Stop romanticising Africa as an idealistic, post-racial utopia

In most civil rights movements throughout time, from Marcus Garvey to Rastafarianism to the hoteps of 2016, Africa is often presented as a holy land for the descendants of forced immigrants from Africa who suffered a multitude of physical, emotional, mental and institutional racial prejudices in their second homes.

It is right to reject the media’s portrayal of Africa. There is an Africa that they don’t show you. There is more to Africa than terrorist organisations and starving children. But, Africa is not exempt from prejudice. Africans suffer racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic abuses and prejudices every single day. In spite of the reality that many of these aforementioned factors are worse in Africa than other areas of the diaspora, many current pan-Africanists and civil rights activists continue to uphold Africa as a post-racial Mecca for blacks worldwide.

In New York City on the 28th of June, 1964, Malcolm X delivered the famous ‘By any means possible speech’. In his speech, he speaks of his time in Africa, “One of the things that I realized…was that our African brothers have gained their independence faster than you and I here in America have. They’ve also gained recognition and respect as human beings much faster than you and I. Just ten years ago on the African continent, our people were colonized. They were suffering all forms of colonization, oppression, exploitation, degradation, humiliation, discrimination, and every other kind of -ation. And in a short time, they have gained more independence, more recognition, more respect as human beings than you and I have. And you and I live in a country which is supposed to be the citadel of education, freedom, justice, democracy, and all of those other pretty-sounding words. So it was our intention to try and find out what it was our African brothers were doing to get results, so that…I could…benefit from their experiences.”

I cannot and will not deny that the situation in Africa is different; — not a comment on the extent of the pain and suffering but rather the form that it takes — but for Malcolm to subtly and underhandedly claim that there is no “colonisation, oppression, exploitation, degradation, humiliation” and “discrimination” currently in Africa. On the other hand, we can’t undermine the important and relevant point that Malcolm makes when he says that America is “supposed to be the citadel of education, freedom, justice, democracy”, the procurer of the American Dream, the land of the free and yet the many people who have experienced nothing close to that level of human development reduce these claims to nothing more than “pretty-sounding words”. This is relevant as America still adopts moral high ground in international issues, as does the United Kingdom, in spite of economic, political and personal relationships with even more abusive countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel respectively. America and the United Kingdom, to this day, are still claiming to be great, Donald Trump’s desperately populist propaganda “Make America Great Again” springs to mind. Malcolm’s conclusion is valid but the reasons are not, the statement that “they have gained more independence, more recognition, more respect as human beings than you and I have,” is simply not true. Anti-African sentiments were flourishing in British politics in the 1960s. This truth may have been presented to Malcolm X in his trip to Smethwick after the most racist elections in British history, months after this speech Firstly, colonialism in its purest and most deadly form had not even left Africa by Malcolm’s speech in June 1964. I might even reach to argue that colonialism hasn’t left all countries in Africa to this very day.

Presenting Africa as an idealistic Utopia diminishes the individual cultures and histories within Africa , arguably a flaw of the pan-Africanist movement as a whole. Not only do North, South, East, West and Central Africa have different stories of imperialism and colonialism but the countries within those partitions do too. Malcolm X lumps them together in his speech but it has taken place on many occasions in an array of movements. Sporting an ankh and assigning yourself an African name is mocking to say the least. To put a dashiki over your head and change your username to include Nubian –which has little relation to the Sub-Saharan Africa that you came from, the Sub-Saharan Africa that all African Americans came from- is mocking of African culture to say the least.

There is still racism in Africa, alongside widespread sexism, homophobia, transphobia, dictatorships, political and economic stagnation. There does not have to be a white majority population for racism to exist. White European colonialists did not return with all the racism that they brought to Africa. The racism is so deeply rooted that it has been institutionalised in many countries. It is not only difficult but fruitless to speak about Africa on a whole scale, so, I will take the example of Cameroon. The ideals of colourism still resonate in Cameroon. Despite the majority of the population being dark-skinned, the celebrities: models and actresses tend to be light-skinned due to beliefs that they are more beautiful, elegant and kind. This is also clear with the amount of skin lightening products sold in Cameroon. Natural black beauty is also looked down upon, with relaxer sales at a high. Cameroonian Pidgin English/Creole/Kamtok, the vehicular language that has been in active use in the country for over 200 years, is demeaned in the school system and banned at certain establishments. With this state of affairs, it is deliberate ignorance to claim that Africa is any kind of utopia, particularly a racial one.