A New Africa
Tony Blair once referred to Africa as a scar on conscience of the world. What he meant when he said this was that politically, socially and economically it was falling behind the prosperity the majority of the rest of the world was enjoying and hard as we may, we could not neglect it. However, culturally it is still, arguably, the most vibrant mass of land on the face of the Earth. Across the 53 nations of Africa are over 800 languages and some of the most famous peoples in the world including the Zulus in the South, the Maasai in the East, and the Ashantis in the West.
I feel, unfortunately, that nowadays there is very little reciprocity between the amount of negative media about Africa and the positive. There’s a good chance if you go the nearest person next to you and ask them to name as many African states as possible you’ll hear the following first of all -Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone because these states have recently become synonymous with the terms famine and war. However, behind all this is the dazzling colour of the Black Continent, which is what I wish to celebrate today.
Since the emergence of African independence and new states in the 1960’s, amid the coup d’Etats and dictatorships, a new beautiful chapter to the continent’s collective culture was being born, particularly in the arts. Chinua Achebe, the celebrated Nigerian Author, released Things Fall Apart, a novel about the life of a wrestler in Nigeria during the time of colonialism. In my view, it is one of the greatest pieces of literature to exist to date, and arguably the best to have come out of the “the third world”. Such recognition is now similarly shown by education boards across the country that now have Things fall apart a staple part of the English Literature curriculum. Since then, Literature in Africa has become more respected within the related circles but I fear it is a long way until names like Wole Soyinka and Mia Couto become known at least in the household of every African living in Britain and America, let alone every household indiscriminate.
Another region in which Africa has made great cultural leaps is with cinema. Two years ago, the South African film Tsotsi won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, becoming only the third African film to ever win an Oscar and this Is a great testament to the efforts of African filmmakers and supporters of the industry. Since 1960, 9 pan-African film festivals have been created. In my opinion, this helps cements the New Africa, an Africa standing up boldly to show there is more to its culture and festivals than grass skirts and rhythmic drumming (as important as the traditional festivals remain to the heart of Africa’s history).
However, this brings me somewhat full circle because, whilst this great cultural growth continues in the cities and more prosperous areas of Africa, it would be an injustice for all for this article to pooh-pooh the issues I mentioned at the beginning, vis-à-vis “the scar”. Tony Blair, the G8 and friends sought to end this via fair trade and other well publicised campaigns which I don’t really care to discuss at this moment in time. What I do wish to discuss is the advancement of Africa. The idea of Africa’s socio-economic state matching the culture needn’t seem so acute. I strongly maintain that the solution lies with the children, the children are the future (if you’ll excuse the cringe worthy cliché) . Unfortunately, 100 million children across the world don’t have the opportunity to go to school and when you consider than thirty-two of the fifty poorest nations in the world are in Africa, one doesn’t need to be a statistician to see that the future isn’t really looking too bright. This is why I follow closely a charity called the Broom which works to help train and educate street children in Africa(I’ll link you to it at the bottom).
When all is said and done, what is important is to a socio-economic future as pleasing as Africa’s cultural present, because its all well and good raving about how great Africa is, but it’d be much better to be able to rave about how much greater Africa will be.