just in
the infancy of such modernistic standards of judgment. After all,
why is the West so eager to
shove the idea of Western
democracy down Africa’ s throat? During the Rwandan
genocide, which was funded by a
couple of European countries
and watched by the UN, the US
president declared that since it
had no interests in Rwanda, it had no deal intervening in her
politics. So much for being a
superpower and invading
countries to establish
democracies! Coming to think of it, Africa had
strong and stable kingdoms with
a strongly regarded rule of law
until Europeans arrived in the
continent; with the Bible in one
hand and the gun in the other. The scramble and partition of
Africa among European countries
led to a massive export of
wealth from the continent. It is
no surprise that a significant
portion of Africa’ s wealth is in the Western world. It is unfair,
narrow-minded, backward and
appalling to attribute singular
stories of doom and gloom to
Africa. What of the most colorful World
Cup ever held? Why do the
media edit such content with an
almost anti-African bent? Just
by browsing the top media
stations, I have not seen the news of the Kenyan who broke
the World 800m record twice in
one week; I haven’ t seen news on some of the world’ s most beautiful beaches in the
Seychelles, nor have I seen the
world’ s natural wonders in Tanzania; what about the gold
of the Johannesburg and the
copper mining in Zambia? With so
much diversity and beauty,
there is absolutely no reason
that the Western media is hell bent on painting a grim picture
of Africa as the devil’ s playground. We might not be the
Devil; but do give us our due. There is a thin line between
truth and fiction. This is that
line.