This post was originally published in 2013 on www.nomadicmusson.blogspot.co.uk as part of a series of writings about voluntourism and cultural stereotypes.
How do you challenge a stereotype? Let’s start with sarcasm and wit.
(Click the picture to watch a spoof video on stereotypes across Africa)
This
video campaign’s mockery of so many stereotypes is subtly evocative in its
attempt to challenge a global perception of Africa. The students that made it
(and many other provoking videos and blogs) accompany the clip on their website
(www.africafornorway.no) with
the question:
Imagine if every person in Africa saw the
“Africa for Norway” video and this was the only information they ever got about
the country. What would they think about Norway?
Obviously
their video has an angle of challenging stereotypes, and their direct mockery
of the videos from Band
Aid and USA for Africa is
being used for a range of effects, but their question above is a good one to
ponder.
I
recently re-watched, for the first time in a long time, the Band Aid charity
single. Before even dissecting the lyrics, was reminded of the controversy of
the album cover. I had forgotten just how provocative and somewhat inappropriate
the front cover of the original single was:
I also
listened closely to the lyrics for the first time. I had never really listened analytically
to the words before (being drowned out, I suppose, by Boy George’s incessant
high-pitched wailing and a diatribe of eighties rockers begging me to stop
tucking into my Christmas dinner and care about others.) Some of the lines
really are unbelievable though.
*NB. Before I begin my dissection of the merits of one
of the biggest campaigns in this country’s history, please bear with me: I am
not for a second berating the undeniable work that this single achieved in
helping to financially support one of the most appalling famines this modern
world has ever seen, happening for several years across Ethiopia during the mid
eighties. Far from it. As a campaign, it proved unparalleled in the financial
aid that was created for one country’s support of another. What I am berating
is firstly the stereotype that this single managed to cement in the psyche of
our country and secondly the generalised use of the word Africa in the song.) The stereotypes seen
here continue to live so freshly in our minds because the song still lives on,
every Christmas, for eternity.
Let’s
start with these lyrics:
Where the only water flowing is a bitter sting of tears…
Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow…
There was
a famine happening in Ethiopia when this song was released during the winter of
1984. There were also many countries in Africa during that time struggling with
the annual effects of the dry season on their crops and harvests. However, the
rivers of the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, the Niger, the Ubangi, the Senegal
(I could go on) were still merrily flowing into1985. And they’re all in Africa.
Plus, it rained a heck of a lot in the rainforests of the Congo, Uganda, Gabon
and Madagascar to name but a few countries. All of which are countries in
Africa. Furthermore, I suspect the majority of other African countries whose
climates house a prolonged period of precipitation annually or biannually also
grew puddles and crops that Christmas.
And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas.
Really? Well,
tell that to the ski resorts and the chilly locals of the Atlas Mountains of
Morocco; to the climbers on the top of Kilimanjaro; to the snowmen being built
in South Africa and the folks in the region of Mount Kenya, or Uganda’s
Rwenzori mountains who shivered a wee bit that winter.
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?
Possibly,
yes, but why should they care, considering that 35% of Ethiopians are Muslim.
And the Orthodox Ethiopians (43% of the country) practise Ganna (Christmas) on
the 7th January (not
in December) by fasting the night before. Plus, with literally hundreds of religions
being practiced across the continent, it is very likely that many people did
not know that it’s Christmas time. “At all”. After all, how many of us would
know when it’s Eid, or Diwali, or Vesak or Vaisakhi or Passover? I’m just saying…
I know
I’m being provocative here in my dissection of this song and that I’m taking
some meanings far beyond their intention. But I’m not being fickle when I
examine the impact that this charity song and
so many other elements of “charity” and “development” are having in reinforcing
stereotype.
Having
worked with UK Education organisation Bright Green Enterprise on their enterprise challenge
days across a large number of British schools, it has been fascinating for me
to see what students come up with when considering ways to allow their made-up
business to be ethical and have a positive social responsibility angle. Many
decide that they are going to donate a percentage of their profits to charity;
most of them want to “send money to
Africa”. When questioning them on which particular country in Africa they
want to donate to, I have often been met with a confused look saying something
along the lines of, “What do you mean
which country? Africa of course.”
The
premise of Africa being a country is not just something
that children think (or confuse themselves
with); it sadly seems to be a confused thought that a large number of people
have; people who should certainly know better. I was recently reading the back
of a charity leaflet (sent out by a very large and well known organisation) asking
for donations for a project supplying malaria vaccinations to be handed out in,
I quote: “India, China, Africa and other similar countries…”
Sadly,
the stereotypes surrounding “Africa” continue far beyond this one gross
misnomer within our subconscious vernacular. Just recently, when teaching in a
school in South London, working with some very bright girls and questioning
about the ethical model of their business plan, they told me that they were
going to donate some of their profit from their Solar-Headphones company to
Africa to buy them shoes. Holding back my irony-filled smirk, I firstly asked
whereabouts in Africa (to be met with the usual looks of confusion and consternation)
and I secondly asked why.
The answer they gave was that none of them (“the Africans”) had shoes and
therefore it would help them all to be happier if they were sent shoes using a
British company’s financial profit.
“All
Africans are poor and needy” somehow seems to be a standardised view that the
world is given, namely by the powerful media sources of the West. From
documentary, to film, to charity to news, the message is the same: Africa is
all the same. I read an interesting
document by The World Bank (called Projection
of Development) recently, looking at how films touching on “development
issues” are still presenting a neo-colonial Whites in Shining Armour version;
often confirming stereotypes that the media flourish with daily; stories told
(completely extracted from context) through the eyes of a western outsider.
From Blood Diamond to Avatar to The
Constant Gardener, the essay dissected the power of the lens to promote
stereotype.
Think
about this for a second: Botswana is one of the top thirteen achievers in the
world when it comes to sustained economic growth. It has been democratic and
peaceful since its independence. It is an African country. South Africa (which,
by the way, is NOT the capital of Africa) houses some of the richest people in
the world. It is an African country. Nigeria is on course to becoming one of
the twenty largest global economies across the world within the next five
years: it is also in Africa. Despite the fact that some of the wealthiest
people on the planet are residing across the continent, all fifty four African
countries worlds are constantly being tarnished by the same brush painting them
as “needy Africans” that need saving.
Sadly, stereotypes reign across our global media and disparity or context
are simply not part of the story.
Poverty
and hunger, natural disasters and disease are real issues affecting millions of
lives across the continent and the wider world; they call for action, empathy
and support. However, understanding and aid require engagement built on
knowledge, understanding and context, not
on stereotypes.
How do you challenge a stereotype? By facing them full on for a start. By talking; by dissecting the truth and by taking responsibility for your own thoughts and your individual impact on the world. We are responsible for a great deal more than we know in our words about the world and each other; and can choose to do something right now to challenge the single story of Africa.
