Ways of Seeing Africa

Abstract

'In the West', claims Molefi Kete Asante in his recent History of Africa, 'the ignorance of Africa is palpable, like a monster that invades our brains with disbelief, deception, and disinterest, yet is everywhere around us. We are victims of probably the most uninformed educated people in the world on the subject of Africa'. It is hard to disagree, given many Western assumptions about the nature of life in any African country. So prevalent are these ideas that Binyavanga Wainaina, a Kenyan writer, offers in his essay 'How to Write about Africa', which struck such a chord with its readers it has since achieved iconic status, some sardonic tips to authors aspiring to write about the continent. 'Always', he advises, use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'.3 Such representations of Africa inform the background against which the annual Africa Bibliography is published. It seems appropriate, therefore, to look at them more closely. The Bibliography's range and inclusiveness, which embody a significant and compelling literature by Africans and non- Africans alike, reveal a nuanced, rich picture. But this picture is not consistent, by and large, with the perception of the continent from beyond its shores. The most common cliche about Africa is failure. In the very first sentence of Dark Star Safari (2002), Paul Theroux delivers his grim verdict on the state of the continent: 'All news out of Africa is bad.'4 He then proceeds to illustrate this verdict with a bleak account of his overland journey from Cairo to Cape Town. This dismissive view infuriated Barack Obama as he travelled aged twenty-six to Kenya, the land of his father, for the first time. On the flight from London to Nairobi, he records in his memoir, Dreams from My Father, he read a portrait of several African countries by a Western journalist who was 'an old Africa hand'. The first chapters of the book gave an account of colonialism and the early heroism of independence figures like Kenyatta and Nkrumah, followed by a drift towards despotism that was attributed to the politics of the Cold War. But by the third chapter, images from the present had begun to outstrip the past. Famine, disease, the coups and counter-coups led by illiterate young men wielding AK-47s like