That Country... Africa!
I remember walking to the environmental science class as a freshman and seeing the gold African-Map pendant resting chicly on Professor Flutti's neck. I was impressed and astonished by her extensive knowledge and travel in several African countries. That fall, she led a trip to Botswana.
I also remember sitting in my Intercultural Communication class the same semester with the professor wanting feedbacks on the different places we went. “How about the Geneva Schlein trip?” “How was Sicily ?” Then she asked, “So, how was Africa ?” A boy replied, “I loved it…but it was weird to have Africans speaking English though”.
I was surprised at his reply and disturbed at my professor's resolve to individualize cities in Europe but group countries in a whole continent as one. In fact, I am incessantly amazed when I recall questions from that class such as, “ Somalia ? Isn't that the pretty island?”, “Isn't there a war going on in Nigeria right now?” “You chat online with your sister in Nigeria ? You have electricity and internet?” I could excuse the first two questions because you may need political awareness to answer both but the third cannot be excused. No, there is no electricity or internet in Nigeria ; we use candle-powered computers!
It was a full year of people walking up to me and attempting to speak Ebonics, not realizing the differences between the black Africans, black Americans and black Caribbean people of the African Diaspora.
Similarly, I was automatically expected to ‘love hip-hop' without caring for a second to understand that this genre of music is done by a minority of the population in the United States of America as opposed to the native African people.
I had assumed things would change by my sophomore year; after all, I cannot limit my impression to one class discussion or my freshman year right? I was wrong.
Three years later, I remain astounded.
Three years have passed and students are still making misinformed assumptions about the African continent based on a two-week excursion, usually in the Saharan desert.
In the fall semester during my junior year, there was a trip to Malawi and Zambia . A poster posted by students around campus read “donate to the African children”. Again I was surprised. Donations were made but I do not remember any funds being donated toward my tuition. Am I not African?
Why not specify the donation title to the village, city or town they are being made to instead of oversimplifying the people of an entire continent? I would not make a donation to children of Al-Karak in Jordan and refer to my program as a donation to the Middle East . Neither would I take a trip to Locarno from Nigeria and feel like a specialist on Europe , making flawed statements such as “Europeans love pasta!”
How does two weeks with villagers, whom you only take pictures with to substitute circus animals, and Australian tour guides in one country in the Southern Region of a continent with 54 countries suddenly make you an expert on the continent?
I can relate the way people become post-academic- travel-self-acclaimed -Africa connoisseurs to visiting Idaho , USA and basing all of my opinion on North America on a two-week camping trip in the country side with Mexican tour guides.
We are three Nigerian students currently enrolled at Franklin and the three of us are from different tribes, have different cultures and speak different languages. As a Nigerian, I continue to learn more about the diverse cultures in the country and dare not call myself an expert on Nigeria .
Why should Morocco , which is also a country in Africa, be given a separate uniqueness than Tanzania ? I cannot recall the number of times I've been told this semester that “ Morocco was great!” and “I love Africa!” or “We went swimming in Africa .”
I suppose it was one gigantic swimming pool spread across Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Togo, Cameroon, Chad, Zambia, Swaziland, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Botswana, South Africa, Niger, Seychelles, Lesotho, Ghana, Liberia, Cape Verde, Comoros, Senegal, Tunisia, Cote d'voire, Republic of Benin, Libya, Namibia Gabon, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, The Gambia, just to name a few countries.
I assumed I had a problem only with the students who refuse to learn but again, I was wrong. In the registration form for summer 2006 field-trip to Malawi , the form details that the cost of the program covers the flight from “Lugano – Africa ”. My emotions concerning this part of the publication shuffle from anger to disgust; I cannot comprehend how, Lugano, a small city in Ticino, Switzerland is given an identity, but Zambia and Malawi, two countries of great history, people and culture are simply referred to as Africa.
Does it surprise me? No. This is a style of generalization that has always been communicated particularly by international media which usually sums the countries in Africa as one; a colonial mentality that depicts and negates the countries in the continent as worthless and undeserving of recognition except of course when poverty and sub-human conduct are being discussed. In fact, The Economist was not straying from the trend when it published an article in May 2000 calling Africa , a continent of more than 700 million people and 300,175,000 square kilometers, “The Hopeless Continent”. An article, most Africans, as well as I, find cynical, patronizing and nauseatingly inaccurate.
Am I disappointed in Franklin College for the Lugano – Africa phrase? Yes. I am disappointed in their apparent union with the band-wagon oversimplification of my continent, the ignorance with which it is being portrayed, the insensitivity towards the people who originate from there and also happen to be student or staff at Franklin .
Although I agree that academic travel is a good opportunity and that a few students return with knowledge about the country or region they have visited. I am exhilarated that the trip will not be offered in the immediate future starting fall 2006 because the majority return with a larger superiority complex about Africa . It will spare me the time and effort of trying to correct the people who display the nuisance act of overtly flaunting their ignorance about the African continent.
For the record, the Africa I have been privileged to experience from my Nigerian background and extensive travel thus far is a continent where families are cherished, wives revere husbands, and children do not speak back to parents or adults. A continent of hospitality and love where the commonest phrases are “welcome”, “please” and “thank you!” A continent where race is traditionally seen as descriptive rather than stigmatic and foreigners are celebrated rather than resented. Africa is a continent of beauty, good music, rich and very diverse cultures, good cuisine, a great history and future. It is a continent that depicts and emphasizes the true meaning of the saying, “less is more”. Of course these qualities are not accentuated by the tourists; rather they emphasize the condescending notion of a “country” filled with dying children that need to be ‘helped', forgetting that not even ‘civilized' countries have been thoroughly cleansed of poverty. They help propagate the conspiracy theory of labeling the continent as the “dark” continent. I hear comments such as “nothing is for sure in Africa ” and wonder when the constancy of change stopped being applicable to every region of the world.
With this in mind, I sat in utter disbelief as I watched the impoverished cities of the Southern America on CNN, especially New Orleans , during the Katrina Hurricane disaster. The Biblical saying “ First remove the plank from your own eye , and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye” undoubtedly had African “helpers” in mind. I appreciate that the Baobab Initiative has good intentions but I believe the cities in the US South need to be addressed first before worrying about “the kids in Africa."