The first time I stepped foot into Africa was December of 2011. Prior to that, I was actually planning on enjoying a week of debauchery in Brazil, but those plans were canceled. I shared the news of my Brazilian vacation being thwarted, with my friend and he convinced me to travel to Tanzania. He himself had recently been and told me that I would love it. Not knowing much about Tanzania, I began researching and I discovered there was an island off of the coast of the mainland of Tanzania called Zanzibar. Zanzibar at the time was also the name of a popular nightclub in Santa Monica, CA. With that, I decided to go. I landed in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania at the Julius Nyerere Airport. When I exited the airport, I was expecting to experience culture shock but for the most part, that wasn’t the case. The only difference was that the locals spoke a different language. I was expecting to see African culture on full display. Instead I saw skinny jeans, knock off Gucci shirts, a pair of Supreme penny loafers (supreme doesn’t make those) and bad weaves and hair wigs. At the time, I was living in Los Angeles, having just moved from Atlanta, Ga. Atlanta is the epicenter of skinny jeans and weaves. So why would I travel all the way to Africa, only to see hair weaves and skinny jeans, when I see that on full display in Atlanta all the time? I immediately asked a local where I could experience some African culture. He responded, “Go to Arusha,” which I did. I had the opportunity to spend time with the Maasai and it was the experience of a lifetime!
During this time, I was a huge proponent of Black Economic Empowerment. As much as possible, while in Los Angeles, I made sure to circulate my dollars in the black community. I would practice as much as possible, buying black owned. The Koreans did it, the Hispanics did it. Why not us? So I was expecting that when I went to Tanzania, since it was an African country, everything would be black owned. In my naivety I was wrong. Ironically, the economy in Tanzania is predominantly dominated by East Indians. At times even, the Indian owners were rude and disrespectful to their African employees. I was not prepared!
I’m all for the modernization of Africa. Who wouldn’t be? There has to be balance though. As Africans we can still modernize without compromising our Africanity. China has modernized and you still see Chinese architecture heavily on display. In Africa, you have European architecture, built by the Chinese mind you. Which is also, in some cases, being poorly managed by Africans. That’s a problem and its been a consistent issue since colonialism. We willingly gave up what was African in exchange for shiny European trinkets. We found more value in everything European over what we inherited over generations as Africans. Africans are the only people as a whole, who demonize their indigenous traditions/religions and have happily replaced it with foreign religions. A common excuse I get as to why my African friends don’t practice their indigenous or better yet their traditional spiritual systems, but have converted to Christianity and Islam is, “My grandma used to do weird things in the bush with juju.” It is not my fault that your grandmother was a nutcase and African spirituality most certainly should not be negatively stereotyped because of your experience with your grandmother. When you confront these same people reminding or informing them of the horrors inflicted on millions of Africans at the hands of Christians and Muslims, they will give you every excuse as to why Jesus and Allah is still the way.
I am an avid art collector. Especially of African artifacts and antiques and I especially love the traditional masks. My African friends who mean me well would warn me on why I shouldn’t acquire these masks, saying they are filled with evil spirits. During colonialism, Europeans were known for stealing these same artifacts and now European museums from Paris to London are filled with them. There has been an initiative lately, for Africans to recover these stolen items and my response to my friends who mean well is, “If the masks are haunted, then why haven’t any of the European institutions that house these stolen items been cursed?” They have no intelligent response.
What do these examples have to do with the subject at hand? It’s all connected. Since many of us do not find value in our very own culture, we have become very impressionable. We will consider any culture superior, once they are able to produce any type of ornaments that they deem have value. Because of this, anything European is considered superior and we don’t find the value in using African ingenuity to build therefore we defer to Chinese labor and just manage the finished product. As Malcolm X said, “We were taught to hate ourselves,” but this mindset is changing. There is a global change in the collective African identity. Africans are starting to realize that we can balance being African and modernizing Africa.
If you are ever in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, there is a hotel called, “The Bushman Hotel and Café.” The property mixes modernization with Africanity perfectly! You also have the BCEAO tower in Bamako, Mali. I have had the opportunity to lay eyes on this amazing structure when I visited Mali a few years back. In the past, we had the walls of Benin which outstretched the Great Wall of China. There are many more examples that can give you an idea of how African architecture and infrastructure superbly outdoes its European or other foreign counterparts.
A Senegalese comedian once said, “We should not compromise our Africanity in the name of modernity.” and I agree. Essentially, having an unapologetically African mindset is key during this period of modernity. Incorporate Africa into everything you do! If not, there will be no Africa for our future African generations to inherit. Yes, the physical place called Africa will still exist however, the culture will be lost. In the words of the late great Marcus Garvey, “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
Source: by Dynast Amir - https://medium.com/@dynast/why-i-am-not-impressed-with-modern-africa-54f7a99e5074
