Call it pride (if you are kindly disposed). One of the things that irks me the most is the “poor Africa” tag that “poor Africa” has to live with. It is something I have always been aware of, but perhaps am even more acutely aware of now that Zimbabwe has become “poor Zimbabwe”. I don’t know exactly why, but it bothers me to no end. I think a lot of it has to do with how so few people acknowledge the history of Africa when they consider its problems today, and also, perhaps, the fact that people do not seem to realise that most of the resources that make the West work so very well come from Africa. The diamond you are wearing is likely to have originated in Botswana, and the gold from South Africa; the coffee you drink at Starbucks comes from Equatorial Guinea or the Ivory Coast. (It didn’t originate in the shop where you got it from- but we never really think that far).But I think on some level people know this… It just doesn’t really figure when you see those infernal pictures of African children with large tummies and flies buzzing around their mouths.

It irks me even more when I see those same awful images on Christian TV, as part of an appeal to Western pockets for Christian missions. It feels like Africa is still stuck in the dark old days of missionaries coming over to “enlighten the natives”. Sometimes I agree with my more militant friends that it’s like there’s a conspiracy to “keep Africa down”, because who doesn’t know how you can destroy the spirit of a people by treating them like doormats? The easiest way to dominate a people is to offer handouts, make them aware of their “low status” (this of course in relation to you), be condescending. I am in no way saying that charity for Africa is a bad thing- I know I am one of the privileged few, and there are many who truly are in trouble and are helped by kind souls from the West; what I hate with a passion is the propaganda associated with African aid. And I know many in the West come to Africa with their eyes and minds closed, and so never see the good things we do have here. What about the fact that although we have AIDS and malaria, we have less heart disease, non-AIDS-related cancer, depression, and all the issues of social malaise that so plague the West? What about the fact that no one is falling down because they have been working continuously for four years with no chance of a holiday? How come people don’t “go postal” in Africa? Why is Africa so consistently demeaned by the Western press, as if nothing good ever happens here, and nothing bad in the West? (This is why I only watch BBC!)

I wish someone somewhere would start to point out Africa’s REAL problems- absolute mismanagement by the leaders, corruption, lack of visionary leadership- and put the “old” problems – famine, conflict, lack of access to resources (education, water, power, etc) in context. There is no way that all the money the West gives will ever solve Africa’s problems. I’m not always hopeful about Africa- I think only time will tell, really- but one thing that is actually going right is that there is a reduction in conflicts across the continent. That counts for a whole lot. The money that is currently used to give aid to the people of Africa (and so allowing misrule to continue) would be better spent on think tanks or pressure groups to plot a new direction for leadership in Africa (if it came to that). But most of all I just wish people would stop calling Africa, land of gold, silver, copper, tin, platinum, aluminium, diamonds, emeralds, coffee, tea, sugar, corn, tobacco, cattle, etc etc etc “POOR”.

When I was in Australia, the nicer people wanted to know more about Africa, were genuinely curious and open to what I had to say. There were others who could not help asking me if I had been to the United Kingdom (educated there you see) because why else would I speak English? (I have not). They were the same people who could not fathom that there are laptops in Africa and internet access, that we also do have digital cameras and cellphones- because these people think we “still” live in trees (actually, most of us never did). I find it incredible that there is still so much ignorance about this continent that I have such a conflicted relationship with… And sometimes I think I should make it my cause: to educate “them” about “us”.