(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Av Stian Antonsen og Sigrun Johnstad
A younger generation, living both inside and outside Africa, is taking over the continent debate. Professor of social anthropology at the University of Cape Town, Cameroonian Francis Nyamnjoh, describes these new voices as follows: read the signals, that what they want is freedom on their own terms. "
Nyamnjoh himself works at Cape Town University – the South African university that was the center of the student movement "Rhodes Must Fall". It was this movement that succeeded in removing the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes from the university campus, after it had been singled out as the foremost symbol that racism is still alive and well in South Africa. Rhodes Must Fall is among those who believe that a rematch is necessary.
The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is also about this fight against racism, and in Norway we have a new generation of Norwegian Africans who identify with these movements. This development adds a whole new dimension to the debate about "our" image of Africa. The most important thing that happens is that it is no longer so clear who "we" are. In Norway, too, we must become aware that we no longer talk "about" or "down to", but "together" and "with". The framework for the Norwegian "we" has been expanded.
The lion's inner life. Few have described the stereotypes about Africa better than Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina, who published the essay ten years ago How to Write about Africa in the British literary journal Granta. In his biting ironic text, Wainaina summed up what many felt: a discomfort over the way Africa was presented – in literature, reports, film, journalism – with a mixture of exoticism and misery.
«Taboo Topics: Everyday scenes in people's homes, love between Africans, references to African writers or intellectuals, descriptions of schoolchildren not suffering from malnutrition, ebola or genital mutilation ... African people should appear as colorful, exotic – but empty inside, without dialogue ... Animals , on the other hand, must be treated as complex, complex characters. They talk (or growl as they take pride in the man) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: Do you see how the lions teach their children?»
Afro-optimism and Afropessimism. A few years ago, for example, the World Bank and the African Development Bank released statistics showing that there was strong economic growth in many African countries. The wave of optimism that arose in the wake of this, among investors, economists and certain African leaders, was quickly nicknamed "Afro-optimism". Business growth optimists like to set up the aid industry as their counterpart – aid people were portrayed as "Afropessimists" who had a self-interest in making Africa as miserable as possible.
How was "Africa" dealt with in this debate? Here one was invited to be either an optimist or a pessimist on behalf of an entire continent – a continent with well over a billion inhabitants spread across 54 nations. Or as Wainaina writes, "Make sure you treat Africa as if it were a country."
As long as you talk "down to" and "about", you can allow that. Fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware that this is not the way to go; in aid communication, media, literature and debate, more emphasis is placed on portraying Africa as the complex continent it actually is, and Africans as traders and real partners.
This development is reinforced by the fact that people from Africa or Norwegians of African origin are now making it clear that this is their history; that it is they who own this story.
Stian Antonsen is chairman of the board of the Joint Council for Africa.
Sigrun Johnstad is the editor of Afrika.no.
sigrun@afrika.no
