I'll start with the most obvious, cliched view of Africa. A giraffe saunters serenely across to nibble the top of an acacia tree. What does that spell to you? Safari? Well, the word actually has nothing to do with overcharging German tourists for the canned-Africa experience, complete with champagne at sunset and the Out of Africa' soundtrack; not to mention balloon rides over the Serengeti. It means a long, hard journey.
Everyone has an opinion about Africa and it's not always the gin-soaked safari one. For millions of people Africa = poverty, famine and an unparalleled opportunity to do good. There's plenty of poverty etc to go round and it's not all in Africa, but it seems to have become the charity flagship. Who hasn't had images of children suffering wide-eyed from malnutrition burned on their retinas by the news, Live Aid, AIDS coverage, Comic relief and so on ad infinitum.
It's not that all those images are false; all opinions are, after all, valid. They're not the whole picture though, but mere marketing images mindbytes projected to sell you something, get you to put your hand in your pocket in the name of Africa the holiday destination, Africa the charitable cause.
Why does everyone seem to have such clear opinions though? Maybe it's because Africa, hailed as the cradle of humankind, symbolises home for the citizens of our fragmented universe. You have to be careful about being patriotic, there's a fine line between it and fascism, but everyone may focus compassion on Africa, the global victim of all the things our capitalist hearts flee from. Or perhaps it's guilt, guilt for Africa the colonised, slaved and enslaved, mined, raped and pillaged.
These days Africa is colonised by NGO's and their herds of white Toyota Landcruisers. The most common topic of conversation amongst these communities seems to be the startlingly appalling level of corruption and how the people they are here to help try to rip them off along the way. Those who can dismount from their over-privileged first word high horses eventually appreciate it for what it is; a continent getting it's own back by ripping off the bwana. People cheerfully leave street kids etc at home to come and help Africa. Then they expect gratitude. The first world keeps the third world in thrall, by means economic and charitable.
Things I take for granted that you might not:
Mosquito bites Ticks 11 official languages Change place names, flag, national anthem etc Sunshine Crime Fear Racism Big game Big gardens Shacks Recycled tin can art Cicada sounds Dust
I'm not saying that the things on the above list don't occur around you it's just a list, it's just my views of the place I live in. They are the clearly obvious bricks and mortar of the society I'm a part of; they are the issues'. Everybody has those after all. I suppose countries have unique identities because of the combination, peculiar the each place, of things that exist everywhere. All realities are equally real.
You know what I think? I think art is the only thing that doesn't show cultural heritage. I can listen to an accent in any language, hear music, look and I can see where that person is from. But paintings don't show that I can guess who the artist is, but I'm often wrong. Maybe Tretchikoff got it right by mistake, with his green woman.
What does it mean to be African? Do you have to be born here? Do you have to be a certain colour, speak with clicks? Can you choose it? If this is where humankind began, are we all entitled to call ourselves African? Should the post-colonials be thrown out for being pale and un-African? Should people of mixed race choose one, or are they a people in their own right? These are the tangible, palpable issues of my country. What's your opinion? Should the oppressors of the past be made to pay the price of history? How long for? Who is responsible? Who isn't?
Who are you? How do you feel about your tribe, country, continent? What are your roots? Does it matter? Why? Why not?
These are all questions I will never know the answers to, but I must try. Working out my own answers tells me who I am and why.
Many years ago I was sitting in a flat in North London, admiring the model of the Starship Enterprise the flat's owner had built. He asked me what music I listened to and I mentioned some South African bands. He told me he'd heard of one of them, but that world music was no longer fashionable. I smiled politely and wondered quietly whether the world realised it.
I spent a few years at school in Scotland during my early childhood. It was so easy to convince people that lions and tigers (?) roamed the streets, and that I had chests full of gold and ivory. Perhaps children were more innocent in the seventies. I enjoyed the game anyway and it got me a lot of attention.
There's an Afrikaans playwright called Athol Fugard who wrote a lot of plays about the Cape Coloured community during the struggle' one of them is called "People Are Living There" and the title haunts me constantly, sometimes playing like train sounds through my mind. It's true, isn't it? It's all very well having our picture-book perceptions of other places, which we all do, but after all, everywhere you look and everywhere you don't, lives are going on.