Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wednesday, 8 Apr 1992 13:51:02 EDT
From: <AAA5@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Image of Africa outside Africa

In article <204504@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, twfst1@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Tunde W
Fanimokun) says:
>
>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.
>
>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;

Development and thousands of tall buildings are two entirely different things.
It appears to me that many Africans (including me) have been"brainwashed"into b
elieving the presence of such things as buildings constitutes development.

>-- 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;

Again, there seems to be unusual emphasis on outward things like buildings, roa
ds, uniforms etc. Why? If you want to use this very ridiculous yardstick to mea
sure African development, Africa will never match up with American cities.

>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!

I feel one of the reasons Africa has had serious problems is that African leade
rs have kept up appearances rather than true development. Shouldn't development
 begin with the basic things like food production, health care based on prevent
ion etc. before building expressways to nowhere?

>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...

First, the foreign media contributes a lot to how Africa is perceived in the wo
rld. Nothing new about this statement. However, have you ever considered what
African leadership and some individuals have done to tarnish the good image of
the continent? It is always convenient to point fingers and blame outsiders and
 foreigners for all our problems. So what have we done lately since independenc
e?

>Tunde Fanimokun

By the way, which Fanimokun is this? I know a Fanimokun who had a connection to
 the University of Ife-- attended Ife as well. We were all part of the universi
ty community then-- parents worked there, children went to school there-- the A
lukos, Fafunwas, Ojos etc.

---
Akin Akioye