To illuminate this point by using a metaphor, one would say when a patient dies it is the patient's fault, but when the patient recovers all the credit goes to the doctor. Earlier I have mentioned that some researchers from the West seem not to have introduced themselves and their research agenda well to Africa and consequently Africa knows very little if she knows anything about the researcher. Imagine a situation where patients regularly visit a doctor's consulting room and the doctor gets to know them well, and yet the patients know nothing about the doctor. Sometimes it could produce an unnecessary tension and misunderstanding between the doctor and the patients. At worse, it could lead to a situation where a doctor's camp could produce many doctors and the patients' camp more patients.
Doctors sometimes forget to ask the patients about how they feel or what they think.
Instead, they diagnose the patients and give them prescriptions. Surely, this is an unhealthy situation for obvious reasons which I do not intend to discuss here. And the doctor's metaphor could be developed further, but let me stop it here. We, young scholars, from both Africa and the West are the future intermediaries between the two regions. I think, it is extremely important for us to know each other well in order to develop a sound relation which is not characterized by a doctor-patient analogy.