Africa is NOT a country!
I just read a magazine article where the author described how she had booked flight tickets ‘from New York to Africa’.
Breathe in…breathe out. Repeat.
Now the rant starts:
Africa is NOT a country!
Where in Africa were those flights booked to? Is there a dropdown option on Africa?
This brings to mind so many stories I’ve heard about how fellow Africans have been asked if they know so and so person who also ‘lives in Africa’. Let us not even get to those stories about people asking if we ‘live in trees’ or have wild animals roaming the streets, or if we actually wear clothes. Or the extreme ignorance of someone asking how we conceal our tails! Sigh.
There are collective words that refer to various parts of the globe, which we all use. We are not all Geographers, neither should anyone expect everyone else to chant all the countries in the world along with their capital cities.
Is it however too much to ask that people begin being a little bit more descriptive when it comes to Africa?
I’m talking about referring to us more than as ‘the mother land’, ‘the dark continent’, ‘the cradle of mankind’.
Doesn’t our history and crucial part we play in everything from the world economy to the provision of all weird and wonderful natural resources warrant that we get to be referred to as more than just some abstract land in the distance? Sigh.
Africa is a continent with 54 sovereign countries. Diversity is us, in our food, music, culture, skin tones and all that identifies people. We have had wars. We battle corruption, famine and pestilence. We are rich in natural resources. We have hosted a ‘FIFA world cup event’. We have a booming music and movie industry (in different countries, mind you). We even have our own fashion weeks. Our languages and accents from north to south and east to west are so different……I could go on and on.
No, we will definitely not all speak about each and every country in all continents on this earth. It would be nice though to sense that we are acknowledged as a vast land comprising different countries, each with its own history and habits.
We are more than pastoralists holding spears, as depicted in so many movies. Yes, that is part of us, but just one face of a multi-faceted land. We have our troubles, but we also have our graces.
We are thinkers, visionaries, and we do have our fair share of success stories. Africa is not a country!
Any and every referral to us as merely such is not only dismissive, but quite frankly, patronizing. So I think it is not too far-fetched for me to want to know exactly what city/town in ‘Africa’ those flights were being booked to. Was it Tunis? Bujumbura? Abuja? Dakar? Windhoek? Antananarivo? Sigh.
