How has the week been so far? I am tackling my pile of papers slowly but surely. Not as fast as I want, but how I for do now? I have a lot to get off my chest today so please bear with me.
I think a pet peeve of many Africans – including yours truly – is this assumption by many (too many) non Africans that Africa is a homogeneous continent - we have all met someone who has demoted it to a country. There is a great article here on this issue. It says everything I would want to say and more, so please read it. Read all the embedded links too - you will find them thought provoking. For some weird reason, it bothers me that people think like this. When I had to talk about it at a school function a couple of years ago, this was the illustration I used:
This picture here is what most people see when they think of Africa – a homogenous dark mass, no variation, no heterogeneity, nothing. If they had to describe the continent, it would be an interconnected mass of villages, all very similar, surrounded by forests, populated by individuals who walk around naked, speak the same language, and who all know each other, regardless of which corner of Africa they are from. What really bugs me, however, is that this perceived homogeneity is reflected not only in culture, language, or how close all our villages are to each other, but also in status and intellectual capacity. In other words, to be African is to be by definition - poor, illiterate, lacking self efficacy or self awareness, unintelligent and incapable of independent thought. My very favorite article on how to write about Africa can be found here. When you do not fit in that box, then you are not really African.
Why am I talking so plenty? Well, Sunday the 8th of March was the International Day of Women - a day devoted to analyzing women’s issues, and measuring the progress women have made and setbacks they have faced over the years. A few women's groups in my city decided to convene a multicultural panel to talk about women's experiences in different parts of the world. I was invited to speak on this panel and after some hesitation, I accepted. I was of course, representing Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular. Other countries represented were China, Indonesia, Columbia and Isreal.
The panel was asked to speak in a question and answer format - the moderator would ask a question, and we would all answer it. One of the questions asked was how my life differed from that of my mother and grandmother. I think they expected me to say that I used to live in a shack and that I was the first person to go to school in my family. It turns out that my mother is actually quite educated.The life I told them about did not differ much from theirs in principle and I could see the skepticism begin to show on their faces. They wanted to know a woman I admired in my country, and I told them about these girls here. Told them that they represented a new breed of women in Nigeria - young, ambitious, capable and very smart; women who challenge me to stretch myself and try something new.
At the end of the panel time, we were supposed to ask the audience questions. So I asked if there was anything they had heard from the panelists that shocked them. It was almost unanimous - I was the winner!! During the question and answer question, and after, when some of them were able to catch me one on one, they all told me, "you surprised me. I have never thought of Africa as having educated and capable women." One couple came to talk to me. The wife said that I was right, there was the need to be a little less simplistic in the manner in which people thought about Africa. Afterall, she said, she had an African in her office who actually spoke better English than her, and was actually good at her job. So, yeah, there was more to African women than the stereotype. I bit my tongue and agreed with her. Then, later on, an older lady came to find me. "Oooh, I enjoyed what you had to say", she said. "So, how is your country on war? Are you currently fighting anybody?" When I told her no, she said - "Oh, what about that guy in that country that is killing everyone and ruining everything - why can't they get rid of him?" I bit my tongue in the middle of that conversation too. Nodded and smiled stupidly. When I started to make my way out, another lady stopped me at the door. "You wanted to know who surprised me the most?" she said, "you did!" When I asked her why, she told me she was shocked to hear that there were educated women in Africa, and that she was sure that I was part of a very small minority of highly educated and capable women (almost her exact words!). By that time I was starting to get irritated, so I told her that it wasn't as small a minority as she would think. She sensed my irritation, told me they were there to learn and she was happy girls were going to school. I smiled and took my leave.
On my way home and ever since, I had to ask myself - why was I so irritated? The questions and attitude are nothing new. And nice little old ladies, sweet as can be, ask me if my country is at war all the time. I even understand why they do it. Have you seen the news lately? Yeeah? That is why they do it. But why does it bother me so? Several reasons:
First of all, Africa is not a homogenous, dark, simplistic country. It is a vibrant, colorful, heterogenous, continent, as this map so clearly shows.
