‘So geographers in Africa maps,
With savage pictures fill
the gaps
And over uninhabitable
downs
Place elephants for want of
towns.’
- Jonathan Swift, author of
‘Gulliver’s Travels’
I
was surprised and a little amused as I listened to a BBC Radio programme on
Africa earlier this year by a field reporter on assignment in China seeking
locals’ knowledge of the African continent.
Reactions
barely scratched the surface as answers came intermixed with laughter suggesting
the world’s second-largest continent is composed of lions, elephants and bushes.
There were mentions of Mandela, South Africa and the film ‘Out of Africa’ but
some said the continent doesn’t have any towns to speak of.
But
what shocked me the most was the suggestion that Africa is a single country, so
profound was the belief that the field reporter missed 54 countries and gave 14,
at most.
50
years after the scramble for Africa by European colonialists that gave the
current borders, the answers amused me.
In
fact all attempts to marry up all the countries – to create a United States of
Africa – have been futile with diversion being created like Eritrea moving from
Ethiopia, Somalia being divided to Somaliland and Puntland. While Zanzibar is
itching to cut off her umbilical cord from mainland Tanzania.
And
here are more facts about the continent: former Sudan, before South seceded was
the largest country. Lying just above Uganda on the map it’s nearly
1-million-square-mile makes it spread towards north to rub shoulders with Libya
and Sudan.
While
Nigerian in West Africa is the giant in population size with over 100 million
people apart from a huge number of people in diaspora strutting US, Europe,
Asia and other African countries.
South
Africa, apart from giving the continent icons like Nelson Mandela and Miriam
Makeba is the king in development. From the southern tip of the continent the
country is the home of minerals, Castle Lager, De Beers, DSTV and ‘Cry the
Beloved Country’.
In
social life aspect, the continent is based described in tribal line. Even in
the 21st century tribes are ties that bind to define marriage, voting and
conflicts like the infamous 1994 Rwandan genocide between the Hutus and the
Tutsis.
You
can often tell an African’s tribe from his indigenous name. My surname, Nderitu
(pronounced “Day-ri-to”) is a dead giveaway that I come from the Kikuyu tribe
of central Kenya.
At
first sight, all Africans may look the same but in reality most tribes have
distinct features that set them apart – height, skin tone, build, dialects,
hair, teeth and even talents. Most have their own language which are over 2,000.
Even
though all Negroid (Blacks) originated from Africa not all Africans are Negroes.
In northern part of the continent (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) Semites
(Arab-Jew heritage) are dominant. Here is the home of our sons Muammar Gaddafi
and Bhoutros-Bhoutros Ghali. Others are found further south in Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Somali, Sudan and along Indian ocean coasts.
Further
south of Sahara Negroid, like me, dominate like former UN SecGen Kofi Annan
from Ghana. Further south we find the race with lighter complexions and hooded
eyes (Nelson Mandela and musician Usher Raymond have Capoid features).
The
continent also has Caucasians (Whites) and other non-Black people like Asians
not to be confused with tourists and other visitors as they are descendants of settlers,
missionaries and traders who are as African as the marula tree. In fact some
are more African than the original Africans.
South
Africa has the biggest ‘jambalaya’ of races – Blacks, Whites (including Boers),
Browns, Yellows and, for all we know, green people from Mars (that’s why it’s
sometimes referred to as “the Rainbow Nation”).
Eastern
Africa is widely believed to be the cradle of human life with the earliest
human remains, 4.2 million years old found here. According to history a great
trek north from Tanzania and Kenya through Egypt to cross over to other
continents.
But
this history poses some hard-hitting questions. If Africans were the original
owners of the world, how come only missionaries woke the continent to advance academically
and otherwise? Why is the second-largest continent still the poorest?
The
question of non-development, of Africans’ seeming lethargy, is easily answered
by Prof. Ali Mazrui’s famous documentary, ‘The Africans’, in which he narrates:
‘If necessity is the mother of invention, then bounty must be the mother of
inertia.’
In
a land where you spit out a seed and return to find a fruit tree sprouting, the
early Africans were under no pressure to advance technologically as the
continent still supports the widest varieties of plant and animal life.
And
even though Africa is wealthy the reeking poverty is what i can’t get a ready
answer for especially the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. While
the super rich command customized cars and even private planes the poor
majority die from curable diseases like cholera and malaria, and their children
walk for kilometres on bare foot for schools and water.
Kenyan
2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai (RIP) captured this when she said
as a kid the were so poor growing up that she and her friends used to play with
frog eggs! (Did Wangari has to say everything? Wonder is I’ll be able to show
my face in public when I tour Europe to promote my books)
Across
the globe, diamonds, gold and silver gleaming in jewellery shops and boutiques
around the world come from Africa. Even the aroma of coffee, tea and flowers
come from Africa.
Sadly
were these raw materials and wealth are produced the most are under intense conflict
fuelled by colonisation and scramble for Africa mentality. These are places
like Liberia (diamonds), the DRC (assorted minerals), Nigeria (oil) and Somalia
(heaven knows).
What Does It Mean To Be African?
But
what does it MEAN to be African? If a Negro was born and lives in the US, can
he still claim to be an African? What if a Caucasian (like best-selling author
Wilbur Smith) is born, lives in, and loves Africa does that make him a
certifiable African? Here’s my circuitous and open-ended answer:
A
long, long, time ago (way before the first man loved the first woman and a
child was born) all the continents were stuck together. Various disturbances on
the earth’s crust coupled with the spinning of the earth (which makes it bulge
out at the sides) caused cracks and, ultimately, separation.
You
may take it that all continents and islands are jigsaw pieces and all humankind
is one large, chequered, family. As I said earlier, the first people lived in
the tectonic fragment now known as Africa.
Like
an American tourist once said during a recent interview in a Kenyan TV, people
should make a Mecca-like pilgrimage to Kenya at least once in their lives
because it is our mutual ‘home’ after the Leakeys discovered the cradle of
human kind in lake Turkana.
This
is the reason the lack of interest in Africa expressed in the BBC Radio
programme amused me so much. Chinese, American, French, German, Russian,
British or whatever our nationality, we might all be Africans in diaspora!
Alexander
Nderitu (www.alexandernderitu.com) is a Kenyan-born novelist and entertainer.
He has also expressed interest in fashion design, music production and sports
entertainment. This article was first written in 2006.
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