It has not been uncommon to hear nasty comments lampooning Africa and Africans on foreign print and electronic media. Making a mediocrity of the continent seems to be their fare. It is true that Africa has suffered from hunger, war, famine, drought, corruption and economic mismanagement between other real and imagined ‘calamities’. Many are Africans who have either died or had their dignity stripped by these labyrinths of problems to the mortification of foreign media.
The fact that these are the same groups and individuals who have been unceremoniously struggling to maintain the perceived status quo of Africa via their perpetuation of the hand-me-down culture, rather than availing long term solutions in the continent, further demonstrates the amount of misrepresentation and misinformation about Africa that exists at the global platform.
Many people in the western world still believe the mythical tales of Africa. They still believe the myths that Africans are living stone-age lifestyles in caves and trees and clad in leaves, barks and animal skins. These ideals occur despite clear representations to the west of the existence of cities and modern life in Africa. Mythically instigated evolutionary edicts of life having began in Africa, the “propensity to backwardness and tomfoolery” leading to the prevalent perceived state of affairs, continue to be purveyed in the media to the delight of their audience and the indignation of indigenous Africans.
Sadly, many indigenous Euro-Africans and Afro-Americans have joined in the charade of beleaguered condemnation of Africa. With conspiracy theorists talking about attempts to deface the continent, giving it an ogre like appearance before the mostly well-intentioned global audience, nothing can be ruled out in this vendetta. This coupled with the fact that investors are often being scared away from Africa as a result of persistent global images of instability and strife, the continent is in dire need of good publicity.
It is time that Africans disprove the existing ideals that exist. Africa is not inferior or the global insignificant other. Africa is not the white man’s or the world’s burden. It is time that the people of Africa vote out from power, political leeches and scoundrels. It is time to do away with those who persistently titillate resource mismanagement, pitch tents of violence and other negative exhibitions of tomfoolery and ideological mediocrity. Ethnocentrism, nepotism, sexism and other negative ‘isms’ need to be shut out of their socioeconomic life.
African rights activists should also avoid trying to appear as ‘black supremacists’ because all humanity is equal. They should start appearing as champions of a noble, just and equality directed cause. Let them be victors rather than victims over bigotry, pathological discrimination and racism. Its time for the new Africa to be born and for the African renaissance to be re-engineered.
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