Africa. Starvation and disease, mud-huts and lions. This is the image of an entire continent portrayed by Western society. This single-minded view of the rich and thriving culture that Africa really encompasses is woefully inadequate.
In fact, this ignorance can go beyond just an unfamiliarity to the reality of African life, but can extend further into blatant obliviousness regarding it – for example the infamous tweet in 2013 by Ricky Rozay about ‘the beautiful country of Africa’. Additionally, many of the stereotypes regarding the continent are simply false. If you google ‘African environment’, you are bombarded with images of a desolate, uninhabitable stretch of desert scattered by lions and zebras. Although the magnificent Sahara Desert does take up a significant portion of Africa, in total it is only 25%. The rest of the continent is covered by savannah, woodland, and rainforests. The prevailing misconception about African living being primitive is also an absurd myth, as over 50% of the population live in urban areas. It is not common to come across wild animals while going about daily life, as perhaps story books might suggest. These misleading stereotypes are deeply ingrained in society, and are devoid of any sense of the rich and thriving culture that Africa really encompasses.
These stereotypes are reinforced by the media, and are embedded from a very young age. Children’s books display images of mud huts, wild animals, and a lack of food, water, and modern technology. These books skim over things like the animated and sprawling cities, the rich art industry, the modernity. Although kids’ books may not be the most accurate source of information, they still establish deceptive stereotypes about what Africa is like to malleable minds. Another player in entrenching these xenophobic attitudes is the influence of the media. The media chooses to focus on the negative stories, and although it is important to hear and sympathise with the awful things going on, the media does nothing to prevent the generalised stereotypes that surround Africa, tending to only share images of starving children in barren deserts. It is of course important to report these issues, but the lack of any other portrayal of Africa fortifies misleading stereotypes, and don’t offer any challenge to these entrenched ideas. There is a lack of nuanced reporting and sharing of the reality of Africa, which needs to involve far more insight than this shallow interpretation.
A huge question is why this narrative has been established and perpetuated. A significant part of the problem of Western ignorance to African culture stems from the Colonial era. During this time period, Western colonisers saw Africa as a place to be subjugated and ‘civilised’. This suggestion that Africa needs to be ‘tamed’, and even that it isn’t civilised in the first place, demonstrates how anything that doesn’t conform to Eurocentric ideals is immediately deemed to be wild and undomesticated. Although African countries were definitely struggling in certain areas (as many countries were), Western countries and their hero-complexes had no need, and certainly no right, to condemn their culture by taking control of almost 90% of the continent. This ‘mission’ to ensure stability essentially did the opposite. Indeed, the true intention of these colonisers not being to help Africa, and instead to exploit it, bringing about the disarticulation of things such as economy and currency, education, trade, and transport. Through colonialism, Western countries enforced their own values in Africa, thus stripping individualism and labelling it as a ‘charity case’ that needs their help. By labelling anything as something that needs help, it brings down the universal perception of it, and diminishes it. This is exactly what happened to Africa, and is part of the reason why there is so little appreciation for it, and instead why it is seen as solely a barren and impoverished continent.
Lots of the prevailing stereotypes are concentrated on some of the dire situations there, such as poverty and famine. Obviously, these issues are horrible, and in no way should we ignore them in order to focus on the positives. Rather, we should try to focus on getting a more well- rounded view on this continent, and whilst we gain understanding and empathy for the hardships, we should also try to educate ourselves more about the brilliant culture. In doing this, we will be able to defy the stereotypes that portray Africa in a negative light, and instead be able to celebrate the amazing place that Africa is.
