Out of Africa

This was written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the Guardian recently:

South Africans and Nigerians (and indeed other African immigrant groups) have simply not had the time or the neutral space to grow an organic understanding of each other. The Nigerians arrive with their different, more distant colonial experience, with their mercantile spirit, with none of the conditioning of the South African menial wage-earning experience and – yes – with that swagger. They arrive in a vulnerable country where the legacy of institutional exclusion still thrives. They create spaces for themselves in whatever way they can and, of course, they arouse resentment.

You should read the whole article, which stems from the recent controversy over the sci-fi movie District 9, which portrays Nigerians as the ultimate bad guys. Nigerian officials have asked for Sony to offer an apology for the film and take out all references of Nigeria, saying it promotes negative stereotypes of the country and its people.

According to the United Nations, millennium goals for the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are far off track—and when it comes to Africa the need is great and the prospects for moving forward are dim. None of the goals, which include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; combating the spread of malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development are likely to be met in Africa, a United Nations study concluded.

Should we become the United States of Africa?

And even if we should, are we ready?

I spent all of yesterday working as support staff for focus groups. Half of the day was with Africans (sub-Saharan black Africans, primarily from West and Central Africa). One of the main complaints about the US media is how it portrays Africa. Everything is primitive or bad or poor when it comes to Africa. Forget the bustling cities of Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Forget the amount of progress being made all around the world.

Well, I found this image on-line — the “World at Night” — and it kind of reinforced some of those complaints.

     (to see a larger picture, click here)

As you can see from the picture – there are barely any city lights (the white spots) in Africa. Instead it’s pretty much all dark (meaning no lights at all) or there’s that nice long strip that’s all red (signifying “wildfires” as the source of light at night). I’m sorry, but seeing as places like Ghana and Chad actually have electricity pretty much 24/7 … as I’m sure does Ivory Coast and possibly places like Kenya and Cameron … this map just frustrates me.  You also got to love how Lagos, Nigeria is pretty much lit up by “natural gas flares” (the green).  Can Africa get any more primitive?

And it’s all based off of information gathered from NASA (of course).

NOTE: I’m equally enraged by the “fishing fleet lights” off the coast of South America. But at least they get some bright white lights on their continent. And Australia?? … let me just focus on Africa.

Credit: RICHARD LEWIS/AP

Today Nelson Mandela turns 90.

Not only does this man represent a sense of pride, progress and change for South Africans, he represents it for Africans as a whole.

He represents the moral integrity Africans need from the leaders to move forward into a better tomorrow.

Even in the Diaspora, he represents an image that is large than life.

He’s won a Nobel Peace Prize. He’s been TIME’s Man of the Year. He was South Africa’s first black president. He’s a man who changed history.

BBC has a collection of his most famous quotes. My favorite:

“The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise…

“But there are still some within our country who wrongly believe they can make a contribution to the cause of justice and peace by clinging to the shibboleths [dogmas] that have been proved to spell nothing but disaster.

“It remains our hope that these, too, will be blessed with sufficient reason to realise that history will not be denied and that the new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.”

Here’s an interview he gave to CNN, looking back on his life. There’s also a series of news coverage on his life and how this landmark birthday is being celebrated. His life already is, and forever will be, memorialized.

Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. Mandela!

Update: If you’re in the Chicago area, on Monday, July 21, the Jazz Philharmonic is hosting a free concert in honor of Mandela’s 90th birthday.

In an earlier post, I wrote about Nigerians being killed and harassed in South Africa. Well, the violence against African immigrants in South Africa has been increasing. While the government is attempting to quell this issue, quite a few people have died and continued to be displaced.

One South African compares the country to America and it’s illegal immigration debates. She writes:

South Africa has been considered an inspiration to those fighting for freedom and equality through its grassroots movements for racial equality, voting reform and the unique way it has dealt with its violent past. In our appreciation of how far it has come, we seem to have forgotten that the struggles of the democratic South Africa are far from over.

Leading up to this, statements have been made bringing this growing xenophobia to the light and urging South Africans to flee from it. There had also been a call to naturalize the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country, many listed as refugees and receiving asylum.

So the U.S. has a list of “terror groups” that are basically blacklisted, in terms of our involvement with them, immigration rights, and all that jazz. Also, it’s considered illegal for Americans to even communicate with terrorist groups.

Well, if you’ve spoken to anyone who is/was a member of South Africa’s African National Congress (former president Nelson Mandela’s party), you’ve committed a crime.

Today (Thursday), the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill to remove the ANC from the terrorist blacklist. They’ve been on this list for over 20 years, since the legislation went into play in the 1980s.

Crazy, yeah?  

The bill was passed unanimously, as many Representatives had to say the following:

… the legislation introduced during the 1980s while Ronald Reagan was president is anachronistic and wrongfully labels as terrorists men and women who are heroes and freedom fighters.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said:

“… it is really a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela.”

Here are the stats in regards to South Africa:

This story published by IOL says that these statistics reveal that 2 million more South Africans are infected with HIV than the most recent government estimates show.

While we can’t expect everyone to get tested (as we’d hope they would), that number is kind of high. Two million more infected than current estimates? How is a government supposed to stop the spread of this disease, which is killing millions of Africans daily, if they can’t keep track of the numbers infected in the first place?

This might be a result of South African president Thabo Mbeki’s shallow views on AIDS. While the South African government has been doing a lot to reverse the effects of AIDS, Mbeki seems to feel that AIDS receives a disproportionate attention, given that poverty is Africa’s main problem — not the disease.

South Africa is seen as the most progressive nation on the African continent — at least in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, lately, the country has been in the news for a lot of things that aren’t considered so progressive.

For one, a lot of Nigerians are being killed and harassed in South Africa. How much of this is true, I’m not sure. But the Nigerian Senate is urging its federal government to issue a travel alert, and its definitely something to look into. South Africa, however, is listed as the country with the second highest number rate of violent crimes.

Also, here’s an editorial urging South Africans to live in harmony with foreigners, “in order to develop respect for human rights and bring peace and humanity to their communities.”