African Images

Here I was in the heart of equatorial Africa and things were different, the water ran counter clockwise down the sink when you drained it, there was no McDonald’s, there were lots of people, there were sounds, sights and smells that were markedly different, most of all Africa was nothing what I had ever imagined. It was different from what I had read, heard, seen in the West.

What we believe, what we think we know comes from the images that we see on TV, in films or the words in an article or book.  Images that shape our view of Africa, what life is like and the people that are there.  Speaking of people, the average Westerner knows more about African wildlife than about the people who live there.  Maybe because there are no specials on the preservation of the African people, but there are plenty on elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, etc.  Maybe we need both.

If I say the word “Africa” What images come to your mind?  For many of us there are the images of hunger, the skeletal children, earth that is dry and cracked, urban slums, massacres, tribal slaughters, AIDS, endless stream of refugees without a place to call home, without clothing, medicine, food or water.  Those are the only images we see on CNN during the nightly news during times of crisis and then there is nothing until the next war, skirmish or famine.  Limited, selective images that make a continent look like it is always in upheaval.  The reporters who bring us those images are flown in and flown out and for the most part are clueless what the real Africa is like.  They like me, may have read some of the same books, seen some of the same films about Tarzan swinging through the jungle fighting savages…hmm…or even worst – the Abbot and Costello travel and adventure films of their time in Africa…with its demeaning imagery.

When Westerners came to work with my organization in Africa I would spend some time with them and ask some questions such as, “What African film have you ever seen?  What African book by an African author have you read?   Have you ever read and or heard an African Poem?   Have you heard African musicians in concert or on CD? “

If you live in the western part of the world, chances are slim that you have done any of the above.  You might have thought that you watched an African movie, or read an African Book, or listened to music from Africa but in most cases it was a Western film such as (“Out of Africa where some African was allowed to utter a few broken English lines punctuated by Bwana), a Western book, a Western song that used Africa as the background, as the flavor to give it some spice and spark, but little of the heart of Africa.

For hundreds of years, Africa was a blank spot on western maps, a place that did not exist and then during the middles ages it became a dark spot.  It was referred to as the “dark continent” where primitive people without history and civilization dwelled.  Where chaos was the norm, even the capacity for an African to love was questioned since a savage being was not capable of love or Christian charity. 

Having created this subhuman status for Africans, it was then easy to take this Dark Continent filled with savages and ship them to ends of the earth as slaves. It was easy to plunder the riches of Africa, its people and resources.  It was easy to colonize Africa under the guise of bringing civilization and Christianity. 

Jomo Kenyatta said it best in his book “Facing Mount Kenya.”  "The missionaries came with the bible in their hand and we had the land.  They taught us to pray with our eyes closed, and then when we opened them, we had the bible in our hand and they had the land.” 

The images that I write about can still be found today in Western literature about Africa.  David Lam in his book “The Africans,” wrote, “Below the paper-thin veneer of civilization in Africa lurks a savagery that waits like a caged lion for an opportunity to spring.” 

Keith Richburg, an African American writer wrote in regards to the genocide in Rwanda in his book “Out of Africa: A Black man confronts Africa,”  “Fully evolved human beings in the 20^th Century don’t do things like that.”

Fully evolved Western and Asian human beings killed 6 million Jews under Hitler, Stalin eliminated 20 million Soviets and the Japanese imperial troops machine-gunned, bayoneted and raped 300,000 Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking.

No race, no people, no continents is immune from the ability to do evil no matter how civilized.  It was King Leopold the refined King of Belgium who in the setting of Joseph Conrad’s book (Heart of Darkness) in the Congo, shot, beat, clubbed, starved and worked to death between 5 million and 10 million Africans between 1885 and 1912.

The images we see of Africa are distorted images and one of the main reasons they remain so is because most of us do not know any Africans, have not been to Africa and most of our information about it is distorted by others.

How many Western Universities have exchange programs with Nairobi or Makerere University and send their students there for a cultural learning experience.  It would certainly help to change the images we have of Africa and in some cases Africans have of us.

Africa is not some alien planet in outer space.  It is more than a safari playground, it more than a wonder of the world with its natural beauty.  Africa is people who in most cases know more about us than we know about them.  Africa is filled with people who for the most part speak more than one language.  Kenyans for example will speak their mother tongue (tribal), the common Kenyan language (Swahili) and the other official language (English). 

Visit African schools and you will be amazed what they know about western history, current events (many homes will listen to BBC-World Service), literature and the like and the thirst for knowledge.  If you are a teacher you will be amazed at the interaction between students and teacher and the respect the teacher enjoys.  Join an African family for dinner and you get a sense of the relational ways of Africa.  If you thought you know what a BBQ is like, wait until you have enjoy some nyama choma, you can enjoy some of the most wonderful meals with great conversations in small restaurants all over Africa.

In the rural area of Uganda near the town of Lira is a small village where I was able to catch a glimpse of the real Africa minus all of the distortions. In the center of this village was a large tree.  There were no stores besides a place to buy some sodas or beer, there were no restaurants, no school in sight, there was no church around, just some houses on the side of road with neatly tended gardens and a massive tree in the center of the village.

Whenever I came by that tree, there were people.  During the week there would be students in the morning with a teacher learning, on Sunday there was church under the tree, during most afternoons there were older men sharing and talking, some animals resting in the shade of the tree and in the evening there were families, children, people of all ages sharing.  I came close and sat there listening to an old man, an acquaintance began to translate…”Long ago when our people came here before we can even remember…” and I thought as I listened, Africa does have a history, it is still being told under the trees from Cairo to the Cape and in between.  The image of the people under the protection of the tree represented to me the Africa where people learn from one another, where they love and share in community, where there is life and interaction and deep respect for one another.  White men came to Africa to change them bringing with them what would be best for Africa, never quietly sitting underneath the tree in the village listening to the tales of old, the history of its people, the dream of Africa for tomorrow…maybe some of the leaders of present Africa would find some real wisdom under that same tree…and the heart of darkness… that is only in the one who does not care to listen when the old men and women share ancient stories…jon

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