Let’s take a minute to talk about something that has been
punching me in the gut numerous times each day since the killings in
Kenya. As many of you following African
politics know, this past week in Kenya four/five armed terrorists
systematically separated the students of a Garissa University student body by
religion, executing a total of 147 students who identified themselves as Christians.
As I scroll through my “newsfeed” of 45
ways to bake an onion, crucial camping life hacks, and cute puppies and kittens
--I’m not throwing insults here; I do love me some cute puppies-- I am slapped
with the lack of attention being given to the blatant brutality of others on
the other side of our shrinking globe.
So my question is, why?
After all, I haven’t exactly posted the gruesome images of those
nightmarish events, either. But why
haven’t I?
-Is it because the story touches on something so dark we don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole?
-Is it because we see the victims coming from a place in which a lot of
people unjustly die anyway?
-Is it because it feels too far away?
-Is it because we are talking about a continent that a number of us can
easily ignore in our daily First World lives?
-Is it because we’d like to stay unpolitical or don’t want our nations
involved in more efforts overseas?
-Is it because the victims seem so different from some of us? Racially?
Religiously? Culturally?
-Is it because we don’t understand the perceived reasons for this
injustice and therefore feel too ignorant to join the conversation?
-Is it because we choose whose deaths matter and whose don’t?
These are all interesting questions to juggle and conversations
to have, but when we see the attention media pays to tragedies like 9/11 and
Charlie Hebdo, we have to go deeper in our understanding of why these traumatic
events that will change the face of Kenya forever have gone largely unnoticed
by the First World.
I don’t have the answer.
In fact, like many of you, I admit I don’t even like touching the
subject. It’s painful. And horrifying. And scarier than ever to me when a group of
people is against you not because of what you do, but simply because you exist. That’s the stuff Holocausts are made of. So trust me when I say
that I’m processing some of the above questions, as well.
But perhaps deeper in the heart of all of this is something
I call The Narrative of Africa. It may not at all be that so many of us,
media included, don’t care. But for us
in the First World, what is the narrative we have assigned Africa?
Is it dark? Scary?
Dirty? Unsafe? Uncivilized? Disease-ridden? A violent zone of conflict? Wild? Overwhelming? In-accessible? Uneducated? Hopeless?
We do have a choice in how we interpret places, what we know
about them, and our pursuit of the cultures that find home within them. That
is, if we open ourselves to them.
It’s been interesting to gage reactions of those around me when they learn that I have just moved from Africa and Spain. Nine times out of ten they will focus on the negatives of Africa before commenting on anything else. Sometimes this takes the form of political commentary; at other times it involves ebola, famine, or other disease. --The other one time out of ten is usually regarding elephants, but that is another story for another day!-- As anyone who has returned to the US after living in Africa knows, even the word “Africa” in one’s background gives a person instant street credit. “Oh, they lived in Africa. They must be (insert adjective here- most often: brave, interesting, or crazy)." And the funny thing is, that most of the people I speak to say that it is one of the places they’d most like to visit but are sure they will not ever go near. Though an expensive plane ticket is often the off-the-cuff excuse for this opinion, when pressed further most people stammer on about things like immunizations… and not knowing where to go… or what they would eat… or not wanting to be sick… or how to do it safely… or, or, or, a number of other things that shines a light on their distorted personal narratives of Africa. Nothing was as telling to me as when we had a set of enthusiastic renters for our Connecticut house suddenly fall through out of the blue at the last second because, when they had told their friends, everyone said that landlords living in Africa could only mean it was a scam. Ask me for twelve more examples; I've got them. The word "Africa" elicits interesting personal narratives.
So here is my
challenge to you. If you, like me,
are bothered by the lack of media attention given to the horrifying events of
the past week, or to the 200 missing Nigerian girls, or to the museum attack in
Tunisia, or to the Nairobi Westgate shootings, or to the 4 million political
killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or to the alarming rates of
sexual violence in South Africa, or to the violence that took place just today
in Egypt’s Sinai, educate yourself. Pick a place and shine some light. For yourself and for others. Care.
If we can one by one change the Narrative of Africa into a
narrative of growth, development,
creativity, hope, innovation, resource, and aspiration, THEN we make lost
lives matter- independent of how the media pays attention. When we change the Narrative of Africa to the
bustling continent of hope, goodness, and ingenuity that it is, the easier time
the world will have in seeing the connections of this challenged continent to
other continents. And even more
importantly, the easier time the world will have in recognizing that African
lives DO matter.
Take a moment to reflect upon your views of Africa, ways in
which you could learn more, pieces of it that confuse or even scare you. Let’s change the Narrative of Africa one
person at a time.
I'll start; you go next.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hi! Thanks for your comments! We love to learn from each other's thoughts, experiences, and encouragement! Please keep your comments positive and helpful so we can all benefit!