Facing Inevitable Misconceptions

Growing up in cosmopolitan Nairobi, I consumed a lot of American media, from watching MTV to obsessing over the Kardashians. This was coupled with images of big cities like New York, lavish mansions in Beverly Hills, and American troops flying to the rescue in war-torn areas. America was the picture of a perfect, capitalist, democratic state. I would contrast this with the stereotypical images of African countries displayed in the media that I saw: exotic wildlife and landscapes, or war-torn countries, famine, abject poverty, and disease. I never thought that any African city could ever match up to Western standards. Negative stereotypes of my home were deeply internally engrained. Like every international student, I had my doubts, fears, and questions about moving so far away from home. Would I fit in? Was I going to make friends? Still, I had grown up in Nairobi, so being surrounded by people from different cultures didn’t really faze me. What I wasn’t ready for was encountering so many people who knew little of where I was from, and all the misconceptions I would have to dispel. I had been warned about this, as is almost every African kid that I know who studies outside of their country, but nothing quite prepares you for the actual situation. I remember once being asked, “aren’t the British still in Kenya?” (Kenya gained independence in 1963). I didn’t know how to react. I just stood there and stared. This wasn’t the only case. I’ve been asked questions like: “do you have wild animals as pets?”, “what was it like growing up without electricity?”, and “isn’t Africa basically all the same?” I’ll be perfectly honest, I used to get really angry over these questions and think to myself how incredulous it was that even in the 21st century, people still thought this way. Yet I doubt the majority of these people were being malicious or arrogant. They simply didn’t know. If you perpetually read textbooks that infer Africa is a country; turning on the news and watching mostly negative, and quite frankly, lazy coverage; and hearing some world leaders’ condescending sentiments, like France’s President Macron who claimed that the problem with Africa is “much deeper, it is civilizational”, it’s no wonder so many people get it wrong. In no way am I trying to suggest that African countries are perfect. In fact, having witnessed the high levels of unemployment, immense gap between the rich and the poor, corrupt political system, and infrastructural deficits in several areas in my own country, I’d be the first to admit that they’re far from it. However, rarely do I ever see positive stories told, both modern and historical. Stories like that of Mpesa, the world’s leading mobile money service that was developed in Kenya; or that one of the world’s first universities was built in Timbuktu, Mali in the 12th century; or of the beauty and development of cities like Gaborone, Abuja, and Dar Es Salaam. African countries are wonderfully diverse and complex. However, from my experiences abroad I’ve found that too few people, Africans and non-Africans, are willing to paint the full picture. As an African proverb goes, “until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." My hope is that more stories about Africa will begin to be told by Africans, and that the rest of the world will listen.