Ch. 1: Africa, The Most Diverse Continent
This piece has been brought to you by Redflowers (www.redflowers.co). Edited by Steph Dinsae.
“By donating a dollar a day, you, too, could save a child in Africa,” said the woman in the commercial from some unknown foundation that was hardly giving any of the donations to these children. Are you really surprised though? I think the last time I saw one of these commercials was with Wendie Malick from ‘Hot in Cleveland.’ If you don’t know her, it’s okay. Neither do I.
Anyways, Western media has controlled the narrative of how the world perceives the African continent. In media portrayals, Africans are usually depicted as either starved and poor, “uncivilized” in tribal wear near some safari, or naive and incomprehensive of the West. Now, I’m not going to say that there aren’t areas within Africa that are not doing so hot. However, this holds equally true for many areas in the World.
The real question is “Why are there so many negative representations of Africa?” (cough cough global anti-blackness).
Just to give you an idea of how little information you’re given about Africa (unless you happen to be born in an African country, are first-gen, or have conducted independent research) I want you to close your eyes and think, “What do I know about Africa?”
If you’ve just finished high school, the answer is “Nothing”. Why do I say that? Well, when Nicole Amarteifo, the writer, director, and producer of An African City (which you should totally watch), hosted an open Q&A for my class, she asked my fellow classmates what they knew about Africa. All of them froze. For most of them, this was their first year of college, and if you gave them a quiz on all the King Henrys and Richards from their “World History” classes, their scores would be much higher than testing them on whether Niger and Nigeria are two separate countries. I know. That’s sad.
Since these are the pictures and stories being painted and told, it will be up to us, Africans and those of African descent, to depict the overshadowed truth.
Retelling The Narrative of Africa
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Africans and those of African descent are the most genetically diverse among all racial groups. (For more info, read up on epigenetics!)
- There are at least 3000 ethnic groups and 2000 languages spoken in Africa.
- Africa is the second largest continent in the world, by land (30.3 mil km²) and population (1.22 B)
- The continent is made up of not only safaris, deserts, and jungles as you have been falsely led to believe :), but also 54 countries with diverse temperate climates.
Commonly ignored African diasporas that lack eurocentrism include the following: the trading diasporas (the Hausa and Doula in western Africa); the slave diasporas (West Africans in North Africa and East Africans on the Indian Ocean islands); the conquest diasporas (the Nguni in southern Africa); the refugee diasporas (from the Yoruba wars of the early nineteenth century, etc.); and the pastoral diasporas (the Fulani and Somali in the Sahelian zones of western and eastern Africa).
Now, I’d like to formally thank Google Maps for not displaying all the names of the countries unless I zoomed in 100X. You have truly been the least helpful. What this map does depict is the boxy and rounded country lines of Africa. The last time I saw this map in a classroom was 7th grade.
These country lines, which ignore diverse ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences between groups, are a result of colonialism as European countries divided up Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, it is no surprise that post-colonial Africa has had multiple conflicts regarding tribal and national identities.
This came to a bigger surprise when I conducted an interview with a Kenyan. I asked her, “What pride do you hold regarding your ethnicity?” And of all the people I interviewed, she told me, “What does that mean? When you say ethnicity, I think of my tribe which is different than America’s concept of nationality”. I then realized the questions I had crafted were flawed. From research, I had previously understood that black identities hold high pride regarding their ethnicity. I had not understood that the word ‘ethnicity’ was colonized terminology.
As for these countries, when it comes to political systems, power plays a large role (Thought about the show for a hot sec) in the dynamics. When European countries colonized areas, they left some white leader in charge to essentially mind f*ck these communities by purposely pitting individuals against each other and by making a few individuals inhale just enough power to side with the oppressor. They began to crave something that had been stripped from them by planting a seedling of greed. Greed and obsession for power holds a lot of weight in how colonized countries have progressed.
Before I sign off until next week where I’ll begin to break down Africa into different regions, I want to leave some imagery of a few cities in Africa to repaint the mental image you may have been given by Western outlets.
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