Secondly, while it it true that the highly educated are a minority in Nigeria, it is also true that this is the case in all countries - developed or developing. For instance, in the United States, as of 2007 (latest data available), only 27 percent of Americans reported having a bachelor's degree or higher - see here. For any country to run with any semblance of order, it needs teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, accountants - you know, a professional class. Every country everywhere in the world has one. To express surprise that a professional class exists in Nigeria is very strange to me. Even if only 5percent (I don't have the actual figures, so I am making a conservative estimate here) of Nigeria's 150million people have gone to college, that is still around 7.5million people. It is true that poverty rates are high and average standard of living is low, but educational attainment figures are not zero - otherwise the country would cease to exist!!
What has really been nagging at me the most though is this idea that there is an image of what an African must be, and anything that diverges is an aberration - a statistical outlier, an uncharacteristic exception ....... you get the idea!
The only acceptable and authentic African is this woman pictured here: She is poor,illiterate, hungry and living at a subsistence level. She lacks opportunity, or self efficacy, or any kind of complexity. And she is not self reliant. She has to be helped. She needs someone to swoop in and save her.
Okay, so I know absolutely nothing about the lady, except for the poor and hungry part (at least 20 years ago she was!), since the picture came from here. However,this lady and my wildly speculative assumptions about her represents the face of Africa to the rest of the world.
I want to be absolutely clear that this lady (and what we are assuming her situation to be) breaks my heart. For reasons ranging from famine to war to corruption, there are too many people living her life - a very basic existence. I feel her pain, I am sad for her. I give of my resources to her, I fight the system that holds her down. I pray for her. I try to help her in every way I possibly can. I believe that everyone in my position owes it to people in her situation to give a helping hand. But, I am not her. And I cannot be defined by her. I expect people to resist the need to put me in a box, to understand that both she and these girls can coexist in the same continent without contradiction. It is the same way I can understand and accept the fact that Manhattan and Brooklyn can both coexist in New York, that India's new technological elites can live side by side with the very poor who live in massive ghettos in Bombay. For some reason, I expect people to be able to have minds flexible enough to understand the fact that it is impossible for everyone on a continent of almost a billion people to be 100percent poor and illiterate.
If I really had to break it down, what really gets to me is this implied, yet unspoken belief that there is something inherently African about being poor, illiterate and needy. That is the core of my angst. It is this idea that to be African, you need to be pathetic, have this sob story and need a handout. Self esteem is not necessary. It is not true. That description fits many Africans today, because poverty has its own mindset (that is another write up for another day!). However, with an education and access to opportunity, they can stop being poor. They can gain some self respect and achieve something with their lives. When they do that, and many have, do they stop being African? Poverty and illiteracy are not African conditions. They are human conditions that exist - to varying degrees - in every single society. It would just be nice if people would stretch their minds a little and see beyond the stereotypes.
I leave you with my girl India:
Ghetto - India.Arie
India.Arie Ghetto Lyrics:
There are places in Havannah,
That remind me of Savannah.
Parts of West Virgina,
That might as well be Kenya.
Parts of New York City,
Parts of Mississippi.
Parts of Tennessee,
Look like another world to me.
[Chorus]
Oh, oh oh, Ghetto-o-o-o,
Might as well be another country.
Barrio-o-o-o,
Might as well be another country.
When you look around,
You live in another
country too (too).
To be hungry in L.A.
Is just like starving in Bombay.
Homeless in Moracco,
Is a shelter in Chicago.
Right around the corner,
Just down the road.
Right before your eyes,
Right under your nose.
[Chorus]
Hey, the ghetto-o-o-o
Might as well be another country.
Barrio-o-o-o,
Might as well be another country.
When you look around,
You live in another
country too (too).
Now the dictionary says,
That the ghetto is a place
Of minority, and poverty,
and over population.
We live on this earth together,
ain't no separation.
When you're looking down,
From outer space.
We’re just a human race
and the world is a
[Chorus]
Ghetto-o-o-o,
Listen every place and every country.
Barrio-o-o-o,
it's in every place
and every country.
When you look around,
Do you see your brother when you
Look around?
it's a small world after all.
Look around,
You live in another country too.
(Ghetto) Jamaica is a ghetto
(Ghetto) Japan is a ghetto
(Ghetto) America’s a ghetto
(Ghetto) Slovakia’s a ghetto
(Ghetto) South Africa’s a ghetto
(Ghetto) Brazil is a ghetto
(Ghetto) Israel is a ghetto
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