By Nkechi Ali-Balogun, FNIPR
Principal Consultant/CEO, NECCI Ltd
Africa should be one of the world’s superpowers, yet, due to many challenges that plague the continent, it is one of the poorest continents and is often regarded as a dark one. The continent’s narrative is that of war, poverty, terror, corruption and disease, and regardless of its standards regarding education and achievements, it is looked down upon and ridiculed everywhere.
Africa is a bright continent with adequate human capital, geographical landscape and mineral resources that make the continent a good and fertile ground for any economy to thrive.
Some argue that Africa is a victim of the “single story” syndrome, which has contributed to the negative perception and unending reputational crisis that deepens daily, with grave consequences. The crisis will continue to worsen. Unfortunately, Africa is quickly becoming synonymous with that single story.
As regards the danger this single story poses, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said that she believes the continent’s power can only be exposed in stories depending on “how they are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told…”
There is no gainsaying that we have to tell our own stories, but the stories have to be based on some empirical realities. For instance, is Africa indeed a victim of the single story? Like the proverbial saying, are Africa and Africans the architects of their fortune or misfortune? Whichever way you look at it, you must agree with me that the case of stereotypes can be difficult to overcome, even for victims.
In the recently concluded 22nd edition of the NECCI Public Relations Roundtable in Lagos, the keynote speaker Mrs Dere Awosika, Chairman of Access Bank, posited that Africans must rise to the occasion and disown every stereotyping messaging from the West and, instead, begin to create messages of prosperity, invention and development for the continent.
In her words, “There are a lot of positive developments in Africa. We must not allow other continents to take ownership of our story. Africa is a continent of prosperity, invention, innovation and development. Therefore, allowing others to paint us as a continent of hunger, disease, and corruption, and referring to us as a developing continent must not be allowed to fester.”
Africa has lived under the burden of political, economic and social conspiracies by world powers to the extent that Africans no longer believe in themselves and seek validation from a people who ordinarily should be looking towards them for survival. Afro-pessimism has eaten into the fabric of our existence as a people and a continent.
Dr David Mrisho of the University of Tanzania, also speaking at the 22nd edition of the NECCI Public Relations Roundtable, posits that “consciously, the West chose to perceive Africans to backwardness, barbarism, and incapacity to develop until they came in contact with supposedly superior races that brought them development and civilisation.” According to him, this resulted in stereotypes, linking Africa to certain characters or behaviours like backwardness, barbarism, inability to develop, poverty, wars and conflicts, hunger and lack of history.
The question now is, did the West really bring civilisation to Africa? History records that Africa had a very successful structure for governance and a way of life before the advent of the white man’s brand of civilisation. In fact, we must insist that Western civilisation and culture have negatively and precariously contaminated the traditional values of Africa. Dare Arowolo (Lecturer, Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria) contends that Africa had established – well before the advent of colonialism – a pattern of home-grown political systems, governance processes and generally acceptable institutional rule-making arrangements, such that there was progression in the pace of civilisation of Africa and self-styled tempo of technological development. Arowolo further submitted that the dynamism and significance of Africa on the global continuum tend to support the argument that Africa would have evolved and sustained a level of development and civilisation without retrogressive contact with imperial forces.
Sadly, several decades of independence have not helped erase negative images of Africa. The reason can be attributed to the economic and political malaise afflicting Africa since the late 1970s. This has worsened matters to the extent that it has revived the old colonial perceptions that regarded Africans as incapable of independently developing themselves. This notion is supported by the very deceptive ways the West came to our land to steal our resources with the pretext of bringing their so-called civilisation and their Greek gifts along with them. The story of John Williamson, who started Mwadui Diamond Mining in Shinyanga, Tanzania, about 70 years ago, is a typical example. Does it not sound ridiculous when it is recorded in history that Mungo Park and his cousins came to Africa to discover rivers that existed before the advent of the white man in Africa and have been serving the indigenous communities for years?
The Narrative Must Change
Dr David Mrisho believes that as long as Africa continues to behave as it currently does, negative perceptions will persist in the minds of many people in the West. And as long as negative perceptions persist, Africa’s quest for rebranding and locally driven, inclusive and sustainable development cannot be achieved.
We believe that the time has come to do something drastic to debunk these long-held “Afro-pessimistic” notions of Africa as a backward continent plagued by conflict and poverty. The time has also come for us to be truthful to ourselves by identifying the reasons for such pessimistic notions, to rewrite our stories. It is time for us to intentionally create new stories from our numerous successes to help redefine the ‘Dark Continent’ narrative. Again, Dere Awosika charges Africans to rise to the occasion and disown every stereotyping messaging from the West and now begin to create messages of prosperity, invention and development for the continent. According to her, “There are a lot of positive developments in Africa. We must not allow other continents to take ownership of our story.”
Collectively, through various forms of communication, we can find a more structured and definitive way to tell our stories. This could herald the emergence of a movement for change, as well as a new narrative to overcome the negative voices that have overshadowed Africa for decades.
We believe that Africa, as the next global frontier, needs to tell her stories and tell them well. We need to champion this new drive to reshape our continent and change that single story of Africa and Nigeria, in particular, as “a place of catastrophe” and a shit-hole.
As experts in communication and messaging, we must begin to create and generate positive messaging that truly reflects who we are as a people because the continent is blessed and endowed with some of the best natural resources you can find anywhere in the world. We are ambassadors of our culture. The ecosystem of Africa is created for a purpose.”
The time has come for Africans to stop dwelling on our past mistakes and forge ahead to regain our space in the comity of nations, reclaim our reputation and integrity as a continent, assert our cultural supremacy, and our status as the founders of the so-called Western civilisation. Barbarism, as we know it, didn’t start in Africa, yet, Africa is the “dark continent.” How ironic! It is time to retell the story of Africa, and that time is now.