As I sat down to write this article about my country, I find my mind keep extending my ideas to the whole continent of Africa. Is there anything that I would like to be true about my country that I wouldn’t for Africa, and vice versa? No, there is none. Though there is everything that sets us apart one from each other, we remain the same: we are us. Beyond borders, religions, tribes, whatever … we are brothers and sisters. And we didn’t wait until the introduction of any kind of religion to think that we are so. And nowadays more than ever, we’ve come to realize that we are only on our own. We can’t trust any other form of brotherhood but the one that flows in our blood. The self-interest in the others and our own economic situation as compared to that of the others, have made things so that they can’t no longer see us as brothers and sisters. We’ve seen it with slavery, colonization, Apartheid, WWII, and now with issues regarding poverty, economic growth and climate change.
Poverty and economic weakness have become crimes, situations of disgrace in the eyes of the world and weapons in the hands of African leaders. I don’t condemn the fact that these can be used as weapons, as long as it served to motivate the populations. But I find it intolerable that the stories of poor people be used in a guilt-inducing, mercy-inducing way to obtain funds from foreign countries to the detriment of these people’s dignity. Of course, there are two sides of the coin: the way African go around to tell their stories and the way foreign medias, NGOs and others forms of developmental institutions portray the continent. I let the latter one alone because first, I don’t see us going around telling people to stop telling our stories the way they want to tell it and secondly, I’m confidently convinced that we will ultimately overcome the negative portraits that the world have of us. But for the time being, let’s change the way we tell our own stories. Let’s bring to the world, the other pieces of our stories. Let’s display the richness of our millions of millions years of history and culture. As Shashi Tharoor, Member of Indian Parliament and Minister of State For External Affairs puts it in his Nov. 2009 TED speech: “In today’s world, it’s not the size of the bigger army that wins; it’s the country that tells the better story that prevails.”
There are millions of millions of stories about the continent that would fascinate the world. But unless we set to tell them, either nobody will them or nobody will tell them as good as we do. Do you remember the quote of Amadou Hampaté Bâ – En Afrique, quand un vieux s'éteint, c'est une bibliothèque qui brûle - (by the way, it’s said to have Chinese origin this one on the web)? I’m always curious about why on earth sociology, history, or humanities major students will spend their time writing their thesis to confirm already known theories while they could’ve been more productive bring out the wisdom of old people in the remote villages or urban areas? Why should we wait until they die to say “if we knew”? Do you imagine what contribution we could make in terms of medicine, in understanding the invisible world, in psychology, in saving marriages,… Look at what Yoga and meditation have become nowadays! Look how so-called Eastern cultures have gained in importance throughout the world? People even study how to make love endlessly. For God’s sake, where my people is at? Doesn’t it sound so familiar?
If we were to accept the scientific fact that human life started in Africa. And we were to accept the historical fact that we are a culture of word of mouth tradition. Can we honestly come to think that nothing had ever flown from Africa to the others parts of the world during the migration? We have all the reasons to believe that all the wisdom that flows out of Asia and which finds its way into the so-called modern societies, has its origins in Africa. As in China and India, where this knowledge is not always common knowledge, where it is obtained after years of quest and by living with gurus and saint people, it’s also true that we need to make a conscious effort to chase for those that we possess. And universities have a preeminent role in that quest before individual authors take the lead.
Bringing these stories out to the world is a way of repositioning the continent. Shifting it from where nothing is to where everything starts and is. Ourselves individually and collectively, our leaders, NGOs and others partners need to understand and commit to seek for help but at the same time, bewaring of “what we become in the pursuit of what we want.”
So, what stories of Africa need to be told? How do we tell them? How do we tell a different story of Africa?
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