Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Friday, 10 Apr 1992 19:57:18 CDT
From: <U49146@uicvm.uic.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;
>-- 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;
>
>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!
>
>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.
>
>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...
>
>Tunde Fanimokun
>Nigerian/African National...and damn proud of it too...

I think Amos and Akin did a good job of answering this.  Here is my $.02.

I am more thoroughly disgusted when we Africans use the criterion that the whit
e colonizers used to call us "uncivilized" to our fellow country women/men.The
re is nothing wrong with "bare breasted" women nor "stark naked" kids.  It is p
art of the culture and it is uncorrupted by superficial western things. The peo
ple are very simple and I would hate it if anything happened to change that.  Y
ou should know that the hippies in the sixties were essentially trying to creat
e this kind of simple society.

As for the tall buildings, why that only makes places uglier.  They are conveni
ent but I don't see why we should erect any if we don't need them,(yet anyway.

In short, I have no problem if the media shows the different things you mention
ed above.  Actually they are accurate as only about 40% (I think at the most) o
f African people live in the cities and the majority live simple lives in the r
ural area.  (I would just hate it if they dared call it "uncivilized" or "savag
e".

Sofia