Africa as a Stereotype
Written and posted by Tadej Pirc. December, 2023.
Hegel infamously described Africa as an uncivilised continent devoid of history. He claimed nothing noteworthy had ever transpired there, and no people capable of recording, let alone creating, history had ever existed. These words, penned by a figure often hailed as the greatest mind of the Enlightenment and of modern Western philosophy, continue to resonate in discussions about and portrayals of Africa from an external perspective.
Adopting this Eurocentric viewpoint suggests only two significant historical events in Africa, both postdating Hegel. The first was the so-called Scramble for Africa mapped out at the Berlin Conference of 1884. Here, the continent was arbitrarily partitioned and divided among a few imperial powers, further extending their global dominion. The second notable event was the emergence of nationalist movements across the continent and the subsequent formation of independent nation-states, now governed by Africans themselves.
The subsequent history is complex and multifaceted. It includes decades-long civil wars, brutal oppression, widespread poverty, malnutrition, and disease, alongside rampant corruption and the opulent lifestyles of the political elite. All this fuels the stereotypical Western image of Africa, which necessarily also features unbearable heat, barely dressed tribespeople, vast savannahs, dense forests teeming with wildlife, chaotic roads riddled with potholes, and a generalised portrayal of the “dangerous Black man.”
This image is not new. Many authors who claim to avoid such stereotypes still struggle to escape the critique outlined by Achille Mbembe: Africa as a metaphor for absence, lack, non-being, and nothingness in the Western psyche.
Ryszard Kapuściński’s travel memoir “The Shadow of the Sun,” which I recently read, navigates this delicate balance. The book covers his experiences from 1957, witnessing the decline of colonial rule, to the genocide in Rwanda. Kapuściński, as Poland’s first African correspondent, reports on these significant events firsthand. While his writing reflects the nationalist and independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s as a unifying African moment, he also delves into the civil and social challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, the local mentality, and the impact of the climate. The persistent theme of unbearable heat serves as a leitmotif throughout the memoir.
Despite the generalising tendencies, Kapuściński’s book remains engaging. It aligns with Binyavanga Wainaina’s observations in “How to Write About Africa,” typifying what one might expect from a non-African author. The memoir offers amusing anecdotes and captivating writing but often treads familiar ground with its stereotypical generalisations.
To counter these long-established trends and ideations, Dipo Faloyin set out to write a nonfiction book “Africa is Not a Country” that offers a fresh and comprehensive view of the African continent. It presents a much-needed corrective to the oversimplified and often stereotypical portrayal of Africa as a monolithic entity characterised by famines, safaris, poverty, and strife. Faloyin explores a wide range of topics, including the colonial heritage of several African countries, urban life in Lagos, the West African rivalry over the best Jollof rice, and the story of democracy in numerous dictatorships.
The book is both funny and insightful, providing a nuanced portrait of contemporary Africa in all its diversity. One of the unique aspects of the book is Faloyin’s incorporation of his personal story as a Nigerian. Instead of the unbearably hot African Sun, he uses the making of Jollof rice as a unifying theme throughout the book, symbolising the shared experiences and cultural connections across the continent. The book also addresses forward-looking issues, such as how African countries are managing gender and sexual violence, climate change, and other pressing matters, thus focusing more on the current realities of the continent and emphasising the initiatives growing from within African societies rather than being forced upon them, as it has been the case throughout the post-Hegelian history of the continent.
The question for us is, are we finally ready to let Africa write its own history?