Rethinking Africa in Three Stories

Àpa Àìmúdélé Ni Kò Jẹ́ Kí Aráyé Mọ̀ Wípé Ológbò Ńṣ’ọdẹ.
(Yoruba proverb: It is its practice of hunting without displaying its kills that stops the world from understanding that the cat is not an idiot)

The question mark in the title is not ironic. I really mean to find out what the rest of the world at large thinks about my continent. If I am honest, I want, more precisely, to know what the rest of the world thinks when they see me and other people who look like me or are from where I am from.

When I typed each of the names of almost all the world’s continents into a reputable Internet search engine, I learned something remarkable. I found out that there are ‘things to do’ in Asia, in Antarctica, in Australia, in South and in North America, and in Europe. Without too much effort on my part, the Internet tells me that should I decide to visit Antarctica, I would enrich my life by visiting Deception Island, South Shetland Islands, King George Island, and Elephant Island. I don’t even need to spend any more time clicking on the links to these places, I see from the first page of results on ‘Antarctica’—they are beautiful.

I am grateful to Google, there are things to do in Antarctica, which means that there is a history of civilization in Antarctica. Despite knowing, from a long-ago geography lesson, that Antarctica is quite literally the least inhabited of the continents, I am assured—from the first-impression the Internet wishes me to have of the place—that Antarctica contains humanity.

If there is humanity to be acknowledged and, thus, to be respected in Antarctica, then I am even more assured by the Internet’s images and lists of things to do in Australia—Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns, and Gold Coast—that humanity is even richer ‘down under’. The list of Peru, Machu Pichu, Cusco and Rio de Janeiro are intended to give me the same understanding of an abundant heritage that also exists in South America. North America, I am told, has New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—I must go!

Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Dubai are a testament to something about Asia that I must find out about by going and doing things there. Without my having to know a single thing of depth about any of these places, Google verifies the claims of London, Rome, Venice, and Barcelona that there is history in Europe.

I was sure that simply googling the continents would give me absolutely no material whatsoever with which to answer my question. How saddened I was that it did. Africa is the only one of the continents that does not produce a list of ‘things to do’ when you type it into Google. The stale geography maps and satellite images of Africa that Google does offer, unsurprisingly, do not inspire the same level of excitement, as did the Google front pages of the other six continents. I am, also, personally at a loss to explain why among the pertinent pieces of information Google believes those searching for insight into the continent ought to have is Toto’s 1982 song ‘Africa’. It must be because the music video for the song features palm leaves, zebra print, and a spear and nothing says ‘Africa’ like palm leaves, zebra print, and a spear.

With a permanent population of about 200, there are apparently, at least, four sites of incredible interest in Antarctica. But over 1.2 billion Africans, speaking thousands of languages, and tracing some of their various cultural heritages to literally the beginning of all human existence, have not, since the very dawn of man, cobbled together any noteworthy sites. We have no remarkable cities: Ile Ife is not a place of astonishing historicity. The highlands of Eritrea are not a site of breath-taking beauty. Great Zimbabwe is not an ancient ruin of archaeological significance. Benin, it would seem, only truly exists in Bronze Head exhibits in London. Benin is not an African nation, whose history boasts the awe-inspiring Kingdom of Dahomey. Africa is not home to the first traditional religious festivals to which those of Trinidad and Rio now famously pay homage. The musical artistry of Mali, of Senegal, of Ethiopia would seem not to penetrate the ears of ‘outsiders’; and the poetry of Somalia sings boldly only to those whose minds embrace it as intellect and soul in unison. These, according to the Internet, are not things about which it could be said: ‘this is a thing to do in Africa’.