Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Image of Africa outside Africa
From: Amos.Omondi@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Amos &)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 10:07:24 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.

In article <204504@unix.cis.pitt.edu> twfst1@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Tunde W Fanimokun) writes:
>I am thoroughly frustrated at the projected image of Africa outside the
>continent. There is this stereotype of Africa as containing ONLY mud-huts,
>loin cloth clad men and bare breasted women with stark naked malnourished
>children. The more forgiving articles show schools with classes held under
>the shade of trees, scruffy looking men on bicycles and crude medical care
>being given by WHITE volunteers.

I think there are more mud-huts, loin-cloth clad men, bare-breasted 
women, etc. in Africa than in other parts of the world, and with good 
reason: for example, it is very hard to endure the winter temperatures of 
say, North America, in just loin-cloth.  And there is really nothing wrong  
with a mud hut; I have many friends and relatives who live in them and they 
seem to do OK.  
	The Western media concentrate on such images simply because they 
want to titillate whatever audience is there; the average man in the US 
will probably not have his curiosity aroused by information on somebody 
who leads a life that is similar to his.  Of course, the reports are 
unbalanced, but we should not feel ashamed, embarrased, or upset as long 
as nothing untrue is being broadcast.  
>
>While I am not saying none of this is true and not being able to speak for
>all countries on the continent, I know that there has been a lot of devel-
>opment in Africa. In Nigeria, where I come from, we have at least 21 cities-
>
>-- with thousands of multistory(2-20 floors) buildings made of concrete brick,
>   steel, glass and whatever other materials are used in modern architecture;
>-- with tar covered concrete streets within and connecting all the states and
>   plied by cars, motorbikes and vehicles of all makes from all over the world;
>-- with hundreds of very good schools and universities in beautiful, well laid 
>   out buildings having students in school uniforms, that is, shirts, trousers,
>   skirts, socks, shoes and sometimes blazers and ties;
>-- thousands of medical doctors with hundreds of college graduates added every
>   year employed at the numerous public and private hospitals in the country;
>-- with planned cities, well dressed natives and all other things expected of
>   a civilized, educated society;


This is simply falling into the Western trap.  Multi-story buildings, cars, 
geeks marching about with college diplomas etc. do not necessarily constitute 
progress.  Go into the streets of New York, where all of the above are to 
be found in great quantities, and you will find more wild animals than you 
would anywhere in Africa.  Go to Wall Street and you will find true savages 
dressed in three-piece Brooks' Brothers suits working hard to rip-off and 
rip out the heart of the hard-working man.  
There was a time (a few centuries maybe) when 
we did not have any of the above but still did OK.  Right now I would prefer 
that we have none of the above but be able to brag about being able to, 
say, feed all our people; or have systems of goverment in which the top dog 
did not tyrannize and routinely murder the citizens.  

>
>I am sure Nigeria is not an isolated case. There must be hundreds of cities and
>towns all over the continent which can be shown in write-ups and articles. All
>countries of the world have economic and social problems and achievements, and
>Africa is no exception. Why then is it that only the problem areas of Africa 
>are shown as the standard picture of the entire continent. Most of the problems
>in urban African cities are similar to those of American cities and yet the
>sterotype for them is entirely different.
>
>As an example, I would like to mention  something that I saw at the
>Frankfurt Airport during a transfer on my way here. There was a long corridor
>of photographs from places around the world. From England they had a photo of
>Central London and the Westminister Abbey, from China and India they had photos
>of beautiful temples and buildings, from America, the New York skyline  and 
>other photos generally depicting structures and buildings unique to the places
>shown. However, for Africa they had a photo of sand dunes in the desert - ONLY!

Perhaps it was beautiful!  My own experience of standing in the middle 
of the desert was being aware of a beauty that I did not expect a wide 
open space to have.  And maybe a desert is the kind of thing you cannot 
find in Europe or China ...

>
>The false stereotyping does not seem to be limited to Africa though. I live in
>an International Living Unit and the other residents and I discuss this problem.
>The Arab residents complain of images of a region full of Moslem, turbaned,
>religious fanatics trying to convert the whole world to Islam, the Hispanics of
>an image of a lazy group of people not willing to do any honest work other than
>menial labour. I could go on and on. 

The people who pass around unbalanced images are never going to change; so 
instead of going along with their absurd comparison gjust let it pass 
when you can.  
>
>My quesiton is, Why do these false ideas exist and what can constructively
>be done about them?  Who makes them up?  Why do people tend to leave out the
>positive things and only focus on the negative?  Personally, it makes me
>sick...

There are many reasons.  One is given above.  Another is that human 
beings have this need to feel superior to their fellow human beings.  The 
average Westerner, who has little reason to feel superior to his fellow 
Westerner can nonetheless get his satisfaction: in his mind he is 
superior to millions of other humans elsewhere!  He/she can delude 
himself/herself that whatever characteristics his/her country has are 
automatically inherited by him/her as an individual.  Thus you will 
find that the average American who has little power of his own will 
nonetheless brag to you about his powerful country, that the New Yorker 
who has never been able to afford going to a Broadway show will still 
brag to you about the "culture" that is to be found in that city, etc.

>
>Tunde Fanimokun
>Nigerian/African National...and damn proud of it too...

Mud huts and all?